Facebook

I finally converted and caved into the social phenomenon that is Facebook.com. Therefore this blog is a bit superfluous and will only be used if I have large amounts of dumping I need to do onto the internet.

There are big things coming up: trip to home on the Buell (1500 mile roundtrip), which will require several modifications to the bike (waiting on a few parts to finish); wife and I are cleared medically to go to Japan, so we’ve had several people come thru the house looking to buy it; pet adoptions (we’ve had the Danes adopted by a wonderful woman who is with the Great Dane Adoption Association), which means they’ll be living together and seem to be doing well; and my Trek 3400 is back from the shop with a great job done by Norfolk Bicycle Works (formerly Conte’s of Norfolk).

If you are one of the few that do actually read this blog, I encourage you to find me on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/LifesHarlequin.

Oh, if you’re a Buell fan, and you have an 07 or earlier XB, HUGE shout-out to Southside Harley Davidson in VA Beach, Virginia, for their help in getting the the one schematic I needed from the 08 and later line. Had been trolling the net for a solid year looking for the setup Buell used to make the factory bikes have an accessory power plug for the heated handgrips and GPS system, and wasn’t till I started looking at the parts department at Southside that someone even suggested to check with the service deptartment for the right info. H-D dealerships are apparently not like most auto dealerships, where the service manual is a pre-Renaissance bible… only the chosen shall view its magnificence. After about an hour of parsing thru the parts and service manuals, I got all the bits I needed on order to duplicate the factory setup on my 07 XB9SX. Once the parts arrive, you can expect the bike to be ready for heated grips the following weekend.

I’ve also received a brilliant little piece of electrical work from Burnsmoto.com, which allows me to connect straight from my battery tender cable to a USB port for charging up my smart phone. I’ve about 12 hours of riding for Thanksgiving, each way, and with Pandora/Music running along side my GPS, my phone wouldn’t last half that journey, so big thanks to BurnsMoto.com for an excellent product.

And check out my facebook Wall for info on Yak’s and my most recent trail ride, which couldn’t have gone better for a couple fledgling beginners!

Hate Reposts, but this is too funny

Awesome-Rant-To-The-US-Govt

Oh, and small update. Been looking at the Yeti SB-66 instead of the Santa Cruz, and the dealer is a bit closer than the Santa Cruz shop, especially since I don’t have to go to downtown Tokyo to get to them.

Yeti SB-66

And finally, I’m about to spend another chunk of money on the fact that I can’t be easy on my cars. I blew the heater coil lines off the back of the Miata’s engine, and took out the Cam Position Sensor’s O-ring in the process, so the Miata’s in the shop until Monday or so. Could get it back tomorrow, but we’ll see. All I know is, I don’t have the money for it, so I had to finance it on one of their 12 mo no interest no payment plans, and since I’ll be selling the thing early next year, I’ll just pull the cost out of the sales money. Glad there was an overturned tractor trailer on my favorite turn, or I wouldn’t have hit traffic and noticed the near total loss of coolant sending my engine temp way up before it cooked my engine. I guess traffic can be a boon sometimes.

Looks like some change is coming!

First off, seems Specialized has made my bike decision for me by cancelling the Pitch lineup for 2012. So Santa Cruz here I come.

Oh, and speaking of here I come, I just got orders to Atsugi, Japan! Who would have guessed in a million years that when putting in for those orders and North Island, CA, I’d pull Japan? I’ll be moving there in the summer, but going thru about 3 mo of school first, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’m just transitioning to an older version of the helicopter I’m already working on. Literally, I’m going from digital to analog, so I’ll be spending a few months down in Jacksonville, FL, before I head out, bored to tears and anxious about making sure the move goes just right.

Now the question is, how much I can get for all my stuff that I won’t be taking with me. There’s no way my king size bedroom set is going to fit when I’ll be moving to a town 30 miles or so west of Tokyo, so there’s no point in keeping it. I’ll sleep in sleeping bags if I have to until I move, but essentially, everything is being liquidated. Including my Miata, but excluding my Buell.

