Joy Dutta’s blog

Today was a GWRRA CA2Q chapter meet at Dublin CA. Our first winger meet. Met up with Susie on her red wing at 7:30am and had a fun ride to Athens Burger Restaurant at Dublin. The warm welcome immediately made us feel home. There were ride tips, discussions, tons of fun and laughter and a great breakfast to top it off. Most of the people were well in the 50s and had nicely loaded wings. They all went for a day ride, while Susie stayed back to help me with a tire change.

The tire removal process was easier than I could imagine. A normal car jack to lift up the front wheel an inch is all we needed to remove both the tires together ! Front came off easier than the concours. For the rear, the lug nuts are supposed to be tightened at 80 ft-lb, so Susie had this nifty torque multiplier tool that multiplies torque by 30 times ! The lug nuts came off in 5 minutes.

All were well so far. Then I took the wheels and new tires to get them changed at a shop. Santa Clara cycles were not free till 3pm and it was only 1pm, so I went to Bike World. No mechanic in shop. Went to Honda Ducati Peninsula. Fully booked for the day. Off to GP sport at Santa Clara. They took me in at once. All went fine, except they could not balance the rear wheel and sent me to their bigger shop at San Jose. The SJ Honda shop balanced my rear tire immediately and did not charge anything. I was happy. Back to home, ate lunch. Susie came around 4:45pm. I was trying to pump up the tires to 41psi, when I noticed that the valve stems were both cracked badly and the rear tire was hissing air from the stem !!! Arrghhhh. Susie also didn’t expect that on a 24k mile old bike while she never had a stem go bad in her 100k miles of riding. My bike probably sat a lot in the sun which rotted out the rubber, and owner rode it so gently that the tire was the original one, from 2005.

Anyway, back to Santa Clara shop and I demanded they fix it immediately. No valve stem in shop, so back to the SJ shop. To my disbelief they actually acknowledged that it was a serious mistake by a dealer, and replaced both stems immediately. They did charge me labor ($51) and stems ($30), but told me I would get full labor refund from the Santa Clara shop. Despite the hassle, their gesture made my day.

Back to home. Both tires went up without hassle. And I got to use a torque wrench for the first time. Amazing tool. The rear lug nuts were to be tightened to 80 ft-lb, I could barely manage 70. Have to get them checked again soon.

All in all, a very productive day, thanks to Susie for her time and expertise. Like most of the wingers, wrenching for me is an integral part of the motorcycling experience. The feeling of bonding with a machine is just awesome. And speaking of greasy hands - they just rock.

Spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon with Bhaskar and Sankalita. Had a short trip to Mt Hamilton (tallest mountain overlooking silicon valley) and Lick observatory as part of a 100-mile loop through some great twisties. This is my first time riding 25mph switchbacks on the wing, 2-up, and while it needed a bit of stamina, I can say I needed this exercise. The wing is heavy, and it does take a bit of time to get used to the handling on the curves. I loved the ride all the way, except for the beginning when I was not expecting sharp turns at 30mph and 90F afternoon heat. Eagerly waiting for the mirror air wings to arrive to see how much air I can get when riding slow.

We had 3 hours of mountain riding with hardly any traffic and that was refreshing. Bhaskar used to have a bike in this country and he is planning to get one again soon.

Pictures:
-My flickr set
-Priti’s flickr set

Note the last few seconds in the video how I stopped at the middle of a sharp U-turn. Reminded me of the ride to Ooty in India on my enfield along the Sigur ghats.

Nostalgia rushes in when I look back 6 long years to my 350cc Enfield days. Wanted a radio on the bike somehow, bought a small FM radio and 2 speakers for a total of 400 rupees ($10) and installed it inside my weird looking windshield using cardboard from packing boxes. Sweet labor of love, worked like a charm till I rode 70 kms of bumpy mountain roads on a trip (Mangalore-Madikeri-Kannur).

And now, after going through a 600, a 1000 and a 1300 cc motorcycle, I am back to my style of riding. Lots of creature comforts, but still nothing beats the fun I had out of that radio installation, and the looks from people at traffic lights.

The guy on left is our famous Adman, who still rides his A350 machismo (same as my bike) and also owns an RD350 Yamaha twin. The guy is a born racer and rider who keeps riding no matter how many times he crashes.

The guy on the right is Vaibhav, who owned an Enfield Lightening 535 full of issues. Today he flies a Cessna skyhawk single propellar aircraft. Sometimes dreams do come true.

The weekend was rather painful. My insurance agent was on vacation and I could not confirm whether my current bike insurance would cover the new ride. His reply came around 11:30pm Sunday, saying it was ok to ride. By midnight we were on the freeway, enjoying every moment on the king of touring bikes.

Silent cockpit, minimal wind buffeting at 80mph while still able to hear the radio. Great torque though not as agile as my ST1300, but I didn’t miss it because the oomph of the wing was simply addictive. Good enough brakes, I will admit that the best brakes I have experienced so far belongs to the ST. Absolutely loved the cruise control, just what I need on the boring freeways, and also as a means to escape performance awards, errr, tickets.

Loving every moment of ownership of this machine. Ordered new tires and some accessories, will be ready for long trips soon.

My dream bike is now here. I still can’t believe I am the owner of a Goldwing ! 2005 ABS, 30 year anniv edition, bone stock with 24k miles. A dream of 7 years is now a reality. I didn’t get the color of my choice but it was a great deal and it is the ride that finally matters anyway. And most importantly, Priti will be a very happy pillion from now on.

Not that I have been unhappy with my Honda ST1300, the finest motorcycle I have owned till date. After Priti came to stay with me forever, I am not going to do any more solo motorcycle trips. The ST is a fine touring machine, even for 2-up, but it is still a much better ride for solo enjoyment. It is a lot of fun in the mountain twisties and switchbacks, which as a matter of fact I don’t seem to care about a lot. My kind of a nice long trip generally means a lot of miles over a few days, some freeways mixed with a bit of twisties and mostly 2-lane roads with little or no traffic. And most importantly, I like absolutely straight up seating, just like my enfield back in the touring days in India. The seat of a goldwing is literally a couch, and just for pillion comfort alone, the wing remains an unbeatable touring machine.

I dreamt of owning Honda’s flagship GL1800 goldwing ever since it was launched in 2001. I loved the pearl yellow color but it is hard to come by as the color was not produced beyond 2002. When I took Priti to the nearest dealership and made her sit on the back seat of a wing, there was simply no turning back from my decision, no more choices either.

I found a nice clean 2005 ABS model, bone stock with 23k miles near home. Trying to get the deal done today. My ST is also for sale, and as much as I hate to see it go, I can’t afford to keep both.

I am as excited as a small kid with a new toy.

We had a short (450 mile roundtrip) 2-day trip to Lake Tahoe this weekend, which was also the first multi-day ride with Priti on the ST1300. The bike performed technically flawless on the ride, but some comfort factor for me went missing. I enjoyed the ride on the highway less than what I was supposed to, and found myself thinking more of the ultimate 2-up touring machine - the Honda Goldwing GL1800 !!!

Here is my post on the st-owners.com forum.

Pictures: Priti’s flickr link

What a fantastic way to spend the longest day of the year. Vipin of RTMC at Sunnyvale and Captain Nandu Chitnis of Bikenomads at SF, it is just impossible to not have a ride.

So it happened, Vipin rented a monster of a bike, a Harley Roadking 1400cc, a long jump from his 350cc Royal Enfield at home. It shakes a human like giving a reality check, but the v-twin torque is simply out of the world.

We had a pretty big gang ready for a day long fun. Pravin and Suyash of Bikenomads came on a rental car. Nandu’s wife Medini, daughter Rucha and son-in-law Sai also tagged along. Vipin and Nandu shared the bike rental and we were off to Big Sur.

We had superb lunch break at our favorite restaurant Dennys in Santa Cruz. After that the road was a bliss. The temps went down from a scorching 100F to 72F. It rained a bit while we were eating, and all we had was the refreshing smell of wet earth, a blue sky with scattered clouds and most importantly, hardly any traffic.

We enjoyed the CA-1 paradise all the way till Julia Pfeiffer state park when the temps went up as we diverted from the ocean a bit. So a quick U-turn and we were beside a pristine aquamarine beach. Incredible colors. Too bad the beach was private. We had the usual photoshoots and banter before Nandu and family took off for San Francisco.

Me, Vipin and the other cage went to enjoy the Carmel beach before the final ride home. Vipin was getting scared of riding in the dark but it was unavoidable. We had to take 101 and Vipin thought he must remain below the speed limit, no matter how fast the cars passed him. I tried to make him speed up to at least 65, the limit, but he somehow stayed around 50, arghhhh But I do remember how slow I used to be when riding with my local buddy, I used to ride the limit while he did limit+10 or more !

Back to town at 9:20pm after a 230mile of grinning ride.

Looking forward to multi-day rides with the gang sometime.

Special thanks to Rocky for introducing me to Nandu, otherwise this fun and camaraderie would not have happened.

Pictures:
-From Suyash: link to flickr
-From Priti: link to flickr
-From Nandu: link to picasaweb

Thanks to Dan’s super short notice, a wonderful ride happened today after a very long time.

Usual suspects: Dan, Ken, Ron, Jeff. I was surprised Jeff got Nancy along too. And what a guy, just because the ST is a great touring bike, he rode it non stop 130 miles to Cloverdale while Nancy on her first ride on the ST got a hefty dose of hypothermia. Took her a while to defrost !!! I guess at this rate Jeff is gonna ride that wonderful two-up bike one-up all the time, lol.

In short, 11 bikes, 12 people, twisties of CA-128 and CA-1, and an awesome feast at a private ranch on CA-1 near Stewart’s point made a memorable day.

Bikes: 2 ST13, 1 VFR, 1 Concours14, 1 F800ST, 5 Concours and Dan’s awesome ZGRX1200.

Route: Breakfast meet at Star restaurant, Cloverdale. All the way on 101N. Then CA-128 to CA-1 and down to the ranch for a late lunch. Then CA-1 down to Bodega bay and catch up on 101S at Petaluma.

I rode really good this time, thanks to the ST’s sportiness. But I still got stiff on the sharp curves of CA-1, when I could catch a glimpse of the pacific far down below. Makes a lot of difference (and panic) in the mind.

Vipin, my fellow rider from the enfield riding days in India is here at Sunnyvale for this week. What better way to spend a Sunday than a ride, so we took off for a quick afternoon ride to Santa Cruz. In a sweet 40 miles we got some twisty roads (CA-17), a moderately cold mountain pass and finally the ocean. Great chicken shawarma sandwiches at the Falafal restaurant satisfied two big hungry bellies. Back home, we enjoyed photos of our past rides, especially the Kanyakumari trip back in Feb 2003. A Sunday well spent.

Pictures: Vipin @ CA - Dec 07