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-Holiday wrote:uhhhm. i dont know about this weekend. front royal is 194 miles away so i'd probably have to make a two day trip out of it.

not that that means i wouldnt do it.

maybe april would be better

lol- anytime. Maybe we can get others like sharpmagna to join us.

storysunfolding wrote:

-Holiday wrote:uhhhm. i dont know about this weekend. front royal is 194 miles away so i'd probably have to make a two day trip out of it.

not that that means i wouldnt do it.

maybe april would be better

lol- anytime. Maybe we can get others like sharpmagna to join us.

I'm down for that fellas, but April is real bad for me. I'm out of the country for most of April and the rest I'll be catching up with work. Any time after though you can count me in.

Congrats on the soon to be MSF Instructor title!

I didn't ride today. The forcast called for thunderstorms and while they didn't materialize I chose to play it safe. Someday soon my hand/arm will be 100% and that won't phase me... until then... *sigh* I'm a fair weather rider.

There were others riding today. Plenty of cruisers tshirts and skid lids. I also had my first squid sighting of the season. Arai helmet, obvious motorcycle boots (track powerranger variety), sandals, tshirt and shorts.

Now I see plenty of guys with the nice helmet and nothing but helmet and motorcycle boots but no jacket? Head, check; Feet, check... well I guess I'm covered from my head to my toes. The traffic kept us together long enough to demonstrate his lack of ability or common sense, but I digress. I came here to talk about me

As I didn't ride the bike I thought I'd take the opportunity to leave a running list of everything that I've done to the VStrom that will be updated as things come in.

In order of addition:
-Auxillary fuse block hooked into both on and park circuits
- Heated grips
- Dan Vesel switch panel
- Suzuki OEM Handguards
- MIT 100 motorcycle communication system (intercomm, bike to bike, auxillary, cellphone)
- Tank Bra
- New Clutch lever- it looks like the old one, only better
- New left turn signal
- Centerstand
- Lowering links (brought the back down 3/4 inch)
- Raised forks 3/4 inch in triple tree (recommended by Vstrom forums)
- Hepco and Becker Crash bars

Hoping to have soon:
- Zumo 550 or Streetpilot something
- Givi EN50 topcase
- MadStad Bracket (helps buffetting from windshield turbulence)
- Fender extender (prevents gunk hitting the engine
- oil cooler and radiator guard (Dan Vesel)
- Stebel 139 decibel horn or louder... damned cages
- upgraded stator
- powerlet hookup to run power to my tank bag
- side luggage (uncertain if I want more givi or soft luggage)


I feel like the wish list should be longer... well give me a day or two!

Did your neighbour who slipped on the ice pay for the broken bits? just out of curiousity.

NorthernPete wrote:Did your neighbour who slipped on the ice pay for the broken bits? just out of curiousity.

I haven't seen him since. We used to talk for a few minutes every morning... avoiding me?

something, Id have a chat with him, seeing as even though it was an accident, its still cost you some $$$. depending on how far you want to pursue it, you could allways go after the landlord if youre a renter. although for the price of the items that broke, it may not be worth the headache. I would really want to see what the neighbour thought though. "do you have any responsibility towards this you think?"

Pete-

He's a shady character- but he talks to my g/f and room mate. He even passes a hello through them at times. But $50 isn't worth the headache. If i see him I'll bring it up but...

HAHA F YOU ALL YOU MOTHER F-ERS!

It's time for another injury update. My three outer fingers (pinky, ring and middle) are starting to come back on, if rather weakly. As you may have surmised I've been giddily flicking people off all weekend in celebration.

My fingers still haven't recovered full range of motion and they are weak but by God they are back in action. The pointer and thumb will come next but likely after the other three regain full strength.

5 months, 1.5 weeks later... wow. Words can't describe how much life has changed in that time frame. My recovery hasn't quite reached it's conclusion but before you know it my scar will be all that's left from this incident. When people ask I will tell them about the tragedy, about the recovery, and about my bravery. Taking 20 guys down under in a knife fight to defend a damsel in distress, democracy and infant kualas all at the same time takes just a wee bit of bravery, don't you agree?

I still don't have complete control of my right hand and as of a month ago I still lacked many of the functions that I am starting to take for granted again. Even now my fingers move slowly, like a poor internet connection, only doing what I ask them to after a noticable delay. I realize in retrospect that after the pain diminished from intense to manageable I started coping. Now I'm starting to uncope and the feeling is peculiar if not magnificent.

So "fudge" you, "fudge" you too, "fudge" you over there and you? "fudge" you some more! But realize in this sea of unfriendly gestures, that I do it all in good spirit!

P.s.- I can finally drive in DC traffic again

Day 1 of MSF Ridercoach Training:

Time 5pm-10pm

Walking into the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF)'s Ridercoach Program (RCP) as a Ridercoach Candidate (RCC) was a bit awkward. A quick glance of the room mainly showed two distinctive characteristics that I lacked: age and facial hair. As you read my thoughts I'm remedying both of these- so have no worry.

At first my fellow RCC's thought I'd found the wrong classroom, but after acknowleding 1.) Yes, I'm in the right class and 2.) Yes I do shave. Things were back on track and we got down to business.

The Regional coordinator for Northern Virginia and the Lynchburg area were there as well as three other senior RiderCoaches. Introductions were made, jokes were made at my expense. It was delightful.

In a similar fashion to the BRC we were split into small groups, we had to ask each other who we were, where we were from, what we ride and why we were there. I was stunned to find out that many people had come to the class to work on becoming better riders. I'd always assumed that the focus of the RCP was to find better riders to aid in teaching new students.

We then reviewed what we would be doing in the course and walked through the classroom portion and associated teaching techniques.

Overall it's rather impressive how much material is fit into the 15 hours of the BRC. Even more so is the thought and planning that went into the technique of teaching.

Although there isn't much to put here that's informative and not boring, it was 5 hours well spent.

Day 2 of MSF Ridercoach Training:

Time 7:45am-5:15pm

Day 2 began in the classroom. We reviewed our instructor handbooks and our Range Cards, which have the range setup, directions for range exercises, and points of emphasis. After a few hours reviewing those and some more group work we hit lunch then the range around 12.

The goal of the first weekend is to begin thinking like an instructor and to become intimately familiar with the curriculum of the BRC. Do you see where this is going?

So there we stood, 13 in number with 12 dinky machines infront of us. We laughed like giants as we began the walk through for the BRC. Wait, 13 RCC's and 12 machines? Indeed.

For each exercise we setup the course according to the range cards and gathered around one of our number. That person walked through the instructions, signaled our demo rider and pointed out the technique used to accomplish each task. Then he/she coached next to an experienced coach for the exercise.

We didn't ride every exercise and we didn't ride the ones we did long. Regardless with the time we spent addressing questions and practicing our teaching technique we only managed to make it through exercise 9 or the end of the first BRC day by 5.

Although we were pooped we reviewed a bit more and then headed home for the evening.