Title Unknown... nah I'm just being lazy.

It's been a while since I have blogged up, but I just haven't had much worth while to share. And I still don't have anything worth while to share on a personal side, but this short film (sounds better than video) was brought to my attention by an on-line acquaintance. It is well worth the 20 minutes it will take to watch. I recommend watching it in HD full screen and not the dinky little window on my blog.



See you on the road.
GAW

eBay Buy, Fly and Ride.

Way back in September I posted a short video about making room in the garage, but do to computer issues I was never able to bring you the rest of the story, until today that is.



No matter how unlikely you think it is that you will win an auction, only place a bid if you are prepared to pay.  I did just that,  I can't really tell you what was going through my head when I set up auction sniper to bid on this scooter.  There was about 12 or 15 hours left until the end and the price was incredibly low.  So I set up sniper to bid one increment (about $50) 6 seconds prior to the end of the auction.  The next day to my surprise I read the email stating I had won it at a price well below the going average.

The worst part was knowing I would not only have to tell my wife that I bought a scooter with out consulting her, but that it was located about 1000 miles from home in Charlottesville, VA.  It turned out she was much more accepting than I thought she would be.

So I'm currently the owner of 3 bikes, my latest seen in the video above is a:  2009 Kymco Xciting 250Ri,  it had just around 1500 miles on the clock when I bought it.  It's not the ideal bike for me on a cross country trip as I'm just to tall, you may have noticed my knees almost touching my hands in the video, but for the 10 miles on suburban streets that is my daily commute it is just about perfect, plus it gets 70mpg.

I have to say the folks at Jarman's Sportcycles were very gracious,  considering what I paid for the scooter.  The sales man even picked me up at the airport.  A lot of less reputable dealers would have just told me it was a mistake and not completed the deal.

See you on the road.
GAW

The Seven Day Challenge. Bike a day for Seven days.

After much thought I have been able to put together a list and accept the Challenge.

I shall not give the bikes a certain day of the week as you just never know when the need will arise.

I will begin with my wish list and end with my current rides.

Bike One:  Honda Z50 Monkey or a CT70, I Just can't make up my mind.

Or the CT70

Bike 2:  1986 Yamaha SRX6, the high school fantasy that I should have bought.

Bike 3:  1960's BMW R25, 26 or 27.  White or Black, doesn't really matter.

Bike 4:  1996 Ducati M900 Monster,  If the dealer had done test rides I might of bought it...  A 2011 Monster 796 in satin silver would also do.

Now for my Current bikes, as I could never part with them.

Bike 5:  The newest in the garage, 2009 Kymco Xciting R250i.

Bike 6:  Lets get dirty, 2009 BMW G650X Country.  It deserved more than a 3 year run...

Bike 7:  Last but by no means least.  1996 BMW R850r.  Every time I ride the bike I'm reminded of just how much I love it.  It's not perfect and maybe that's why I love it so, or maybe it's just that my body is so familiar with it.

I get the thought every so often that I don't really need 3 bikes and that I should sell it, but a short ride later those thoughts are distant memory's.

I like a lot of bikes, but none stick in my mind like these.

See you on the road.
GAW

P.S.  All Photos from Internet other than the last three.

Making room...

Gateway BMW GS Challenge May, 2011 Update.

I'll keep this short and sweet...  I just wanted to share a couple of video's and some photos from the event.

I strapped my GoPro onto Bob Honz the Ringleader of this event when he took his R1200GSA around the Challenge time trial course.  Typical of Honz he finished in a very spectacular fashion.  See for your self.


I also put the GoPro on Adam, one of the guys from Gateway BMW while he rode his G650 XChallenge.  He was quite pumped at the end of his run.


Marilyn Roberts took a hard drive full of photos at the event including a couple of me you can see them all HERE.  Including this one of me in the mud-pit.

Me in the Mud-pit.  Photo by: Marilyn Roberts

That's it for now.
See you on the road.
GAW

Gateway BMW GS Challenge May, 2011

I have had a busy weekend getting my bike dirty and then giving it a swamp water shower.



It was great fun, even thought it rained more or less non-stop for the whole event. 

Sorry but I used up all the batterys on Saturday so I can't show you the really wicked trails we rode on Sunday.

Taking a break Sunday, before the tough stuff.

Big thanks to Gateway BMW and all the guys who worked so hard to put this event on, it was a blast.  Also I should thank the instructors from RawHyde Adventures, Del, Mark and Jeff, three laid back California guys who can make those big bikes dance.


See you on the road.
GAW

Gateway BMW Open House, May 7th, 2011.

