Far Out Son of Lung...

Press Release: TSBA Sign Off

I decided to go out with a little bang and stayed up until 1:30AM writing this little bit of fun... I'm sorry to go in some ways, relieved in others.

posted by GreSam @ 08:43 1 comments

Barnacle Bill

I just got my leathers back from Barnacle Bill. The work looks decent, not spectacular, but certainly worth the $214 I paid for the patches to save the suit from going into the dumpster. I'm sure this will be more than sufficuent for mini's, but once I'm back on a big bike I might want to look at getting another suit. I like the fit of the TaiChi but if the back is going to split like that again I'd go for a suit with a solid back, instead of seperate panels.

I'll post more later when I have photos and links.

posted by GreSam @ 14:41 0 comments

Fortune Cookies

I love these fortunes, especially when you make it more interesting by adding the phrase "...in bed" to the end of any of them. Rock Gal seems to agree.

• Your graceful performance encourages others.

• You appreciate the good will of others.

• Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.

• You are a bundle of energy, always on the go.

posted by GreSam @ 15:31 0 comments

MotoGP Testing

This is awesome. I only pulled the top six lap times from MotoGP testing at Sepang, but if you look at the makes and lap times... The top six riders are on 5 different makes of race machine and are seperated by just over 1.5 tenths of a second. I think that's about how long it takes to snap your fingers or something.

1. Shinya Nakano JPN Kawasaki Racing Team 2min 1.8 secs
2. Loris Capirossi ITA Ducati Marlboro Team 2min 1.87 secs
3. Valentino Rossi ITA Camel Yamaha Team 2min 1.89 secs
4. John Hopkins USA Team Suzuki MotoGP 2min 1.9 secs
5. Dani Pedrosa SPA Repsol Honda Team 2min 1.93 secs
6. Carlos Checa SPA Tech 3 Yamaha 2min 2.06 secs

Yeah, this season is looking awesome.

posted by GreSam @ 08:48 0 comments

Open Roads Racing

I added a link to this video on the right but had to make a post about it as well. The Irish are known for being a little nuts, but you have to admit this is beyond your usual sort of craziness.

The Northwest 200 is one of the bigger races in the Irish open roads series and rivals the TT for the shear balls it takes to run it as a top flight racer. These guys are, well... they're just amazing. Watch the video, or part of it, and enjoy.

The Northwest 200

posted by GreSam @ 08:49 0 comments

Lean Angle.

You can't get much lower. Miguel Duhamel shows us how its done.

On that note, I got a call from Barnacle Bill today. He said my TaiChi leathers are perfectly fixable for under $200! Looks like I might be racing again in 2006... I tried calling him back but it just rang, so I'm going to try him tomorrow with Amex in hand.

There are still a few more things that need to happen, but its looking good. I just need to keep things in perspective and make sure I keep my brain about me. I also need a new helmet and figure the budget out on the Mini...

posted by GreSam @ 15:13 0 comments

Biaggi

Max Biaggi is out of a MotoGP ride, no closer to a WSBK ride and probably done with his professional racing career because he's a pompous ass. This photo pretty much says it all.

posted by GreSam @ 12:23 1 comments

The SV lives

Friday night Rock Gal and HighSide stopped by to help me work on my Suzuki SV650 street bike. I had not ridden the bike for over a year and had not started it since October. The carbs and fuel were crap and it needed some love.

We set to work around 7pm and things went pretty smoothly. Pulled and drained the fuel tank, pulled the airbox and the carbs, then cleaned the carbs with B12 Chemtool before pulling the slides and cleaning the jets. We also tried to get into the bowls but the screws were damned tight and didn't want to come lose without fear of stripping the heads. The work was smooth, we only lost one part and the bike now runs great. I was torn at first between keeping and selling the SV, but it needs to be sold.

My interest in street riding is basically gone and it just doesn't make sense to keep the bike as a track conversion would be a ridiculous amount of money compared to purchasing a prepared bike. That and it would be much nicer to eliminate debt and go back to the track with less to worry about when the time is right: 2007.

Of course, by the time I'm ready to get back into a track bike I could very well decide that I no longer want to do it. I get interested in so many different things it isn't even funny (as you know if you read this thing at all) and while jumping ship from racing isn't very likely, I might find some real solace in climbing or something and just be done with it. Right.

posted by GreSam @ 11:46 1 comments

Another great email...

I wrote an email to Rock Gal acting like I was telling someone else about the great weekend I had and how I had spent it with Rock Gal; this was her response. Apparently, I'm still doing something right...

That's weird, cause I had a similarly incredible experience this weekend too. My boyfriend is letting me in on more and more amazing parts of his life, and I'm just getting more and more interested in him. Every time I feel like I'm starting to figure him out, he introduces me to yet another thing that moves him, excites him, makes him the amazing man that he is. It makes me comfortable enough that I feel like I can let him in on the funky, weird things that make me tick too.

