Redwood Highway & Skyline (East Bay)

I haven't been out riding for a long time - it has been months and man, does the lack of practice show. Spent the morning riding twisties in the East Bay (the Oakland side of the San Francisco Bay) with my friend Dennis and his friend Jean. Here's the route on Open Road Journey. The fog hadn't lifted by the time we reached the intersection of Skyline and Grizzly Peak Road. Had we waited another two hours we might have been able to see the panoramic views from Gizzly Peak Road. The lovely twisites on Redwood Highway and Skyline were plenty good for me - thank goodness the body doesn't forget how to move while the brain is trying to think. The added benefit of riding twisties is listening to the engine's song as you glide through the curves - the baritone of my twin brings such comfort to my heart. When you say "Skyline", most people think of Highway 35 on the west side of the bay. The east side of the bay has great twisty roads with much less traffic (bicycles, cars, other bikers), but perhaps I shouldn't be letting that secret out.

Bajaj Motorcycle Transformer TV Commercial

Thanks to Mike Werner of Motorbiker.org for this gem. Transformers and motorbikes - what more do you need?


Bajaj produces the most creative commercials for motorcycles - my only grouse is that the riders are all male, women are adornments riding pillion. It took BMW a while to figure out that they were ignoring a market segment, but they did eventually start listening. Clearly Bajaj are clever and not constrained by tradition, so I'm interested to see how long will it take themto figure a way around the cultural barriers.

I've allowed work to cut into my ride time. I've become a ride-to-and-from work schlump. Hope to have more next month.

Movie Review - One Crazy Ride by Gaurav Jani

Gaurav Jani's DVD, One Crazy Ride, finally arrived in the mail. Gaurav and his friends set out to find a way to the Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh, situated in North-east India. They could have taken the "real roads" through Assam, but being true adventurers, they chose to stay north of Assam and find the uncharted routes.

Like Alan Karl, WorldRider, and Glen Hegstaad - Striking Viking, Gaurav travels to remote places in spite of, or maybe precisely because he's been told that the people are hostile and the land is dangerous. Over and over we learn from other world travelers that our humanity binds us together - we aren't all that different from one another no matter what our government or religious leaders tell us.

Whether you are an off-road rider, an off-road wannabe or an off-road voyeur, Gaurav ensures that you get your fill of challenging conditions, slick mud, stream crossings, rock fields, deeply rutted paths, and a suspended bridge.

This film is different from the likes of "Long Way Round" - Gaurav is doing his own filming. Think about what it would take to film yourself riding the switchbacks up the side of a mountain. You would have to position the camera, turn it on, ride down to the point where you want to start filming, ride past the camera to the next point, turn around, retrieve the camera, turn it off, ride to the next filming point, position the camera, turn it on, ride back to your starting point, ... you get the picture. Now think about what it would take to film yourself traversing a stream - yep, you would have to cross that stream three times to get the shot and continue on your way.

Gaurav refers to himself as "an unemployed film maker" and we have to believe him because he doesn't appear to have the financial resources to acquire what we here in the West would consider necessities for the rides he does. He's riding a Royal Enfield that doesn't have off-road suspension or dual-sport tires. One Crazy Ride shows what determination and just a touch of crazy obsession can accomplish with a minimum of high-tech. After watching this film I'm more than a little embarrassed that I use my GS to do grocery shopping.

Did I mention that the photography is gorgeous? Shots of the clouds from *above* the clouds, landscape shots of the Himalayas, delightful cameos of the village folk that he and his friends meet along the way. Gaurav is a remarkable man who draws deep from within himself and is able to share his vision with the rest of us. The sequence of him riding across the suspended bridge will remain in my mind forever as a metaphor for living life to the fullest.

