in my last post, i was rambling on and on about the next phase of my life, the next phase of this motorcycle obsession that has become such a huge part of me. since then, two major events have happened to affirm that direction, and make the dreams a bit more of a reality.

the first week of september saw me on my first big adventure road trip, four days of riding and camping all the way from the bay area to oregon. the trip was a culmination of weeks of planning, months of just itching to get out on the road and be free for a few days. right after we got back, dan and i spend a few days processing the beauty of it all, and posting our first ride report on ADVrider. i won't belabor the journey with a second write up here, but i will share some of my favorite pictures from the trip. (where some = quite a few)


crossing over the richmond-san rafel bridge.

sweeping curves north of petaluma, ca.

had some fun taking shots while riding.

this way to fun!

enjoying the redwoods.

welcome to fcuking oregon!

do you see where we are? this is awesome!

chasing the storm, with the sunset looming.

mountain pass lookout, one of two panoramas taken here.

after a day of riding in the heat of the interior, we make it back to the coastline.

full 360 panoramic of the beauty of the lost coast.

getting right down to the water.

my new avatar on the moto sites.

a bit of dirt to end off the day.

playing with long exposures and fire.

old school bridge; this one had wood planks!

more fun in the dirt... this road sealed the deal for me.

a final pass through the redwoods before heading home.

sorry for so many, but hopefully it was worth it. these are only a few out of over 200 (trimmed down from 500+ from the camera), but if you want to see more... each photo is clickable, and the full album is here. in the SmugMug album, the photos are interspersed between dan and i, the ones he took tagged with 'danmechanical'.


the whole ride home, i spent alot of time just zoning out to the music on my headphones, contemplating the ride. i had tons of fun, but the highlights of the trip for both of were the short jaunts on the dirt, except for the fact that i was on a sport bike, and couldn't really enjoy it the way dan had. at some point i had made up my mind that i would sell the sv650, and get a dual sport bike. first to get started on was selling the SV650, which went from post-to-sale in under a week. the new owner is supposedly loving it up in san francisco.

to fund the new bike, i made the hard decision to sell my Canon 20D & Lenses. the camera had gotten me through a lot, and performed beautifully (as well as taking beautiful photos). but i was finding that i wasn't using it as much as i probably wanted to; on the trip i only took about 200 photos with it, while i took over 500 with the point and shoot. so, i dealt with the hell that is craigslist (i got over a dozen scam emails, three of which wanted me to send the camera to south africa! lol!), and eventually got it sold. the lens went to a real person off of craigslist, and the body went to someone from ADV. i was sad to see it go, but in some way it made me feel good to be able to start fresh.

shortly after i sold the SV, i had to travel to boston to attend a few family events. i brought along moto-gear to possibly test-ride a few bikes in the area... but everything felll through. all turned out in well in the end, as i ended up spending a few days with my younger brother and sister that i'll remember for a long time. the trip was one of those family trips when you're about family-ed out by the end of it, and was happy to get back to california.

back in cali, i was now bike-less, and itching to ride. i began searching in earnest, looking at the for-sale ads on ADV constantly, and even writing my own little tool to search multiple craigslist sites for multiple keywords, to make the search that tiny bit easier. it ended up helping quite a bit, when i was at a friend's party, refreshing my search when i found just the bike i was looking for, at a price that was almost too good to believe. i contacted the seller right then and there, begging for a test-ride the next day.

the next day rolls around, and i receive an email from the seller at about 8:30 in the morning, only to find out that someone had already scheduled to go see the bike in the morning, and that i was next in line. he said he'd call me after 12 if the first buyer fell through. i was on pins-and-needles all morning, cringing at every time my phone rang, or email that came in, hoping and praying that it wouldn't be bad news. noon rolls around, with no word, and i'm just about going crazy with anticipation. he calls @ 12:15 to let me know the first buyer never showed up, and that if i wanted it, i could come up and see it. i left right away, speeding most of the way there.

the bike was (is) perfect. so clean that it looked like it came off of a showroom floor. the engine purrs when running, and was a blast to ride, and it's never been off-road! i put down a deposit, and promised the rest as soon as i could get to a bank after the holiday weekend. as i'm pulling into my driveway (2 hours away from the bike that was soon to be mine) he calls me, offering to deliver it to san jose, the very next day. sweet!

