Apollofrost's Blog

[Apollofrost]

Mmmm... bugs

I went dirt biking with my uncle again but this time we went off the track and into the hills behind his property. My cousin tagged along behind on a little two gear bike with training wheels and we all had a lot of fun. I crashed twice, once in some soft sand in the corner of a curve and once after jumping a ditch but landing it wrong and going over the handle bars. I'm fine though and I had one hell of a time.

I'm really getting the hang of shifting and getting a feel for when to shift so that the motor doesn't over rev or lug and just towards the end I started to learn how to do it a lot more smoothly. I've still got a long way to go until I ride my bike again but I've got time. I'd rather wait and make sure that I can ride safely rather than just jump on it and hurt both myself and the bike. The first time I rode it I over revved the engine way too much and while there wasn't any damage to the bike it was a reminder that I'm not an experienced rider. But I'm working on that and my next ride on the dirt track goes well maybe I'll do some street riding on the back roads.

After the ride my aunt dropped me off in town and I had some excellent fish and chips at "Fourth and Sea" in downtown Petaluma. It's located at 4th street and C street and I'd definitely recommend it. Try the garlic fries.

Now for some pics, I'll put up some better ones next week.



My new jacket, I love it dearly.




The Bike, awaiting it's new tires. I ordered some Avon Gripsters for it and they should get in next Wednesday.



And a picture of me on the bike, I can't wait to ride it again.

Signing off,

-Alex

[Shorts]

Love the color scheme on the bike Enjoy your new ride!

[Apollofrost]

Thanks, love yours too.

[Apollofrost]

I caught the bus up to Petaluma yesterday and wrestled a new set of tires onto the bike then changed the oil and took it for a spin. It felt a lot smoother after that and I decided to ride it back to Santa Rosa.

The ride was nice and I'm beginning to get a feel for when to upshift and when to downshift. The evening wind was interesing and I experimented a little with crouching down low enough to avoid the wind but still be able to control the bike. It was cold so my visor started to fog up at traffic lights so I'll need to mess with the venting a little but overall I'm pretty happy with it and the bike.

I parked it overnight in the garage and got a little surprise in the morning when I left to go to work. My roommates had gotten the bright idea to move all of their stuff into the garage, but put it behind my bike. I was blocked in and ended up having to move it all before I could leave for work. I'm not happy with them right now and next time they do it I'm tempted to just ride over their junk. It's a dualsport, after all.

Eh... maybe not.

The ride to work was interesting. I live about five minutes away from my work and I was a little generous with the gas coming out off an intersection and sure enough the front end lifted up about a foot and popped back down. That was unexpected but not as scary as I though it would be. The rest of my ride was uneventful and in about half an hour I'm off to safeway to snag some ingredients for White Gazpacho soup.

Peace out
-Alex

[Apollofrost]

Hehe... pie.

I got off work at 11pm and decided to go get some stuff to make gazpacho. The only place open that late is Safeway and I missed my turn so I just decided to keep going.

So next thing I know I'm in the neighboring town just wandering around and seeing what's open. Not much except a gas station so I filled it up most of the way and headed back to home.

Then I decided that I really should go to Safeway. I walked around the store for a bit and gathered most of what I needed before I saw it, the cheesecake.

Now I don't have any saddle bags and my backpack doesn't close all the way so it's not a good idea to try and bring a lot of stuff back at once. But I really wanted to see what would happen so I bought the cheesecake and slipped it into the back pack next to the french bread (which stuck out the top like an antenna) and rode home.

Would you know it, the cheesecake not only survived, it was delicious.

[roscowgo]

congrats and cool beans on the KLR. My cousin bought an 07 KLR in the black/grey. I think it looks pretty sharp personally. Yours looks to be in fine condition

For luggage try to get your hands on one of those laptop backpacks, they insulate pretty well (at least they kept my wendys burger very toasty for about 20 miles), are fairly inexpensive, and even have big metal eyelets.... like they were made for bungee cords. And you can fit a surprising amount in em.

[Apollofrost]

Sweet, I'll do that. Either that or get a tankbag/backpack

[Apollofrost]

Rode to school yesterday and found out that there really is no place to put a parking permit on a bike. Not easily at any rate. I ended up stuffing it into one of the ties for my brakelines and hoping for the best. It all worked out pretty well though.

The gazpacho was a hit and after class I wandered down to a few of the local shops to see about saddlebags. Overall what I found was nice but pricey so I'll be looking on the web for something cheaper. Like maybe a nice tankbag/backpack from ICON or a laptop bag like roscowgo suggested.

After I got out of the second shop I decided to ride around some just for the hell of it. Long story short I ended up going down highway 12 to Sebastopol and then on a smaller much more windy road to Bodega Bay. The last quarter of the trip there was so cold because of the wind coming off the coast so I decided to treat myself to some dinner at Lucas Wharf.

I had eaten there once before and liked it, even if I didn't recognize the place until I sat down. It's a little pricey but the food was good and in large portions. I ordered the fish and chips which were tasty, but not quite as good as the ones at 4th and Sea.

Since I wasn't going to be able to chain up my bike when I parked I did the next best thing, I parked it a few down from a brand new Honda Interceptor and enjoyed my food.

The ride back was cold and I was freezing, but still grinning. I had a lot of fun.

-Alex

[roscowgo]

Yep luggage of any sort is way too expensive.

The Milk Crate option is always good on the pennytech side of things. You can make some pretty cheap and rugged carriers with PVC pipe and a little glue too. If you don't mind making your bike look like it has potato guns on it that is.

I've seen some guys do the old ammo/food can thing and turn those into saddlebags.

Mermite panniers Which to me is exactly the soul of the KLR.

Woops More complete write up of a mermite panniers install that guy went all out on his. You can probably get by with quite alot less if you dont mind the look.

[Apollofrost]

I've pretty much settled on an icon tankbag/backpack for storage and if the magnets aren't up to snuff I'll just replace them with some super mags from a local shop.

Lets see what else... I painted my room today and found my skull bandana.



hehe, I love that thing.