Stinger Trailer - All Dressed Up and Ready to Go....

June 3rd

The gods decided that today, despite all the planning, picking up the new folding Stinger trailer and replacing the brake rotor, my bike would stay at home and so would I. I can't do a review of the Stinger yet because I haven't taken the bike out on it but I have folded it up, unfolded it and hooked it up to my car, and it seems to be everything it is advertised to be.

Initially, not riding today seemed like just one of those things that you just take in stride - Karolyn got the word this morning that Metcalf was closed to people not participating in the MX competition - the parking lot would be full.

The real reason the gods had me stay home today was that I had to be near the phone when my sister called. After spending the weekend looking for a new home with her other half, she was driving home on unfamiliar roads, and hitting her ceiling of responsibility overload. I'm not sure but I think what put her over the edge was learning that her house had been showing all weekend with a dead bird in the middle of the living room floor . Her cats believe, as do mine, that sacrifices will bring the humans home. We talked quietly for over an hour until she was back in familiar territory - then she let me off duty.

A couple years ago, I exited a highway to avoid a big slow down and found myself in a town with oddly meandering streets. The more I tried to find my way to an on-ramp the further I seemed to get from the highway, my anxiety building with each mile. Finally, in a panic I called a friend who used an online mapping service to talk me back onto the highway.

Yes, there is a Garmin GPS in my future, but Santa will have to bring it.

* * *

The dirt bike will need to sit for a while, next weekend is the River City (Sacramento) track day at Thunderhill on the Beemer.

June 11
2007

[clean pictures will go here as soon as the CD arrives in the mail]

Just about five years ago, at the end of August, 2002, Dennis escorted me to Thunderhill for my first track day. I was riding a 2003 BMW 650 CS. During tech inspection I was told my chain was too tight which immediately made me worry, until I realized the guy was kidding me about the bike's belt drive. So much has changed since then, two years of track days, buying a 4-cylinder track bike (chain drive), trading the single-cylinder CS for triple cylinder Triumph Sprint ST (chain drive), losing that bike to a combination of my inexperience and the Nevada cricket hazard, and finding new life in a twin-cylinder R1200 GS (shaft drive). And I haven't forgotten the GS's little brother, the TT-R 125cc dirt bike. All in all, from my trips across the US and into Canada, and several years of commuting a 100-mile round trip several times a week, I've got about 40,000 miles in my two-wheeled history.

So why was my stomach in knots during breakfast at the Willows Best Western? I haven't been on a track in a few years and this bike is bigger than anything I've ever ridden on the track. This is my street bike, this is my ride home. If I blow it at the track, I have to find a way to get it home, and I might ruin Dennis' trip home in the process. And oh yeah, what will I ride to Alaska this summer? Fortunately just ticking off my concerns seemed to be right amount of acknowledgement they needed, and the worries subsided.

Somewhere on youtube, somebody has to have posted a video of a person getting into their leathers. Mine fit me like a glove several years ago, and, well, umm, does leather shrink? Not if left hanging in a dry closet? Too bad. I think of myself as generally competant but it seems that I need a lot of help getting in and out of motorcycle-related gear. Shimmy, grab the suit's rear and pull up, jump, squat, roll a shoulder one direction, roll it the other direction, roll back and forth a few more times, jump and shake a little more, and give up and go ask for help. Just imagine being short, in a tight track suit that is built to keep you in a tuck-position, and try swinging a leg over a tall bike - I nearly fell over before even getting on the bike.

Part of organizing a track day is being sensitive to the range of skills of the riders. Group A was for bonafide racers and self-certified aggressive riders, Group C was newbies (to the track), everyone who didn't fit in the other two categories was in Group B, which meant that Dennis and I were in the same group. Practically speaking that meant he was at the front of the group and I was at the back.

"Group A to the east side, Group B to the west side" - the track was open for us. Group C was in class. The age range in Group C ranged from three young women who appeared to be in their late twenties and early thirties, to some older gentlemen in their sixties, possibly early seventies. One fellow, or should I say, one bike in particular caught my eye. It takes a real open heart to put your Gold Wing on the track.

