A Friday Ride

So I sneaked of work today (Friday) as its going to be wet Sunday when I usually get a day of for good behaviour :-))
Of course I shall have to get in some extra hours to compensate never get a completely free ride !!
Well I decided to go see whats happening at the regular gas stop and watering hole in Calabogie, last year they had a fire and it destroyed the property but I am pleased to say gas pumps were not affected and they have carried on with those while the rebuilding is taking shape.
As you can see its coming along nicely and now has a ramp (maybe for us to drive through on our bikes !) and will have all amenities as before.

The dirt roads in the area are not all drivable yet especially the shaded parts so doing a bit more Asphalt than I would like but hey I got out didn't I ?

A up date on a farkle namely the MSR shifter I added, it still did not completely work as I wanted, so to start the day I went to the local friendly welding shop and got the extra mod I wanted done so now its perfect, nice to get real service locally when you desperately need it and absolutely have to go for a ride to test the mod.

And on a footnote its only another week or so before I get to play on the water in Pamlico sound.

Catch up here soon then.

Not Quite April 1st BUT !

Hi there ladies and germs :0)
So I got out with all the completed upgrades to my DRZ400S today and thought you all deserved an image to enjoy.
I had four hours and did a fare amount of dirt but one has to be extremely careful this early in the season, in most shaded areas there is still ice under a skim of slick mud etc.
Stay in 3 or 2nd gear on corners and at most 4 where you can see dry ground on the straight sections and be real steady on the throttle, too much in either direction can change you into a muddy painful mess in the twinkling of an eye.

With all that said I managed to squeak in a stack of pancakes and pot of tea for lunch a change to lighter gloves ( it was only + 3 C when I left home) and take of a layer which is why I have a backpack, this bike is light on storage places.
Oh and did I mention it was wall to wall sunshine, cant think of a nicer way to spend a Sunday this time of year.
Now I must get ready for my North Carolina Kite Surfing Holiday and while I am there you may get another post with different images and enough text to make you wish you were playing hooky too.

Next time folks :-))

Winter in the Toy Box

Hi Folks

Just a taste of things to come this spring, almost finished and ready to roll.

Hope your liking it so far just wait till you see the FULL report :-))
See the last image in the post below for the difference, I can see the difference can You !!

Now is the Winter of our ?

OK enough attempts at humour its still early in the year, but I thought it really was time I showed up here again.

Since the two wheel time of year is in the wings waiting to reappear I have been editing some images and enjoying a new sub group I belong to in the computer world (yes, yes just something else I get up to).

Being a proponent of open source computing the local Linux Users Group have a Photography sig (special interest group) which I very much enjoy being part of.

Now with digital images I am sure by now most folks understand one can accumulate a huge backlog of editing and the winter is an opportune time to do this part of all things digital.

I recently found a very enjoyable blog The Sartorialist (more about him another time) and not to beat around the bush it reminded me I have a blog myself !

So onto a couple of images then, the first one is a street image from Old Montreal in late summer 2010.
The colourful underside of the skateboard against the stone and brick shows nicely.


Changing an image to black and white sometimes makes a whole new image so here's one from the early winter I like.
If you drastically increase contrast as part of the editing process interesting things can happen.

Earlier in the fall I was in the same general location and !
And if you don't think I am ignoring my bigger toys I do have a heated toy box to play in when the snow is on the ground,
Just a little something I am working on when getting withdrawal symptoms.

Lets meet up here some time soon OK

Its Fun now I have the second new bike in my long motorcycle career, (had quite a few previously enjoyed one's) getting used to it has been so far mostly getting in the saddle as its kind of tall because of the long suspension travel.
So now I have 7hours riding time on the nice computer that in the good old days used to be just a speedometer and if you were lucky a revcounter.
Compared to the KLR I traded (which was and still is a good machine) in for this bike its more than a 100 pounds lighter and has about the same power in the smaller engine, so power to weight ratio is a huge difference and I have to remember not to throttle up like the old machine or I could be in trouble.

Today's ride was a real eye opener as the first time out it seemed to be very light on both ends but after a rethink on what to do with said throttle I found the bike responded much better to keeping the RPM up a bit and just tweeking the power in and out as needed that also required carefully selecting the right gear to be used.
Safe to say I came home with wet feet and a smile on my face, why wet feet? well jumping puddles on the trails is tricky so you just slow down a bit and drive through hoping it wont get too deep.

By now you are wondering what this machine is I guess, good job I took a picture five minutes before it got wet and dirty (thats what they are for so you get to wash them)
So see below and know that I am having a VERY good year :-))


At the South end of the K&P trail.

Just a Taste for now

So its late on Sunday the 25th and this is the first time I have had good enough WIFI for a blog post !

Well I have been riding the KLR HARD for 10 days now and apart from cleaning the drive chain and routine check KERMIT, yes kermit is performing well thank goodness.

So this image is from the Gemini Bridges ride

More to come as and when I have time and a good enough connection but for now I need a shower and some sleep as I am into Moab for supplies ( ice, food, water and some extra steel nerve powder! LOL ) first thing and off out into the unknown depths of Canyonlands
TTFN

One Year Later

Well I suppose some would call it tardy or lazy!
I call it busy having FUN :-))

That's why its been a year since the last post.

So what am I up to now, you may well ask and I know you do !!

Its Friday evening and I am only two days from another trip to fun land, on Monday morning very early I leave for Moab in Utah in the good old USA.
You see when I acquired my KLR 650 I knew I was going to get to enjoy riding it and not worry about mud and dirt in general, little did I understand just how much fun I would have with it.
And now before I get any more distance under the saddle I thought it would be a good idea to go back to Moab.
Last time I was there was two years ago and in late July at 120 Fahrenheit, much to hot to hang around for more than a couple of days before heading up in to the hills for cooler temps.
Now after spending the last winter renovating the garage so it would be warm enough to work in I got down to fixing the KLR so it was in better shape for such a trip.
I had with much help from another member of the Three Rusty Beards built a suitable trailer for my bike from an old boat trailer by the start of the winter. So with that done I could get on fixing up the bike and see the picture emerging, car trailer and KlR ready to head west!

Hope you like the end result as much as I do :-))

More from the trip when I can hook up to the internet .