http://www.motowriters.com/ motowriters en-us Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:19:55 GMT 1440 CPG-Nuke Dragonfly motowriters News http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.motowriters.com/images/logo.gif http://www.motowriters.com/ http://www.motowriters.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=20 Donna is on the road! Ms. Demenshea / Mrs. Motowriter left Reno for parts north on July 1 and has uploaded some photos from her ride out of Reno, up to Oregon and into Montana. While waiting for Mrs. M to get her own write-up together, we welcome you to partake in some unannotated photos of the Summer trip so far... Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:19:55 GMT http://www.motowriters.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=19 In the 15 years I’ve been working in Information Technology I’ve been fortunate in not having to travel for business more than a couple of times a year. Motorcycle travel is the antithesis of “business travel,” an oxymoron in which “travel” is a typically hurried affair involving disorienting taxi rides, the perp walk through airport security, and a daily dose of bad coffee from the in-room 2-cup “service”. The “business” flavor takes any modicum of pleasure out of “travel”. After starting a new job at the beginning of 2007 I was sent twice in the course of a month for training classes at my company’s training facility in Phoenix. First I spent a week in class, lodged across the street from the company office with no transportation to escape the little corner of sprawling metropolitan Phoenix I called home for a week. But as compensation for a week’s stay at a run-down Ramada Inn, my wife flew down to Phoenix so we could rent a couple of bikes and do a little touring of the Arizona desert with our friends Renee/Backmarker and her pet man Bruce. Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:23:05 GMT http://www.motowriters.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=18 In the Nevada desert autumn quietly tiptoes across the wind-swept sage and you wake up one morning to the sure sign of colder weather to come, when the desert sage blooms for miles in every direction. The sullen summer green is replaced by vibrant yellow to ochre hues filling the air with a dusky aroma as the branches celebrate, dancing in the breeze. With the inevitable change in the air, I took a couple of days to get out on the bike in search of fall. Nothing quite compares to this sudden transformation, although I am certain the glorious seasonal change in New England must be magnificent. (I have never experienced a fall in the Midwest or New England and suppose that is yet another adventure I must undertake -- yet another addition to my list of "musts" that's got to cover at least a decade of constant motorcycle riding!) Fall brings introspection for me, a time when I think about life’s experiences and challenges and the goals I have yet to achieve. As each year rolls by I perceive myself further seasoned as more and more white waltzes into my darkened locks. Considering a future in a world that sends away their old to be ignored and forgotten, I ponder and ride my motorbike. Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:01:09 GMT http://www.motowriters.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=14 I love motorcycle adventures. I love the anticipation and preparation and the subsequent glow upon returning home after another successful journey. I love the human interaction while traveling. I love the freedom most of all. The freedom to take a deep breath of daring, exposing the underbelly of desire sleeping within, then setting it free with a grin. Grinning, I mounted my trusty moto-steed and headed north solo, embarking on a 14-day adventure to visit country I had yet to experience. My GPS held a healthy dose of craziness covering 7 states and 2 provinces. Nearly 2600 miles, a less than daunting sum for the serious Iron Butt explorer, I'm not an IBA member, to be honest, and I started with a bit of apprehension over the substantial mileage. Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:52:04 GMT http://www.motowriters.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13 Those who frequent online discussion venues dedicated to riding will be all too familiar with the term ATGATT: “All the gear, all the time”. ATTGATT pops up in nearly every forum topic relating to a motorcycle accident (crash, get-off, etc.). Inevitably, the rider who’s survived to discuss their own crash will pay homage to ATGATT. If I hadn’t been wearing a leather jacket, we read… Equally inevitable is the story, generally posted online by an outside observer, of the rider who went down wearing jeans and sneakers, whose legs suffered horrific road rash, or who broke a foot--completely preventable, we’re assured, if the downed rider had only been an adherent to ATGATT. The original story might or might not include a criticism of the gear the rashed rider was wearing. Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:02:01 GMT http://www.motowriters.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8 Dateline: October, 2005 When Tom/Motorrad and I rode over Hwy 49 to Sierraville on July 4, I headed home through Truckee on Donner Pass Rd. I’d read something online about old U.S. Hwy 40, which originally ran from New Jersey to San Francisco, crossing the Sierras over Donner Pass. I could have taken I-80 home that day, the superslab that superseded Hwy 40, but instead I decided to follow old U.S. 40 as far as I could, a charming two laner running parallel to I-80 and sometimes in the shadows of I-80 as the superslab spanned gaps in the hills via giant leaps. Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:57:01 GMT http://www.motowriters.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5 My heart skipped a beat when I read a report that Scott Road in Sacramento County had been repaved. The Moto Road closest to my home at the foot of the foothills, Scott Rd. occupies a prominent place among my formative moto experiences. Scott Rd. connects nothing to nothing. Ranches flank the road, connected to civilization by the occasional gravel driveway that wanders into the hills behind a cattle-proof gate. The land gently undulates, offering a view of a barn now and then, but hiding many homesteads behind the low hills. Classic foothill grasses fill the eye in every direction, a vista broken occasionally by an outcropping of rugged brown-black rocks or an ancient oak, reaching into the sky in its zen search for an ideal random roadmap of annual growth in stark craggy branches. Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:35:33 GMT