Dirt track Productions: One Crazy Ride (2009) and Riding Solo to the Top of the World (2006)

Lurking at Rawhyde Offroad

My better half, Peter, is taking the intro course at Rawhyde Offroad this weekend. I'm watching from a discrete distance, no one wants their spouse in their peripheral vision when negotiating a tight turn in the mud on an unfamiliar bike. He's riding one of the new 800 GS bikes that Rawhyde has for rent as part of their GS fleet. I imagine that going from a Honda VFR sport touring bike to a GS is like going from a horse to a camel, or an Audi S6 to a Toyota Land Cruiser. He is doing a good job of keeping the consternation off his face, but there's evidence of cognitive thrash as he tries to assimilate a new skill set into muscle memory.

I'm happy to just be around a bunch of motorcycles. The sound of the engines and the smell of the exhaust makes me smile. I am missing my bike very much. My health situation deteriorated to the point that my balance felt off so I stopped riding in January. It's been about four weeks and I'm going crazy.

The good news is that after a year of working with my nurse practitioner, Patricia Baldwin, she thinks she has found the root cause of my malaise. The first layer of problems was caused by food allergies. I'm gluten, soy and cow's milk free now, no more heart muscle inflammation. The second layer was getting me past my denial that I needed endocrine support. Two years of peri and post menopause related lack of sleep left me nearly psychotic. I've joined the legions of post-menopausal women who take progesterone supplements and slap an estrogen patch on their back side twice a week. Eight hours of sleep a night is a wonderful thing. Trouble is, after nearly a year on endocrine and neurotransmitter support, I wasn't better, according to follow up tests, I was worse. After reviewing test results she told me, "you have a leak in your system and we have to find it." Her hypothesis was, "there's something in your gut, a bacteria or a parasite." So one more test, a fecal test.

I was sure that my old friend, paratyphoid salmonella strain B, which I contracted in Burma (it was "Burma" in 1978, it is Myanmar now) had re-emerged. The infectious disease doctors at Lennox Hill hospital in New York told me I might never be entirely free of the bug even after they slammed it with chloramphenical. They were right, a year later I relapsed and went back into the hospital for another few days of IV drip. That was thirty years ago. My money was on "Typhoid B".

It is a good thing I didn't put real money on the table because my unwanted guest is a parasite called blastocystis hominis. I'm on a 10-day protocol of an anti-parasitic drug, which will kill everything (bad and good), plus probiotics to restore the good flora in my gut. The placebo effect is amazing, just knowing that we found a "culprit" has improved my mental state immensely. I'll have a lot of work to do to get back into good physical condition but I am so looking forward to that! I've been playing with Dixie, the Labrador mix here at Rawhyde - I get winded in a few minutes of chasing, ball tossing and stick throwing. I'm no condition to ride a motorcycle right now. Thirty years ago when I was released from Lennox Hill, my father took it upon himself to put me on the road to health. For two weeks, every morning he took me running with him. The first day I couldn't go more than 100 yards. He finished running his mile, I walked back home breathing hard. Two weeks later I finished the mile with him.

In three months Rawhyde will run a women-only class (May 30 - June 1). I want to be here to take the class, and finish it this time. Rawhyde has a base camp in the Mojave desert close to Peter's beloved Death Valley - I'm hoping we will be out there this summer.

Last night at dinner Peter was telling people that for our long range plan of riding the Silk Road tour, he'll be riding my 1200 GS. I've been looking at the new 2009 650 GS twins with lust. Just a few moments ago I heard the rider coaches cheering him for succeeding in negotiating the series of tight turns in the mud on the GS that he is beginning to like.

Harley Gymnast

Back in the 1970's I was on my high school gymnastics team. We had more tradtional equipment than what some high schools have resorted to using (see video). Really, we need to support our schools! [Thank you, Mike Werner of MotorBiker.org]



Here in Northern California we are getting drenched with rain and slapped with wet leaves.