i'm now a proud owner of a "captain america" 2001 BMW F650 Dakar.

the final macro photo to be taken with the camera that funded the bike.

the dakar is currently set up with a street rear tire, and no crash-protection... but that can be remedied. the seat & shocks are set up for the previous owner who was a bit shorter than me, and a good 80lbs lighter, but that can be adjusted. little details aside, the bike is awesome, and tons of fun to ride, on and off-road.

yes... it only took me two days to pop the bike's off-road cherry, taking it out on the only dirt road that i know of in the area.





these photos are very fitting for this post. the bike is there, on the dirt road, and the all the way to the horizon are more dirt roads and mountains that are just begging to be explored...

now i have the just the tool to do it.

Labels: adv, dakar, moto

about a year ago, i got my first bike, something at the time that i thought would be the best thing to learn on, and something to help me find my way in the motorcycle world. oh, find my way it did. i learned how to ride, took a few spills (mostly out of stupidity), and overall... became a rider.

the road empowers me, it makes me feel free. i try to think of anything that i've experienced before, and nothing comes close to the feeling of freedom, of control, and a healthy dose of fear. the exhilaration calls me, beckons me, entices me with the thrill of the ride, the wind enveloping me, the freedom. the freedom is not that of being free of something... there is nothing to run from; is the freedom of being rid of everything. anything that bothers me, any worry, any cause for concern. the day to day worries of life... are stripped away by the wind, for those short moments that you are on the road, where there is nothing to worry about but the next corner, or how soon to stop for gas.



over the past year, the draw of the road has dwindled, not so much that the desire has worn off, but that the sense of adventure has grabbed me, and is pulling me off of the road into the dirt. i want to explore not just the roadways that get you from point a to b, but the dirt roads, canyons, and trails that get you to c, d, and e; those that are off the beaten path, and without traffic.

not that advrider.com being open on every browser of every computer i own helps; it probably makes that draw towards the dirt worse than it should be. i know i've talked about the effect that the adv community has on me before, no need to belabor the subject... it's a part of my life now, and it's going to stay that way.



a few weekends ago, i scheduled a little jaunt down the coast with darknrgy, looking for some relaxation, and relief from a predicted record high temperature in san jose. the coast was predicted to be quite a bit cooler, so before it warmed up, we were already on the road, headed to the pacific coast highway (PCH or Rt1 for short). pch proved to be a bit more of a temperature difference that we were hoping for, as there was a bank of fog coming off the ocean, obscuring views as well as keeping the weather quite chilly.





we had high hopes for the day, both of us had gone to the trouble to bring our DSLRs to take photos. but the fog enveloping the coastline, and at times the road (visibility dropped to under a hundred feet the closer we got to the water), caused a bit of a damper in out spirits. we continued down to BigSur, where we stopped for breakfast, hoping the fog would lift. as we ate a quick brunch the temperatures rose, but it was short lived and localized to the inland areas... as soon as we got back out to the coast the fog was still there. the gloom we felt came right back.



further down the coast we stopped a few times for photos, eventually losing hope of the lifting, and heading back up the coast towards home. the last stop we made on pch was right near the bridge above. we both took off our major gear, walking around the little pull out for 15-20 min, just taking photos. it seemed that we had accepted the fog, deciding to make the best of the day. looking back, i shot more photos in that twenty minute break than i had shot all day.




across from our photo-break spot, lay our next adventure; a dirt road marked "travel is stupid when raining". the decision was made in short order to try it out, street bike be damned. the road wove up and down through the valley, getting us into the first sunlight, and warmth of the day. the road passed a few homesteads, and quite a few warning signs, most of which telling people that the road wasn't maintained, and to turn around now... we didn't.



it was the most exciting 20 min of riding we'd both had all day. as we came out into the blazing heat of the open space atop the hills, we contemplated continuing our exploration, or heading back. the fact that we didn't know where we were going, an impending time to get back, and the fact that it was our first foray into the dirt made the decision easy for us, and we gingerly turned around to head back to paved surfaces, and eventually home.



the way down was just as much fun as the way up... until i found myself going a little bit too fast into a corner, and hit the brakes. of course, being on a streetbike, with no dirt experience, i started skidding, weaving, locking the front wheel... everything you're not supposed to do. i almost recovered, and was about to make the corner when the front locked again and slid away on me, and i went down, going about 5mph at this point. as usual (each time i've dropped the bike or fallen) the brake levers (one or both, both this time) broke off, to an unrepairable state.

