Category: Motorcycling

Motorcycling

Briefly Back

Posted on by chappyshi

I have been bad about blogging which if you care about following me you already know.  I can’t say what the problem is but I am trying to get past it.  It has been a wacky seven or eight months what with starting work again as a contractor for a major corporation and then getting the opportunity to apply for the same job at the corporation as a full-time employee w/ benefits.

Forgive me if I don’t mention any company names.  A few years ago I would not have worried about doing so but,  even though I have never made good or bad comments about a company I have worked for or am working for and would never do so in my blog, I still feel it is risky to be too specific.  So much for free speech, eh?

The new job involved a major learning curve mostly for call center support but also for systems/desktop support.  I feel like  I have done quite well.  I may not be the star for the newly established support center but am certainly one of the stars.  Finally starting as a full time employee this week has been  the cap on the whole venture.

I finally have health benefits which is mucho beuno as you will see later in this entry.  Additional benefits besides health such as education and training  with the company are a big positive.  As I have mentioned to some of you who might read this, the pay is subpar, from my point of view, as much as  25% less than many of us in the group have earned, but the benefits help to make up for the direct loss in income.  I think the opportunities for the future with this company are very good.  I am already enrolled for a web server admin class in May which bodes well.

On the personal side, I have been laying kind of low.  Having been w/o health insurance since last June, I haven’t been riding my motorcyle or skiing much.  My last health insurance quote was for $450 a month due to pre-existing conditions.  Thanks “Obamacare!”

I did get up to Vermont for my good friend Linda’s 50th birthday in December.  I stopped in Avoca, PA, about halfway up, to see my friend  Terry and his boys.  I think that Linda was surprised when she saw me with the crowd at her house but who knows.  That was an 1100 mile road trip crammed into about three days but well worth it.  I did get about 2.5 hours in on the slopes at Killington on the way up which was nice.  Only time I have skiied since I tore my ACL at Seven Springs in 2008.

Turkey Day was spent with my sister Julie who lives  about a mile away from me.  Christmas was spent with my sister Kim in SE Virginia.  We went on Christmas morning to her husband’s parent’s house for breakfast and the ceremonial tearing apart of the Xmas presents for the kids and grandkids.  Madness I  say!

It took a longer than I expected drive to go camping at the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay a month or so ago.  And I didn’t have the cash I needed to get into the “unattended” gate at the park.  Of course, I saw 3 or 4 park staff members there including one who stopped by my campsite to give me the money I had overpaid for the site.  I figured it would just be a donation to the park system but…  I was at Elk Neck  State Park.

For those of you in the know, I am playing in a Cornhole league that friends of mine have sponsored  for a few years.  On Fridays, when the WX is good, we all get out and throw some bags.  Unfortunately, the WX has sucked  so my partner and I  have to  hook up w/ the teams that we missed games with and make them  up.

I mentioned that I was glad to have health benefits again through my employer, who wouldn’t’ be, eh?  Recently my blood pressure and cholesterol levels have skyrocketed despite my efforts to keep them down using natural supplements.  My blood pressure was so high the other day I almost went to the emergency room.  Being a man, that was of course out of the question.

I  did go to “Urgent Care” at my doctor’s office the next day.  My blood pressure was still high.  I got an EKG which was okay but had some possible  anomalies.  I got an immediate referral to the cardiologist at my “doctor’s office” and since I was paying out of pocket I had no insurance “people” to deal with, which was nice.  Unfortunately, the cardiologist scheduled me for a “Nuclear Stress Test” for which I had the insurance coverage but no documentation.

I have had to put the test on hold.  Hope I don’t die first….

Wicked Ride On the Scooter Today

Posted on by chappyshi

Had a wicked ride on the scooter today…about 190 miles.  I hit many of the roads I frequented when I lived up in Frederick, MD.  The temps were in the sixties…perfect.

All the creeks and rivers I came across were running very high!  The roads, for the most part, were in pretty good shape.  Most of the gravel, dirt, and detritus left over from the long winter was gone.  There were still some wet spots  from the high level of ground water though.  You definitely had to be careful.  Also, some of the roads were in pretty bad shape.  Unfortunately considering the state of the state finances (Virginia), many of those roads might not see repairs for months if not years.

