December Update

Well it's finally gotten cold. No more riding outside unless it's above 45. On other bike news, we were able to sell both of the KLRs at once. I was ready for a long drawn out craiglist sell, and then I got a call and the buyer was looking for multlple bikes. Bonus.

So with the empty feeling (and space) in the garage we started looking for the replacement bikes. Turned out that the bike that meets the needs and is best is the BMW f650/800gs. Danelle ended up with a 650 and I have the 800. Mechanically they are the same bike. Mine is a little taller and has 14 more horse power.

Look out Mexico, we are almost ready.

Winter bike training trip finale

I'm home. Got in last night at about 9:40. Looks like I beat the winter storms that were supposed to hit the mountains. I got up and had breakfast with Grandma K and went and saw HG once more, hit the road. Had the wind behind me most of the way. I'll post more stuff later.

Winter bike training trip day 5

Friday
Miles driven=360
Miles ridden = 0
hours in seat = 0

Woke up early and packed up everything so that I could get to Phoenix. As I was getting up I noticed that even though it was still dark it was warmer than when I went to sleep. I wasn't all that quiet packing, seeing as the neighboring campers thought they needed to keep everybody up late into the night.
I took the scenic route through the Anzo valley and then a fun curvy road that drops into Palm Springs



The rest of the drive was on I-10, which is not the most exciting. Got to spend some time with my grandfather in the hospital and had dinner with my grandmother.
Will probably head home tomorrow.

Winter Bike Training Trip Day 4

Thursday
Miles Driven = 170
Miles Ridden = 42
Time in Seat = 2:50

Today's drive brought me through LA and I am now on the northern edge of camp Pendleton. I timed my LA drive just right and had very little traffic. It's a lot easier and less stressfull to make that drive in a car versus a pickup pulling a fifthwheel. I am at the San Clementi state park which like last night's campground is pretty empty. I guess it is normally a lot colder than it has been this week.

Todays bike ride took me south through camp pendleton to Oceanside and back.

 I was able to get a lot more miles and still had a few hills to deal with. I wish I would have started on the south side, because I had a pretty good wind to deal with on the way back. Nothing like 21 miles of head wind. Riding across the base is neat. I saw camp edison the area that 22 years ago in boot camp I learned to shoot the M-16.

I was also buzzed by a Cobra attack helicopter.

Well it's probably a good thing I am winding up this trip tommorow, as the weather is starting to cool off and they expect rain by saturday.
I'll leave for Phoenix in the morning.

Winter bike training trip day 3

Wednesday
Miles driven =329
miles riding = 26
hours in the seat =1:48
As I sit here in the campground I can hear the waves breaking on the beach a couple hundred feet away. It has cooled of as the sun went down, but was a nice day with the temps in the seventies again. I woke up in San Francisco, and drove to Carpinteria. I checked into the campsite, setup the tent, and went for a ride.

Another day of hills, not a lot of flat roads to ride on. So even though I didn't get a lot of miles, the legs did get a good workout. One stretch was about a mile of 12% grade. Maxed the heart rate on that one. Nice area withe lots of avocado trees. I know because I had to keep dodging them.
Tomorrow I'll head down near Oceanside

Winter Bike Training Trip Day two

Miles Driven = 40
Miles Pedaled = 27
Time in the seat = 1:52

After a good 10 hour nap I felt better this morning. I was able to take care of  few chores, and then met up with Erik. We had a good ride up LaHonda road, past Skyline to a nice overlook out to the Pacific.

The ride back was fun until it got a bit dark at the end. Had a good dinner and visit.
Tomarrow I'll head down the coast and see what happens.

Winter bike training trip

After breaking my collar bone in October, I made some vague plans to go someplace warm once I heal. With the boken bone, I knew that I would miss most of the best riding time. I also new that I would be out of shape. Another factor was that I needed to use some leave time at work or I would loose it. So here I am in San Francisco, temps in the high 70s getting in a weeks worth of riding. I don't have any firm plans, but will be heading south on Wednesday.
I left Sunday evening and got out to the bay area around 3pm. I have driven and walked across the golden gate bridge, so this time I rode over on the bike, kind of cool, the open the west walkway to bikes only, but you still have to dodge a lot of tourists.

 Before riding across I got some climbing in on the hilly roads of the fort on the north side of the bridge.

Not a lot of miles, but hey I only had two hours of sleep.
I met up with Al Hom for dinner an then crashed.

Stay tuned.

Update

Just finished the Mid-Ohio weekend. HOT!! well Hot and humid more like. Good weekend though, No red flags during the races and good racing. Fun watching Eslick manhandle the XR1200 and Fong gets on the podium.

Front straight using the panorama mode on the new point and shoot. I had to turn the camera upside down since it will only pan in one direction.

Stay tuned for the updates of Laguna this week.

BolderBoulder 2010

Completed another bolder boulder run. Had a fun time, the weather was great.

Nothing like sitting in the stadium before 8 am drinking a cold beer

My finish time was 44:02

Danelle finished with a PR of 57:45

Created a video for the youth group band Croosbreed

Crossbreed is entering a contest on Way-FM and needed a 3 minute video. Here is what I came up with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvVpVe70UpE

If they make the final cut, I'll post a link so that you can vote for them in facebook.

Weekend wrap-up. Racing was great. Fun to watch a race when you don't know who is going to win until the last lap. 

As is par for the course, mornings started out overcast.

but generally cleared out by the afternoon.

The AMA Stalker (known as Susan) was the lucky recipient of a two up ride behind Jason Pridmore.

Untitled from jkingham on Vimeo.

After packing up the trucks on sunday we had time for a quick trip down Lombard street, followed by a chowder bread bowl on Pier 39.

Now recover and get ready for Road America

AMA - Infineon Part 1

Flew out to San Francisco and headed north across the Golden Gate bridge up to Infineon Raceway.

No trip to California is complete without In-N-Out

Took a walk across the bridge

Will post more about the track in the next installment.

First Overnight Trip

Loaded up the bikes with all of the new gear we have aquired, left later than I wanted to, and headed for Pawnee Buttes in Pawnee National Grasslands. Hungry and cold we got there and I setup the tent while Danell cooked dinner (boiled water). It was a good thing that I practiced setting up the tent at home in the living room, because it would have been a failure out here in the dark. On a side note, watch out for the prickly pears. We ate and crawled into the sleeping bags to warm up. Woke up to sunshine and a cold breeze. Glad that we had hot oatmeal and coffee.

After packing (much easier the second time) we rode over to the trailhead for the buttes.

Danelle had forgotten her tennis shoes so we opted out of the 2 mile hike in riding boots. Besides we had a lot of riding to do. From there we headed north to the marker ar the borders of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado.

 I couldn't find a decent way to start heading west and we ended up on I-80. This was not what I wanted. the wind was blowing pretty good from the south and on the KLRs it was a challenge to ride highway speed. I got off at the first exit and we rode the frontage road untill I found a two lane heading south. At this point we decided that we had enough wind and headed back home. Overal we covered 273 miles, 100 on friday and 173 on saturday. The bikes got roughly 45mpg and we confirmed what worked and what we need to do before the next ride. Oh and despite the cooler temps and wind it was fun.

Hello world

First post.