Weird Subscription Issue

OK, so I don’t know if this is the case for everyone, but this is what I have observed so far with the transition to the new site.  For some reason if you subscribe to usamotorcycletrip.com, sometimes it will still subscribe to this site, even thought that domain no longer works with this site.  So if you are getting this, then that is the case for you.  What you need to do is subscribe to usamotorcycletrip.com/blog in whatever your rss reader is, and that should take you to the new site.  If you do not use an rss reader, then this doesn’t really apply to you, but you should totally use one.

New Site

Hey if you are one of the 5 people that subscribe to this site at the address usamotorcycletrip.wordpress.com, we ask that you update your rss to just usamotorcycletrip.com/blog.  This will be the last post on this site.

Trunk or no Trunk

Ryan says that he does not want a trunk on his bike because he thinks it will make his bike look ugly. I have one on my bike, and while I can pack everything I need for a 2 day trip without it, the trunk comes in handy for long trips and for things that I didn’t plan on having to pack. I think he should get one, so that we have more than enough space for luggage, and so we are not struggling to pack things just right all the time. What do you think?

Please feel free to leave comments on how Ryan’s bike looks already.

The Crash (And yes you can call it that)

Well no more than 10 days after Ryan dropped his bike, I too was humbled.  I actually thought it would happen, after I gave Ryan so much crap for dropping his.  I am completely OK, not even a scratch on me, but I attribute that to the fact that I was wearing full gear.  ATGAT (All The Gear, All The Time) should be every rider’s slogan, I know it saved me today.

Here is what happened.  I was at Mid-Cities Honda looking to see if anyone made a rear crash bar for my bike.  I know pretty ironic right?  I even told the guy working there, after I couldn’t find anything that maybe I should just never drop the bike, then I wouldn’t have to worry about a crash bar.  I did not realize how far off I was.  I got on my bike and headed south on Lakewood, I was headed toward the freeway onramp to the 91 east.  I was just going to go to Bellflower Blvd, and stop by the church.  As i went through the first turn on to the ramp, I was going 20+ mph, I know because I did not have to downshift into 1st gear to make the turn.  Then coming out of the turn, I realized that I was going to fast for the second part of the turn, which was a sharp right u-turn on to the freeway.  I immediately straightened the bike out, and grabbed the brakes.  Instantly the back tire slid to the left, which makes me think I hit an oil spot or some kind of a slick spot, because that is not a normal reaction for a back tire to make.  I tried to straighten out the bike, but it didn’t work.  The whole bike flipped from leaning right to falling on the left side, and it kind of catapulted me off the bike.  I landed just a couple feet away on my left side.  My bike was still on, and for some reason the throttle was still engaged.  This caused the Bike to spin around and hit me in the leg, not hard, but enough to get my attention.  I jumped up, and turned my bike off.  It was then that I noticed the three cars behind me just staring.  Here is the odd thing, they did not look concerned, they looked annoyed.  I can imagine the thoughts going through their heads, “Stupid biker, serves you right for riding one of those things.”  None of them even asked if I was OK.  I picked up my bike, which wasn’t easy, pushed it over to the side, and eventually walked it back down to the sidewalk.

I examined my bike for damage, and all I could find was two things.  My left saddlebag was scratched along the bottom, which isn’t even noticeable from the side, and my left highway bar was bent back a little bit.  I got it started again and road it back to the dealership to have them take a look at it.  I get it back tomorrow, and hopefully that is all the damage done.

I know a lot of people are going to want me to quit riding, but I just can’t.  If anything this makes me feel more confident.  I know it doesn’t make sense, but to actually have an accident and walk away from it fine, scares me just enough to stay humble, but not enough to want to quit.  It does make me realize that full gear is essential, and that I need to be more aware of what is a safe speed at all times.  So far I honestly feel thankful.  Thankful that I had all my gear on, thankful that it was only around a 15 to 20 mph incident, thankful that God was looking out for me, and thankful that I have this experience now.  I actually have prayed several times, first that I would never crash, but secondly that when I did (Cause it happens to everyone) it would be a humbling experience, something that I can learn a lot from, and something that I could walk away from.  Today was both, so thank you for answering my prayers God.

