Use or Loose trip - The Conclusion

I've said this before, I'll say it again....crashing sucks!
Dealing with insurance isn't much fun either. We finally got the official word that the car is totaled. So we went out and picked up another car. Another VW GTI but with four doors and and blue. Iggy, salesman at Emich, went out of his way to find the exact car we wanted. It's nice to have a car. Even though I kind of enjoyed carpooling for a couple of weeks, I don't think Danelle was all that excited about getting up at 4:40 and leaving early for work.

I was finally able to get a bike ride in yesterday. IT WAS COLD! 34 degrees. I also found that during the crash my shift lever was broken off. So 400 dollars later and a few hours of work, I now have the quietest and smoothest shifting bike I have ever had. I have learned how to tune the shifting and it makes a world of difference.

All right lets get ready for christmas.

BANG! Pt 2

I finally got a rental car, drove back up to Tuba City and picked up Danelle and Sydney, and headed 70 miles down the road. We stopped at the accident scene, then went and found the Tow lot that had the car. They did a nice job of securing all of the stuff we had loaded into a storage bay, and took special care of the bikes. Turns out the tow lot owner pedals too and knew what needed to be done.
I decided that after only two hours of sleep since Thursday morning, we would spend the night here in Kayenta. (leaned how to spell that pretty good after spelling it out to the insurance people all day).
We are going to try and make it home tomorrow. I think i'll be picking glass out of my skin for a few days.

Where it happened

What Hit me

Hit hard enough to buckle the roof

Very solid, well built German car! I will buy another one. Don't know how well I would have done in the Fit or another small car.

Does your face Hurt?

Mine Does.

BANG!

Or more like CRUNCH, BANG! Last night, four miles east of Kayenta AZ at 11:30 or so we were hit by an oncoming car who lost control and crossed over into our lane. I saw it unfold and new that there was nothing I could do to avoid getting hit. I tried to mitigate some of the hit by aiming for the shoulder of the road. This prevented a head on collision, and caused the car to hit us at the drivers side door. Airbags went off, glass went flying, but Danelle and Sydney were ok. I got beat up and a ride on a backboard to the hospital. Spent a few hours there getting checked out and had glass cleaned out of my eyes.
So now I'm on my way to Flagstaff to pickup a rental car and hopefully finish out this trip.
Pictures and more to follow.
Stay tuned.

Use or Loose trip Update 2

Palm Springs, Ca.
It's Wednesday evening. We are sitting in a artsy looking Travelodge, and are beat. We decided to leave a day early so that I can visit the grandparents in Phoenix.
To backtrack, Yesterday was another nice day, weather was a little cooler, but still in the 70's. Woke up to  big waves so went surfing first. Caught the biggest wave ever, and it didn't pummel me on the bottom of the ocean. Went for a challenging bike ride up one of the canyons heading towards Esconditio. It was pretty, but had a few steep climbs. When I got back the surf was still big and I went out and caught a couple more big waves. It was a blast to ride a longboard on those waves.
So today we climbed out of the tent to clear skies, but fog in the distance. Went for a long bike ride down to San Diego and back. Nice but som e of the roads are really rough and you take a beating. After a 32 mile ride, I headed out to catch on last surfing session. It was good, but the weather was moving in. I caught on last wave and called it good. As we were walking off the beach, the sun went behind the clouds and the sky turned very grey.
So we loaded up the car and are now in Palm Springs.
Tired.

Use or Loose Trip Update 1

Meant to post yesterday, but time got away from me. Lets see, weather has been great mid 70's, surfing has been great, and I got in a couple of nice bike rides. One up north on 101 to Oceanside, and today I headed south to Scripps Oceanography center. Today's ride included 1200 feet of climbing. Who says its flat on the coast. I rode in the morning hoping that it would be cooler, but it still got pretty warm when you are used to colder Colorado. Once again we are at San Elias State Beach near Encinitas Ca.

