Warchild
Benevolent Dictator
Daughter Lauryn and I have attended World Superbike Races in Salt Lake City for the past three consecutive Memorial Day Weekends... but for 2013, WSB doesn't have a SLC round scheduled. No problem... Lauryn and I will just do a different Memorial Day Weekend moto-adventure this year.
The Plan:
We depart Washington state on Friday, May 24 at 6pm, ride straight through the night thru Oregon, to arrive at Anderson, CA by early Saturday morning. There, we will have Rick Mayer fix this ate-up, POS factory seat on the GenIII. Since this will be a non-stop, LD-style-all-thru-the-night blast to Anderson, CA, we'll surely be tired upon arrival and will just hang at Rick's that evening after he does his magic to the FJR saddle.
Then, the next morning (Sunday, May 26), Lauryn and I will get up and outta there early to go frolic and play all day on the various awesome NorCal twisty roads between Red Bluff and Susanville, before blazing to Fernley, Nevada to hang with Brian Roberts and PuppyChow for the evening. The final day (Memorial Day Monday), it's a 700-mile dash back home to West Richland.
Well... that was the plan, anyway.....
Here is Lauryn, checking her tires on her mighty, mighty Kawasaki Ninja 500 right before departure:
A Daddy-Daughter self portrait, after topping off fuel before getting in the road, 6pm Friday evening, May 24:
The ride throughout the night was okay until about 3am, when we were passing the exit for Crater Lake, when out of no where the temps plummeted down to 26 degrees Fahrenheit!!
:weirdsmiley:
:weirdsmiley:
:weirdsmiley:
I soon found myself hovering over the factory heated grips like they were two small campfires.
Poor Lauryn was just dying on her Ninja, since it has absolutely no fairing for her to hide behind. She folds herself up and tries to become one with the tank-bag. No heated grips, and her Warm-N-Safe liner can only be lit up 50% on the Heat-Troller, due to the marginal alternator output of this 19-year-old Ninja. We manage to tough it out and once we are near Klamath Falls, the temps rise to a respectable, if not balmy, upper-30's.
Now, it's well after 5am, and has been light outside for quite a while as we pass into Dorris, California right at dawn. The rising sun is something a frozen daughter appreciates, and we pause at the classic Mount Shasta Vista Point on HWY 97 just north of Weed, CA:
We ride pass Shasta mountain, and just as we are leaving the Dunsmuir area, Lauryn hails me on the Sena bluetooth intercomm to say she is recognizing the signs that she needs to get off the road for a bit. After 490 miles of night-riding in freezing 20's temps over southern Oregon, Lauryn is just too smoked to continue. Most fortuitously, there is an exit less then 1/4 mile later... Soda Creek Road. No services, no traffic, little more than an off-ramp/on-ramp that was was devoid of any traffic or noise. Perfect.
It is around 7:30am, and she takes a 30-minute Combat Nap at the Iron Butt Motel. No pussified picnic tables for this Endurance Rider: just lay a towel down to protect the helmet finish, and sleep on ASPHALT, baby!
:weirdsmiley:
Around 8am, I kick Lauryn awake before she slips into REM sleep, and she awakens a totally new woman, ready to ride! We stomp the remaining 60-ish miles to Anderson, jump off the bike and pound down a quick Starbucks latte, then roll up to Rick's place around 9:30am:
As I discuss with Rick what I would like to see in this new saddle, a still-thawing Lauryn tries to soak up more heat from the sun:
It was pretty unfortunate about our exhausted state, as I wanted to photograph the creation of this new saddle, but I was about punch-drunk from fatigue myself. Rick watched me stagger around the shop a few minutes before leading me to a massive hammock in his side yard. I thought I would lay down for just a few minutes... shyeah, right!
The next thing I know, it's approaching 1pm, and Rick already has the new saddle finished! Dammit...
Check out the results.... for comparison purposes, here is the stock 2013 FJR1300 seat:
And here is my new Rick Mayer saddle..... AWESOME!!!!!
Check out the precision seam work, all done by hand....
