It was bound to happen someday
Posted by Mike - May 12, 2007 at 09:05:37 pmI finally dropped my motocycle. I always knew it was going to happen one day. I just thought it was going to be from someone swerving in front of me or from hitting a patch of gravel or something. But here’s how it went down.
Jules was preparing some fried rice when she opened the fridge to discover… no eggs! You can’t make fried rice without eggs. So I am sent on an errand to the store. I shoot over on the bike, stuff some eggs in the backpack and pull out of the parking lot. Except… I left the disc brake lock on. Doh. I stop abruptly and fall over. Wonderful. Fortunately it was more like I layed the bike on its side rather that it falling hard. So the only real damage was to my ego. 
Riding Around Mt Tam
Posted by Mike - March 11, 2007 at 01:03:11 pmMy brother and I went on a ride this weekend around Mt Tam. He puts a little digital camera in his helmet to record video. Here’s his video of me.
Over the weekend I watched Faster, an “in-depth look at the MotoGP world championship, an event watched by more than 350 million people worldwide and considered the pinnacle of motorcycle sport.” At one point it shows John Hopkins playing MotoGP and comparing it to real life. He crashes and when his character reappears on the bike he says something like “man, stay down, take the rest of the day off.” Yet, when you see someone slide out in MotoGP they hop up as soon as they stop and run to their bike. If it’s still ridable they speed off on it. He said the only thing real in the game is the tracks. He can play the game to familiarize himself with the tracks.
Valentino Rossi won the MotoGP five years in a row. 2001-2005.
Last year Nicky Hayden won. Now he’s the center of the new MotoGP ‘07 trailer.
This year’s MotoGP starts in four days. Woo hoo!
Riding and Talking
Posted by Mike - February 18, 2007 at 10:02:44 amIt’s not hard to imagine that it would be difficult to communicate with others when you’re riding your motorcycle. The only time you can talk to someone else in your group is when you come to a stop somewhere. And who likes to stop when you’re riding a bike? Other forms of communication like hand signals and such really don’t convey such messages as “your turn signal is still on.” And looking for signals takes away from concentrating on the road.
So last month I bought two FireFox throat mics to go with my motorola walkie talkies. Throat mics work by transmitting the vibrations of speech straight from the throat, instead of capturing them after they leave the mouth. This cancels out any background noise (like loud motorcycle engines).
The mic comes with a remote PTT (push to talk) button and the mic itself. So when I’m wearing it I have my walkie talkie in my jacket pocket with the remote cord going up my sleeve and the button on the side of my index finger on my left hand. This makes it easy to push with my thumb when I want to say something.
So yesterday I went for a ride with my brother down the coast starting at ocean beach. We made it down to half moon bay before turning back. As you can imagine I was excited to use these mics for the first time. But of course as it turns out one was broken. *sigh* So after the ride I went back to REI and exchanged it for a working one. Can’t wait for my next ride.
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