A rare appearance of a Honda Gold Wing at the track - kudos to the rider!

In the morning, River City Beemers divides the track into two half-tracks, creating some really technical (tight) turns in the process. If you know the full track, it is a little frustrating, but it works. In the afternoon, they put the A and B groups together on the full track and alternated us with the C group.

Getting back on the track I was surprised to find that my memory of it was not far from reality, and, that I hadn't gotten any better in the time I had been away. The same problems that I had when I last rode the track were still with me. One thing I had not expected to be with me was Lance Keigwin's voice - I heard his voice in my head all day - "keep good drive", "stay on the gas until the 1st brake marker", "late apex", "tight line", "if you're not on the gas, you should be using the brake, don't coast", "late apex, late apex".

The body memory retains so much more than the mind - turn 3 is an off-camber turn - my brain is thinking, "utt oh, didn't we have something figured out here?" while at the same time my core is tightening and my legs start pressing down on the pegs, enabling me to hold the bike at a steeper angle. In general the body took over and we just rode. After a few sessions Dennis looked at my tires and remarked that I was using them well. "Huh, what are you talking about?" My rear tire had a flat ribbon where a new tire would have a curve, and the edges of the tire are just the way they were when the tire popped out of the mold. "You're getting to the edge of your tires." "What? Are you kidding me?" But sure enough, my tires were scraped clean to the edge. Unbelievable. I was pushing myself and I was aware that I was leaning much harder than I do on the street, but I wasn't really thinking about the tires.

I didn't pay attention to speed or watch the rpms - I just listened. The bike has never revved so high in second or third gear - I've never pushed the bike this hard, and now I realize that I've barely scraped the surface of what this bike can do. Dennis was pinning the throttle down the straights; I wasn't that aggressive, but I was winding it up high enough to sail past several people. And that's when the testosterone kicked in. I delude myself that I'm not competitive, that I'm collaborative. Bullshit. Just give me one small challenge of passing someone and a little monster emerges that wants to pass more people. It is probably a good thing that I'm generally speaking a slower rider; I don't have the skill to stay out of trouble when I do get that competitive urge. Still, it was a nice adrenaline rush.

The very last ride was open track - that is, everyone rides together and anyone who wanted to be out there was welcome, but all the C group people's brains were fried, none of them stayed for the last ride. I was a little disappointed, I wanted to practice passing. Dennis offered to be my "rabbit", but, and this is terrible to admit, I was willing to pass someone who was really slow, but I wasn't willing to ask my ride-home-with-me buddy to put his bike at risk. So I rode my own ride, not comparing myself to anyone, just setting my own pace, my own entry and exit points, and when I completed one lap that met all my goals, I exited the track. Best to call it a day on a good note. All in all this was a perfect track day - good weather, no mechanical failures, no one fell off their bike. I learned that the GS is just an odd-looking race horse that is also great for touring.

At dinner as we headed home, Dennis and I, both people of color, commented that based on a massive sample size of two Beemer track day events it appears that BMW motorcycles do not seem to be the bike of choice for people of color in our age bracket and we wondered why. If BMW is looking for the perfect magazine to markert to their target demographic, I'd recommend the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) publication. Just think about the lobbying power that group could bring to legislative efforts to make the country safer for two and three-wheeled vehicles!

BMW Old School - Someday I might be able to keep up with him.

* * *

If it isn't already windy at Thunderhill by mid-morning the wind will pick up after lunch. People who don't tie down their shade canopies might see them cartwheeling across the pit lanes towards the track. I saw a canopy start to lift off, and took off to grab it before one of its legs left a calling card on blue LT (Luxury Touring) parked next to it.

