Thoughts, more thoughts and decisions

Alright, it’s time to bring this blog back from the dead. I sold off the DR almost a year ago and I sorely miss riding. I’ve been itching to get onto a new set of wheels, scanning the used motorcycle classifieds and reading reviews online. At first I thought I’d get back into a dual sport, and to mix it up a little maybe a KLR650 or an XR650L.

I test rode a bunch of Gen I and Gen II KLRs. Between those two, I’d take the Gen I any day. Old school looks, which I guess, are not for everyone, beefy rugged stance and the lack of plastics makes for a great dual sport.

Somewhere in between I stumbled on a Super Sherpa, but quickly realized that small displacement bikes are not for me. My large (and ever increasing) frame and the inevitable need to ride freeways in the Bay Area just makes it an impractical choice.

Then one fine day, out of sheer coincidence, I decided to test ride an SV650. The seller was local and offered to meet me close by to test ride. As I rode it around the block a few times I was amazed at how well it rode. It had a good stance (not upright, but not a terrible crouch) and the power was amazing. It took off a LOT faster than the DR and was smooth all the way to 60mph.

I was hooked. Maybe a street bike is not all that bad after all. Maybe dual sporting can wait a few years. Maybe I need a dedicated dirt and dedicated street setup. And there we go. Sounds familiar?

I started researching 600 class beginner friendly sport bikes and the choices became obvious: Honda Hornet 599, Yamaha FZ6, Kawasaki Ninja 650R and the SV650. I’m not very keen on Monsters or Speed Triples — given their added costs.

I then test rode the FZ6. I really liked the modern fit and finish, the good looks, digital tachometer, underseat exhaust and centerstand. The bike definitely has better wind protection compared to a naked SV. When I started the bike up, I immediately noticed that the bike idles at a higher rpm than the SV. It tends to be smoother (less vibrations), but a tad noisier. I got onto the bike, rolled out in first and shifted into second at about ~15MPH — my first mistake. Then I twisted hard to WOT — my second mistake — … but, wait, nothing happened! The bike really had no response and felt slow and heavy getting to 50MPH. I probably rode about ~5 miles today. I was not very comfortable revving the engine too high on my first test ride. I probably hit 7000-8000 RPM tops in second at one point… didn’t have the balls to go beyond that.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I don’t know how to ride this bike properly. It seems that I’ll have to “learn” to ride this bike if I get it.

Now for another story. Right after I rode the FZ6 I test rode a Kawasaki ZRX1200R. Yes, your read that right, ZRex. I was thinking: I want a naked, standard bike — how different will this be? My God, was I wrong! What a motorcycle. That thing had 10x the torque of my DR650. It was downright scary, and I was keeping it under 6000rpm. While I was definitely all smiles and giggles after my test ride, I think that’s way too much bike for me.

Anyway, it’s time to decide and get back onto a motorcycle. More in my next post. Decisions, decisions …

Ride Report #19: Hollister Hills SVRA

Hollister Hills SVRA is the oldest and largest off-road park in California. I’ve been itching to go check it out, after having been to Metcalf and Carnegie. Unfortunately, HH is about 75 miles from home — a solid hour and a half on the super slab. Anyway with baby #2 due in less than 4 weeks, I thought the New Year break would be the ideal time to go check it out. I’m not going to have any time starting Feb. The forecast for Jan 1st 2012 was an awesome 73 F (~23C). Now that is nice for January in the Bay Area.

So I took 880 and 101, gassed up at Hollister and reached the park a little after noon.

Hollister is much bigger compared to the other two parks. And being a holiday, it was packed with riders. The parking lots were full and I could see kids buzzing around in their high pitched two strokes almost everywhere.

As a cautious newbie, I decided to try out the greens. I rode Rancho Road, Harmony Gate Trail and Field Road (all three greens). The trails here are long (longer than the other parks, i.e.) winding and certainly a lot of fun. A lot of tree cover makes for a picturesque ride. This winter has been unusually dry and so there was a lot of dust being kicked up.

I also tried a couple of blue trails (tighter, narrower and steeper), but nothing too adventurous. The good part of the Hollister Hills is that almost all the trails (the major ones for sure) are one way. So there’s little danger of running into someone at speed — a thought that makes me wince.

