pigtails

ohh man that is some tough stuff!!! I am sooo sorry to hear that. I know the impact something like that has on every aspect of life. This is the time that i wish there were magic words or something, but all there is is the long road of dusting yourself off......

you'll pull through baby...........

I checked out your pics from that tirp. I was really envious. The Utah shots especially brought back great memories. I can think of no greater thearpy than traveling alone..... It was then end of a pretty intense relationship that kicked me off the couch last time and sent me traveling around for that year......

So are you digging the bmw? do your miss your sv (you did have an sv right?). There is rumor of a 800GS from bmw this year or early next year. I love the big 1200GS's but they are gimungus for real off road duty, and the 600's may leave me a little underwhelmed in the power department, so ths new 800 sounds just right....... We shall see.....

You just can't let that go, eh?

hey - are you in still in the tub?

me, i'm off on a solo buell trip to europe on saturday - getting the boat to france then probably going to drive to sweden

later

Wow. Stuff like that never happens here.

sounds like the 'hood is going to hell...

there just aren't really any current japanese bikes that do it for me. i sort of like the MT01 but it's way overweight and way overpriced! - i think mostly i just wanted something a bit weird...

i think if you're going off road on your beemer again you should check out pirelli MT21s - they're spectacular! i could lean my desert bike right over on grass - much further than i can lean a road bike on road tyres! they give you a lot of confidence on the dirt. they're a bit slippery on wet tarmsc though, they make a noise distractingly like a police siren and they wear out pretty fast. theyre quite cheap compared to road tyres though

i think it's time you got out of that hot tub now - i expect you're starting to wrinkle

hey! welcome back!

don't be sad - start making modifications to your bike and planning your next trip - a 45 litre tank perhaps?

me, i'm good. i bought a new bike last week. i've never owned a new bike before - most of the bikes i ever bought didn't even run. its a black-with-orangy-bits buell XB12S lightning and its mad as a box of spiders

my rationale for choosing a buell wasn't especially well thought out! i don't really have any time for messing around fixing bikes anymore so i needed something reliable to get in and out of work, but i didn't particularly want a japanese bike - (not that i have anything against japanese bikes, i just wanted something a bit different). something practical for traffic - so not a race bike. something reasonably fast - so not a dirt bike. something reliable and easy to live with - so not a ducati!! secretly, i yearn for a GS but i see about 10 of them every day - everybody and his granny has a GS since ewan mcgreggor went round the world on one (and also, they're more expensive than i could stretch to)

about a year and a half ago i saw a buell lightning cityX at a bike show and i was struck by its weirdness (and the fact that if i squinted a bit, i could almost afford it!). so about two weeks ago i was in a bit of a funk - so i rang up waterford harley davidson and asked if they had one - they told me they had and that they also had a ulysses (a bit like a GS) that i could test drive. so i went down and tried it - it was pretty weird. it vibrated like a tractor at low revs and the rev limiter cut the motor at only 7000rpm. but it was pretty smooth once it got moving and it made monster torque so basically i liked it

it turned out that they didn't actually have a cityX in stock, but they did have a black-with-orangy-bits lightning with a 1200cc motor and they'd do me a deal for the same price as the 1000cc cityX. so a deal was done!!



its pretty strange. when you start it, it vibrates and bounces up and down alarmingly on the side stand. and when you sit on it and hold the handlebars your eyeballs vibrate too!! its tiny and light with a riding position a bit like a dirt bike. its really quick, the handling is super-sharp and so are the brakes - and in traffic or on twisty roads its a howl! there's absolutely no wind protection though, so motorways are a bit tedious. i've done 1100 miles on it now and nothing has fallen off and it seems to be extremely fuel efficient - also, the tappets are self adjusting and the drive belt requires no maintenance at all - so it actually makes for a pretty good commuter bike

my only niggle is the fuel capacity - it only does about 110 miles before reserve

oh yeah, and the weather here has been spectacular since i got it, so its all good really!!

yeah, i have a bit of a thing about harleys too - well, more about the whole 'live to ride' righteous bullshit thing than the actual bikes - for maybe a week every year i long for a stripped down harley. but i usually snap out of it and long for a supercharged 1200cc zed-one instead...

but i do like weird ugly bikes - loads of people come up to me and tell me its gorgeous, but i can't figure it - i think it looks fucked-up! they eventually ask me what size is the motor - and when i tell them they're shocked!! (its small as well as fucked-up!)

were you riding on the dirt on street tyres?

do boys make you stupid? or KTMs...

yo! hope your adventure has been good so far

I don't know, I always get the massage AFTER the trip.

One time I got a massage in the Singapore airport - SERIOUSLY there's a spa there.

It was likely one of the best massages i've ever had, or maybe it was just because I'd been on a plane for 12 hours before.

have a safe trip

The photography is actually not mine. But I'm glad you like it. I'm part of a 3 man operation called Barefootpinups.com
Our new site is not yet up but soon will be sometime at the end of the summer. I do a lot of the set design and find all of the girls that we shoot. Most of them are just very willing friends that I've known for quite a while.


Good luck on your trip. Be safe.

bon voyage, girl!

ha.

No hotties for me. I'm the sweaty drummer dude that has to carry his equipment in and out, and in this case up and down the stairs. It was quite pleasant on the eyes though.

I HAD a motoguzi, just sold it when the 2nd daughter was born.... sigh.

I was looking lustfully at a norton the other day. I just have to figure out how to win one in a poker game.

Nice to meet you btw.

you should go see my movie in June.

www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com I think you'd like it.

peace

was that a staying-in-all-weekend-watching-tv-with-the-curtains-closed-and-your-phone-turned-off kind of retreat, or an actual barefoot-up-a-mountain-with-a-load-of-blissed-out-hippies-getting-in-touch-with-your inner-self kind of retreat?

i thought you might be interested in this...

http://www.hpn.de/english/english.html

its a german company who specialise in modifying BMWs into full-on, hardcore, off-road desert bikes. they prepare the BMW factory paris-dakar bikes - they've got some really cool hi-res pics

thanks for the introduction!

here's another link you might like...

http://www.adventure-motorcycling.com/

the website is not especially informative but the books are excellent (the website is a way to keep the books up to date between reprints, so to get the most out of it you need the books). however, the website links to various other websites that are pretty informative - the 'horizons' website has a bulletin board which is full of useful stuff

if you're thinking about making a s. american trip, buying the adventure motorcycle handbook is a good palce to start!

that and a pair of pirelli MT21's!!!

thanks for the links!

My bike and my wife both are essential to my happiness. I definitely suffer from PMS (Parked Motorcycle Syndrome) in the winter, and of course that means everyone around me suffers, too.

I'm glad you're back on the road!

Have you sent Stiles a "welcome to California" yet? He needs to get shown around the Bay Area before he convinces himself that LALA land is the whole show. I love the Bay Area (esp. Santa Cruz and SF proper), but LA makes me kooky.