While this saddle does have the classic little "wings" toward the rear of the seat to provide ample support, it is not the monstrously large wings like the Russell had. Perfect, and exactly what I wanted... a large enough area to move around on the seat while underway, yet at the same time, no huge-ass wings that have a tendency to get in the way when I want to get jiggy in the uber-twisties:
I immediately put the seat to the test the next morning, as Lauryn and I head out to Red Bluff to jump on Hwy 36. Rick accompanies us for a couple hours, and we stop to grab a bite at a cafe in Mineral, CA, and snapped off this pic:
After this shot, Lauryn and I head out to the NorCal hinterland, trying out as many twisty roads as we can.... and we stop frequently to stretch and take on water. Here, Lauryn takes a break from her sta-puff marshmallow clothes at a nice pull-off somewhere on HWY 172:
We continue on for another couple hours, and then kick back for a bit to rest at a rare paved pull-off on HWY 32:
We motor on, and come to a crossroads decision.... Reno, or Quincy? Hmmmm... Reno, or Quincy...
Since it's starting to get on in the afternoon, we decide to take the Reno route, which returns us to HWY 36. We dash around the high mountains for a while before taking a final rest stop at a Forest Service Road, still high above Susanville:
We blaze the rest of the way to Reno and on to Fernley to hang with Brian Roberts and PuppyChow for the evening. Brian has the grill already started, and it was a grand time to hang with friends. Brian takes a cursory look at weather.com, and indicated we could experience a little rain tomorrow after we leave. Shouldn't be too bad, he says.
Pity it didn't really work out that way....
Monday morning at 5:45am, Lauryn is ready to bust ass for 700 miles:
Unfortunately, weather proved uncooperative. It started to rain hard by the time we reached Gerlach an hour later, and did not stop... for the next 11 hours!!
Worse, it appears that the rain has fried Lauryn's electrical system on her Ninja! We stopped to refuel at Cedarville... the Ninja's starter would not even hint at moving. She did have instruments and lights, so I tried push-starting her... varroom, started right up, yea!
Had to push start her several times after that, but after yanking her headlight fuse for the rest of the trip, the bike's paltry 238-watt alternator was able to charge up the battery to where the bike could start itself again by later in the afternoon. Still, this meant no Warm-n-Safe liner for Lauryn all the way home, and between the temps and the incessant rain, it kinda marred this last day of the trip.
Here we are punch-drunk smiling from 9 hours of rain, cold and fatigue.... but smiling nonetheless, because we are riding motorcycles.....
The Plan:
We depart Washington state on Friday, May 24 at 6pm, ride straight through the night thru Oregon, to arrive at Anderson, CA by early Saturday morning. There, we will have Rick Mayer fix this ate-up, POS factory seat on the GenIII. Since this will be a non-stop, LD-style-all-thru-the-night blast to Anderson, CA, we'll surely be tired upon arrival and will just hang at Rick's that evening after he does his magic to the FJR saddle.
Then, the next morning (Sunday, May 26), Lauryn and I will get up and outta there early to go frolic and play all day on the various awesome NorCal twisty roads between Red Bluff and Susanville, before blazing to Fernley, Nevada to hang with Brian Roberts and PuppyChow for the evening. The final day (Memorial Day Monday), it's a 700-mile dash back home to West Richland.
Well... that was the plan, anyway.....
Here is Lauryn, checking her tires on her mighty, mighty Kawasaki Ninja 500 right before departure:
A Daddy-Daughter self portrait, after topping off fuel before getting in the road, 6pm Friday evening, May 24:
The ride throughout the night was okay until about 3am, when we were passing the exit for Crater Lake, when out of no where the temps plummeted down to 26 degrees Fahrenheit!!
Poor Lauryn was just dying on her Ninja, since it has absolutely no fairing for her to hide behind. She folds herself up and tries to become one with the tank-bag. No heated grips, and her Warm-N-Safe liner can only be lit up 50% on the Heat-Troller, due to the marginal alternator output of this 19-year-old Ninja. We manage to tough it out and once we are near Klamath Falls, the temps rise to a respectable, if not balmy, upper-30's.
