Nov 26

Unmuffled excitement

adventure, motorcycle, photo Add Comment (1)

First off, I was playing around with the camera and new flash the other day, and took some shots of some old circuit boards I had in my junk box (sort of, I also took some shots of a Soekris board I am working with). I think some of them turned out OK. I’m not particularly impressed with them, but happy for the time being. I think if perhaps I have some more light here and there that it might make things a little more exciting.

Regardless, on with the entertainment.

So, I rode down to Albuquerque today, all early like, at least for me. I was supposed to be at Jo’s house at 10, but I didn’t make it until after 11. She was moving and I volunteered to help out with that effort. We ended up doing two truck loads and I think we got mostly everything all moved. I really like the layout of her new house and the colors, by the by.

At some point, I volunteered myself to host a New Year’s party at my place, so, if you know where I live, show up New Year’s eve at my place for a party. Wheee.

I left Albuquerque around 4 and headed to Socorro, where the fun started…

Just south of Los Lunas, I pulled off the road to put the CrampBuster on my throttle. It is basically this plastic paddle thingy that goes on the throttle grip so you can use your palm to hold the throttle open, makes riding on the super slab a little nicer. I got back on the road, and was passed almost right away by a Mustang and some little black sports car. I was feeling good, so what the hey, I jumped on their tail. We were running about 85-90 for the most part.

South of Belen, we overtake a white Mitsubishi Eclipse, who obviously didn’t want to be overtaken, and as it turned out, we did triple digit leap frogs with him all the way to Socorro. That was… exciting, I suppose. I had fun, but I had one eye glued to the radar detector, so it was a little nerve racking.

As it turned out, speeding was a good thing for me. I got into Socorro and headed for the Capitol Bar. As I arrived, I noted that the few motorcycles remaining at the bar (there was a toy run today) were leaving. I got off the bike, and walked up to the door, where Bill was standing. He took a second to figure out who I was under all that gear and said, ‘Dude! Get back on your bike and follow them and be in the parade!’. Parade?

I hopped on the bike and followed a custom job motorcycle complete with tough looking guy and chick in short skirt down the main drag of Socorro, where a crowd was gathering. We joined up over at Sedillo Park with about 30 other motorcycles. The vast majority were Harley’s, some Honda’s, and a couple of customs, but I had the only ‘rice rocket’ there (yeah ok my bike isn’t a rice rocket, but how do you describe ‘sport touring bike that can go offroad that isn’t quite a touring bike’ to someone in a hurry?). That said, I must say, you can’t beat cruiser riders, they are nice folk if you are on any kind of motorcycle. I talked with a couple of them, and they all were very nice and curious about my bike. Always fun.

The parade started to move, and we inched to the starting area. At one point, a guy came down the center of the two lines of bikes, talking to each rider. As he got to me, he glanced at my bike, and said, ‘Oh, nevermind, yours is water cooled’. I guess he was telling the other riders (all air cooled bikes) that if they were overheating that they could pull off or whatnot to cool down. We made it onto the main drag, cruisers reving throttles, making a loud din as we slowly went down California. I revved my bike a few times, but I couldn’t even hear it from where I was sitting over all the cruisers.

We went all the way down to the plaza, where the parade finished. I turned to park at the bar, but most of the bikes had made it back and there were no spots in front of the bar. I did a U turn (with some other bikes) and headed back, and found a new Harley Electroglide, aka, in-line couch, laid over. I guess this was the first big bike this woman had owned and she didn’t make the u-turn. The rider in front of me helped her get it back up, no damage, but kind of funny.

Headed into the bar, which was full of bikers and leather. Turned out to be a lot of fun. Bill bought me a couple of pints of Guinness, and I spent a couple of hours hanging out with him. Lewis showed up around 9, and we hung out until around 10.

Lewis and I left to go get some food (Bill didn’t want to come) at El Camino, where we ran into Bill’s ex-girlfriend Crystal. I got a big hug like always and an update on how things are going. Kind of nice to see old folks now and again.

So, anyway, I have no firm plans for Sunday. I’m crashing on Lewis’ couch for the night, and tomorrow I am probably going to do a little work and go find something interesting to take a picture of. Hopefully I’ll have something to post tomorrow. We’ll see.

If you are in Socorro, call me, I’ll be around