The DR did awesome — and I’m getting tired of repeating myself here.  It is however, heavy and a handful to manage. But it takes you where you want to go and has no complains doing so. In fact if you listen to your DR closely, it is begging you to go explore it’s limits.

I took the slab back home for the boring ride home and kept up a brisk 80mph speed. The DR did not skip a beat from being abused on the trails to grinding down the freeway miles.

Last evening I washed off the dirt. Now would be a good time to clean the air filter and chain. Maybe next week 🙂 Adiós!

Beware of Shinko’s!

I’ve not been happy with my Shinko 244’s.  It’s been less than 2000 miles, and I’ve lost several center knobs. See pictures below showing three missing center knobbies. I’ve now counted 6 lost knobs in all.

There is also a discussion on SBR here and I can find tons of links online pointing to problems with Shinko’s. I’m going to take this up with motorcycle superstore (where I bought the tires), but more importantly, I’m staying away from Shinko’s.

Ride Report #18

Last weekend, I rode with Shobhit from Fremont to the Berkeley Hills.The weather was cool (late December), the sun was shining and thankfully there was no rain.

We rode on Palomares, Redwood, Pinehurst, Skyline and Grizzly Peak. This was my first outing on Pinehurst and I loved it. There isn’t much information on Pinehurst online, but what a treat it was to ride. The initial curves are wide and sweep at a constant radius. This makes for great riding and pushing the bike to it’s limit. As Pinehurst gets into Alameda county, it becomes more winding, more narrow and sometimes more wet.

The last few curves on Pinehurst, before it hits Skyline are brutal. Some of the turns have the radius of just a few feet. Couple this with rapid elevation changes and it makes for very technical riding. A fun ride overall, but full attention and focus needed.

We took a break atop Grizzly Peak where we took in the amazing views of the Berkeley hills. I’ve been coming to these hills dozens of times, for about 10 years now and this was my second time on the motorcycle. My first ever, was also on a motorcycle, riding two-up with Keshav Dani on his CBR929, back in 2001. So there — a bit of nostalgia. How time flies!

Ride Report #17: Carnegie SVRA

Since my first dirt outing to Metcalf I have been itching to do it again. So last weekend, I found myself at Carnegie SVRA and spent a few hours on the trails there.

Carnegie is beautiful! Some very nice trails, long and curvy, challenging at times, but manageable on a DR650. Carnegie is also much bigger than Metcalf, so one could possibly spend a lot more time there.

I spent most of my time on the greens (Pottery Loop trail, Juniper Trail and Klin Canyon Trail) and some blues (Golden Eagle and Franciscan Loop).

Here is a picture of the hill training area. Riding up that hill is harder than it seems!

On top of one of the hills there

A nice view

A nice view is incomplete without the DR!

Some people were attempting (successfully) ridiculous stuff ! That grade is close to 60 degrees there (Big Bear Black, at the end of Klin Canyon Trail)

A nice tight blue trail

Spending some quiet time at the top

I spent so much time riding the trails that I came into reserve while doing a hill climb. So before heading back home, I had to gas up in Tracy (about 10 miles down on Corral Hollow Road) before I rode back to Fremont.

Again, I was amazed at how well the DR goes from riding trails to doing 80mph on the freeway. A truly awesome machine!

International Motorcycle Show, November 2011

The last few weeks have been intensely busy at work and other things. I’ve not had a chance to ride very much although I got to see the International Motorcycle Show in San Mateo a couple of weekends ago. Suminder was in town, and we rode together and spent a couple of hours at the show.

The show was pretty much like any auto show, if you’ve ever been to one… Large meeting halls filled with OEMs, vendors, dealers and local merchants.

I spent some time checking out the Japanese OEMs and was especially impressed with the Kawasaki Versys and the Yamaha Super Tenere .

The Suzuki booth was pretty much business and usual. I sat on a Busa as Suminder clicked this picture. They did have a DR on the floor, sitting there as probably the most unsexy bike in the whole auditorium. The 2012 DR is colored in this dull gray, a color that really does not excite, and hence was not photographed.

As I walked past all the different bikes I came off with lingering thoughts about my next motorcycle. Such, tend to be dangerous thoughts, but as long as they are only thoughts, who’s stopping me from dreaming? I liked the BMW R1200GS Adventure and I liked the KTM 990 Adventure (pic below). Note to self: both bikes worth consideration.

