This was the week, the week that I finally was able to pick my “almost” completed Scrambler.

It looks amazing, and over the past two days I have been riding it to and from work. I have to say that the Scrambler is a great city bike.

Back when I was debating over rebuilding the Scrambler or purchasing a small, quick supermoto, I really didn’t consider the agility as one of the Scrambler’s strong attributes. While it is still nothing like the Hypermotard, it’s great for commuting. A relatively low ride height, great at low speeds and a super-duper-smooth throttle delivery. It’s an effortless ride to work in the morning. I even popped on the open-face helmet for this ride.

Here are a few pictures. Like I said, I have a few more items to polish up on the bike, which may take a few months.

I got an e-mail from newbonneville.com that my parts were a few weeks behind.

Oh, well, check it out. It’s bad!

Jarrod

Wednesday was National “Ride your Bike to Work Day!”

Yes, I did ride my bike to work on Wednesday and every other day of this week. What a great week! I didn’t know that there was a “Ride your Bike to Work Day.” In fact, this event has been going on for 17 years all over the world.

I did notice that there were a lot of bikes on the road, and I really do believe that more motorcycles on the road is better for our cities, especially for those who live, work and commute in the cities.

Later that night, I started getting antsy and ran out for a night ride with a few of my buds. I have to say that I am not a huge fan of the night rides. It really isn’t that much fun unless you have a chick on the back of the bike with you. I am not one of those riders who spends my time on my bike riding to Monument Circle, parking on the circle, standing by my bike and then riding up to Broad Ripple and do the same thing. That brings me to another funny story …

It was about 10:30 p,m., and I was heading back to my home in Broad Ripple. I pulled up to a guy on an all-white GSX-R with a race pipe.  The rider was wearing a helmet but was pretty much in street clothes.

He asked, “How many miles have you ridden tonight?”

I spent the afternoon in Brown County, which is, by far, the best riding in Indiana, so I had put about 300 miles on my bike that day.

“About 300 or so miles,” I replied.

At this point, his eyes swelled like softballs, and I continued to tell him that I went down to Brown County in the afternoon.

“I would like to get down there some time,” he replied.

I told him that he should be down there every week. That pretty much sums up what I mean about the riders who cruise around town, pop wheelies, drag from light to light and sit in parking lots. That just isn’t fun for me. I need routes and destinations!

Quick update on the Scrambler … IT’S STILL IN THE SHOP!!!!!!!!!

Jarrod

First off, let me give you an update on the Scrambler: Powder coating done, spokes on (not aligned right), wrong handlebars, pipes on, seat painted … almost there.

Second, some Four Wheelin’: Over the Fourth of July, I got some four-wheeling in out at my grandmother’s place. Check out a few of these clips, it gets muddy! (Editor’s note: Links to the video clips are located in the introductory “The Ride” blurb on the front pages of www.redbullindianapolisgp.com and www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com.)

And now, Part 2 of Moto-Adventure:

Phil and I woke up early so that we could get a full day of riding and plenty of cushion for our projected 9 p.m. Indy arrival. We set off from Richmond International Raceway on Interstate 64 for about 2.5 hours before we decided to take an alternate route home.  We ducked off the superhighway onto a two-lane highway that would take us all the way to Charleston.  This was a great choice because the road was fast moving, semi-windy and took us through the best roads ever through West Virginia.

The only problem was, RAIN! That’s right, on this trip we hit rain in four different states and in West Virginia it just happened to be in the Mountains on the curviest roads on the trip. Thankfully I made a quick stop to Dreyer and picked up the “First Gear” rain suit and gloves that were perfect.

(Check out the picture of Phil in his Rain Gear, Still waiting for the picture of me from him … PHIL, SEND ME PICTURES!!!)

Thankfully the rain stopped once we got through the mountains and neither Phil nor I had any issues. 