Now, it's well after 5am, and has been light outside for quite a while as we pass into Dorris, California right at dawn. The rising sun is something a frozen daughter appreciates, and we pause at the classic Mount Shasta Vista Point on HWY 97 just north of Weed, CA:
We ride pass Shasta mountain, and just as we are leaving the Dunsmuir area, Lauryn hails me on the Sena bluetooth intercomm to say she is recognizing the signs that she needs to get off the road for a bit. After 490 miles of night-riding in freezing 20's temps over southern Oregon, Lauryn is just too smoked to continue. Most fortuitously, there is an exit less then 1/4 mile later... Soda Creek Road. No services, no traffic, little more than an off-ramp/on-ramp that was was devoid of any traffic or noise. Perfect.
It is around 7:30am, and she takes a 30-minute Combat Nap at the Iron Butt Motel. No pussified picnic tables for this Endurance Rider: just lay a towel down to protect the helmet finish, and sleep on ASPHALT, baby!
Around 8am, I kick Lauryn awake before she slips into REM sleep, and she awakens a totally new woman, ready to ride! We stomp the remaining 60-ish miles to Anderson, jump off the bike and pound down a quick Starbucks latte, then roll up to Rick's place around 9:30am:
As I discuss with Rick what I would like to see in this new saddle, a still-thawing Lauryn tries to soak up more heat from the sun:
It was pretty unfortunate about our exhausted state, as I wanted to photograph the creation of this new saddle, but I was about punch-drunk from fatigue myself. Rick watched me stagger around the shop a few minutes before leading me to a massive hammock in his side yard. I thought I would lay down for just a few minutes... shyeah, right!
The next thing I know, it's approaching 1pm, and Rick already has the new saddle finished! Dammit...
Check out the results.... for comparison purposes, here is the stock 2013 FJR1300 seat:
And here is my new Rick Mayer saddle..... AWESOME!!!!!
Check out the precision seam work, all done by hand....
While this saddle does have the classic little "wings" toward the rear of the seat to provide ample support, it is not the monstrously large wings like the Russell had. Perfect, and exactly what I wanted... a large enough area to move around on the seat while underway, yet at the same time, no huge-ass wings that have a tendency to get in the way when I want to get jiggy in the uber-twisties:
I immediately put the seat to the test the next morning, as Lauryn and I head out to Red Bluff to jump on Hwy 36. Rick accompanies us for a couple hours, and we stop to grab a bite at a cafe in Mineral, CA, and snapped off this pic:
After this shot, Lauryn and I head out to the NorCal hinterland, trying out as many twisty roads as we can.... and we stop frequently to stretch and take on water. Here, Lauryn takes a break from her sta-puff marshmallow clothes at a nice pull-off somewhere on HWY 172:
We continue on for another couple hours, and then kick back for a bit to rest at a rare paved pull-off on HWY 32:
We motor on, and come to a crossroads decision.... Reno, or Quincy? Hmmmm... Reno, or Quincy...
Since it's starting to get on in the afternoon, we decide to take the Reno route, which returns us to HWY 36. We dash around the high mountains for a while before taking a final rest stop at a Forest Service Road, still high above Susanville:
We blaze the rest of the way to Reno and on to Fernley to hang with Brian Roberts and PuppyChow for the evening. Brian has the grill already started, and it was a grand time to hang with friends. Brian takes a cursory look at weather.com, and indicated we could experience a little rain tomorrow after we leave. Shouldn't be too bad, he says.
Pity it didn't really work out that way....
Monday morning at 5:45am, Lauryn is ready to bust ass for 700 miles:
Unfortunately, weather proved uncooperative. It started to rain hard by the time we reached Gerlach an hour later, and did not stop... for the next 11 hours!!
Worse, it appears that the rain has fried Lauryn's electrical system on her Ninja! We stopped to refuel at Cedarville... the Ninja's starter would not even hint at moving. She did have instruments and lights, so I tried push-starting her... varroom, started right up, yea!
Had to push start her several times after that, but after yanking her headlight fuse for the rest of the trip, the bike's paltry 238-watt alternator was able to charge up the battery to where the bike could start itself again by later in the afternoon. Still, this meant no Warm-n-Safe liner for Lauryn all the way home, and between the temps and the incessant rain, it kinda marred this last day of the trip.
Here we are punch-drunk smiling from 9 hours of rain, cold and fatigue.... but smiling nonetheless, because we are riding motorcycles.....
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