Gateway BMW (The Best BMW Dealer...IMHO) had their spring Open House this past Saturday.  In addition to the great food, great deals (on bikes and gear) and tire kicking, they had Chris "Teach" McNeil.  They let him take the shops new $23,000 K1600GTL for a spin.  Really!  Chris had to wait for the Demo bike to get back from test rides to put on his show.  Below is the result.



I have some more footage and will post it to YouTube as I get it edited, so check out my Channel later this week.  If you would like to see some photos of the event check out Gateway BMW's Blog post.

See you on the road.
GAW

ABCD - A Bloggers Centerline Day.

Back on April 12, blogger Gary France posted what I will call a challenge.  He asked fellow bloggers to particapate in ABCD - A Bloggers Centerline Day (link to post).  It sounded like a great idea and I was looking forward to it.  But if there is one thing that I excell at it's procrastination,  I had planned to do as he asked and copy his post to my blog, but before I knew it, it was already May 1st. 

I spent the greater part of the day doing the father and family thing.  By the time I was free to go out and make a photo it had started to rain, so I opted to hold off for a while, and before I knew it my window of opportunity and disappeared.  At around 9:45P.M. my second window of opportunity arrived.  I told my wife I had a project to work on and would be out for a while.  She looked at me with suspicious eyes, I think she thought I was going to covertly go and eat a pizza, but when I started to put on my riding gear she became slightly worried.  Had I lost my marbles?  Going for a leisurely ride at 10:00P.M. on a rainy Sunday night?

To the heart of the matter, Gary here is my submission to ABCD 2011.

The photo was taken just a mile or two from home, as you can see I have the center-line (just below my left hand) and you can even see my grinning face, well some of it (right hand mirror).  The image was taken with my GoPro HD Hero, set to take one still image every 60 seconds, it was mounted on the Chesty strap.  You can see a few more photos I took at the link below.

ABCD - A Bloggers Centerline Day.

Thank You Gary for coming up with the idea.  I look forward to participating again next year.

See you on the road.
GAW

Waiting...

Waiting...  It seems that is all I do.  I wait in the garage, ready to go.  Pointed out the door.  Gas in my tank.  My chain lubed.  My tires filled.  But I wait.

Today though, I felt the key, then my heart came alive, I could feel the pressure in my veins.  I could barely contain myself, he pushed my button...  I Roared to life!

The promised adventure had arrived.  Off we went into the cool dark morning,  What a glorious feeling, freedom...  Cutting through the air, screaming at the top of my lung.

But only 45 minutes later I'm waiting again...  Have I done something wrong?  My tires aren't even warm yet,  I still have a full tank of gas...  Why must I wait?  Where is the promised adventure?

The Yellow bike.

Vintage Honda.

I finally started to scan the old photos I found at my fathers home, one shoe box down and way to many to go.  I still haven't found the photo of my father on a bike, but this photo was taken around September 1965.  It shows a cousin astride what I believe is a CB160.  I wish it was still in the family and in the same shape, but wishing don't make it so...

As I find them I will post them.

GAW

The Current project.

I haven't had a lot to share on the motorcycle front lately, but we (my 7 year old daughter and myself) started a project recently.  The photo above is after an hour or two of work, doesn't look like much at the moment, as it progress's I'll share some more photos.


GAW.

Vintage motorcycle ad's.

I recently came into a large collection of photos and a small collection of 1972 magazines.  The photos present a huge undertaking, so I have chosen to take the easy route first and scan the car and motorcycle ads.

Looking at the photo above, I can only assume the rider and passenger were moments away from a ambulance ride given the wet conditions, tire quality (of 1972), the pivot points about to touch down and the sudden onset of power a 3 cylinder two-stroke engine has.  I'm also curios if this could be a action photo of a infamous blogger known to have had a Kawasaki two-stroke street bike?  If that were the case I'm sure they rode off into the sunset on the bike and not an ambulance...

If you are feeling nostalgic and wish to see a few more motorcycle and automobile ad's from 1972 you can watch the slide show below or visit my Picasa Album.

1970's car and motorcycle ads

Thanks for stopping by.
GAW

My First Motorcycle.

My first motorcycle.  The above image is a cropped scan of a Polaroid photo taken in January of 1980.  I'm astride my new 1979 Yamaha DT100 Enduro, and yes that's a smoke bubble visor.  The photo was taken at my grandparents farm. I would have been 11 years old, just a month shy of 12.  If not for this little green motorcycle, you probably wouldn't be reading this blog.  My father was responsible for me getting my first and second motorcycles.

I came to find this photo and many more while cleaning out my childhood home this past weekend.  My father passed away 2 days before Thanksgiving, he was only 67 years old.  I would like to tell you more about him, but for the moment it will have to wait.  I'm searching for a photo of him on a brand new Honda 305 Dream, when I find it I will tell you more about him.