The unmarred K1200 LT

Turns out the LT's owner had asked the canopy's owner (I'll call him Yamaha guy) to tie it down, but Yamaha guy had refused saying it wouldn't be a problem. Yamaha guy pulled up just as the LT's owner and Dennis and I were raiding his truck for tie-downs. I was expecting a curt, "that's okay, it's my canopy, I'll tie down, let my stuff alone". And that would have been okay. But no. Yamaha guy sat on his bike and watched us tie down the canopy. He didn't say a word.

I've been thinking about this and I've finally decided that although Yamaha guy lacked social grace, he probably really didn't know that not tying down his canopy was a federal offense. In retrospect, this could have been his first track day, ever. It is possible he had never tied down a canopy - his tie-downs weren't the right length, we had to jury-rig something to make it work, and, he didn't have four heavy things in his pit area to serve as tie-down points. His truck was parked next to the canopy; he wasn't using the tail gate as a workbench. Initially I thought he was just a jerk, but I'm wondering now if he wasn't just completely caught off guard, and too embarrassed by his obvious ignorance to say anything. I won't call him stupid this time, foolish for not acting on the LT rider's request, yes.

* * *

This posting is a work in progress, just to put something up while I'm waiting for the photos to arrive - I didn't want to hang around the track and wait for the folks to burn the CDs - with three more hours of riding to get home I figured the sooner we were on our way after our last lap around the track, the better. If you are on my mailing list (click Lurking on the left (navigation) pane to get on the list) you'll get an update when the clean version of the photos get posted, and, I'll have edited it some more.

June 18

Stinger Trailer - Thumbs up for this Single Rail Trailer!

When I arrived at Metcalf the residual fog was sitting at the trail head but promptly at 8 am when the trails are officially open, the fog gathered itself together and dissapated. Charles had put out the word that he would be there if anyone wanted to join him which made me very happy - I'm not ready to go to Metcalf by myself even though the trailer has made me indepent. I didn't expect him to ride with me, but I knew that he would keep an eye on me.

After spending last weeking on a road-racing track, all my road riding senses were poised and ready to go, but they weren't the right senses. Sticky contact is what you want on tarmac, on the dirt, the front tire floats over the dirt. Someday that will feel okay to me but right now it freaks me out. I'm at such an embryonic stage of dirt-riding that not riding in dirt for two weeks is like leaving spinach in refrigerator too long, what's left is only good for the compost pile. Today I pretty much had to start from scratch. After several much-needed trips around the novice oval, I followed Charles to Track 2 where I stayed, trying to re-acquaint myself with this bike and the dirt. I would see him every now and then from other tracks that ran parallel to Track 2 for a brief period of time. At one point when I was taking a break he stopped and asked why I had been walking the bike. "I fell down". "Oh, good!" Something tells me that his kid, Saul, is not going to grow up with glass ass.

My new pants have their first hole, and my right ankle has a nice bruise on it where I got stuck under the bike momentarily. Karolyn's comment a while back about being prepared to push the bike off you stayed with me. Dirt bike bruises are quite different from Aikido bruises - they don't look like thumb or hand prints, they look like a part of my body got whacked with a piece of metal. Those Asterisk knee braces were a really good investment.

There's not much to say about riding today other than I had better find a way to get out there once a week if I expect to make any progress this Summer.

The real story today is that the Stinger trailer is a huge success.

I can fold it and unfold it without too much trouble, hooking it up to the Hidden Hitch™ is easy.

Loading the dirt bike on the single rail is a breeze. There's a kickstand support so that the bike can support itself while I get the front two tie-downs hooked up. Once the front is tied down, the kickstand support goes in the car's trunk along with the trailer's spare tire. Once the rear tie-downs are in place, the only thing to do is verify that the turn signals work and off you go.

The owner/manufacture of the Stinger Trailure built it so that I can use it for either the Beemer or the dirt bike. It was my mistake to not request the larger tires - he couldn't just swap them in because he didn't have rims to fit in his inventory. And, the trailer has rather low clearance but that's just more incentive to keep my speed down to the legal maximum for pulling a trailer - 55 snail-crawling miles per hour.