But here’s the big thing to me. Some know I like anime, but not in the full blown geek way, and some know I studied a bit of the Nobunaga thru Meiji era history, so you’d assume I’d be really excited about moving to Japan. However, I’m simply stoked about finally getting an overseas permanent duty station again. My first set of orders were supposed to be permanent duty Italy, but due to that command performing a special mission and finally decomming, I was only able to spend 7 months in Sicily, followed by 7 months in Kuwait. I haven’t been out of the country since 2007, and as travel was one of my biggest reasons for joining, you can understand my generally disgruntled feelings towards the Navy, but this…. THIS MORE THAN MAKES UP FOR ALL THE BULL I’VE PUT UP WITH SINCE THEN!!! I feel a renewed fervor for this job because it surprised me with something I’d never thought it’d let me do again. Thank you detailler for this brilliant set of orders.

I Want to Do this for a Living

So far, I’m trying to pull a part-time job so I can afford the entry level, but still very decent version, of the bike he rides. His costs $7500 for a Specialized S-Works Enduro, while I’m looking at a much more modest $2500 for a Santa Cruz Butcher or $2400 for a Specialized Pitch Pro. The first is for people with sponsors, and the others are for the everyday guy who hits the trails hard on the weekends.

Having a hard time deciding between the Butcher and the Pitch Pro:

Butcher (Sektor 150mm taper w/ D am Spec + RP23 Rear): incredible frame and suspension, but drive-train components are just a touch out done by the Specialized.

Pitch Pro: great frame and high level components, and well reviewed by everyone to be a great trail bike.

The Butcher has some frame tech and front end components that are really top notch, but to start to equal the Pitch’s components you have to upgrade to the $3000 model (Revelation 150mm taper w/ R am Spec + RP23 Rear). However, I think the Butcher is much better looking If I could find the extra money at the time, it would be an easy choice for the Santa Cruz. This is all dependent on getting a part-time job, which I’m currently working on. Started with my local bike shop, and there’s a possibility of about 12hrs a week available thru October, but we’ll see.

Oh.. and PS: Here’s a little treat. Probably my favorite MTB video…

Hardwood Mills MTB Trail

Yesterday, went with a friend on our MTB’s to Hardwood Mills Bike Trails. I wasn’t expecting much, and I wanted to go to Freedom Trail in Williamsburg instead, but time was short, and neither of us had been to this trail before, so I kept an open mind.

Here’s the trail:

And here’s my current weapon: (Modified Trek 3400)

The park has 3 seperate trails: Novice, Advanced, and Elite. The only gouge we got was the Advanced was actually harder than the Elite, so I lead out with a slightly cocky pace. It didn’t take long to realize I’m still a novice on a novice bike. The route wasn’t so difficult, but the roots that make the track a constant rough ride are what throw you… literally. You think, “Oh, I’ll just bomb down this quick hill, only to realize half way, or any portion where you NEED to change direction, there is a bloody thick or rash of tree roots that completely unsettle your bike and require instant correction or you go into tree. My friend actually ended up off at the first bridge because of this. So we slowed down a bit and took the rest of the trail with a great deal more caution.

We cleared the Novice trail, and, as you can see by the map above, we were kinda in the middle of no where with only a relatively short run completed, so we headed to the Advanced trail. Knowing what we did about it, we’d just assumed we’d take it slow and feel it out. At least in my mind, I wanted to scope out the supposedly hardest trail to see what I need to work toward as a MTB’ist. Initially we got lost. There were no clear signs as to how to get to the trail, so we ended up near the Elite, having followed a set of tire tracks on the service roads around the park.

Once found, however, the trail started without much of a fuss. Vastly easier for the first half mile than the entire Novice trail. It wasn’t until the first set of drops that I realized just how much more advanced the trail was. First clue came on relatively steep downhill that had a ramp at the top of it. As tempted as I was to take the ramp, I had no idea what was at the bottom of the run, so I used my better judgement and side-stepped it. And very glad I did. Jumping off curbs or stairs is easy for me, especially with my toe clips and straps to help keep my feet planted. This jump however, would have put me 10 feet in the air, going downhill, and required an immediate recovery to stay on trail and keep the speed to go up the next hill.

