BSA Owners Club International Rally

     The BSA Owners Club was in Petaluma for their international rally.  A good choice, I think, as between the wine country and the coast highways, there are some of the best motorcycle roads in the world. The route the BSA boys chose, for this day, was from Petaluma to the town of Occidental, then over Coleman Valley Rd. to Highway 1 and back through the town of Bodega.











     Marie, Logan and I met our friends Walt and Vanessa at Howard's Cafe for breakfast.  After we finished eating the first riders came into town, followed by probably a hundred more.  

     This is the 51st BSA Owners Club International Rally.  Next year the Rally will be held in Denmark and then in 2016 Italy, 2017 Netherlands, and in 2018 Australia.  The 2019 Rally will be a homecoming of sorts as it well be held in Great Britain.  

     The members of the BSA Owners Club were truly nice folks.  They all seemed to want people to see and enjoy their machines and share their enthusiasm.  And as usual I wish I had taken more photographs. Too soon the riders kicked over their bikes and headed off to Coleman Valley Rd.

Walt, clearly interested in the opinion of a five year old.

Well, It Might Be...

Anyway, nobody said that it wasn't.

California Poppies of the Western Mojave

     Between the City of Lancaster and the Town of Goreman lies a valley north of the San Gabriel mountains and south of the Tehachappi mountains. That valley is called the Antelope Valley and is the west end of the great Mojave Desert.

     And if you go there in early spring, and there is rain at just the right time, and if it is not too cold, and not yet too hot, you will find that the California Poppy has bloomed in all their millions.

Charlie the Nomad's Birthday Party

     Charlie invited everyone to celebrate his birthday in Star Valley, AZ. and people came from far and near.  It was also Valardi Gonzales' birthday, so there was plenty celebrate.  It was good to see old friends that I know from The Stampede. I met a lot of other nice people there too.  Together we wished the birthday boys well. We all had a great time. There was brick oven pizza, beer and good conversation, it was a great celebration.

The man in the fullness of his years.

I think Valardi liked his present.

The award for best boots goes to, Valardi Gonzales

Coyote Road Agents

     We spotted these coyotes in Death Valley just south of Bad Water.  Bad water is the lowest point in North America at 282 ft. below sea lever. It is a hard environment.  When I first saw them I thought that we had just happened upon them while they were going about their business.  But it quickly became clear that they were panhandling.

     To live in this environment you would have to exploit any and all opportunities.  Evidently these coyotes at some point were going about their business when someone saw them and said, "Hey look, coyotes," and tossed them some food.  Then there was an "AHA" moment.

100,000 miles

My bike turned over 100,000 miles.  It's still reliable and still runs well.  The inner fairing is a little faded but the bike still looks good. I'll take more photos at 200,000.

Robots Stealing Jobs

MotoPOCKETS

     At the begining of April, I got an email from Bob Allen and Emma Nicholson of MotoPOCKETS.  Their company makes a variety of small storage bags that fit conviently on motorcycles and just about anywhere you might want some extra-handy storage. They said they would like to have me try their Top Case Net for my Tourpak.

     The MotoPOCKET can be mounted in quite a few places within the Tourpak.  I considered mounting it on the lid but I often have so much stuff that I have to use the lid like a trash compactor and might squish something when closing the lid.  I decided to mount it on the rear right near the latches.  That way you can just lift the lid and reach inside to remove items from the MotoPOCKET or the whole MotoPOCKET itself, the MotoPOCKET is held in place by a velcro pad and can be easily taken with you.

     The MotoPocket was very handy.  I kept my small camera there as well as my sunglasses, phone charger and ear bud, you get the idea. Just about anything that you might want handy but don't want to carry in your pants pocket.

MotoPOCKETS can be found at 

http://adventurepockets.com/   

LED Driving Lights

     These lights started out as 50 Watt halogen driving lights from Walmart.  I replaced the halogen bulbs with MR 16 LED bulbs. The MR 16's use 4 Watts of power and put out about the same amount of light as the 50 Watt lamps.  This sounded really good, so I ordered up a couple of the LED lamps.  

     50 Watts equals 4.1 amps and 4 Watts equals 1/3 of an amp, that's a real power savings, especially in a motorcycle application. The bulbs are available from Amazon for about five bucks each.  

     It's a pretty straight forward job of installing the LED bulbs in the Walmart housings.  I drilled and put small screws in the light rings as the rings looked like they would vibrate off quite easily.  I installed four of the lights on my Sportster.  They put out as much light as the headlight.  They're really quite amazing.

     I wish I could take credit for the idea, but credit goes to someone who goes by the handle of Pjckm at Kawasaki Vulcan 500 Forums  (http://www.vulcanforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95673). 

Dennis Carley: Survivor

Back in October (see Real Reality, Oct 13, 2013) , I wrote about Dennis Carley who was injured in a motorcycle crash in July of 2013.  Dennis was very badly hurt and his survival was not at all certain.

I had been wondering how Dennis was doing so I sent him an email.  I was happy to hear that he is back at work and according to Dennis, "feeling better than expected."  He is thinking about The Stampede, which is a really good sign and he said, he will be at The Smoke Out this year. 

The Copperopolis Sportster

     I have been searching for a bike for this years Stampede.  I've been haunting Craig's Lists all over the west, and I finally found the bike I was looking for in Copperopolis, California.  Kieth had an '02 Sportster 1200 with very low mileage at a good price.  I called and arranged to meet Kieth and see the bike.  

     Kieth built the sculpture above that sits on the highway near his home.  He says bikers often stop for photos, I'm no different, I had to snap a few shots too.    

   
     Here's Kieth with the bike the first time I saw it.  I really like the red.  I think red is the new black.

     I really like the name Copperopolis.  Copperopolis is located smack in the middle of the California Gold Country.  For those who don't know much of California history, gold was discovered in 1848 and by 1849 people were streaming into California in search of gold. They were called 49ers.  The San Francisco football team, the 49'ers, is named after those gold seekers.  
     
     In 1860 they found copper, not gold, and they named the place Copperopolis. The copper miners are not called 61'ers and have no football team named after them.  They did remove 72,598,883 pounds of copper before the mines closed.  Some say 72,598,882 pounds, but I'm going with the U.S. Bureau of Mines statistics on this.  

     So that just about covers the entire history of California between 1848 and the present.  

     I made a deal and bought the bike.  The tires were pretty badly checked so I had to trailer the bike home.  The first order of business, get new tires.

 

Mount Tamalpais

     The San Francisco Bay area is a great place to have a motorcycle, maybe the best place to have a motorcycle.  There are just so many really good places to go.  For example Mt. Tamalpais is just 30 minutes from downtown San Francisco.

     To get to Mt Tam, take Highway 1, from Highway 101, north of the Golden Gate Bridge, turn right on Panoramic Highway.  At the crest of the hill take Pan Toll Rd. (not a toll road) to Ridgecrest Blvd. turn right to the summit parking lot. The actual summit it a short walk up the trail.

     Just about anyway you go from there is going to be a good ride.  The road is so good that dozens of car commercials that are filmed there, maybe you recognize it.  If you stay on Ridgecrest it becomes the Fairfax-Bolinas Rd., and that winds through the forest to, you guessed it, Fairfax.