Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic

A couple weekends ago, I attended Lee Parks' Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic.  It was held on a helicopter landing zone (LZ 16) at Camp Pendleton.  It's a nice large swath of level concrete.  Classroom portions of the day were held in an adjacent explosives training building.  This venue just has "danger" written all over it .. figuratively and literally.

The course is intended for street riding (most other courses are about the track) and I gained a whole lot more confidence in my bike and myself.  We learned to smooth out acceleration and deceleration, to keep the bike level, to flop into turns.    We even learned how our suspension works, and how to adjust it to match the rider's weight.

On the course, the class was broken into teams of five or six, with a section of the zone to themselves.  Each group had an instructor dedicated, and instructors were rotated among teams with each new exercise.  The personal attention really made a difference.

A really interesting moment came when we were preparing for lean-off turns.  In the classroom, we ran through the steps of a lean-off turn.  But on the course, rather than just wing it, we practiced it on our bikes while standing still.  Each group surrounded a single rider's bike.  The rider got on, and then actually got to try the technique, with the group leaning the bike to simulate it.

It's just about the only time I got out my phone during the whole eleven hour span, just to shoot this video.  Incidentally, when they showed the whole class how we'd be doing this, they demonstrated on me.  Talk about pressure to get it right..

Suzuki Gladius SFV650 Turn Signal Size

The Suzuki Gladius SFV650's turn signal bulbs are 1156 A Offset Pin size.  Since it took me a while to figure it out, hopefully this will save someone else a bunch of searching.

I have no idea what the 1156 is for, except that one of the 1s indicates that it's a single filament bulb.  The "A" is for "Amber" because the bike's turn signal cover is clear, so the bulb has to be amber tinted.  And the "Offset" pin configuration means that the two bayonet pins are not exactly across from each other on the circumference .. one is "offset" from a straight-across position.  So, the pins are closer to each other on one side, and farther on the other.  Wacky.

Why Sysadmins dig Motorcycles

I've noticed that the clever sysadmins I'm friends with all seem to groove on motorcycles.  Even if they don't have one themselves, they think that in general they're pretty keen.  Why is that?

Well, you can replace the stock parts with all sorts of other parts -- just make sure you screw everything back on nice and snug!  And a particularly kewl arrangement of parts always leads others to comment "nice hack," or "nice bike."  Some folks shoot for the aesthetic, and other folks go for something that "just works," but either one seems to garner a little praise in its own category.  So there's that parallel.

Also, we're both always looking ahead for hazards .. almost pathalogically.  This is likely because no one sees you until the very last moment before they mess your stuff up.  You've got everything very nicely balanced, thanks, as long as you know ahead of time where the bumps are, and when you're going to have to turn.  In fact, we probably both swear in similar ways when something unexpected pops up in front of us.  That's a clear similarity.

Now the only thing we're missing is the "biker wave."  Which is a shame.  Or do I just not know what the "sysadmin wave" looks like?

Ride Route : Sept 6, 2009

We started at Pizza Port, for a salad and a slice of pizza.  We went down the coast through Point Loma.  We swung through downtown, and looped north to stop at Extraordinary Desserts for some coffee.  We swung past my place, and then I showed Scott how I can get to his place on surface streets.
View Motorcycle Ride, Sept. 6, 2009 in a larger map

Motorcycle License

Officially.

Getting Around to It

This is my new bike. It's an '09 Suzuki Gladius. Scott and I took the MSF course over the weekend and we're almost legal to ride after dark and on freeways. Until then we'll take the long way to work.

I've been meaning to get a motorcycle since I was sixteen. It's resource efficient, and easy to park. It's funny how you can take so long to get around to doing something like this that you've been thinking about for a while. I wonder what other junk I've never gotten around to.