Tioga Pass New Video
This is a part of the trip Dan and I made to California to go see the USMotoGP, we took a half day and visited the park. One of Americas National Treasures the place is definitly worth the time to visit once in your life, many more if your a true outdoors person. We started out in Lee Vining and made our way up Tioga Pass, where we entered on the east Gate at the top of the Pass. It is a national park so there was alot of traffic, I took over 3 hours of video and boiled
Stator cover Repair - Cleaned up the etched in dirt with a power tool and a wire brush attachment
I have started a laundry list of items that I need to fix on the bike! First of which was a paint job, but getting motivated to do it has not be a priority as of late. I guess I am more of a plan it type of guy. I have been putting off some pain in the arse repairs for years now. I snapped off an exhaust stud years ago and have not gotten around to fixing it. This year I am going to do it. I
Where to start starting with the chain
All my parts arrived one by one, the chain and sprocket set first, then the brake pads, fork oil, fork seals, and various other things. I decided to replace the cradle on my Zumo and with it install a bmw style plug in the head tube from Powerlet. They make a vfr kit so I bought it, using the existing molex setup I had before I just solidered the molex wires to the kit and then taped it all up good. I figure I need a disconnect if I want to use the new
Mountain Road
I was clearing out some old data CD's from my shelf and ran across a sort of poem I wrote while VFRD was still part of Delphi Forums, way way way back in the day.
Why I Ride
Riding my motorbike
Down a swift road
Leaning into a turn,
And then another
Kicking the gear
Dropping into third
Grabbing the throttle,
Looking down the road
To where I really want to be
Humming song of my motor
Piercing a silent hollow in the forest trees
Stuttering rays of sunlight and shado
The full moon sets over Canon City 7am
CAGERS SLAM ON THE BRAKES?
Went on a 500 mile ride yesterday with my buddy. A couple of times we were passing a string of cars, on dotted yellow sections. In keeping with my "dont force it ride rules". I am making an effort to ride more legit. Anway the lead car, is already going just around the speed limit so I tried to slot behind the guy after passing a few cars behind him/her. Anyway the guy slams on his brakes and so I am forced to pass him too -
The old girl in front of Bent's Old Fort
Seems I haven't made a blog entry in months, I just haven't done anything bloggable since riding with some guys from work. I take day rides still to places I have gone more times than I have digits on my hands and feet, so it seems redundant to blog about it. However recent changes in the website (this one vfrd) and its members have sent me into a mood of self examination, perhaps doubt, perhaps giddy anticipation, and always cautious about future outc
VFRD once again gets hacked, as some of you know, after all the work and the money I spent securing the site with the upgraded forum software I must have missed somthing and they got in and changed the board wrapper with a downloader trojan. I deleted it as soon as I saw it, they seem to always attack the board wrapper and plant a frame in there. I am thinking of writing a script myself that refreshes the board wrapper every hour with a clean wrapper so even if they do get in and change it the
video preview
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Canyonlands at Twilight video
This is a short 5 min video of the our trip through the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Canyonlands National Park Utah. It was incredibly hot for 9pm somthing like 100 degrees in the twilight, I cant imagine how hot it is in full daylight in July?? The road is surreal surrounding you with red rock lava like stone walls on each side and then falling deeper into Glen Canyon along the Colorado River near Lake Powell. Its one of the n
Motorcycles in Monument Valley w/ Two New Videos
As many of you may know my one epic trip this season was to be a two week trip to California to go see the MotoGP at Laguna Seca. Tt was originally supposed to be a trio of us, Me, Dan, and Craig. Well NO, we were all set to go, bikes packed, ready to flip the starter and then Craig's bike wont budge - bad stator. A years worth of planning down the drain. So we did this make up ride to Utah instead - to go and see Zion National Park, and vis
Is that a vfr1200? why yes it is!
I have been riding by the Black Canyon all summer - right on past it along hwy 50 going to other places, Utah for instance. I could see it from across the canyon winding along the mesa side in all its glory. I just had to get over there and ride it on the veefalo just once this summer its my favorite road of all time - hwy 92 Black Canyon Of The Gunnison. I got up early, my sister was in town with her family and their scout troops up from Santa Fe
This is an image of Aztec family raceway - its a privately owned dirt track (members only) for dirt bike enthusiasts and racers alike. Right next to the Aztec raceway the city of Colorado Springs is going to build, or already has built some wonderful single track for ohv use. Here is where the trouble begins, my buddy Dan is an avid dirt bike enthusiast, who is a bit cash strapped and is really exited about this new park the city is proposing. He cant afford the prices Aztec wants - and who wo
I just finished viewing the pictures from the Pacific Northwest Meet put on by Kiethbob and wow what a great time yall had up there - I really looked hard at attending that event, but alas the ride to made it prohibitive (2 weeks vacation instead of just needing one). I really love attending motorcycle meets as opposed to huge rallys for the comeradrie and the sheer fun of riding with kindred spirits. Sometimes it ends a bit of tradegdy, I have attended 2 sport-tourung.net meets and there were
Well after returning home from the Mosca Pass ride I have not touched the XR since last week, too disappointed to do so. Until I mustered up the patience to replace the scored up cams. Which I did, and promptly ripped up that set too. OOKKKAAAYYY maybe I am missing the root cause here!!
