This tent is certainly interesting. Half for you, half for your gigantic adventure bike.
Although Adventioneering is a mashup of adventure and engineering, it never hurts to be reminded that we can’t rely on technology without using our brains. This New York Times article about people abusing technology and leaving common sense at home is a good reminder.
Far more common but no less perilous, park workers say, are visitors who arrive with cellphones or GPS devices and little else — sometimes not even water — and find themselves in trouble. Such visitors often acknowledge that they have pushed themselves too far because they believe that in a bind, the technology can save them.
While I doubt any of us fine, beautiful, brilliant people would ever do the sorts of things in this article, we should always remember to use our technology for good without losing our critical thinking skills. Take your GPS, load up trail maps, record your progress and hikes, but always use your brain and remember that its up to you to get out of anything short of a life or death situation on your own.
Every once in a while we get a call from someone who has gone to the top of a peak, the weather has turned and they are confused about how to get down and they want someone to personally escort them. The answer is that you are up there for the night.
Be safe and have good adventures!
Red Rocks
Since I don’t really do overnights (yet), I haven’t had any need for more than a tank bag to hold anything I want on a ride, whether that is a camera, water bottle, rain gear, lunch, groceries, or other. However, I have been seriously thinking about longer rides including camping and hiking, and I don’t want to haul my jacket, riding pants, etc with me when I leave the bike. Lockable hard luggage seems like a logical step, and Givi seems like the logical place to go to find it.
I’m somewhat worried on what the overall effect of the luggage will be on the look of the bike, more related to balance than coolness. The SV650 is not large, and the bags kind of are. How fat will the ass be when the bags are installed?
Luckily someone did this already and posted a great overview of his install. It looks great; although the bags are somewhat large they don’t look completely out of place.
Not sure if I’ll actually go ahead with this, but I have a good place to start. Maybe this is a good project for next spring. Of course my other option is to just buy a sport tourer, but the bags cost a lot less and I don’t seem to have any real problems with comfort on long rides beyond a sore rear.
I have an IRC program on my phone that after backgrounding continues to run for about 10 minutes. If during that time it loses the connection, it will automatically reconnect. If it fails, it records a notification in the system. It does this for every server (three) and every failed attempt. When I load up the program again sometime later I am greeted by the same notification popup over and over and over again. I’ve had to clear a dozen popups just to get back to the normal program interface. While this is a specific issue with this App, it highlights just how frustratingly broken the iOS notification system is. It would be much nicer to get a listing of all notifications and be able to view them at once.
I did the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway from near Black Hawk up to Estes Park. Gorgeous though they could stand to repave a lot of 72. It was a beautiful afternoon, though clouds coming off the peaks were threatening rain by the time I got to Estes Park.
I made a few stops for photos, but spent most of the time just riding.
On my way back South, I took CO7 east from its intersection with CO72 to Lyons. This was the second time I have ridden this road, once going west and this time going east. I have verified my initial impression that this is one of the best riding roads within a day ride from Denver. The pavement is perfect, the turns just right for holding 45-50 mph the whole time without braking, and just gorgeous. The view coming down into Lyons is amazing. Highly recommended.
I took a ride yesterday up to Estes Park, got a few nice pictures along the way.
Reposted from Adventioneering.
True to what I decided on last night, I rode to Fairplay and then figured it out. I went north first to Golden, up US 6 towards Black Hawk and Idaho Springs, then sat in traffic on I70 (5 miles on 70 were the slowest miles of the entire day. Seriously people learn to drive).
Unlike last time I was up this way, I didn’t take the tunnel. Instead I took the exit and rode up Loveland Pass. Unless someone else drove me up here when I was younger, this was my first time over the pass. It was gorgeous, though like so many wonderful things there were too many people at the lookout stuff. One of the things I love best about riding is when I’m alone, no traffic in front of or behind me, no other humans in sight. Crowded roads and busy stopping places don’t really agree with me.
After Loveland Pass I rode through Keystone and past the Dillon Reservoir. Took a good road in terms of route, but the pavement surface was a bit rough.
From there I came down through Breckenridge on highway 9, over Hoosier Pass again, and through Fairplay and South Park. 285 was as beautiful as I remembered (more so with additional green) but damn it people what do I have to do to get you to at least go the speed limit?
To escape traffic for a while I took a side road. Unfortunately it only went for a few miles through the valley before turning to gravel. I wasn’t feeling very dirty so I turned around. Now the whole time I had a bottle of water and a sandwich, and it was nearing 2 PM. Seemed like a good time for lunch, so I turned off the side road onto a narrow two track and had a picnic. I have no idea if I was trespassing or not, but I didn’t see any signs. I was far enough away from the highway and road to feel truly alone, and it was very relaxing.
Couldn’t stay forever though, and I got back on 285, followed a couple on touring bikes for 20 miles or so, then hopped off on the road to Evergreen. Through Evergreen and up Bear Creek Canyon. It was going so well, until an idiot pulled out right in front of me and proceeded to go about 30 the rest of the way, with me and a half dozen guys on sport bikes who pulled up behind us. Never pulled over, and Bear Creek Canyon is way too twisty to try to pass across the double yellow (every turn is blind). Pro tip people, when you are not even going the speed limit and have a bunch of motorcycles behind you, and you’re on a road with ample turn offs, just turn off and let us by.
After that it was city riding back to home, and nothing to talk about. The best part of the day was definitely my little picnic all alone in an open valley surrounded by mountains.
New bag
Bear Lake