i picked the bike up, took a photo and assessed the situation. we were about 2 miles from a hwy 1, mostly downhill on a dirt road, and i had almost no brakes. no front brake to speak of (the lever snapped at the pivot point) and just the arm of the rear brake... and i was laughing about it. i didn't care, i was having such a good time in the dirt that i had almost expected to fall, and now that i did, i could get on with things. i knew, right at that moment that i needed a bike to handle this kind of terrain.

the ride back was uneventful, with us taking it real slow on the way back to the road, a 2+ hour ride back directly to the moto-shop where i picked up a new front-brake lever. it didn't matter, i had my mind still on that dirt road, almost envisioning where it went, and when i would go back to explore it, properly equipped the next time.

...

the next phase hasn't been decided, but i felt at the end of that day that a path had been set, and it was turning me away from the traffic clogged paved highways of the cities, towards the dirt roads of rural america. there's so much to explore...

all i can think of is getting out and exploring it.

Labels: adv, explore, moto, photo

... and it's all ara's fault. maybe fault is a bit strong of a word, but i can't think of anything better. i've been catching up on a backlog (of my own doing) of ara's journal: theoasisofmysoul.com, and due to the nature of the way he writes, i've gotten a bit contemplative. so, this post is for / spawned from the adventures of, ara & spirit.



there's something about the way ara writes, the way he seamlessly weaves his photography into his stories, into his life makes me... jealous, i guess. he has two of the things that, lately, i don't have. time, and freedom. time to take the beautiful pictures, and weave the narrative, and the freedom from the normal confines (read: work) that allow him to experience... just to experience.



in some ways, i not only love to dream... but i hate it. i spend a large portion of my time online reading, looking, watching others have their adventures, and dream of my own. i dream of something i can't have, of something that i sometimes feel is beyond my grasp, something unobtainable.



i get saddened by those days, when the "unobtainable" outweighs the "obtainable".

the worst part for me is that it's all about material possessions, which i hate. i hate being controlled by them, having the insatiable desire for something that i want, i hope will change my life in a way that i think i need... but not being able to have it, forcing myself to put it out of my mind. instead i force myself to focus on the things in life that are tangible, that are for the future, which, in it's own way is just another set of material possessions that have the only difference being that they're required, depending on how you look at it.



when i get on the track of material possessions, i take the time to remember that i already have much more than others in my same position. i attempt to take pride, solitude, ... what's the word i'm looking for... i feel gratitude for the things i have, the places i've seen, the people i've met along the way. those things fill my soul with a strength that is immeasurable, yet easy to forget.



the past two weekends, i've been riding just to ride. i don't take many photos, even though the camera is right there at my hand. when i do, the photos feel like copies of the same photos i've taken over and over in the past months. nothing seems new, except the new tires on the bike. i'll ride the same roads, hoping to see something new, but it doesn't happen. photos like the one above, where i see the shot before i stop to take it are few and far between. i don't know if it's me, or the surroundings... but i'm not "stopping to smell the roses" so to say, not taking the time to experience things the way people like ara do.



it's probably the time pressure that i feel is constantly hovering over me. when i do get the "time" to get out to ride, it's usually between other things, and i end up trying to do too much in a short amount of time... causing me to be constantly rushing. maybe someday i'll put / get myself into the mindset of the traveler, and experience more than i do now. see something new, go somewhere that's not in my safety zone. when i do, i'll have to make sure i take the time to stop, and see what i'm not seeing.



thanks for the words & photos, ara... helping me, and ( hopefully someday ) the world understand that it's beneficial to your soul to stop and smell the roses... or at least take a few pictures of them.




on a different note, i hit 30k on the bike today, 8k+ of them mine. my first big milestone on a bike. of course, it happened while commuting home from work, on a exit ramp no less... but i pulled over anyways, and snapped the required photo. yay for me, or something.

