04/26/04 Couple of days ago I got an e-mail from my friend David Paris: "wanna double the mileage on your R1?". Uhm, sure. The idea is to ride out to eastern Oregon and run a few of the deserted roads there, then ride back. A nice 400 mile loop (OK that's more than tripling the mileage but who's counting). So this morning his black Triumph Daytona 595 roared up to my driveway shortly before 8 am and off we went. Pretty soon the freeway grind got a little boring so we took the old Historic Highway that runs parallel for a while. Nice twisties and not that much more time. Just before getting back on the freeway saw a police car headed the other way. Quick stab of the brakes and he ended up not bothering us. Whew. I-84 along the Columbia River Gorge is very scenic and lends itself well to fairly brisk progress. This is somewhat tempered by the fact that the air is also 'brisk'. OK, it's COLD. I'm relatively well shielded in my Roadcrafter suit but David is freezing in his leathers. A bit more of this and we turn off away from the gorge and the air warms up quickly. In fact soon it's quite hot. The roads alternate some fairly nice twisty sections with endless straights and long sweeping turns that are comfortable at a little more than double the 'recommended' speed. It's quite entertaining in fact. Visibility is unlimited and there is zero traffic. The scenery is quite reminiscent of New Zealand's South Island, with several snow-covered volcanoes encircling vast sweeping plains. We pause for a photo opp with some windmills.

Soon fuel becomes a concern, with no civilization in sight. A small town we come to lacks a gas station and the nearest one in the direction we're going is 40 miles down the road (there is another one 9 miles out of the way but that is not appealing). It'll be close. We decide to conserve fuel and cruise at 70 mph. This lasts a good two minutes before we're in triple digits again. Oh well. Both our fuel lights are on. Finally we reach a gas station. My bike takes 4.4 gallons (capacity is 4.8) and David's takes 4.7 gallons (capacity 4.9). No sweat :) We briefly ponder whether to take the longer route that would add another 100 miles to the trip but decide to save it for another day. The most interesting part is supposedly to come, right after the town of Fossil (yes, there really are fossils there). As it is now quite warm we stop to adjust clothing to the temperature and take some pics.

The scenery is quite amazing. In fact the more I travel, be it near or far, the more I appreciate Oregon. A little further down the twisty road is a touristy spot where you can actually go and dig up some fossils to take home. We don't bother with that but the view is worth taking in.

This section of road is the most interesting of the trip. Some of the tighter turns do have a bit of gravel on them though so caution is called for.

Then it's time to head home. The return trip is mostly sweeping two-lane roads that are very lightly traveled. If our machines were less capable it probably wouldn't be too much fun, but if you go fast enough even the longish curves are enough to keep one's attention. I'm supposed to take it fairly easy for the break-in and I mostly do - relatively speaking. At least now there are about 500 miles on the bike and it's thoroughly warmed up so I don't feel too bad about letting it briefly run up to 9,500 rpm in top gear. That still leaves 4,000 rpm to go! Soon, another fuel stop and then it's past Mt. Hood (which looks spectacular in the bright sunshine) and on to Portland. All in all, just short of 400 miles in 6.5 hours including the many leisurely stops. Not too bad. The weather is going to be good the next couple of days but I've got work to do so I'll just finish the break-in on the track.

04/29/04 First track day for the R. Changed the oil and filter last night - the break-in oil is thin like water. Also discovered that the hex head bolts on the fairing are actually quarter-turn fasteners. Weird....

In the morning fueled up and headed to the track, still with less than 600 miles on the odometer. Once there, the mirrors came off and tape went on. The R looks cool in its battle dress.

Among the many bikes at the track one in particular caught my attention. A really neat Ducati-like homebuilt with a custom frame, Honda parallel twin motor and bits and pieces from assorted bikes.

The guy said it took about two years to build. Cool!