CalMoto has a dirt clinic next week in Hollister, so I'll finally get out there. The clinic is for big bikes, like my GS and the big KTMs, but I'm bringing the TTR with the sponsor's blessing. It will be very interesting to see how people pick up a toppled R1200GS. Oh yeah, I'm having a crash guard installed on my bike in preparation for the Alaska trip.

Hopefully this will be a sufficient sacrifice to the chaos gods to keep me from falling over, and if not, at least the cylinder heads will be protected.

Sunday morning I was one of many people who nervously awaited the start of the "dirt clinic", an event co-sponsored by CalMoto and Harry Wong, a local chiropractor / motorcycle skills promoter. About 30 people showed up at the Hollister Hills State Vehicular Recreation Area in Hollister, CA. There were about six experienced riders who later served as group leaders on the trail ride, the rest of us were very, very concerned about putting BMW 1100 - 1200 cc bikes on a dirt track. As one guy put it, "I wrote an awfully large check for this bike, I don't relish having to write another one ...". I felt like a gnat among giants because I brought the TTR - setting pride aside, there was just no way I was going to put my GS out there. Maybe someday I'll have the 650 Dakar, or maybe the new 450 X, but the 1200 is ridiculously big for me especially considering this is my fourth time in the dirt - I'm still a twitchy nervous bunny on a buck and a quarter's worth of cubic centimeters.

Some people rode their bikes to Hollister which meant that in addition to removing their mirrors, turn signals and windshields, they also had to bleed their tire pressure down 2/3rds of "normal" (your mileage may vary).

There were a two notable non-BMW bikes in the group, a Honda 150 ridden by the wife of one Beemer riders, and my Yamaha. Yes, we were the only women in the group. (sigh)

The clinic was divided into a morning and afternoon session. In the morning we did drills. Lunch restored some energy to support determination; we split into groups and rode the green (beginner) trails. So, drills - here they are, in order. We rode on the "TT" track, a nearly flat irregular U-shaped loop.

1. "Attack" position. Leaning forward, elbows up, we rode around the track slowly in a seated position, getting used to this position that no self-respecting sport bike rider would ever assume.

2. Turning by leaning the bike, not "steering" with the handlebar.

3. Turning by shifting bodyweight. Hanging onto the bike with our legs, hands resting lightly on the grips, shifting bodyweight to turn the bike.

4. Standing on the pegs, mid-sole of the boot on the peg.

5. Standing on the pegs - use of torso, keeping our body's center of gravity over the pegs, allowing the torso to move up and down over the bumps on the track - kind of like how a lizard uses parallax to determine distance.

6. Standing on the pegs as a control technique. Instead of pulling the body back when the bike is going over bumpy stuff, stand up on the pegs - an extremely counter-intuitive movement.

7. Balancing on the bike. This exercise just about killed all of us. The point wasn't to get balanced, but to work the body to find a moment of balance. We were to pull the front wheel as far to the right as possible, and hold the front brake. Then we were to step up on the pegs and find balance. The guy in front of me muttered to himself, "this is where I'm going to fall over".

Since the TT track gate was closed off to other dirt bikes, we were attracting a crowd of curious folks. First, it is unusual to see big bikes out on these trails. Second, I'll bet this exercise isn't one you'll find in books. For 10 minutes, we obligingly placed one foot on a peg, stood up and tried valiantly to pull the other foot onto the opposite peg before the bike tipped over. We were all hopping on and off, rather irregularly, frying our proprioceptive neural networks to a crisp.

8. After a rest, we tried steering the bikes around the track using the classic dirt bike arm position, going around the turn the inside arm is straight, the outside arm is bent, elbow up. Essentially you are pushing the bike down - instead of leaning it down as you would a sport bike (relying on sticky tires on a solid surface for traction) - so that you can go around the turn faster than if you kept the bike perpendicular to the ground.