Labels: adv, moto, photo

since i was a kid, i've always been an outdoors person. not really an true ourdoorsman, but more of an adventurer, an explorer. i grew up with a huge forest behind my house, that if i followed a certain path, and crossed a singe road would become a state park.

i'd spend all my free time exploring. i knew all the paths, trails, & bunkers of that park & forest. i found solace walking or biking in those woods, getting lost, and eventually finding my way back home. over time, i found dozens of places to hang out, that i felt were my own. i'd go to those places, and just sit and think. mull over my life, and where i wanted to go.

as i grew older, i found myself exploring less, probably because i had less free time. friends & activitites kept me pretty busy, but I inevitably i would find myself alone, with time to kill and be drawn to see what was around the next corner. My cueious nature was never satisfied.

just out of college, i moved to cambridge, ma, and the explorer in me took over full force. any available time that i had found me outdoors, in a city that i had grown up essentially next door to, but with new wonderment. i would wander or bike through the streets, alleyways, parks & parking lots... trying to get lost, just to prove i could find my way home. i would form a mental map of the city in my head, always trying to find a new ( or more interesting ) way to get from a to b. over a very short time, i got to know the city's ins and outs, any the explorer in me was satisfied.

two years later found me on the eve of an opportunity of a lifetime; the chance to move to the other coast. i'd lived in the boston area all my life, but i had the undeniable urge to see more, to do more, to get out of my sheltered zone and experience another part of the country. so, i took everything i owned and packed it into a uhaul, and drove across the country ... which was an adventure in itself.

i landed in the bay area, the silicon valley, ca, and started to make a life of my own. i was alone, with only a few people in the local area whom i knew before i got there. everything was new, everything was something to explore, no matter how mundane it would seem to others, it was exciting to me. every day i would go to work, leaving as early as i could... just to forcibly get lost on the way home. some nights i would find a quicker way home, some i wouldn't get home until almost midnight, i was having so much fun getting lost and learning the area.

later that same year, things took a turn for the worse for me, and i was laid off. i fell into a huge depression, and lost the desire to do pretty much anything. for years after that, even after i started working again at my dream job... i was still stuck. aside from a random weekend every once in a blue moon, i didn't get out much. i was content (for the most part) in my own little world, with no desire to get out and explore.

... until i got the motorcycle.

after i got the bike, and started to get my confidence in me, i started to really look at the maps of my surrounding areas, looking for the really twisty curvy roads that are so much fun to ride on a motorcycle. i started joining motorcycle-based forums in the area, seeing where other people liked to ride. this led me to pashnit.com, which has both a great resource of motorcycle roads, and some amazing user-generated ride reports, w/ pics, pics, pics. i spend days upon days reading about other people's trips, the amazing places they'd been, living vicariously through their reports.

somewhere along the way, i found advrider.com, and something inside just clicked. adv has the same style ride reports (the forums also have the "w/ pics, pics, pics" name as pashnit except they're almost all off road in some form or another. for me, the adv ride reports are on a whole 'nother level. there's something about dreaming of being off of the major roads, getting off into the dirt that makes me feel like a kid again.

these days, i'm addicted to the adv reports. to fend off the stressful and boring moments as i go through my day i read through people's reports, see all the beautiful pictures of far away places that i may or may not ever see. my imagination lives vicariously through these other adventurers, giving me ideas for the future. most reports are filled with photos, which are probably a large part of it for me. the reports combine many of my favorite things into one adventure... photos, motorcycles, and exploring.

i feel like the tides have turned, and the explorer that lay dormant in me all these years has returned. the adventure down the open road (hopefully off-road) is calling me, and the only thing stopping me now... is that i bought a road bike. now, dream of the places i'd like to go, and of the dual sport bike that i hope will get me there.

the explorer within me is back... with a vengance.

Labels: adv, boston, explore, moto, siliconvalley

whenever i see people i haven't seen in a while, they always ask... what have you been up to? i always answer: "busy with work, house hunting, you know..." it's kind of a catch-all wrapper around my life that seems to answer the question. most people seem to understand. some ask for clarification.

but it's not the whole picture.

the whole picture takes a bit longer to explain, and what better format than this blog? so, here we go.

work is work. just that, work. in the past it was alot more for me; sometime around when the last time i wrote in this journal, work was everything. i was working 7 days a week, not doing much else. work all day, get home really late, sleep, work again. it went on for too long.