On track, my original plan was to stick to 9K RPM as a redline, but in the first session it magically became 10K, and a couple sessions later 11K (translating to 160 mph on the straight, which became the fastest I've gone in a land vehicle with me at the controls). My friend and two-wheel partner in crime David was there and we had fun chasing each other around the track (see short 7M video and a longer 22M one). He's doing extremely well considering he's only beein riding for a year. My only consolation is that I taught him everything he knows ;) The first session was spent getting used to the bike, then a couple to pick up the pace somewhat (but still with 10K RPM limit). This resulted in a best recorded lap of 1:23 which is a personal best for me, at least verified on tape. Putting this into perspective it's still not all that wonderful, since the local bike racing club rules state that you graduate from novice when you get below 1:20. Ok, that can be on slicks but still... At this point David was running away on the straights and I was catching him in the corners. We talked about some things to try and in the next session once I passed him he stayed with me and eventually took the lead again. This guy learns quick! Below is a pic of me following David through a turn.

Then my tires started getting greasy. I was suddenly sliding both front and rear. This was not very confidence-inspiring and I went from comfortably dragging my knees through every single turn to only touching down the left one in the sole tight left-hander. Not exactly what you'd call progress and my corner speeds dropped a lot. That is when I upped the straight line speed to try and compensate but it wasn't enough and lap times were still about 2 seconds slower. The roles reversed with me now pulling away on the straights and David catching up in the corners. Can't be having THAT :( I guess the tires (Dunlop D218) are not up to track duty, looking all melted and ragged after just five 20-minute sessions...

Since I got this bike primarily as a track toy, I'm going to need a different set of tires. With less than 700 miles on the clock. Great. Not a bad day overall though :)

05/17/04 Second track day for the bike, in five weeks of ownership and 700 miles (adding another 150). Two days ago I had new Pirelli Diablo Corsa tires mounted but due to intermittent rain haven't had a chance to scrub them in. Guess will have to do it on the track. Also finally got the license plate - first track day was with temporary tags. For the past ten days the forecast has been changing almost hourly. It alternated between sunny, partly cloudy, showers and rain. In other words the weather people didn't have a clue. As of yesterday they called for afternoon showers. The morning started with sunshine and the day turned out very nice indeed. And, surprisingly, at 5 pm lo and behold the showers came. So at least one day in advance the forecasts can be accurate, sometimes...

A great number of Ducatis were there. I still prefer the 996/998 styling to the 999, although the latter does look nice as a race bike...

A few other things were interesting as well...

The day started out slow. I didn't sleep very well the night before and combined with having to break in brand-new tires caution was the rule. The tires were indeed slippery at first but in later sessions they came into their own and really worked well.

Once hot the Corsas were much more confidence-inspiring than the D218s. Still, it took a few sessions to get my confidence back. There were quite a few crashes - I counted seven just in my run group throughout the day, including one that required the ambulance to go fetch the rider (the injuries weren't serious as far as I know). I ran five sessions total and taped sessions 2-4. On tape, the best lap is 1:22:17. In the last session the traffic was much lighter than early in the day and I was inspired by a quick 600 rider to go a bit faster. He passed me and I wasn't going to sit still for that so I re-passed him and managed to stay ahead for the rest of the session, both of us having lots of fun in the process. He was timed from the stands at 1:21 so I guess I was doing maybe a quarter second better. A new personal best. This happens to match David's best time (he's off having fun in California - see his MCoupe page 7 and bottom of 6) and sets up the stage for some entertaining battles to come :)

On the down note, riding home I realized that my cellphone has once again committed suicide by jumping out of my suit, just like the one before it did almost exactly one year ago. I should perhaps stop carrying them on the track. DUH. Had to procure a different one in the evening. The previous unit was GSM 850/1800/1900 and didn't work in NZ. It worked rather poorly in Europe, so much so as to make it virtually useless. I did some research on the web and found that what I need is a 900/1800/1900 phone. So now I have one. On the plus side, after rebates it's free. On the minus side it's bigger and clumsier than the old one. Oh well - chalk it up to experience. Hopefully this will pay off on future travels.