I tried to plot out the route in Google Maps but am not sure how well it worked.
View Larger Map

That ‘s all I have.  Needs more work but has potential to plot out routes that other bikers might enjoy.  However you look at it, there are lots of great roads for scooter riding in Maryland, western MD that is.

Virginia’s Fickle Winter Weather

Posted on by chappyshi

A month ago we had two feet of snow and temps in the low twenties…unusual for Virginia.  Today it is almost seventy and partly cloudy.  If I weren’t gainfully doing some work and if we weren’t expecting more rain, I’d be on the ZXR-1200 burning up some road!

Rain “On Your Scooter” Much?

Posted on by chappyshi

I started off two Saturday’s ago at about 1100 on the scooter (2003 Kawasaki ZRX-1200R) for West Virginia on Route 50.  Route 50 has some great curves from Gore, VA to Rt. 219 in West Virgina.  I had intended to take 219 south to Elkins, WV, where, if I remember correctly, my old boss, Charlie Adams, went to college.  From there I hoped to find the most entertaining roads that would take me back east to Centreville.

Unfortunately, I just got into the curves on Rt. 50 and did not even make it to Romney, WV, when the clouds and weather began to look most ominous.  I stopped at a gas  station at the intersection of 50 and 29 South.  It was about 1300…I dismounted…used the restroom…and started on my lunch.  It was about then that the rain started.

I was able to finish my lunch and get my gear on my bike  covered up without too many issues.  I put the rain cover on my tank bank since my valuables, cell phone, and cameras were in that.  My tail bag had only a pair of sandals and my flexible cooler, in which was my lunch and water bottles so I wasn’t to concerned about how wet that got.

Thinking that I was going to be able to ride out of the rain by heading immediately south, I only put on my upper body rain liner.  After encountering more rain and coming to a store at an intersection, I stopped to put on my rain paints.  I am darn glad I did!

I had about a 50 or 60 mile ride south in front of me and then about 90 miles  back to Centreville.   I kept the rain gear on the whole time.  Headed south after putting on my rain pants,  I rode through some serious rain squalls with heavy winds and downpours.  My rain gear is pretty good.  I stayed pretty dry considering the conditions.

Unfortunately, the rain put a damper on the technical aspects of the ride.  It made me think though.  Heading east on Rt. 211, you cross over two mountain ranges with great curves going up and down the mountains.  Unfortunately, the road is very popular with bikers, many of who are not good riders and/or take the curves at speeds beyond their abilities.

At the top of the mountain coming down from Skyline Drive, there was a sign saying that the next three miles were locations of lots of motorcycle accidents.  Sadly, as I carefully, it was sprinkling, took my corners down the mountain, I came around a corner and saw a police car and a fire truck parked on the outside of the next corner.  There were the ruins of a sport bike wrapped up in the guardrail on the outside of the corner.  Stupid.

While trying to find out about that specific accident, I found that that route is notorious for rude, obnoxious sport bike riders and accidents as a result of their inexperience.

NTL, rain and bike accident not withstanding, it was a pretty fun ride.  I saw a Sunbeam Tiger and a Willy’s Jeep, not very common occurences these days. (Pictures from the Internet.)

The coolest thing I saw on the trip, forgive me if I don’t get it exactly right, was a street named, “Keister Hoover.”  From my experience, the word “keister” means rump.  So the street name then is named a “butt vacuum?”

Getting Paid Poorly to Ride My Motorcycle

Posted on by chappyshi

I rode the scooter up to Youngstown for work last Wednesday. It is nice to get paid to ride but I don’t think I am getting paid enough. I am out at our Ohio plant with the local tech and one of our guys from the Data Center doing a network and server migration. What a ball buster. We fine tuned our plan Thursday and Friday hoping to have the cut done on Saturday so we could go to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland today (now yesterday) but it wasn’t meant to be.

Thankfully it was a nasty raining day that would have made for not the nicest of days in Cleveland. As it is we have put in 30 hours in the last two days and tomorrow is not likely to be much better. To cap the day off, we got to the beer store at 11:50 PM thinking we were just under the wire only to find out you can’t even buy beer on Sunday.

There should be signs when you enter the state, or county…who knows, that announce this fact, “No booze sold on Sundays.” Youngstown is so close to Pennsyltucky, the beer stores there must have a field day on Sundays. Oh well…too tired to even get a good rant going.