Reactions to getting cut off

Saturday, late in the morning, yoga mat rolled up and slung over my shoulder, cruising down a neighborhood street. On my right a dark blue slate colored BMW sedan pulls to the edge the street from condominium common driveway. The driver looks me right in the eye, or so I thought. Given my speed, he should have waited until I passed, but he didn't. He took full advantage of his engine's power and cut right in front of me. A little ABS braking and no harm done. My left hand lifts off the handlebar and I wonder it is going to do. Holding my hand in front of me so that he can see it in his rear view mirror, I wag my forefinger back and forth a few times, "not good, fella, not a good move".

We are approaching the intersection. If he's a local guy he knows that this traffic light is not generous, it is likely that he and I will be side by side for a while. He doesn't know I'm going to turn right. His left turn signal starts flashing and he moves over not one but two lanes. He's in the left turn lane now, safe from my withering gaze thanks to a minivan that has arrived innocently to this heated swirl of intentions and annoyance.

A few years back when I was commuting regularly on the highway, a cop pulled up next to me and wagged his finger at me. My visor fogged from the humiliation I felt in response to that gesture. I was speeding, not much, but I was at the edge of highway cop tolerance. Adults wag their finger at children to convey shame, "you are old enough to know that you shouldn't be doing that". Finger-wagging strikes me as richer that just leaning on the horn.

I will never know if Mr. BMW sedan driver actually intended to turn left or not. When he checked over his left shoulder for oncoming traffic he does not appear to have seen my motorcycle. Or maybe he misjudged my approaching speed. Unfortunately, that's typical. Getting cut off is something that riders have to anticipate. There's a surge of emotion, first surprise, "are you crazy?", followed by a conscious effort to focus and avoid a collision ("thank heaven for ABS"), followed by a flash of anger ("you idiot") that dissipates to annoyance, followed by an indulgence in finger-wagging, followed by wondering if I have cut off anyone recently, and finally a miffed acknowledgment that it is time to take a safety class and practice swerving.

[Feb 3rd update: This response came in from Jim Thurber: "... After riding bicycles for these last few years when somebody cuts me off I do one of several things:
a) If I can catch their eye I wave, a big friendly wave along with a huge smile.
b) If they cut me off so closely that they're right NEXT to me, I tap (gently) on the side of the van. Women seem to ignore it. Men frequently SLAM on their brakes, sometime actually stopping. "Gee Sir, I'm sorry," I'll say. "But you ran into me. I was able to jump out of the way though, so your car is OK."
c) If they cut me off and park, I'll pull up and approach them, holding out a dollar and "thanking them" for not killing me. I usually assume a foreign accent and explain that "In my country it is considered important to tip somebody for not killing you . . . . ." I've had people go absolutely berserk when I do this . . . but hey, it's fun."]

Small Victories

My Wednesday afternoon calendar has a standing meeting. If you are familiar with Outlook, the tyrant of email agents, then you know that all calendar entries have a title, a location and time. The title of this standing meeting is "Blocked for yoga", the location is "start winding down", the time is 5pm. Only I can see the meeting content; my colleagues just see that my time is booked. The class starts at 5:45, but I need to block my calendar so that I won't get sideswiped by a phone call or impromptu meeting request. Why all the fuss? Because if I blockade my schedule, I have enough time to detach mentally (calm down) just enough to walk away from my computer, change into yoga clothes, put my leathers on top, remember to sling my yoga mat over my shoulder *before* I put my helmet on, and get on the road without feeling rushed.

There's a scary moment while I'm leaving the streets of my immediate neighborhood, will I remember something that I left undone that will blow up while I'm in class? If I can just make the right turn on to the main street, I home free, I'm safely on my way. The sigh of relief that emerges as I click through the gears is just one of the manifestations of the small victory of escaping from work. I roll my shoulders back as I wait at the light. The helmet adds a lovely weight to my neck stretch as I tilt my right ear to my right shoulder, then left ear to left shoulder. Another sigh of relief. The cold air passes over my eyelids. I breathe in deeply, the smell of the warm engine lifts into my nostrils. I exhale as slowly as I can. I've been sitting most of the day at my desk, and I'm sitting now on the bike, but this is riding, not sitting, and there is a world of difference.