Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
I took a long ride today, to commemorate the nice weather (see the motorcycle journal for that). On the way back home, I took a route through Woodinville, where I spent my formative years.
Coming down 522, I spied a sign that said "Paradise Lake Road," and got in the left turn lane. Ah, Paradise Lake Rd. It was a road of legend in highschool, some sort of mystical automotive rite of passage, at least for kids of a certain bent. There was a persistent rumor that a student from our school had killed himself on that road "a few years ago." You proved how cool you were by citing the speed at which you traversed Paradise Lake Road (well, I didn't, but I was a Nerd or something, so I didn't count). I had a friend years later describe his own "mishap" on the road, where he got his car stuck in a ditch. It's not as daring as you think -- he misjudged where a driveway was in the dark, and dropped a wheel off the driveway into the ditch.
As I neared the end of the road, and turned onto Woodinville-Duvall Road, I found myself thinking about all the girls I'd had a crush on in junior high and highschool. For a variety of reasons, I knew where a few of them lived (think after school events and group homework projects), and ticked off directions to their houses as I passed by on my ride, feeling split between the present and the future.
As I neared my old house (or at least the turnoff to head to it), I saw the location which will forever be known as "the White Stallion" to me. It's just a little tiny strip mall at this point, but once there was a huge cheezy white horse statue (made of god knows what, plaster probably) there, and a moderately expensive (so I supposed) restaurant which bore the name. My parents always used it as a landmark when giving directions. For some reason, that's the intersection I always picture when I'm thinking about cryptography (don't ask me why, but I strongly and unconsciously associate street intersections with subjects).
That same corner also houses the "new" AMPM/Arco station, which was built when I was in my preteens, and became the bicycle destination of choice when candy acquisition was indicated. Previously, it'd been Mack's Corner (which I noted is still there as I passed it by). Mack's Corner, though, was a real trek. It must have been more than a mile away, through the variety of paths and residential streets which make up suburbia. I was first taken to Mack's (shown the special path, as I might have thought of it then) by the older kid in the neighborhood (name thankfully forgotten, possibly Gordy) who initially took me under his wing, then turned on me and started a "neighborhood war" against me, effectively alienating me from all the other kids in the neighborhood. In any case, diversionary story threads aside, I remember when the AMPM when in, and candy was suddenly much closer, and available in a very nicely air conditioned store.
I also remember looking up at the gas prices there (this must have been around 85 or 86) and seeing 78 cents. I thought to myself at the time, "jeez, if gas ever goes over a dollar a gallon, I just don't want to drive; it's too expensive." Ha ha ha. (Today, I was thrilled to find gas for $2.97 per gallon.) I'd like my shakin' cane and false teeth now, please. "Hey you kids! GET OFF MY LAWN!" I've been practicing.
Anyway, I passed by my old street and was again reminded of how you can never go back. When I was growing up, Woodinville-Duvall road was this lovely curving downhill thing. I dreamt of driving up and down it in a VW Bug (1963 or 1964 for preference), and laughing at my younger self, huffing and puffing up the hill on a bicycle. I did eventually own a horribly clapped out 1964 Bug for a year or two, but it never made the trip back to Woodinville (I don't think it would have gone that far without spewing all its oil or shaving most of the teeth off the transmission gears or something). Even if it had, they reconfigured the road to prefer heading straight down to 522, rather than bending down to "downtown" Woodinville. To follow its old path, you now have to make a sharp left-hand turn at a traffic light. I think I once exceeded 40 MPH riding my 12-speed down that hill, according to the fist-sized CatEyeMate bicycle computer my grandparents had astoundingly given me as a present one year. I was pretty proud of that.
As I passed down the hill, back in the present, I came upon a dual memory-path moment. The first was in 6th grade, riding the big yellow school bus down the hill. It was cold out, cold enough that the field to the right had frosted over, leaving all the tall grass looking like it'd been dusted with sugar. Of course, now that field is a stripmall with a QFC as the anchor store. That bus was really cold, too. The heater wasn't worth much. The field didn't last long either, being plowed under for the stripmall by the time I was in 8th grade.
Off to my left, I saw that the Godfather's Pizza had thankfully moved on. That's where I worked after my one and only automotive accident (passenger: "Oh! Turn left here!" me: "Ok!" [SKREEE! SLAM! shatter tinkle]).
The most notable memory of the Godfather's restaurant? This girl I barely knew, who lived down the street from me, also worked there. Once, we were both on break at the same time, probably eating.. well, pizza, 'cause we got one free personal pizza per shift, and she looked over at me, out of the blue, and said, "you know, despite what other people may say, I'm not addicted to crystal." I looked at her owlishly for a moment before responding, "ok."