it wasn't acutally work's fault, it was part of the job. for anyone who knows me from gaia, they understand just by looking at the dates i was talking about. for those who don't understand, let me summarize: gaia, and the team that i was working on took on the projects of all projects... a flash based MMO. we were in final phases of alpha testing last august, and finally released right around halloween. the closer to release it got, the longer the hours got. the hours turned into weekends, the weekends turned into every weekend. and it kept going like that until after the first of the year.

the whole team was worn out, but at least we were finally able to get our weekends back. since then, we've been working our buts off fixing things that came up, and in general, improving the game that we released. compared to what we originally released in November, it's amazing what we've done in such a short amount of time. the slight downside of the continuous work is just that, it's continuous. every week. i'm proud of what we've accomplished and what we're accomplishing.

to add to all the stress at work, we've been heavily (since the beginning of the year) looking for a house. my wife and i are tired of all the rent / apartment hassles, and are looking to purchase a house in the bay area. to start with, it's a crazy idea that we're going to be spending almost a half million dollars on a house. that's just crazy to think about from someone who's never really looked at the prices of houses. to make things harder, the housing market in san jose is... interesting. most of the older houses are "nice" but really small, when you look at the raw bedrooms/bath size that we're looking for. the rooms all seem like kids rooms, and everything seems... cramped.

so we've changed our search criteria to newer construction, but all of those are "short sale" and have all kinds of loops to jump through to even look at them, much less bid on them. the family is being really helpful (my mother-in-law, and aunt-in-law are both realtors), but it's still a stressful situation. we've missed out on two great houses so far, just because we were too slow in submitting the offers.

ugh.

about a two months ago, when the rain started to let up, and the sun started to come out on a regular basis, all the pressure, and tiredness hit me, and i felt like i needed a reset. luckily, the motorcycle was waiting, and the open road was there to rejuvinate me.



then i got sick, with one of those annoying colds were you feel sick for a few days, and then you are coughing up your lungs for two weeks. it sucked. the worst part is that it was getting nicer and nicer out every day, and i couldn't function. i'm here trying to get better, get happier, reset things in my life and i come down with some stupid cold that would not go away!

at some point, i just said fcuk it, and threw the big ass SLR & some cough drops into the tank bag, and went riding anyways. i was already out of work for the day, the sun was snining, and it had snowed waaaay up in the hills, so i set out to see if i could get some pictures of it.

instead of re-writing the whole day, i'll direct you to the ride report over on pashnit.com - Mt. Hamilton Recharge Ride. it was a fun little trip, and i paid for it when i got home, coughing the rest of the day.

that night, i find out that i've got the following weekend entirely free, my wife was going to be out of town with friends. no responsibilities other than feeding the cats, and attend a birthday cookout on saturday. all i could think of... a whole weekend to ride, and that's what i did.

saturday morning, i set out for SanFrancisco with a basic plan of checking out the marin headlands north of the Golden Gate Bridge. zoom zoom i went on the freeway north from san jose, or "slab"-ing it as us bikers like to say. (hehe. i can say "us bikers" now.)



once i got over the bridge, i headed up to the typical tourist vistas, took some typical touristy shots. i just recently discovered autostitch so i was shooting panoramics with that software in mind. i know they suck this small... i'll link them eventually to bigger versions. i also kinda like them in the un-cropped format, and you don't, too bad.







i spent most of the morning on the marin headlands taking photos, exporing the goaty roads up there. i ended up taking lots of photos, and i'll eventually link to a ride report on pashnit.com with all the photos and details of the ride.

once i was about an hour out from when the party was supposed to start, i started to head back to san jose. the traffic heading back through sanfran was insane, lane splitting was the only option; i ended up splitting side by side with someone on a green KLR 650 for at least 10 lights. before i even got out of the city i was tired of the traffic. i ended up bailing off of the highway on the way home, cruising the santa cruz hills along skyline drive, showing up to the party over an hour late.



sunday was more of the same, riding up in the santa cruz hills for the entire day with my good friend ray. we tried out a bunch of new roads we'd never been on, re-experienced some of our faves, and generally had a really good time. we even stopped at one point to take a bunch of action shots.



by the end of the weekend, i had put over 500 miles on the bike, almost entirely on twisty back roads. epic.




...

the weekend proved again how much the motorcycle has changed things for me. i feel such freedom, such calm while being out on the road. any anger, any stress, any drama is gone. i just cruise along, rocking out, and just enjoying myself.

the moto is my zen.

Labels: adv, house, moto, photo, work