Before we left the show, we had a chance to test ride some Harleys. I rode a 1.7L Fat Boy for about 20 minutes, to come to the realization that Harley’s are super smooth, powerful, heavy and probably not for me. That thing could do 60mph in first gear! I could rest my whole foot flat on the foot peg (really a running board)! And I could scrape my peg at 25 mph on a turn. Fun ride for sure!

Ride Report #16

Suminder is back in town, although briefly. We met up for lunch at his place on Sunday and post-lunch rode down to Santa Cruz. On the way there we took the mountain roads: Page Mill, Skyline and Hwy 9. As usual, Page Mill and Skyline were a lot of fun. This was really the first time I rode Hwy 9 (all the way) and was a little disappointed. The initial sections of Hwy 9 (close to Skyline) were beautiful. Wide sweeping turns with great tarmac and very little traffic. However, after the Big Basin stop sign, the road turns left and the traffic picks up.  Hwy 9 then hits the towns of Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton, before getting into Santa Cruz. Traffic was pretty heavy and it wasn’t much fun cruising through the stop signs, traffic lights and such. The other issue was that a lot of sections of Hwy 9 were wet. Suminder almost lost control at one point, but recovered safely without a a fall.

On our way back we rode the freeway: Hwy 17 to I880. Boring but a quick and efficient return.

Ride Report #15

It’s been a few weeks since my long epic ride into the Sierras. While that was fun, it was also very tiring. In general, life has been very hectic off late, both personally and at work.

Anyway, I did find the time to squeeze in a couple of rides. Solo rides, ~50-60 miles each. Both rides were at dusk as the days are getting shorter.

This was my first time riding Redwood road and it turned out to be a nice surprise. The lanes are wider than Palomares or Calavares, and the turns are longer. It sure makes for fun riding. On my way up Redwood, I actually spotted deer at least three times. They were mostly at the side of the road minding their business, but one has to be extra careful when riding in these East Bay hills. I kept a steady (but mellow) pace and thankfully didn’t see any deer pull up in front of me.

Sometime during the Palomares/Foothill ride I lost the right side (muffler side) plastic panel. I had removed the panels and seat to install the new air filter, so I must not have tightened it up fully when putting it back. Anyway, it seems like a common problem and I found a used plastic panel in white on Advrider for $35. Dealer wanted $170 for the panel, heat shield, rubber bumper, etc.

EPIC Ride Report #14

The title says it all.This was an EPIC ride.

  • 450+ miles
  • 11 hours
  • 9,600 feet of altitude change
  • No crashes 0r tickets 
  • A sore set of rears and a numb pair of hands

Route: Home –> Hwy 108 (Sonora Pass) –> Hwy 395 –> Hwy 89 (Monitor Pass) –> Hwy 4 (Ebbetts Pass) –> Home

I left home at about 7AM on a cool Sunday morning.

I rode out to Tracy where I met with Alvin (on a red Triumph Daytona 675) and Paul (on a blue Ninja 600). We gassed up and started the ride towards Hwy 120/108. The first stop was at Jamestown… a small little town at the foothills of the Sierra’s.

From there the traffic on Hwy 108 starts to thin out and the riding gets fun.

As the altitude increased, the air got cooler and the DR started slowing down. Over the Sonora Pass, the loss in power is really noticeable. The DR still does have plenty power, but the sport bikes were a lot faster than me.

We rode down 108Hwy towards Hwy 395 and then headed north for lunch at Walker, CA. The BBQ was OK, not much to write home about.

After lunch, we rode up the Monitor Pass (Hwy 89) which then connects to Hwy 4.

All in all we did four major passes. Monitor Pass is clearly the best of them all for riding. Super silky smooth tarmac, breathtaking views and practically no traffic. Made for fun times 🙂

Hwy 4 is more goaty and winding than Hwy 108. The initial 30 miles is single lane with some very sharp turns. A little before Bear Valley, we stopped at Lake Alpine for some rest.

From there on, the ride home was uneventful. We slabbed it across to the Bay Area, the afternoon wind beating against our tired bodies.

Here is a nice video from Alvin’s bike. The camera turns around and focuses on me at about 4:17