A little ride this afternoon

Saturday. I didn't really want to get up at 7am, but my suddenly overactive mind wouldn't let me go back to sleep. After fighting it for an hour I finally gave up and crawled out of bed. The first thing I did (after feeding the cats) was a short 30-minute high intensity workout to try and raise my anaerobic threshold. I'm in pretty poor shape for racing, but I'm just going to go out and have fun. I'm always competitive once I'm racing, but I've never been upset if I don't place well once it's all over. It's just not something I want to stress over. After the workout it was time to eat some breakfast and work on getting my mountain bike ready for the cyclocross race. That included putting a 'cross tire on the spare rear wheel, and initially on the spare front wheel. I'd wanted to use the front wheel I bought from Mike Scardaville since it's so much lighter, but after removing the disc brake from the front of the bike and getting all set up to install the old v-brake from the old Trek Fuel, I realized I didn't have any brake posts for the fork. Sigh. After searching for brake posts for 30 minutes, back on goes the disc brake, and the new 'cross tire on the normal front wheel for this bike. I should just spring for the IRO Cycles Rob Roy singlespeed cyclocross frame this month. It's only like 279 bucks.

I finally finished working on the bike at about 1:30 in the afternoon. I took a huge load of recyclables to the county dump, went to the Common Market in Frederick to pick up some groceries (organic, naturally), then headed over to Bill and Kim's. Kim and I talked for a while, then decided to go for a short motorcycle ride (Bill was on his own tortuous ride somewhere near Charleston, WV at the time, on his way to Kansas City, MO. Crazy place to ride to on a motorcycle if you ask me). We didn't get rolling out of the driveway until about 5pm, so it was definitely going to be short. I asked Kim to take the lead, since she was the native and knew the roads around there well, and she did so readily, setting a very nice pace. Not slow (never that), but safe and definitely within reason -- a very happy pace for me. Within the first minutes of the ride I knew that's where I needed to be right then, sitting on that bike I've so quickly become comfortable with, the power at my command, sense of being in control of my life in that little space of time, my mind by need present and focused. It was amazing the sense of being unburdened of worries and stresses I immediately felt. Over the next hour and 40 minutes and 60 miles of following Kim around the back roads northeast of Frederick that wonderful feeling persisted. The weather was a perfect 68 degrees with clear skies and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire ride. Why had I almost completely stopped riding motorcycles the last two years? It's clearly beneficial to my mental state. Maybe I had just been stuck with a motorcycle that wasn't right for me, as this VFR so clearly is. Hindsight.

After a mediocre dinner at Famous Dave's that took much too long, with help from Kim I got the new Givi luggage rack installed in under an hour. It was a whole lot easier than installing a Givi Wingrack (that's a pain in the ass). The new rack isn't too bad looking minus the bags, unlike the Wingrack. With the bags the bike is, well, wide. I can live with it for now (forever?). Maybe some day I'll get the factory bags, which I think fit tighter to the bike and don't stick out so far. I'll have to take a picture later. For now, there's this one.

New Bike

I got a new bike a couple of weeks ago. No, it's not a bicycle. It's a replacement for the motorcycle (Suzuki Bandit 1200S) I sold to my friends Bill and Kim. The Bandit, though fun to ride in many circumstances owing to it's awesome low and mid-range torque, just never really inspired me. And it showed in how much I'd ridden it in the last two years. Since buying the Bandit in early 2004 I'd put just a little over 11,000 miles on it. Something was missing. The desire to ride I'd had in the early years when I had my first VFR800, that yellow beauty, had faded since it's demise and the subsequent purchase of the Bandit. I'd been considering letting the Bandit go and giving up riding motorcycles altogether, since I'd been spending most of my free time riding bicycles anyway, and Bill said they were considering buying the Bandit from me to have as a spare and commuting bike. He had been sending me ads for VFR's for at least a year, since he knew I really wanted another one if I wanted anything -- and his perseverance finally paid off, for I got a sudden and powerful hankering to buy one.

Hunting around, I found a silver 2003 in Alabama with 16K miles with all the after market additions I might want. Sargent seat, Helibars, factory bags. I was in negotiations with the owner for it, but Friday morning Bill sent me an ad he found on Craigslist for a silver 2003, with only 836 miles! And it was a 100 bucks less than the one in Alabama. And it was in Gaithersburg, which is a hell of a lot closer. I emailed the owner as quickly as I could and we made plans to meet up Saturday afternoon so I could look it over. The bike was so perfect it could have just come off of the showroom floor. I fell in love with it right away and took it home (well, to Bill and Kim's).

I picked it up from Bill and Kim's house Wednesday evening and rode it to work Thursday and Friday. That Saturday, a week after getting it, the three of us went on a leisurely 370 mile trip into West Virginia, taking a whole 10 hours. It was quite a bit more sedate than we would have gone in the past, I know. None of us were in a hurry, and I did most of the leading since I had a sorta plan about a route. And I'm just not so anxious to take the risks I would once have. I was immediately comfortable on the bike, just as I was on my first VFR. I was afraid the position would be too low and bother me too much, but that really didn't turn out to be the case. In fact, after switching to Bill's brother's 2000 VFR with Helibars for part of the day, I don't think I want to add them to mine. The stock position just feels right; comfortable enough, with a better feeling of control. I was hurting the last few hours to be sure, but still, being able to ride 10 hours on a bike after not riding for about a year... really says something positive about the stock setup.

The VFR definitely loses a lot to the Bandit in torque, but makes up for it in being easier to ride quickly, with quicker steering, much lighter feeling (though it's not really), and that awesome V4 sound that I love so much. One thing I hated though is that damn lean-surge at constant throttle. The VFR's have a fuel saving mode, that when the ECU detects constant throttle at certain RPM's (below 7k?) it leans out the fuel mixture, which for me causes quite a drop in horsepower, a problem unless you're riding on very level road. Inevitably the ECU would go into that lean mix mode, the HP would drop, I'd have to give it more throttle, the bike would surge when it came out of the lean mix mode, I'd have to get back off the throttle to maintain my speed, and then the cycle would repeat. Over and over, all day long. The only time I wasn't affected by it was when riding on the more exciting roads, where I was either on the throttle or brakes a lot more, or outside of that RPM range where the lean mix mode would kick in. A Power Commander is definitely on my list for immediate purchases, which will get rid of that problem.

I just really enjoy riding the VFR, and I'm looking forward to many future trips on it. With my best friends certainly, maybe alone sometimes. Riding it is somehow therapeutic. Riding my mountain bike is therapeutic too, but in a different way. Spending time on the motorcycle gives me a feeling of independence, of being in control of my own destiny, of responsibility for my life. I'm almost always calmer after getting off of it. Truly, if you want to ride and not crash, you really have to pay attention to the world around you. Staying alive is your highest priority, and it's your responsibility. You must be present when riding, or you won't be riding long. Perhaps it is being forced into the present for extended periods, giving my mind a break from all other stresses, that gives it it's therapeutic aspect. I'm glad the VFR is back in my life.