I had never heard the word "crystal" used to name a drug (as it obviously was) before. For all I knew, it could have been drain cleaner. I didn't have any friends who did drugs (I wasn't cool enough), so the most I knew about drugs was that I was to say NO to them, and I could probably name a half dozen from various D.A.R.E. type visits by scary police officers to school assemblies and health classes. And of course none of this addresses why she should confide this obviously important and defining fact to me. As far as I could tell, I was beneath her notice at all other times. (Fine with me: she was scary and, I now know, looked disturbingly like Boy George.)
It was also at that job at Godfather's Pizza that I developed a huge crush on a girl whose name I've forgotten, but may have been named Jennifer. She smoked cigarettes, and would blow smoke out of the corners of her mouth and her nostrils, making it look like she was a cartoon character. It was not for this talent that I was crushing on her, I just thought she was brainstoppingly attractive. She would relate intriguing stories of she and her boyfriend "doing it" in the snow. It certainly impressed quite the mental image on me.
I vaguely recall listening to The Cure a lot that year, and feeling a special thrill when she loaned me her tape of the current album (this would have been 1988, and the album was Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, which to this day reminds me of snow and feeling rejected; hooray for highschool memories!). Suffice to say, that crush never went anywhere, which is probably for the best, really. Jennifer now puts me in mind of a really hot, really crass, white trash 17 year old version of Jodie Foster.
Back in the present (whew!), I passed through the intersection in which I caused the aforementioned traffic accident, and was interested to note that the surrounding businesses actually hadn't changed. Of course, the left turn arrow was still there (I like to think my intense, 16-year-old stupidity had some hand in that).
I kept rolling down the main drag until I came to Las Margaritas, where my family used to eat every once in a while. Gee, dinner sure sounded good. I think that's a thoroughly sufficent trip down memory lane for now. And by posting this, I'm guaranteeing my complete ineligibility to run for elected office! (I'm sure someone can figure out how to twist this in some vaguely blackmail-ish way if given enough money.)
Posted at 21:58 permanent link category: /misc
Today was far too sunny and pleasant to consider doing anything other than going for a ride. So I did.
Even though it sounded kind of familiar, I decided to ride up to Granite Falls and follow a route described in Destination Highways: Washington (a fine book if you ride and want to find the cool routes in Washington -- there's also a British Columbia edition). It was indeed familiar, as Jesse and I had ridden it two or three years ago. Ah well, it was still a fine ride.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of this particular ride was the distance covered: I didn't note exact numbers, but it's on the order of 180 miles. Not necessarily a lot in general, but for a few bike that's still going through break-in, that's a goodly number of miles.
Of course, that was also plenty of time to remind me of why I was so excited about rebuilding the seat on the last Ninja 250. Ouch. I was very happy to stop for dinner in Woodinville. I definitely wouldn't want to commit myself to any longer trips on that seat.
Overall a fine ride, though. I as also pleased to see that on the second tank of gas (I was nearly out by the time I got to Granite Falls), I got just over 64 miles per gallon. That's much more like it.
Posted at 21:01 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Oh, so that's what it's supposed to feel like!
I went for a ride on the new front suspension last night. Neat! The beefier spring firmed things up a lot, and the GVE widget plainly helped things too. I tried experimentally running over a small pavement flaw which I've hit before, and it was a non-event. I wasn't even sure it was the same little pothole.
Previously, when I'd hit that little divot, the bike would shudder and buck a little bit, producing a feeling I guess I'd best describe as "harsh." Now, with the new bits installed, it was almost as if the flaw wasn't there. To me, it's a fairly impressive recommendation in favor of the GVE. Springs alone wouldn't have caused that change.
The other impressive thing was a quick direction change, where I go around a small roundabout and have to quickly switch from leaning left to leaning right. (Well, "have to" -- rather, "enjoy.") Last night, I noticed that I felt as though I had traction throughout the whole transition. Previously, right as I was transitioning through directly upright, the feeling of traction was sort of vague. This wasn't as marked an improvement as the bump handling, but it was still a noticeable improvement.
Of course, the improvements I was expecting, like reduced brake dive and for the bike to stop feeling like a toy happened too. I even suspect the GVE improves brake dive, although I'm not as sure of that.
The downside of all of this, naturally, is that the bike feels weirdly unbalanced now. I haven't received the new rear shock yet, so the back end is still struggling along with the stock, vastly undersprung shock. The bike now sits upright in front, and kind of wobbles and sags in back. I actually felt the rear suspension bottom out coming over a series of sharp hills going up to Capitol Hill -- definitely not supposed to be happening.
So I now find myself hoping more fervently than ever that the new shock arrives from England sooner rather than later.
Posted at 09:50 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater