Skykline at Sunset

Started the 2009 riding season late this year. A lot of old cobwebs still sitting in my mind from the crash in Yosemite last year. But this afternoon light pierced through when I realized that I had made up that life was random and I have no control esp. when I'm riding. At that moment I found clarity - I got that I was responsible for my safety, my experiences, my life and ultimately my ride. That moment I broke through to an experience of complete freedom and confidence. I spent the evening preparing my Rocket 3 along with my Brother in law and father in law. After tha last accident, the repairs had left my riding position a bit too high because the handlebars were more upright. This used to strain my back. I set the handlebare into a more relaxed position. My whole family pilled into the car to follow me up skyline blvd to watch the sunset from windy hill at the openspace preserve. Spent the next 40 miles in utter rapture! I love this bike and I love to ride. Fear be damned ... it is this sweet freedom that is me.

Flies like a butterfly - stings like bee ...

Kyle Woods - stuntman extraordinaire demonstrates how to wheelie and endo a Triumph Rocket 3. Remember the Rocket 3 is a the worlds largest production motorcycle 800 + pounds and 2300 cc displacement. I endo'd my bike in Yosemite last year trying to avoid a deer, except it didnt look anywhere as slick as Kyle here. Plus the deer got away DAMN!

Crash & Burn in Yosemite (July 4th weekend 2008)

I'm alive and that means I'm one lucky sonovabeyotch. That sentence would never have gotten typed if it weren't for how lucky I am. Headed on a 2000 mile ride to Vegas via Yosemite and Tioga pass in the middle of summer was going to be one hell of high point to one hell of a summer. I was really excited about this ride - I went out and bought myself a full riding suit from Triumph in Mountain View. That turned out to be one of the best things I ever did for myself and my family.

Doonga and I set of early in the AM from Redwood City. We rode east over the Dumbarton into Fremont, on 880/680 and from there thru Livermore onto Manteca. The traffic heavy due to the big weekend, the riding conditions got better past Manteca. Riding towards oakdale on 120, the road turns into a beautiful ribbon of ashen satin, it curves around hills and cliffs and makes for some wonderful riding. The traffic conditions get busier and the road is narrow and makes for frustrating riding for several hours. Finally we pass Chinese Camp and the road opens up. I gun the throttle and the Rocket takes off .... its heaven, the cool air, the hot sun, the smell of brakes .. this is what riding is all about.

I ride up a hill and the road banks to the right .... and there she is about to run across the road, a doe ... she freezes .. I brake ... she runs across the lane and freezes again ... I turn to avoid her and my front wheel locks up .... I feel my rear wheel rise up WHAM! tumble roll fall fly ...... 1050 yards careening at 50 MPH next to a bike on its side as it sparks fly out from the friction I come to a stop.

I cant breathe - I'm choking ..... my helment gotta get it off ... choke ... I cant see .. everything is WHITE ... I cant hear .. sight sound smell everything has blended into a massive bright white noise ..... Cough Cough .... Cough and a few minutes later I come back ... Doonga is yelling at me - "Are you ok? Jeezus christ, thank god .. are you ok?"

A weird old man rides up on a ancient harley and asks what happened.. I tell him I braked for a deer. He tells me lucky it wasn't a grizzly. A couple of weeks back, a friend of his ran smack into a grizzly right here. He totaled the bike and killed the grizzly in the process (luckily for him!).

A kind lady gives me Gatorade .. I still cant see too clearly. Two liters of Gatorade later, I can see. I'm numb, dumb, and blank. There's police cars (the California Highway patrol got there in 15mins - WOW) and the medics arrive. My right shoulder hurts like a bitch.

The medics make me rotate my arm. The officer asks what happened. I tell him I braked for a deer. A lady concurs and says she was driving behind and called 911 when I crashed the bike. The medics think I should be OK - they cant believe I survived after inspecting my bike and helmet. "That's one great riding suit you have there - saved your life, we'd have to scrape you off the highway otherwise" says the police officer.

A tow truck pulls in and 30 minutes later I'm riding to Sonora in the front of the tow truck. Mike the driver talks to me about his Hayabusa and crashing and burning in the hills. "Its not a question of If it'll happen" he says "its When" he says sagely. I take a look at my bike and wonder if she's totaled. She kinda looks like Harvey Dent. The left side of her is completely smashed ... the right side as pristine as the day she rolled out of the line in Hinkley.

I look at her and wonder if I'll ever ride her again ....

How to get the Missus to love your RocketThree

My wife was not thrilled when I told her that I had bought my rocket3 way back in Jan. She was pretty pissed actually. This created a significant problem - Its all lose-lose when - every time you ride - you're doing something that your signifcant other has no "buy in" into and while there are blokes who would do it and say "F*&k it" thats not how my wife and I have built our relationship. In our marriage, We dont get to say "F*&k it" and go and do whatever we feel like doing, cos then whats the point of being married!

So we both sat down and talked it over and came up with a pretty amazing solution, she gets to be my riding partner and that means she's going to learn to ride a cruiser, get a motor bike license, buy a bike and ride with me. So she's started taking lessons and by the end of the year she's going to hopefully get a sportster (or a Bonneville).

Now she's a great sport and when our 6th anniversary came by, we planned to spend it riding down Pacific Highway CA 1 to Big Sur, have a nice anniversary lunch and ride back. It was magic, one of the best rides I've ever taken with my favouritest person in the whole wide world. I'm looking forward to the day when my son is grown up enough to join us on the scenic byways of Cali.

Here's the ride map and some snaps.

Im your turbo lover .. better run for cover

Just so you know, when One Hundred and forty lb. ft. of Torque is not rich enough for you, it is NOT the end. Shoe horn a Supercharger on to your Rocket3 to get to 240 lb. ft.

Rain - 2 weeks and counting

4 Days Riding in Death Valley CA

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live

Could a place have a more morbid name? Could a name sound more final yet insidious than a name like Death Valley? Since I was 12 I've been fascinated by the story of the 49ers who passed through this place, desperate and willing to risk life and limb, for wealth and fame, in California's hills and valleys of Gold.


Day 1 :: Friday And the Route Plan ::
After Dealing with a Dead Battery and replacing it with one from Harley, I left home (Redwood City) with Doonga and Bernie for a 3 day ride to Death Valley. Doonga has a brand new Electra Glide that he bought in Chandler AZ (its a couch with a VTwin and wheels really) and Bernie on his Vulcan. In the next 3 days we were going to cover 1200 miles - the longest ride I've ever been on. Our route was divided into 3 parts - Head West to Monterey on 17 to meet Pacific Coast Highway (PCH 1) to Santa Barbara, from there on to Lancaster/Mojave through the Ojai Valley, And on to Furnace Creek in the middle of Death Valley National Park. And Reverse.




Riding 17 up the Santa Cruz mountains is Awesome - nice curves and tight lanes with fast traffic. A couple of other bikers out on the road (mostly crotch rocket types). A very experienced BMW rider is in front of me and I follow him up the sharp curves for 10-15 miles. Doonga is a very experienced rider and he rides behind me to make sure I'm doing ok on my new Rocket3. Bernie finds the curves at the speed we're doing quite challenging (about 50-70mph) and very wisely decides to cut his speed down. Soon we hit the coastline on PCH 1 just outside Carmel and the ride is pure bliss for the next 2 hours. We stop for a quick photo on the way.




We Lunch at Nepenthe (which has to be THE restaurant with the most fabulous view in the world). And then we continue down PCH 1 to San Luis Obispo. The last hour
is spent blazing 100 MPH on empty roads. A quick gas up at SLO and we take 101 to Santa Barbara. Its almost 7 PM by the time we get there. We dine at the Madam Lu's restraunt on State Ave (highly avoidable) and stay at the Motel 6 (cheap and best as we say in Bangalore).

Day 2 :: Sat ::
On Saturday we start bright and early. After a quick bite at Burger King (breakfast of Champions) we make our way off 101 to a secluded mountain road through Ojai Valley. If any one doesnt think that California has to be the most blessed place in the world, it because they've not ridden a motorbike through Ojai Valley. Its gorgeous. A quick refuel in Ojai and we make our way to Fillmore. Lots of Big Bikes and Bikers on this road. Lots of peace signs exchanged with kindred spirits. Soon we leave the peace and solitude of Ojai Valley for the noise and smog of LA as we approach the city of Santa Clarita on Interstate 5. A pit stop at Wendy's and I look up my map on my "BarakuBelly". It pinpoints my location to within 5000 meters. The Positioning system sucks - but it runs a version of Google Maps and I can define waypoints on the route. This one feature redeems it AFAIC. With lunch completed we head off on CA 14 through urban canyons and the Antelope Valley. Strong Gusty (60 MPH) cross winds make it challenging .. and in between we have a nicer time riding through Red Rock Canyon. We refuel at Lancaster and again at Mojave because we could use a break.

Soon we're the only ones on the road. Not a soul in sight as my rocket3 chews on mile after mile of tarmac at 115MPH. Doonga keeps Bernie company behind me at a more sensible 80 MPH. WE break for a drink and refuel at the town of Inyokern - a town that only seems to be populated by bikers. Lots of folks come up to me to talk to me about my Rocket3 and ask me about how she rides. Leaving Inyokern we make the dash for the last 150 miles to Death Valley. A right at Olancha Junction on 190 and we soon enter death valley national park.





I ride through a landscape that I imagine is how Mars looks like. Canyon walls and mountains that rise sharply to the sky and vast white salt flats in their valleys. We ride up the mountains to 4250 Ft above sea level (its the snow line and there's snow on the sides of the road) and then we descend 4400 ft to 200 Ft below Sea Level !! Its another world this death valley. A world of absolutes, of blacks and whites and no gradients of gray in between. By the time we get to Furnace Creek, its just after sunset and we settle in for the night at Furnace Creek Ranch after a meal of Filet Mignon and a well paired glass of Merlot.



Day 3 :: Riding around Death Valley and Rhyolite & Back to Civilization::

We started Day 3 with a plan to go to Darwin a ghost town. We get to the Rangers Station to pay the park fees (we crossed in after they had closed) and the Ranger warns us that the folks at Darwin dont like strangers poking around their town. Clear that I have no intention of staring down the business end of Shotgun - the guys and I decide to visit Rhyolite just outside the CA border in neighboring Nevada. 40 miles later, I'm feel like I'm on the sets of Good Bad and the Ugly. Rhyolite was a mining town, abandoned more than a 100 years back. The place has dozens of such town but it shocks me that a town of this size could downsize.





We ride up to Panamint Springs, fuel up and wrap up the first leg of our journey. A goo d lunch at a great biker bar in Panamint Springs, we befriend a couple of old time bikers who are happy to see that Triumph is making great bikes again.



And we make our 650 mile journey back to the Bay area after a experience of a lifetime in death valley.