Backyard treasures

You know how you live somewhere but never go see all the cool stuff right in your own back yard?

Yeah.  Snoqualmie Falls.  Driven by the sign on Interstate 90 at least a thousand times.  No idea how far off the freeway it is, no idea how long it will take to get there, no idea whether it's worth seeing; plus I'm on the way to somewhere and don't have time to diddle around.

Today, riding west on Route 202, there it is.  Right there. The parking lot and a one minute walk.  So I saw Snoqualmie Falls.

Pretty impressive, actually.

Musings

Enchiladas in the oven. Green sauce, chicken enchiladas. My favorite. 12 more minutes so figured I'd quickly get down some stuff from the past couple weeks. 

Listening to Train's latest, California 37 , in my classroom. Student observes that this is the first time he's heard me playing anything later than 2000. I tactfully don't tell him that Train had their first hit (Meet Virginia) in 1998 when he was one year old. (I am know for my tact throughout my extended family. In fact, if they forget my name they just say "the tactful one" and everyone knows they mean me). Thinking about his comment, however, I realize that I don't buy nearly as much music as I used to. I have about 14,000 songs on my ipod so I guess I just don't feel the need to get more at the same rate. (Or maybe today's music is crap and I don't get how these young kids can listen to this noise). Just kidding, of course. Lot's of good stuff out there.

Speaking of good stuff, here's some that isn't so much. Listened to some music by Alexisonfire the other day. Great name, but good grief. The lead singer (and I use the word loosely) mostly just screams. The one song I heard was interesting (which is why I went looking for more), but then when I went to listen to the more it got old reeaal fast. Oh well, to each their own.

Jonesing to get out of town about now. Three weeks left in school, fifteen days to go. I really want to be somewhere else right now. Been to Portland twice in the last couple months on the bike, once in the pouring rain, once in the bright sunshine, plus went camping in Wenatchee last weekend.

Oh yeah, Wenatchee camping. Rained most of the way there, howling gales while we were there, rained part of the way back, had a great time. Good company, tons of excellent food, good riding (if you remember that I missed most of last summer and it's been a cold winter that makes more sense). It was some of the folks from OCDO, a campout that has become an annual event. My first but will definitely return. Rode Highway 2 over Stephen's Pass and what a nice ride, even in the rain. Waterfalls, fog, trees, vistas, then dropping down into Leavenworth by the river which is scenic enough to be dangerously distracting. Saturday took off for a little ride up through Chelan on the west side of the Columbia, crossed over north of Chelan and came back down the east side (a side I've ridden more than once as that becomes Highway 2 down towards Wenatchee). It was tempting to turn left and head east across country but I am responsible (and all my camping gear was back in Wenatchee).

Picked up some nice new items for motorcycle camping. I think I'll make that its own blog post.

Well, enchiladas are ready and I have to do some grading so I'll hit the camping gear highlights tomorrow.

Fast cornering on your motorcycle: a self help guide

So perhaps you are a new rider. Perhaps you have been riding for years but never really thought about going a little faster. Perhaps you have just forgotten. Here are a couple tips for getting through those twisties a little quicker.

First of all, we all know you have to lean your motorcycle. That's just the way it works. We have all experienced, however, that moment when you are halfway through a curve and suddenly realize that leaning isn't enough. That brief panic when you think you are leaned as far as those guys on the Racing Channel, but your bike is slowly drifting towards the oncoming traffic. What do you do now?

Lean more. No seriously. Try this on a gentle curve on a smooth road with little traffic. Lean your bike to go through the curve, then lean your body just a little more than the bike. What just happened? You lowered the center of gravity of the bike by moving your body in the direction of the turn. At first it feels weird but pretty quickly you discover that if you lean your body more, you can actually lean the bike less for the same turn at the same speed. You are now keeping your tires closer to the center patch and improving your handling and stability. (PS If you really want to go through fast, shift your butt off the seat until it is hanging in the air, racing style. That really lowers your CoG. Looks a bit strange on a street bike though.)

So. I promised you a couple and here is tip two of two. Tip your head in the opposite direction of the lean. That's it. Seems simple, doesn't it? So why does that help? Well, if you are leaned into a hard corner and you have followed tip one, your body might be over at a 25 or 30 degree angle. The world, it turns out, looks weird from that angle. Tip your head back until it is straight up and down, and all of a sudden your brain doesn't have to process a tilted world. Bam. Reactions are quicker, you corner better, ...

Finally, a bonus, not included in the "couple" tip. Look in the direction of the turn. No seriously. Look way the heck over in the direction of the turn. If you are on one of those crazy 180º bends, you should be looking at the road that is going in the other direction. (OK, that might be a slight exaggeration.) Try this. Go find a decent isolated road that has a few sharpish bends. Try going around them a couple times the way you normally do, which generally is that you are looking at the road about thirty feet in front of you. Then go through again and look all the way across the curve. Look at where you are going to be when you are most of the way around the curve. What happened? Chances are when you turned your head sharply in the direction of the corner, you suddenly shot across into the oncoming lane because your turn radius suddenly decreased dramatically. (I did tell you to do this on an isolated road, remember.) Turns out that you generally go in the direction you are looking. Look straight ahead, you will pretty much go straight ahead. Look across the curve and you will go through that curve much faster.

You'll want to play around and practice all three of these but I find that I generally rocket through curves dramatically faster than the guys I ride with who haven't quite got this all down.