To quote the immortal Freddie Mercury… “Get on your bikes and ride!”

Tomorrow is the 16th Annual Ride To Work Day!!

Ride To Work advocates and supports the use of motorcycles and scooters for transportation, and provides information about transportation riding to the public.

I’ll be riding tomorrow (I usually ride every day!) to promote:

• The number of motorcyclists to the general public and to politicians.
• That motorcyclists are from all occupations and all walks of life.
• That motorcyclists can reduce traffic and parking congestion in large cities.
• That motorcycles are for transportation as well as recreation.
• That motorcycling is a social good.

Ride To Work – Work To Ride

I ride a Kawasaki KLR650 – it’s a single cylinder bike that has been around since the mid 80s. It gets around 50-55mpg – will easily out perform about 90% of the vehicles on the road today and is an absolute blast to ride!

Never ridden?? Sign up and take a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course and learn how!

At my previous job I rarely took vacations outside of the typical holidays. I was always ‘too busy’.

When I quit – one thing I vowed to do was take more vacations! This weekend I went motorcycle camping in the North Carolina mountains with a local group of the DoD – a group of motorcyclists who hang out on the web, discuss all things motorcycles via email, and occasionally meet up and do some actual riding!

Rule #1: There are no rules.
Rule #0: Go ride.

It was so refreshing to unwind, ride some great roads, make some new friends and drink some good beer! And while many in the group were coding geeks – we never ‘talked shop’ and instead discussed bikes, tires, oil and great roads. (photos here)

Now it is back to reality and my ugly database…

Last night I put on a new rear Dunlop D607 and was itching to try it out today. Woke up and it was raining. :( But around 11 it looked like there was going to be a gap in the showers so I suited up and headed out. I took it easy on the wet roads and headed south into Harnett County. Along the way I stumbled upon a beautiful dirt/gravel road that runs along the back side of Raven Rock State Park. I’d found this road before but now I think I can remember how to get there again! :)

Link: Google Maps – Album

Today I was riding into work – glanced down and noticed my odometer. I hastily pulled off onto a side road and puttered along until it clicked over and then pulled over and took a blurry pic with my phone cam.

My new years resolution was to blog more so now that it is almost February I thought I should get started!

A few weeks ago I was out in the garage working on my motorcycle. I had it up on the lift, my tool chest was out and the KLR was in pieces (I was replacing the doohickey in case you were wondering).

In a Pirsig type of moment – I realized that I have a LOT of tools, and without those tools the basic maintenance chores I was performing would be a lot more difficult to complete. That got me thinking about all the web development tools I use during the day.

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Over the weekend I finished up doing some much needed maintenance on the KLR.

• Changed oil and filter
• Replaced the doohickey
• Flushed and replaced my coolant
• Cleaned the oil screen

On my previous KLRs I had never taken the time to check the oil screen but many have reported it is often clogged – so I decided I’d check it and see for myself. I’m glad I did – it was at least 30-40% clogged with what appeared to be gasket sealant. My bike is a 2004 with only 10,000 miles and I was surprised it was that clogged. If I ever bought a new KLR I would certainly plan on doing that probably in the first 2-3,000 miles and then maybe check it again and 10,000.

Just rolled back into town after a short mountain vacation with Tom.   We headed out of town Wednesday afternoon and headed west.  We stayed in West Jefferson, NC which was a great base for our trip – close to lots of great roads.  Route 16 and 58 were both highly recommended on the Concours list and they both proved to be fun rides.  We also managed to hit the Blue Ridge Parkway and there was no rain (previous trips on the BRP have all be wet!) and made it as far south as Mt. Mitchell – great view from the top!