This time I took the head off and took out the spark plug and pumped the kick start to see if it was oiling the cams? NOPE NO OIL OUT OF THE DARNED JETS!!
So I took off the plate to the oil filter and shot
The Kansas Crew Lined up in front of Pikes Peak Crystal Creek Reservoir
It was a year in the planning, planning done by committe of which I was only involved in as the official route guide. In that I really must thank Didit, Radar, and Volsfan for thier work in getting this thing put together - the lions share done by Didit of course. I knew when I stood up and asked the Candians at the Kootenay Hootenany if they would be willing to ride to Colorado for a national meet sombody would jump on i
The Crags on Pikes Peak
Whenever I need a ride and just dont want to be out all day I usually take a ride down to Lake Isabel on the Green Horn Highway. I make a big loop out of if. Head south on hwy 115 over to Florence - past the supermax prison up to McKenzi Junction and down the Greenhorn Highway to Lake Isabel. I usually dont stop at Bishops Castle anymore seen that enough times, but its a great stop if you have never been, you can get your fear of hieghts all boiled up if you dont mind
Veefalo at Grand Tetons
I have been planning to do this ride for as long as it has been posted in the major events forum. I had to work though till the last minute, a 12 hour shift 7pm to 7am. I got home and put my stuff away, and laid my head down on the bed for an hour and a half and woke up a little refreshed, enough to ride. I put on my leathers and headed toward Denver. Up hwy 105 at Monument and into Golden I rode my way over to Golden Gate Canyon. Dissapointed that the t
For me the lure of riding often comes with months of anticipation, especially when it comes to TexasMac. I have made this trip twice before on my vfr, each time a slightly different route and each time an epic journey. I watched in earnest the weather reports along the Colorado Front range, one thing about Colorado the weather can get cold an nasty in an instant. I woke up at 4am, a habit I picked up working nights and well I just do, still dark out I walked my luggage up the stairs and into
Talimena Skyway
The road to Texasmac 2008 - the first installment
I took off a couple of weeks from work to do this and it about killed me this winter thinking about it. I was able to ride some here is Colorado but not nearly as carefree as in Appalachia where the roads are cleaner and the weather is not so vicious. I left on a Sunday for my first day, some 550 miles of superslab across south eastern Colorado and into the Oklahoma Panhandle.
It was cold as usual, with a biting wind that
My employer has come into hard times - just like the rest of the world and closed the plant for 2 weeks forcing everybody to take a vacation who works there in an effort to reduce inventory and save money. Two weeks is a bit of a hardship for most but I am in pretty good shape having saved up my tax refund since last year and this years refund I had a good bit of money to go travel. My friend from College (whom I roomed with after graduation for a couple of years) recently moved back to Denver
Loveland Pass
It has been a while since I have actually day tripped on the VFR, most my day trips have been on the XR and the VFR has been doing interstate duties this season. Not last Tuesday, I just had to get out and see for myself if the autumn leaves are changing color yet? For the most part yes! Unfortunatly they seem to be falling right off the trees as soon as they do. Most of the path I took was Evergreens.
View Google Route Map
I took some twisty mountain roads around the Everg
Kootenay National Park Calagary Crew fall in behind me
It occurs to me I never posted the second half of my trip to Canada from 2008? Sheer tiredness prevented me from finishing it up last year, so many picture so many stories. Stories I can't remember anymore, but I still have the pictures, the wonderful ride pictures from that trip home. If you bear with me I will show you the best of the best pictures, and try to remember the good things that happened on the road.
It all was part of the Koo
Juniper Pass
I took a day off from work and also from my bicycle training to take out the Veefalo one last time before the weather turns ugly, supposed to snow the rest of the week and possibly start sticking to the ground along the Colorado Front Range. I took a leisurely pace up hwy 105 toward Morrison and got reacquainted with the bike since its been over a month since I took any sort of twisties on it at all, hwy 105 is a scenic ride along the front range between Denver and Colorado Spr
Hwy 50 Ride with video
A buddy of mine from work bought a brand new Bandit 1250 a couple of months ago, he has been comparing magazine articles and specs for over a year and every time having something disparaging to say about the vfr, displacements too low, no torque, quarter mile times. Anybody can read an article and make comparisons on paper, and as an engineer hes good at it, but how do you quantify reliability, or suspension, handling, all around good marks on a chart? So me and Craig d
Its been a long while since I rode with bill (Reddog) here in Colorado, usually its an email with two words lets ride and then we are off on some 3 day adventure across New Mexico and Arizona. Ok maybe not that casual but it did happen like that once! We have been riding together for going on 12 years now and wow I can believe all those small kids of his have already graduated high school and moved away? WTF happened to the time? Things move fast if your not paying attention, but one thing has b