Photo from today's ride, notice the green grass in November.

View from yesterday's ride

Gotta love California, you can have a campfire, but don't smoke???

Use or Loose Trip Start.

I have over 50 hours of leave that I needed to use by the end of the year. So we packed up the bags and headed to California for a week. We left friday evening and by 9 am we were standing on the beach in Encinitas  Ca. It was a perfect day, sunny temp in the 70s nice long-boarding waves, and a dog beach so that Sydney can play.
We played for a while then decided to go get cleaned up and eat something. I was so tired I fell asleep at 8pm.

Adding a short video to update the blog

Made it into a magazine!

This  month's edition of Cycle World has a shot of the Daytona Sportbike grid and I'm the guy holding the red flag.

Barber motorsports park

This last weekend was HOT. Brutal hot. Sunday was high 90s an high humidity. But enough whining. The racing was great and Barber is an awesome place to visit. It's like a huge public park with a race track. Glad to be home. Lessons learned...red-eye flights are no fun, drink more water, and no mater how much I try to get used to the heat while riding in Colorado, it doesn't compare to the south's humidity.

Sweet home Alabama....

Yep next round is at Barber motorsports park in Birmingham. Gonna be hot and humid. I've been trying to get some warm weather training by riding the bike every afternoon when it's the hottest. Problem is that we don't have humidity.
I was actually home last weekend, and got a few items checked off of the to-do list. Sunday we went for a ride up to Estes Park.
Bring on the heat.

Life daily

Rode to work everyday except Monday, and that's because I flew in from Milwaukee. 

Saw this guy at Brueggers this morning having a leafy breakfast. Didn't have any problem when an employee parked right next to him. She of course never saw the deer 4 feet away.

Home again

Road America round is in the books. Time do laundry, now the yard, and go to work. 12 days until Barber. It was a good weekend with good racing and good weather for a change. Photos to follow.

Road America weekend

From cold and windy to sunny and green welcome to Wisconsin. Weather wise I looks good, and the racing should be good also.

Stuff leftover from last weekend

Watch "Launch control" on YouTube

Almost time for Road America.

BRATS! As in bratwurst. Yep you heard that right, heading to the land of beer, cheese, and brats.

World Superbike weekend @ MMP

Done! Made it home in just under 7 hrs, now get laundry done, work two days, then jump on a plane for Road America. 
The weather wasn't that great this weekend. Had sun, wind, rain, and it even tried to hail/snow at the start of the XR race. Two constants were wind and cold.
The racing for AMA classes was great. WSBK was good for the first couple of laps, then was boring with very little passing.  Decent weekend overall. I'll try to post the video I took of launch control in a Ducati.

Miller 2011

WET and COLD describe today.Woke up to pouring rain and 40 degrees, and it never stopped or got any warmer that 43 degrees. While it was cold weather wise the on track activities were great. Close racing and a good finish for Daytona. World superbikes were fast and had real race gas. Superbike racing tomarrow.

Tooele, UT World SBK Weekend

I am in Toeele Utah this weekend for the combined World Superbike and American Suberbike weekend. Should be a good one except they put the races on monday and this means that I cannot run in the Bolder Boulder back home. 
I drove out and naturally it was very windy going accross Wyoming. There is also a lot of snow still in the mountains.

Yesterday and to day are working days, with ontrack activities starting tomarrow. I did get to go for a bike ride yesterday and besides finding a nice climb, did a couple of laps on the track.

"Tired" doesn't say enough

The day after a race weekend is usually brutal. Get up at 0 dark thirty, pack and drop off the rental car, security, squeez into the flying petri dish. Next find your car, go to work, try not to fall asleep while catching up on email, go home and crash. But it's worth it, and I ready to do it again next Wednesday.

Infineon race weekend

Good weekend. I am sunburned and tired, racing was good, and we dodged the heavy rain. Pictures to follow. Note to self...do not use Oakland airport in the future.