The trail was actually very hard. Several clinching moments to be honest, a few times where I inadvertently came to a dead stop, and my favorite, is what I can now blame for the gash on my knee. The anal puckering moments were generally the very fast changes in direction going back uphill after a quick downhill bomb, but with the ever present roots of the devil everywhere. Short stops were as the result of the ultra steep uphills that made good use of the roots as foot tall stairs. By the time you pulled the front wheel out of the way, the bike was near vertical, and you lost all forward momentum. Combine the soft sandy ground, and you end up just spinning your rear wheel in a rut without moving. I’m assuming the way to attack these bits is to keep the bike as close to the edge of the trail as possible, to avoid the gaping chasms between the thickest of roots, and keep your gearing very low. The final moment gets its own paragraph.

This was another quick downhill run, but with a very tight margin for error because of the surrounding trees. I ended up catching a youngin’ just on the edge of my left handlebar, which knocked the bike out of line for the decent, and thankfully I reacted quickly enough to stop myself without going completely off trail and into the very thick tree just a few feet in front of me. However, having pulled my feet out of the pedals to help stop me, my right knee was smacked by the pedal just at the tendon. I didn’t notice at the time, and just got back on and rode away wondering why I had the faintest smell of blood in my nose. After the ride is when we finally discovered the gash. No real harm done, just a slight limp from the tendon being sore. Could have ended a lot worse for my face had I not stopped in time.

Oh, and one last moment, I nearly forgot, was a large log that led to a calm decline, but the log was stepped down on the far side by what I think were tires and a stump. I took it gingerly and didn’t quite enjoy it that way, and told my friend its best if he just walk his bike over it. I don’t mind running down steep stairs downtown, but its a bit different if there was a car in the path of exit, or in this case, a forest of trees. There were also various bits of the trail where your choice was to stay on trail, or descend into a ravine, but that just adds to the excitement of the ride.

All in all, I’ve resolved myself to return there as often as possible to master that course, but not until I’ve tried the other trails in the area. There are about half a dozen good ones in total, and despite this one being a bit short, it was definitely more technical than I’ve seen from videos of the other trails. Without a doubt, if I could best this trail, I can best any trail. This trail does give me one other strong point though.

When I went to Conte’s Ghent the other day to ask about the real benefits to having a full suspension bike at my riding level, the kid working there for the summer job had an obvious bias I’d seen repeated over the MTB forums, that you don’t really get a benefit from the rear suspension, and that a hardtail is all you really need. This trail alone gives me a counter to that argument. Roots are the devil’s trip wires, and will ruin you. The trick is avoiding them, but I can honestly say on many of the runs on the advanced trail, there is NO AVOIDING the most gripping source of danger and discomfort, so it is with great pleasure I look forward to saving up for the GT Sensor 3.0 Blue or Giant Trance X4.

In any case, this adventure, has more than resolved me to get further into the sport just for the shear enjoyment of the ride. I haven’t had that much fun on a bicycle ever before, and I’m not going to stop any time soon.

Changed my mind a bit!

These are a bit more expensive, but after having ridden the GT Gutterball (first image), I desperately want one for my road stuff, and after having consulted with a few sources, think I should go with the performance full suspension entry model (second image) over the sport entry model of the mountain bike simply because the components and reliability of the extra $500 is worth the money.

Wishlist

I think its been said that a man cannot have too many lists. This is my most recent, and the sum total of the two bikes is about $1600 (which is still entry level costs for the full-suspension bikes. Most start at $1500 on their own, and they climb quickly into the $5000+ range), so if anyone does read this and would like to start donating, even a penny would be appreciated.

Basically, if I could get the money together, I’d like to trade my Globe Vienna and Trek 3400 in for the two. I live in a very flat area, and even if I wasn’t in one, I never change gear to go up hill. Usually I see it as a personal challenge to maintain as much speed as possible. The full suspension mountain bike on the other hand would be a lot more fun period. Everything from being an urban hooligan to going with friends out to the local trails. But with the single/fixed speed, I wouldn’t feel bad about riding with the actual road bike guys. I can only muster about 15-18mph when I’m travelling normally on the Vienna… The full road bike guys can do 23-26mph constantly. If you’ve never been passed by a car going only 5mph by you, its like someone simply walking away from you.