He makes me want to try new things too. Not that anything was ever holding me back before. But it's like my whole life, I've had these three roads in my life: climbing, engineering, and dance. And there wasn't much room for much else. Sometimes I'd walk only on one road, sometimes I'd jump between em, sometimes it's like they were parallel, and I'd have all three in my life at once. It was a choice. And though those three are still a large part of how I make my choices, I feel like there's room for more now. Maybe this doesn't make much sense to read. I'm just starting to realize it in my life, so I don't really understand it yet myself. But I think it's pretty cool, whatever's happening. I'm not changing into a different person, and it's not that he's doing this; it's just that since he's come into my life, I feel like I'm more me, that I can do more.

I can only hope that this is mutual, or that I can figure out a way to make it so. Cause he's absolutely amazing (I'm sure he'll tire of hearing me say so, cause I say it so often when I just can't hold it inside anymore), and I want nothing more than for him to be the happiest he can be. Cause I feel like the luckiest woman in the world because he's in my life.

posted by GreSam @ 11:44 0 comments

Found: Photographer

I met with a photographer Wednesday night at The Flying Saucer and it looks like things will be shaping up nicely. Photo1 has an awesome portfolio located here that you ought to take a look at for some great examples. I really like his style because he is artistic in mind. His shots create a sense of being, a feeling of being right there that I hope will compliment my own writing style in which I hope to put a reader in the middle of the action. Instead of, "Hey, its a motorcycle" or "Hey, its a person", I sense more depth in the photo and a feeling of "Holy crap I'm about to get run over!" or "Damn, she's smiling at me...". In any case, we're both excited about covering motorcycle racing be it on-road or off. He is also more business minded than myself, evidenced by the ideas:

His first idea was to create a series of How-To pieces regarding dirt bike riding, which we could sell to/through KTM and Red Bull into a magazine. The pieces would have photography and copy (more like ad copy) describing how a rider would properly execute a certain type of turn. We could have photography of factory backed riders with commentary from the rider (spun by me) to describe the process and steps needed to do such a thing succesfully.

I think this is an awesome idea and would be a challenge for me to be able to describe in accurate detail. Coming from a non-dirt bike riding background it will be all about hand signals getting the information from the rider to me, and me to print. The other positive is that we can sell this through KTM and Red Bull for branding! The opportunity for more work along these lines is also probably high.

I brought two ideas of my own to the table:
1) If I can get ahold of Clint, we can take a trip to New Orleans and the out lying areas to photograph and cover the current state of Louisianna. Its fallen out of the press but I think there is still a huge story down there in terms of what is happening between FEMA, the contractors and the people doing the work. There's a lot of corruption, a lot of fighting and not much harmony in the clean up efforts.

2) Get inside a racing team. Ty Howard and Ryan Andrews are riding for Rockwall Honda in the AMA Formula Extreme series and the opportunity to get into their heads, get into the team and cover a privateer effort in the series is really exciting to me. Normal race coverage gets dull, technical info can be monotonous or dry without the proper explaination, but who the riders are and what motivates a small team could be really interesting.

I've gotten in touch with Ty and need to call him today, while Photo1 gets in touch with some people regarding the business side and how we'll go about selling these ideas to magazines. I'm a little worried about being able to support his photos with my writing, but I'm confident I can do it. I just need to stay motivated and on task. Small victories will mean a lot in the coming months on these projects.

posted by GreSam @ 12:51 0 comments

Daddy's got a new pair of shoes...

While in Austin with Rock Gal I picked up a new pair of climbing shoes. Searching for a last that fits my foot was a real pain in the ass, but I finally found something with a wide, short forefoot (shut up) and a narrow heel. My toes are not packed in as tightly as they could be but I do think they fit very well and I have found that they stick much better than my old Mad Rock Phoenix shoes. So, what are they?

A pair of $60, Montrail Gymbo's. They have a nice pointy toe that I think will allow me to attempt pocket routes, the Gryptonite rubber is nice and sticky on the slopey little holds I used to slip off of in the past, they smear nicely on the textures walls at Stoneworks, I wore them for an extended period of time and I had some major confidence on the "B" bouldering route on the front overhang route at Stoneworks! Normally I would not have climbed that well at the end of the night, with a sore tendon in my right arm and hands that were very ache, but I stuck more stuff because I had that little bit of confidence in my shoes where I knew that when I reached for X hold, I was not going to slip off the wall and put undue stress on my fingers before I was ready.

I also did a 3/4 lap of the bouldering route inside the back silo, something I could not do in my Mad Rocks. Same thing though, I had a little more traction and more confidence is the stick, so I could make some long, balance oriented moves and lots of foot switching to traverse the route. Great stuff, not real advanced, but inspiring and comforting.

posted by GreSam @ 12:42 0 comments