Now, go ahead and leave your smart mouth comments.  I deserve them.

The Crash(if you can call it that)

On our ride up to Morro Bay Kozmo radioed me sying he needed to pull over and tighten up some parts. No problem, I came up to a stop sign with 5 ft of asphalt on the right and 15 ft lot which appeared to be solid ground. I chose to pull over to the bigger area so we would have plenty of room. When I started to brake I hit a soft patch of sand which took me down to the ground. Thankfully I was only going 5 mph. Damage report: a few minor scratches and a busted front right turn signal. Not a big deal. What does this mean? It could have happened to anyone of us, it just happened to be me. So when Kozmo tells everyone I crashed, you can read this and get the real story!
Cheers
Ryan

John the Hitchhiker

One more cool thing that happened this weekend was that on Friday I saw a guy in Pismo Beach with a backpack on just walking through the town.  He came up to Ryan and I and asked how many miles to Santa Barbara.  I told him it was about 80 miles, but I wasn’t sure.  Turns out it is more like 100.

Anyway, he walked off, and I didn’t think nothing of it.  Then last night, when I was riding home.  I stopped in Santa Barbara for dinner.  Went in to a Mcdonalds, which I normally hate, but it is hard to find any fast food places in downtown Santa Barbara.  Anyway, the guy right in front of me in line, was the same guy who asked how far Santa Barbara was the day before in Pismo.

So I asked him his name, he said John.  Then i bought him some dinner, and we chatted for a while.  Turns out he is 19 years old, grew up in the foster care system, and has been hitchhiking his way up and down the coast, and back east for 2 years.  Pretty nice guy, but once he found out I was a pastor he was a little distant in talking about himself.  I tried to let him know that I didn’t care what he had done, and that it wasn’t my place to judge him anyway.  Once he realized that, he had some pretty sweet stories.  You should ask me about the guy if you would like to know more.  I wish guys like that had blogs, cause they seem to have the most adventures.

Mancation 2008 B

*Sorry for the long blog, my iphone wordpress app wasn’t working, so you get 3 blogs in 1*

So this last Friday, Jack, Ryan, and I rode up to San Luis Obispo to hang out with our group of friends, Ron, Ian, Justin, and Dave. They called it Mancation 08, but I had a conflict of interest because that was the same name Goldsworthy, his friend Doug, and I named our backpacking trip back in April. Nevertheless, mancation 2008b, was pretty fun. Here are some of the crazy things that went down.

Friday morning on my way to Jack’s house, I saw Drew with his wife Jen, I’m guessing he was dropping her off somewhere, cause I later saw Drew again on the 405 up in LA. Pretty random seeing someone on the road twice in one day, in two different places.

Anyway, the ride up was fun, until we got past Santa Barbara. From there on there were really strong winds. So much so that in order to go straight we all had to lean hard into the wind. Ryan’s bike is probably the lightest, and so it looked like it was getting tossed around the most. It was very scary, and many times I really thought I was going to get blown right off the road. Speaking of going off the road, Ryan had an incident, but I am going to let him share that with you.

We camped in Morro Bay, and it was a pretty cool place. Here is a picture of Ron and Ian, down by the water.

(For more pictures from our trip click here)

Anyway after camping, we went back to SLO to have lunch, then hang out at Justin’s. It was pretty funny cause we all just passed out on Justin’s floor at the same time, I was the first one to wake up, and so I took a couple of photos of everyone asleep all over Justin’s living room.

Then we went to Pismo Beach for a while, and when we came back to Justin’s. I packed up, and headed home. Now I got on the road around 6:30 at night, just about a half hour before sundown. It was a pretty cold night. My gloves are thin, and not meant for the winter, so my hands were literally numb the whole way home. I have never been that cold on a motorcycle before, but I powered through, and made it home around midnight. It took me a while cause I stopped frequently trying to thaw out my hands.

I learned that I probably wont want to ride at night on my trip, at least not as long as the nights are under 60.

New Logo

Hey what do you think of the new logo above?  I wanted to give you all a sample of what the site is going to look like soon, let me know what you think.