Maybe I can finagle the amount of the tax return next year, but then again, Keeshia still needs visits to the dentist, the flooring will need to be resurfaced in either tile or laminate wood, but I don’t need new bicycles, so the money will have to come from something else. There is always the plasma centers. Donating 2x a week will net over $200 per month, and that would surely be enough in just a few months if I can offload the two current bikes. Anyways, its a wishlist, so he’s to hoping!

2011 Norfolk Naval Base Safety Ride

We had a base safety ride yesterday for just a few hours to help promote safe riding among the military riders, and get some people together who normally don’t ride in any groups to learn some basic group riding. The ride was pretty basic, but a good experience. Always nice to be able to ride with your boss and feel a bit like equals.

Only have a few shots… nothing on the move unfortunately.. hard to get pics when riding the Buell:

This was my group, HSC-2. Just my squadron mates. I’m not in shot, due to physics.

This is about half the actual riders. There were about 75-100 of us.. didn’t really get a head count, but they split us up into smaller groups. This was the first few who got back to the final stop.

This guy got away about a luckily as you can with a nail in your tire:

I actually had a nice close call on the run. We hit some debris left over from a shredded semi-tire, and didn’t think anything of it until we hit the first of the real corners and my rear end was all over the place… felt like it was wagging worse than a happy dogs tail. When we finally came to a stop, the rider behind me rode up beside and told me my rear was COMPLETELY flat! Parked it safely and he was more than right. It had a whole 1psi in it.

Thankfully, we found the whole, got it plugged, it held air, and I made it back safely. Really confused me on the ride up, while still on the flat, as I was 2nd in the group, and was furious at myself, thinking I was a bad rider and couldn’t hold my traction, and was losing ground to a half-ton K1200LT BMW. Had quite a few squirrely corners, and one where I went a bit wide and onto the paint line… nice clenched moment. Unfortunately, not everyone was so lucky. A marine lost control of her bike and ended up in a ditch. She came out okay, and the safety vehicle we had on tap got her and her bike out of the fray quickly and safely. We also had someone’s clutch cable snap. All in all though a decent ride.

I know the pics are kinda crap, but once I get the pics from the event people, I’ll post it up. Saw some nice bikes out there, and will get them up as soon as I can.

Where to begin?

We’ll start with work… get all that crap out of the way. So I’ve been assigned as the LPO of the shop, which means nothing in terms of pay increase, but adds a very large lump of extra duties and responsibilities. The upside being that if I can prove I’m capable of handling the job as well as my normal job as a basic shift supervisor, it almost guarantees that I’ll get one of the highest ranked evals for my rank in the command. Only one other person was an E5 LPO, and he just got promoted to E6. Downside, I now have an old school senior chief over me, and he’s not the easiest person to work for. There is almost no praise for accomplishing tasks, but rather almost a constant sense of disappointment that I haven’t already started the next one. It really just his way of making sure I don’t fall behind. Main problem is that the LPO job is a full time job, and is usually given to an E6 specifically because they aren’t usually required to keep such a strong gaze on the maintenance side of the shop. LPO is 90% an admin job. However, I’m still expected to keep my maintenance job running, which means 90% of my day is spent on the flight line fixing aircraft. This means I end up staying at least an hour to 2 hours late behind everyone every day just to try and get paperwork done. Another problem is that I’m fixing errors from the last 3-4 LPO’s, so I’m really playing catchup on that front at the moment. But, once its all done, the simple maintenance of it will be much easier. Lets just hope I last that long.

