Hello, Santa Cruz!

Some El Niño we're having. It was like 73° F today in Santa Cruz, CA! I happened to have the day off, so rather than go work on stuff that really needed to get done, I decided to go for a really nice mountain bike ride. I called up my friend, John, yesterday to secure his day, so we were good to go!

I thought we were getting jump on the day, by me meeting up with him at his house in Hayward by 9am, but I got a little behind schedule due to some very heavy traffic. We shoved off from his place around 9:30, but still didn't arrive to Wilder Ranch State Park until 11:00! I brought my old trusty 100 Best Mountain Bike Rides in the Bay Area book, (yes, the one that's 20 years old and has gottem me lost numerous times) and we were good to go! Well, it's been over 10 years, since I was last at Wilder and things have changed a little, starting with the parking lot area. Immediately, we set off in the wrong direction and got a little lost.

Eventually we found our way to the "tunnel" and we were somewhat on our way. The book had a shitty map and we weren't really in the mood to keep trying to decipher what it told us to do, so we just picked a loop and started riding. We first headed up the Engelmans Loop until we got to the Wild Boar Trail. There was a bit of climbing to do, but it wasn't too bad- very manageable. It was great that the sun was out and there was a slight ocean breeze breathing down our necks. The ground was a little gravely and sandy with ruts, but not unridable. It was nice to actually have some trees to ride in!

Then we took the Old Cabin Trail to hook up with the Eucalyptus Loop. The climb up Old Cabin got a little tougher, but it still was nothing compared to the Pine Mountain Loop on Mt. Tam. (That was so steep and exposed, it wasn't even fun!) Finally, we got to the top of Eucalyptus, where we took a break on a park bench and ate some fig bars. After that, it was almost all down hill :)

We took Eucalyptus down until we found the Wilder Ridge Loop. It was totally the payoff! This ride was basically 4 miles up, 4 miles down. Lots of ruts and hardpack single and double-track. With it raining not too long ago, the dirt was nice and packed- very little dust. The trail dumped us out on Highway 1, where we had to struggle to figure out where to go next. Eventually we figured out that we just needed to ride South for about a mile until we found the park entrance.

All-in-all, it was a fantastic ride! No one crashed! No one cramped! The perfect starter climbing ride for what I hope will be an equally smashing season. We packed up the car, took down the top and headed into town for some Pizza My Heart! I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Wednesday!

SV Time Again!

So the time has finally come to start preparing for the departure of my dear old SV650S. I've had this bike for 15 years and she has been nothing but fun and dependable! For the past year and a half, I've been riding the Harley. It's more of an "I'm getting old thing", because my lower back starts screaming at me after an hour of commuting on the SV. If I was going to continue commuting on motorcycles, I had to make a change. So the SV sat in my backyard under cover.

I did have to move her back in September, when I moved to the new house. Thank God it was only 5 miles down the road, because the bike wasn't really running well. I was able to get her to start, but I could tell that she was only running on one cylinder. On a V-twin, that is a major issue, since you only have 2 cylinders! I figured that all the sitting and the stale gas, plus the long time it took to try and start the bike again probably fouled a plug.

I ordered some new plugs off of eBay. Yesterday, I finally had a chance to get in there and change them out. It had been so long since I last really worked on that bike that I had forgotten all that it takes just to get to the spark plugs! I had to rip off both front side panels, plus drop the radiator! And for the rear, I had to pop open the gas tank! The plugs weren't difficult to replace, once I had access.

I also did a little cleaning, while I was in there. I ripped out the airbox and made everything all shiny again. Plus it was a good chance to pick off all my upgrades off of the bike, like my speedo healer, cigarette lighter accessories charger and trickle charger pigtail.

When I put her back together again, she started up without a fuss, running on BOTH cylinders now! So now I'm just tasked with trying to work that old stale gas through the system! It sucks that I filled up the tank before putting her to bed :(

Next on the list- syncing the carbs, changing all the fluids and lubing the chain. I just paid the registration on her and got some insurance going again. I had forgotten how much I love this bike! I'm thinking that I might ride her a little bit before putting her up for sale...

Beware of Free Web Hosting!

So over the past week or so, I have been consolidating all of my seven or so blogs into this one dogpile. The idea was to just have one place to go to to post whatever I needed to post. I've been scouring all my old blogs, trying to import each individual post to this blog.

At one time, I had used Wordpress, then I purchased my own domain name. I shopped for some free web hosting, importing all my Wordpress content to their servers. I have used 000webhost, Free Hostia, but worst of all, Byethost. It seems that I have evacuated all my content from 000webost and Hostia, funneling everything into Byethost. But a couple of years ago, my website died on their servers and I didn't have the time to keep up with their shitty email support, so I just let it be dead, never to revive itself again.

Well, this week, I've been trying to get back into my Byethost account. Apparently, they've changed their name, wiping out their accounts database. I've tried to contact them, but they don't even recognize my email address! Their login screens are all broken- every time I try and log in with my original credentials, it automatically changes my usrname in the textbox.

Thankfully, there's not much of anything in there on that blog, so it's not that big of a deal. I will just let it go and build up around it anyway.

In any case, shopping for free hosting is really a crapshoot. Make sure you back your stuff up, because one day, your host might just change their name, db's and blow away your credentials, and not even email you about the changes! I'm sure I've got that Wordpress backup somewhere on one of my backups. Now I have a new project do do- hunt for remnants of my old Wordpress!

Taking Advantage of the Weather

So....it's the middle of February. We're in an El Niño. There's more snowpack base at all the Tahoe resorts than there's been in eight years! But lately, the rain has disappeared. The weather is in the upper 60's. For the past two days, I decided to take advantage of the dry weather, before the rain starts up again. And boy! was it glorious!

I put some air in my tires and made sure my battery was topped off. I forgot how much fun it was to split lanes and rip through all that traffic standing still! Getting on the bike actually inspired me to do a little much needed work on it- last night, I took the throttle grip off and gave it a lube job. I also tightened up the throttle play a little. Last week, I did a slight clutch adjustment, since the clutch was engaging too late on the clutch lever release. Now, everything feels great!

How I miss riding! And the with the Bay Area commute, it's the best way to get to work on time!