Guilt

A picture is worth a thousand words. Look at this one, guilty or not guilty?

Luke and the pole he Hiekeled, doesn't he look guilty?

Lucky for me I didn't slow down to see what the sound behind me was as it was Luke's CRF250 trying to knock me down like so many bowling pins.

Off the road again

Me and my traveling buddy, Willie Nelson. We shared a few laughs in first class on our way from Houston to Raleigh a few years after the IRS busted him and he had to fly common carrier like the rest of us.

Anyway, yes I've been off the road and off the trail again. The off road part was on purpose but the off trail stuff wasn't. I think it's all Luke's fault. Justin and I were doing just fine exploring all of the off road trails we could find between home and Samoeng and then Luke came back and the old testosterone level got cranked up a few notches.

I learned to carry your own pain killers when adventuring in the jungle. I have Vicodin (codeine) for the small stuff like bruises and bumps and I also have some stronger stuff in case of compound fractures. It's a long way from the jungle to the hospital and the last thing I want to do is suffer while I'm bouncing along in the back of an old pickup. This is especially helpful if you're riding in Laos or Cambodia as the standard protocol if you need medical attention there is to get to Bangkok ASAP.

A crazy rooster spotted in a lychee orchard

BBQ the tree killer - at least I crashed with dignity and didn't slip in an oil spot on the side of the road and scar up my tg who was on the back.

Big & Tall says "good job"

Helmet cams at the ready, luckily they didn't capture my graceful dismount

Team Red shows us how it's done

Team Blue is not one to be outdone

Sometimes the trail is hard to see

You never know who you're going to find in the jungle

It's always good to have Ian along on the trail

Classic example...

... of why I enjoy living in Thailand vs. living in the US of A.

Click here.

Target is getting sued for not making their internet web site accessible to the blind?

Unbelievable... Welcome to the land of entitlement, the US of A.

Off road again

I've been riding off road with Justin just about every other day for the last month. If we had enough gear and didn't have to dry our boots out after every ride we'd probably be out every day.

Anyway, Luke just got back to Thailand after being in blighty for two months. He was anxious to see some of the trails we had discovered and anxious to get back on his CRF250. It had rained hard the previous two nights and the trails were wet so we thought we would head for the south side of Doi Pui and explore behind the Night Safari.

The south face of the mountain has somewhat steeper trails but they tend to be more hard/sandy/rocky/gravelly with very little clay so we thought that would be a good choice. It turned out that water running down the sandy hard packed trails didn't make for easy uphill riding so we abandoned our quest for the summit and headed to explore an enduro trail near the 1269 I discovered on a scouting trip a week earlier.

On the way to the enduro trail I heard a funny noise behind me and at the time, didn't think much about it as Luke and Justin were taking turns to see who could ride the longest wheelie. I got to the next turn and waited a few minutes for my friends and went to look for them after a few.

That funny noise I heard was Luke's CRF sliding up behind me and nearly tagging me while Luke rolled along the road and did a Hiekel on one of the cement posts. Justin said that if I had slowed to see what was making the noise I would have been whacked by the CRF from behind. Luke had rolled on hard in 5th gear coming out of a corner and because he was on knobbies he low sided.

Damage? The CRF now has a nice sharp edge on the left foot peg, the bark buster on the LH side has been shaved down a little. The cement post was merely bent 20 degrees to one side. Luke's RH palm has some road rash and his white butt is going to be sore from the slide down the road.

Those are Justin's hands and Luke's butt. What are mates for anyways? If they won't loan you money for stereos and CDs, what good are they?

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the "boys" to rest up so we can continue our ride. I'm the old man of the group, they're supposed to be waiting for me!

We get to the enduro trail and we're having a blast roosting our way up the hill. I decided to ride TP and had the misfortune of whacking a rock with my left boot. I damn near cried it hurt so bad. I stopped, cussed, hopped around on one foot and waited for them to come back before I headed home for the shower and to Chiang Mai Ram hospital for a 300 baht xray. Nothing broken, the area under my metatarsal bones is swollen and bruised as well. 100 meters from where I split off with the boys, Justin whacked a rock as well.

Hope we can go out again tomorrow!

BBQ

Are You a Good Rider?

What is a good rider?

Ask 20 people what makes a good motorcycle rider and you’ll probably get 20 different answers, most of them centered on the generally accepted principle that the fastest riders are the best riders. “He has to be a good rider because he can ride faster than me” seems to be the prevailing sentiment. Ask anyone knowledgeable who the best rider in the world is and they will probably say Valentino Rossi – a multi time Moto GP champion.

If you think about motorcycles as Freud would, you quickly realize that there’s a whole lot of machismo at play. Most riders, without giving it much thought at all, equate riding well with going fast. After all, nobody wants to be the slowest rider in the group, unless you are BDB.

A while back I had a conversation with a fellow rider and he fell right into the macho trap of equating riding fast with riding “good”. When I called him out on this he realized what he had done and changed what he said to something more like “He’s a really good, fast rider”

Myself, I won’t ride if I don’t feel right. That means that I have to be 100% aware and 100% ready to react to the threats that are going to be presented to me. Riding is a good activity for me because if I’m on the road and I’m spending the night out with the boys, I won’t drink too much because I know that I won’t ride the next morning with a hangover.

I had my first and only road accident on a motorcycle when I was 17. It was about 2 weeks after I bought my first road bike, a 2 stroke 1974 Kawasaki 750 triple. I was showing off and whacked a fire hydrant. Luckily I didn’t get hurt. It DID scare the crap out of me and I believe it also gave me a very healthy respect for motorcycles.

When I ride on the road, I do it with the attitude that every bike, car, truck, cow, buffalo, dog, chicken, etc. is out to kill me and my job is to prevent them from doing that. I am constantly scanning the road, checking the mirrors, looking for dogs that don’t see me so I can give them a toot on my horn, looking for scooters that are getting ready to dart across the road so they can make a u-turn on the divided highway, looking for sand, gravel or oil in the corners.

When I ride in the dirt, I ride for fun. I have fallen in the dirt too many times to count. In Thailand, dirt riding can be somewhat similar to road riding because the trails you ride on often link remote villages to the real world. You may come around a corner to find a step through in your lane coming right at you. You might be climbing a hill and find a pickup truck sliding down the hill towards you.

I used to think that the best riders were those that didn’t get hurt, didn’t endanger themselves or anyone else (an oxymoron because motorcycle riding is an inherently dangerous thing to do), those that didn’t ride when they’ve been drinking or those that didn’t ride at night.

Now that I’m older, I have finally learned what being a good rider is all about. Being a good rider means that you never stop learning to be a better rider.

Jewish Geography

Jewish Geography, aka “JG”

If you know about JG then you know that it is all about “You are who you know” or “You are where you’ve traveled”

I’ve seen JG used by Jews and non-Jews.

I like to relate this line of thinking to motorcycle riding buddies. “You are who where you’ve ridden” or “you are who you’ve ridden with”

When you voluntarily step up and accept someone else as your riding partner as opposed to letting a “ride organizer” choose who is coming on the ride, you are making a statement. You are making a statement of that person’s worthiness as a riding partner. I would probably ride most anyone at least once. If I’ve ridden with them two times or more then I am making an IMPLIED statement as to their ride-worthy ability and your willingness to be associated with them on a ride. Like most everyone else, I am willing to give anyone a second chance to show what they are made of.

I have ridden with people, on rides that have been organized by someone else, that I will probably never ride with again. I’ve also ridden with people that I would like to ride with again.

What about you?