GAW

DCOD

I recently purchased 3 DVD’s each with 4 movies on them, not just any movies, but classics like:  Forbidden Planet, Time Machine, Soylent Green, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Strangers on a Train and The Wrong Man just to name a few.  Since I purchased them it has dawned on me that there is no chance in hell that I will ever get to watch them, Because...

I have come down with a bad case of DCOD,  otherwise know as Digital Content Overload Disorder.  It seems that most of my free time is spent sifting through tons of noisy data looking for that one useful fact or funny video.  I just seem to lose focus... (It’s happening to me as I write this post, just way to many things going on at one time.)

In the morning when I boot up a computer I usually find something like 200-300 items (all the blogs I read+) waiting from me in Google Reader, 10-15 updated threads in ADVrider, a few worthy items in Facebook and two email accounts with about 20-30 emails (personal, work related and junk that passed the filter).  That’s just when I boot up, if I’m having a busy day I can easily have 1000+ items in Reader alone before I can look at it.  Of course I can’t leave out the DVR can I?  It’s now digital content also.  The DVR is always full with MythBusters, Dexter, GoodGuys, Warehouse 13, NCIS, NCIS LA, Gears, Extreme 4X4, Horsepower TV, Trucks, Muscle Car TV, Truck U, Two Guys Garage,  The occasional Movie (anything by Tarintino) and the list just goes on.  Did I mention eBay or Craigslist?  Nope, but let me tell you it take though they add a whole other dimension to the DSOD.

All of this Digital Content is of course on top of working for a living, household duties (grass, trash and cooking 1-2 a week), raising a young child (7 year’s old) and commuting 10+ hours a week.

I currently have 2 post for The Pizza Files, 2 post for ScootnArt and a couple of other digital projects cluttering up my brain.  I will try to unload and upload them soon, once that is done I’m going for a bicycle ride, I feel like I’m turning into one of the humans from the movie Wall-E...

I have got to reevaluate my Digital Content and hack some of it off,  I’m missing out on two much of the 2-way communication (no time to leave comments when I should because I have to much data to sift...).  I apologize to all my fellow blogger’s who’s blogs I read (yes I read them, really) but only leave a statistic in Analytics as proof I was there.  I know it’s the positive feedback that keeps one going.  I plan on doing better, and I might get to watch those DVD’s too.

Falling leaf Rally, Crash testing the BMW G650 XCountry.

I attended the 2010 Falling Leaf Rally this weekend and partook in the GS/gravel road ride.  After Lunch in Bixby, MO 5 of us decided to take in a few more gravel roads instead of taking tarmac back to the rally grounds.  

I must say the part I like the best is my feet pointing toward the sky. It would seem I have a thing for low water bridges,  this is twice in as many months.  No harm done that a few zip ties couldn't fix. 

See you on the road or in the creek.

GAW

Gateway BMW Open House

From Gateway Open House 9_11_2010

Gateway BMW, my local (and the Greatest) BMW dealer had a Open House this weekend, and as they always do, they put on a pretty good show.  Quite the spread of food and drink, the homemade cookies and pie are to die for...  Discounts galore, test rides and door prize's ( I never seem to win anything).  They also had entertainment this year in the form of Chris Teach McNeil, the U.S. Champion Freestyle rider.  Chris just happens to ride BMW motorcycles.  He sure looks like he has fun doing it too.  Oh, just in case you didn't know he has a day job!  He's a Latin teacher...  His web-site says he is a former teacher, but he told us that he now has a couple of employee's who drive his truck around the country and he just fly's in for the shows, that way he can continue to teach.



I thought this would be the time I walked away without spending any money, but it just can't be done.  I bought a chain cleaning brush, maybe you will see it in a future post.  I hope to upload Part 2 of the video by Monday night, so check back on my YouTube Channel.

See You on the Road.
GAW

The Score is even, 1 and 1.

Not much to talk about lately, my family returned from and extended stay abroad recently and they have kept me busy.  Until today that is.  Today was my day off, the little one had school and my better half had plans.  I was off to ride the Creeks of Warren County with my Trusty GoPro HD Hero.  It was a Great day of riding, I put about 200 miles on the clock mostly on gravel and I shot 16 GB of HD footage half a 60 fps.  Well I filled up the 16 GB card but I only thought it was HD footage.  Turns out I shot 1200 5mp images 2 seconds apart and I found the main weakness of the GoPro HD Hero, it's archaic menu system.  Even though I studied the user guide the night before my ride I some how messed up when trying to change from 720p @ 30fps to 720p @ 60fps.  So until I can sort through all the images (should make an interesting time-lapse) I leave you with a teaser of 3 consecutive images shot at 2 second intervals, enjoy.  I guess I found the second flaw in the GoPro HD Hero, it's numbering system!  I have 5 sets of images all with the same number!

