Modern Vespa

Home safe

Haha! Our cruise director and staying on schedule.

Great ride, Vinicio! IF I get my next bike soon, we have to go do some scrubbing on Skaggs. But I'm sure all of you have a little saddle soreness to tend to first. I slept most of the way home on the bus, so no new pics to add.

BTW, apparently this past weekend wasn't a good one for some other riders on Skaggs. Someone crashed his BMW and another was killed on a separate accident on Skaggs. Dirt sliding suddenly doesn't seem so bad...

I made it home at 7:54. Had to fix the damn ol' internet before I could post, though. Apparently, it died right after I left, much to my wife's dissatisfaction.

Tired. Sorting photos. More soon.

On the way back to Fort Bragg

More bigfoot

Fort Bragg

Oh dang. I'm looking at some of the helmet cam video...

Damn. That was a fun ride. I can't believe how beautiful it was.

Here are some of the non-iPhone pictures from my regular camera:

The pass

A few more

The Not-At-All Official Ride Patch

Don't sweat it, Ray. Seriously. Pulling the bike out was an adventure unto itself. There's nothing quite as happy as coming around the bend and seeing your friend standing by the side of the road with his bike down a ravine.

Wait, that didn't come out right... Well, you know what I mean. I think...

You and Patrick are clearly much cooler than the rest of us.

Uhhhh... yeah, that didn't come out right.

Glad you're back dude. Glad you're less banged up than your bike.

How about this: you should get a motorcycle when you can keep up with Patrick on your GTS

When the hell did you guys get those??

At the Big Foot store.

Duh!

Yeah, I read it differently, too. Thanks again, everyone! My challenge now is to figure out how to post the vid. Maybe I'll just burn copies of it onto a disc. I know Jess wanted a clean copy. Anyone else from the ride?

And, OZ. This should make you happy. I'm 99% sure I will keep my GTS, BUT still get a mc. BTW, I was able to kinda keep up with the rabbit....when he was stuck behind that kickass hauling Cadi.

touché. Oh well. Those are in fact cool.

In a totally not cool way.

If you can burn me a CD with the video, I can host a hi-def version of it here on MV that people can download.

How big is it, anyhow?

I can get you a good version of mine probably either today or tomorrow.

Here's one of the few pics I took. I think Jess saw something shiny and pulled over to check it out...

It's only 20 secs so it shouldn't be too big of a file. I'll try and get it done by next Tues Quitters' meet. Am I announcing your next meeting too soon?

I was doing push ups. You know, to stay frosty...

Now that I can see it fullsized, I finally understood this picture! I lol'd.

DAMN YOU!

I know, right? Some patches just SCREAM where you have been and you have to get one. The uglier the better (I am going to put up a better image of it later. Bad idea to take that pic with my Blackberry under a reading lamp. Yuck!)

Hey, I TRIED to interest you in one. I was gonna buy one for everybody, but only Patrick accepted. If nothing else you could have thrown it in a drawer, then stumble upon it years later and have the memories come flooding back. Like a, what's the word? SOO-VUH-NEER! But everyone was boiling and wanted to get out of there 10 seconds after we dismounted. I barely had time to run in, find the local patch, run back out and ask everyone if they wanted one....come to think of it, since I was going to buy one ANYWAY, maybe I should have bought it, then stuck it in all your faces. Ah well, I was frikkin' hot, too.

Hmmm. Actually, NEXT time i am just going to buy the lot and hand them out. Everybody loves free shit. You would have taken it then, damn your eyes!

+1 with a vengeance.

I remember coming upon the scene and was just in the process of finally wondering wear Ray's bike was when he pointed down the ravine. All I could do was make a very loud, shocked, "DAH!", sound.

Ray, again, do not sweat it. I feel awful that you wrecked, but that is more than balanced out by the fact that I am happy you are relatively unscathed. And yes, we have two great videos that I can't WAIT to see. So thanks for that.