Vehicle side of the house, Buell is still under repair, and should be ready this week or the next depending on how early they get the new frame in. Miata wise… thats a fun story. Was driving towards downtown, doing about 45mph, when suddenly all the electrics cut out and I lost engine power. A second later it all came back like nothing was wrong. Then again it was gone, and back and gone and back. Finally pulled over to check the engine, but nothing was wrong under the hood. Thats when Keeshia noticed smoke coming from the back of the car. Looked underneath and saw nothing, so I opened the trunk. The trunk was full of black smoke and when it cleared I saw my trunk carpets and battery (which is in the trunk of the Miata stock) on FIRE! Carpets I’m not too concerned about, but a battery on fire is essentially a bomb. Thankfully, I was able to put both the fires out with just my breath.

Called up the dealership, as I’d just had this car over a month, and told them the story. They had a mechanic out to the car in 30m, but he wanted me to drive the car back to their shop, which was daft, so I insisted it be towed. I’m not going to drive a car with a melted battery, no matter if the charge is good or not. You’re just asking for thermal-runaway (battery explosion) if you tried to put a load on it. Give about an hour and the tow truck arrived and we went to the shop. Talked with the dealership again who said “They wouldn’t leave me hanging,” but gave no definite on who would cover the financials. The shop we went to was only a few blocks from the house, so Keesh and I walked back, much to the detriment of Keeshia’s feet. – Why do women insist on wearing uncomfortable shoes? And she even refused to be ferried via piggyback multiple times! – About an hour later and the car was ready, and the shop told me the dealership would take care of everything. Only the carpet didn’t get replaced, and now the new battery is mounted much more securely, which is what caused it to shake around and short out and catch on fire in the first place. Basically the mount broke, shorted on the terminals causing the car to shut off as it did, then the heat or a spark caught the carpet on fire and thus the battery. Don’t really care about the carpets anyhow.. not a big fan of having combustible material above my battery… In the end, plus points to Elite Motor Sports of VA Beach for their quick response and help. They may be a small car dealership, but they have a good selection, and are readily available to help you.

Now the car runs great and we were able to at least make our errand to the NEX to have Keeshia’s military ID updated. After which, we went and saw Thor at the cheap on base theater… the sound was terrible.. they had the volume maxed and it was only coming from the front speaker, so heavy action was pretty muddled. Thats twice this particular theater has screwed up the sound of the movie.. first was with Priest about a week ago, but at least they fixed that in the beginning of the film. This they couldn’t figure out. Nevertheless, Thor was fun, and the graphics really were well done. Acting was good, and not surprisingly so, considering Kenneth Branagh directed the film. He’s most well known for his series of BBC sponsored Shakespeare film adaptations, but some may remember him more recently as Dr. Loveless in the Will Smith / Kevin Cline “Wild Wild West.”

On a more community oriented subject, and definitely not to toot my own horn, I’ve started to lend a hand to the local Habitat for Humanity. They seem to be targeting a few of us to become “Red Hats” or team leaders. You don’t need any particular experience to lead the build, but more or less just the drive to get people together to help with the projects. Unfortunately, I can only really help on Saturdays, and the house closest to me is not being worked on this weekend, but at least last weekend 2 of us from the squadron showed up to put in the construction fencing. I think the foundation is going in now-ish for about a week or so of work, so after that the project will get going again for the volunteers. I’m really looking forward to it, if nothing else, just to get me active on Saturdays.

Would be nice to do that kind of work on our house, but funds are limited, and the only real project we have is tearing up the old and terrible flip carpet the previous owner put in here for the sale. The wood underneath is nice heartwood pine, but its the sub-floor, so you have to have a floor over it to pass inspection for sale. For now though, we’re just ripping it all up and putting down an acrylic / latex paint and sealer down. I’d love to do tile downstairs and carpet upstairs, but wife wants hardwood laminate. Either will work for me, and its more about the resale, so it will probably be laminate in the end, which is an easier install anyhow. But of course the limiting factor holds it all at a stand still, except for the carpet removal. And besides, I need a driveway first to get my bike off the street.

Umm.. think thats about it really…

The Buell lives

Finally, all the damage estimates and details have been figured out:

Given the time it takes to get Buell parts in, and the 12 Hrs of labor quoted, I’m not expecting to see the bike for at least 3 weeks to a month. Will suck, but at least THE BUELL’S ALIVE!