GAW.

It's called SLIME... and it's slippy, very slippy.

I'm Back!

It's been a long eight weeks, but I was finally given my release early last week.  So I set to planning my weekend travels.  I decided to visit my father and of course there would be pizza.  Saturday I was up early, but didn't leave until after 10 A.M. due to a craigslist appointment (that way I had money for pizza and gas).  I took what would normally take about 2 hours and extended it to over 6.

The first stop of the day was an old church, there are no markers or signs about it.  I think that makes me wonder even more about it's history.  The first 100 miles were spent mostly on gravel and I found about 12 low water bridges.  I didn't get my feet wet until the last one just after leaving Frankenstein.  Yes I went to Frankenstein, MO and no I didn't take a photo. There was not a single sign to be found in the whole place.  After a good visit and good pizza I had a twenty minute ride in the rain heading toward the lightning.

Sunday morning I had breakfast with my father at The Brick in Moberly, my favorite breakfast joint.  My plans for the day were to eat at Taco Johns in Pittsfield, IL and sleep in my own bed a the end of the day.

As I approached my first gas stop of the day I decided to add two more destinations.  The first was the Haunted tunnel (so I'm told),  it passes under the BNSF railroad less than a mile from the Des Moines River.  The second was Sorrento's Pizza in Fort Madison, IA.  The tunnel passed through, but no ghost were seen, just some graffiti.  When I arrived in Fort Madison I found Sorrento's Pizza closed.  It had been over 10 years since I last had pizza there, and for some reason I knew they would be closed, but it didn't stop me from trying.  Finding no pizza in the Fort I crossed the river into Illinois and headed south towards Pittsfield and some Taco Johns.  My day ended around 9:30 P.M. when I arrived home.  My behind knew I had put a few miles on the clock, but I was still surprised by just how many.

2 Days.
3 States.
20 Hours on the road.
630 Miles traveled.

Not a bad start.



See you on the road.
GAW.

P.S.  To those of you that recently attended the International Moto Blogger's Convention in Bend, I have been following along with all of your blog's and have lived vicariously through your eye's, I thank you for that.  I would have loved to have been there, but in the end it just wasn't meant to be this time around, next time...  I won't even start on those terrible roads in Oregon.

1986 Yamaha SRX6, one more kick start fantasy.

This bike is the one that really gets me down deep.  Although it was produced from 1985-1997, It was only imported to the U.S. for one year, 1986 (for more info see WIKI).  Yamaha states that 19,000 SRX6's were sold in the U.S.  That means there has to be one out there with my name on it, right?

This particular bike listed on Cycle Trader is located in Chicago, just a short plane, train or car ride from home.  It has only 1900 miles on the clock, that's equivalent to one oil change...  The asking price of $2800 is probably not far from the original sticker price.  They claim the bike has not been modified in any way and still has the owners manual and original two keys.  If I had $2800 stashed away I would be making the trip to Chicago this weekend.

If only I was out riding what I have instead of sitting in front of a computer lusting after forbidden fruit! Arrrrrgh!  Only 3...I don't know, just to many weeks until two wheels.

See you on the road.
GAW

No, seriously this one really has me ready to pick the apple and accept the consequences.  How bad can it be?  It's all because my first bike was a Yamaha.

2003 Honda Ruckus, more kick start fantasy.

Another bike that I have a thing for buried deep in the gray matter.  This 2003 Honda Ruckus has one day left for bidding on eBay, currently the bid is up to $710 (reserve not met).  It only has 3500 miles on it and other than a dent on top of the front fender looks to be in excellent shape.  This Ruckus is located about 450 miles from my home, so I easily pick it up and be home in a day,  and I know it would be a lot easier to hide in the garage than a XT500.

The thing I like about the Honda Ruckus is the unlimited aftermarket customization options.  Oh yeah it's got a kick start also.

I'm getting restless and a slow day at work doesn't help.  I just got to keep from clicking the "Place Bid" button.

See you on the road.
GAW

UPDATE 7/2/10:
Final bid on eBay was for $830.00, a price I might have been willing to pay, but the reserve was not met so it didn't sell.  The seller might have done better if he had been more careful listing the Ruckus, it was listed under Motorcycles>Honda>Other VS Powersports>Scooters>Honda.  In the last month $830 is a bit high for a 2003 Ruckus on eBay, the only ones to sell have gone for around $700.