By the way, I think all that soreness is G*d's way of reminding you to, "Ride your GTS for a bit", [rrrruuuuumblllle-KRACKKK!].

I actually don't remember you asking me at all about a patch. I'd have said yes.

It was hot. Either you weren't hearing me or I was hallucinating. I did go around to everyone asking, but again, the sell job would have been better if I had one in hand.

Like I said, next time I will just grab a mess of them and hand them out.

More pics



Rest point at the top of the trail


Bad pic, but this restaurant was packed with all sort of memorabilia from the lumber days, hunting and more


Brian and Vinicio on the bridge pictured below




View from the bridge

....coming down into the last few miles of Petaluma, on a downhill, my scooter suddenly jerked three times: like [pom!]pause[pom-pom!]. Sort of felt like a cat choking on a furball. It also reminded me of the time when Oz experienced some weird behavior on the way down to ROM. I don't know; we were pouring all sorts of different brands of fuel into our rides, including a gallon of regular, if I recall. Maybe the scoot choked for a moment? Had nothing to do with oil or gaskets or whatever?

At any rate, I asked myself when the last time was that I had checked the oil, for all I knew the leaking had accelerated at some point, and pulled off at the next exit. I could still see Cody maybe 1/4 mile ahead and that was that. There happened to be a Chevron right there and I pulled in. Checked the oil, poured a few ounces for good measure. After all, I had been leaking all weekend and the rear was pretty well-splattered at this point.

I chilled out, got another gal of fuel, made contact with my stepmother as she had called maybe a few minutes before to tell me that Dad was in the hospital again (he called me to let me know what was going on personally. I am going to visit him tonight even though he insisted it isn't necessary), and got back on the road. I took it easy, doing 60mph and generally just staying with the slow traffic, aside from the occasional semi; don't need a giant rock tossed at me. It's amazing how slow 60mph is after the bombing we did for the 2 days prior. Harhar. I even took the slower roads home as much as I could and skipped the Waldo Grade. At this point I didn't think I was in dire danger, but why risk breaking down on the Waldo, right? I didn't experience any more coughing. Got home at 9pm.

I even rode to work today not so much out of stubbornness, but to take the time to listen and feel for anything else.

Called Motorsports this morning for the oil gaskets and am still waiting for Max to let me know he has the parts (he's checking).

And that's it. Scoot is due for a tune anyway, I think.

Dude. That was the rev limiter. It feels exactly like someone pulling sharply (and ever so briefly) on your rear brake. You were going downhill, which is the most likely place to hit the rev limiter.

I'll bet you were doing about 80, too.

LAARRRRF! Really? I don't think was going that fast, but hey it is possible, I suppose. I mean, I have pushed that scoot on purpose many times, even had the indicated speed at around 90 more than once (I think) so to have hit the rev limiter by accident is sort of wild.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! No, I never hit it before. Just to be clear, I wasn't panicked in the least; no "woe-is-me" wailing, sweating or kicking of small animals. Just ign'nt, apparently.

BROTHER.

My Guzzi was leaking all weekend too. It wasn't bad until I got home. Somehow it seems to have waited until I got home for the leak to get really bad. There was a nice big puddle of oil under the left cylinder head this morning (over the weekend, there had only been a drip or two in the morning). Ah, for the love of Italian bikes

Glad everyone made it home safely, even if late.

Hope your dad is doing better.

Thanks for the thought, Vin.

Yes, I officially had a very small puddle under the scoot, too. The first since our stop-gap repair of 2 wks ago, including the 3-day ride, so all in all I am very happy with how things went (esp. with Jess setting my silly ass straight).

What a great trip.

I would do anything to have a puddle...I have nothing there, but a vacant space.

I'm on stage 2 of the mourning cycle. Tomorrow, I will be in the biatch stage.

G.
T.
S.

Who wants an Ohlin steering dampener?

ooo, looky, appropriate once again.
Francis catches up?

So in other words, not like Oz.

That's good, actually.