9. Rear-wheel slides. We accelerated, then pressed the rear brake enough to get the bike to slide. This was a four-part exercise: a) slide in a straight line b) slide to the right c) slide to the left d) slide straight-left-right-left. To accomplish the slide to the right, e.g., around a left turn, you were to weight the inside peg and, shift your weight to the outside - also counter-intuitive for a sportbike rider.

10. Front-wheel slides. We were to accelerate, then gently squeeze the front brake until it caught. We were cautioned about grabbing, and encouraged to squeeze *gently* to avoid looping the bike. Looping the bike is when the front end stops, because you are squeezing the brake, but there's more momentum than traction, so first the bike sends you flying over the handbars (getting rid of the main problem), then the rear end flies over the front end, and the bike falls over, fully stopped, just like you told it to do. Lots of tentative front brake work on this exercise. Only a few people tried the advanced technique of a front wheel slide in a straight line.

11. Acceleration practice - inclining the body forward with acceleration, leaning back with deceleration, that is, intentional body movement, not reactive body movement.

12. Wheelies. Okay, you gotta appreciate the trust that this took for people to try this. The point was to lighten the front wheel in anticipation of going over an obstacle, or reducing the impact of the front wheel on undulating ground, also known as "whoops". I was pretty cooked by this point, and was completely in awe of the guys who went out there and tried, within their best judgment, to wheelie their GS bikes. The woman on the Honda decided at the last minute to try it, and came around the bend with a squeal of delight, having succeeded in wheelie-ing her 150cc. "You should go try it!" she enthused, jumping up and down like a little kid.

13. Turning, in a standing position - building on previous exercises. a) by pushing on the inside peg and pushing with the outside knee b) leaning the bike into the turn, pushing with the arms, inside arm straight, outside arm bent and raised.

Phew. Done. And not a moment too soon.

We left the TT track and headed back to the staging area all thinking the same thing - "lunch" and "thank god I didn't drop my bike". Well, a few of us did, but nothing major, just tip-overs in soft dirt, no body work damage. I wasn't alone wondering, "do I have either enough energy left to ride some trails, or, enough determination to just go try anyway?" Curiosity or pride won everyone over.

We had previously determined who was going to ride in what group. I stayed with Kari, I figured I've bought three bikes from his dealership, he's not going to let anything happen to me, I've got a few more purchases left in me and he knows it. The trails we were going to ride increased in length and level of challenge, but were all "green" trails. The first one was okay for me, but I was tiring.

On the second trail I honestly thought I was going to get tossed right into the bushes we had been advised to avoid because the foliage is mostly poison oak. Maybe a softer landing but not worth it in the long run, better to land in the dirt. But somehow I stayed upright. And so did everyone in my group - and they were on the big heavy bikes. At the end of the second trail Kari stopped his bike more quickly than I could stop mine. Fortunately I just clipped him as I came to an embarrassed stop a few yards ahead. Okay, the third trail, a longer ride around the park, would have to wait for another time.

At one point a rider who was not part of this dirt clinic recognized Harry Wong and called out to him, "hey, I just want you to know that my daughter took one of your classes a couple weeks ago, and now I can't keep up with her." Thinking back on the controlled nerves I saw on people's faces in the morning, to the satisfaction (and relief) in the afternoon, the drills worked - in four hours our bodies learned just enough about how to work with these heavy machines that we were able to ride trails that most of us would probably have avoided a day ago. Of course, we'll all need to keep practicing, and a little knowledge is dangerous, but heck, it's a beginning.

One unanticipated treat was meeting Ricardo Kuhn, the industrial designer who has built a cargo carrier on the back of his BMW GS. If you live in Berkeley, you know this man's motorcycle. And, for the record, while not as stylish as Ricardo's, Kari's demonstrations of body position and wheel-sliding techniques were textbook perfect. I would be very happy if in a few years I could ride one tenth as well as either of them.

My brain was numb by the time I got home, but I get into snits about finishing stuff, so the bike got unloaded, the trailer got folded and put away, the bike got washed, the chain cleaned, my stinky dusty clothes found their way to the washing machine, and somehow a cold beer found its way to my mouth before I fell asleep.