Fast Forward to our favorite place in Gauley Valley, which was dry … We made a few detours there and decided to make two trips up and down the valley at a more aggressive pace. If I ever get the video working I will have several clips to share. Once we were done “playing,” we got back on the highway and were slated to take the quickest route home according to Google maps, which would venture us through Ohio to Dayton and back to Indy. Once we started in that direction we noticed the massive thunder heads above us. We braved it anyway and decided to turn around when we saw soaked cars coming our way. This detour added about 1 hour to our trip! So it was back to I-64 where we dodged several rain storms traveling at 90 mph. The feeling when you escape a big storm is exhilarating! I felt victorious every time I sped through a section and popped out clear of a rain cloud!

It wasn’t until we got 40 miles south of Cincy where it got nasty. It was about 9 p.m. and the clouds were gloomy and we knew that it was going to rain. We also knew that it was getting dark. We pulled over, filled up with gas, put the rain gear back on and decided that we were going to roll with it until it got “too” dangerous. About 3 miles down the road for the next 30 it was dark and rainy! Really rainy and scary. Luckily for us the roads were pretty dry by the time we got into the city interchanges so it wasn’t that bad.  Once we went through the interchange and got on I-74 to Indy we were hit with minor little sprinkles all the way until Indy. But it was in Indy were it started to rain again. I only got droplets but Phil got soaked. Phil lives on the west side and got pounded!

First Moto-Adventure! Part 1.

I missed a week of blogging because I was on my Tiger and didn’t get the time to type up an e-mail, label my pictures and send them off.

So here I am armed with Microsoft Word and pictures of my ride to Virginia with my best bud, Phil. I’m going to describe this adventure in a few stages, starting with getting ready …

When we looked at the IndyCar schedule, we figured that if any of the trips were going to be the “Long One,” it was going to be Richmond. About 11 hours on Google Maps, a solid mix of highway, mountains and a great destination — an IndyCar Series race — we figured that this would be the one.

In preparation, we needed to pick up a few items. Phil purchased his saddle-box set, and we both picked up rain gear and air pants for the ride. We knew that there was a chance of rain and wanted to be prepared. After all, half of riding the motorcycle is being prepared!

We met at Starbucks located on Monument Circle, downtown Indianapolis. I was running a few minutes late because I wanted to pick up some ear plugs at CVS. That was a terrible idea because the plugs that I got were enormous and caused serious ear pain the entire ride there. We finally rolled out at 8:30ish after a quick stop at CITGO, an IndyCar team sponsor, and hit the road.

The ride wasn’t that bad. When you know that you have a long day ahead of you, you really don’t get anxious to get there. We made our first stop between Cincinnati and Lexington. Our plan was to stop at every state line and take a picture in front of the big “Welcome to this state” sign, but we missed a few on the way down. First off, when traveling around Cinci, you hit three different states in 30 minutes. When we saw the Ohio sign, we were already underneath it and surrounded by semis. When we got to the Kentucky state line, we were on a bridge, so we skipped that one too!

Fast forward to West Virginia, not a lot happened in Kentucky. Once we got into Charleston, we had made the decision that we were going to dip off the highway and travel along the river. We were very excited about this. While we were filling up, a men’s soccer team called The Crash, or something, pulled up. First off, we are in West Virginia, and second, these guys were playing hardcore girly techno! Not the combination we expected.

Off through the country, we anxiously waited for the twisties that everyone talks about in West Virginia. Well, apparently they weren’t on Highway 61. Just small town after small town instead! Then we changed plans and dumped off to Highway 60. After about 10 miles of this, we thought, “We got this all wrong!” So we stopped at the Kawika Falls. Phil then said, “Watch, in a mile, the roads are going to get really good.”

He was not serious, but he was lucky. In 2 miles, we hit a stretch of road that took us about three hours to complete. It was awesome!! So awesome that we went through one section and turned around and did it again! Along the way, we stopped and took a picture of this VW Bug that was crashed into the side of an airplane hangar-looking thing and a green hippo on the top of a building!

Let’s just say that this stretch of road made our trip. Once we got to I-64, we stopped for gas and had a BBQ roast beef sandwich. Then we hopped back on the highway and headed out. Not too much to say about this stretch, only that it was fun on the highway, and we were able to stop and take a picture at the Virginia sign. We stopped at BP for one last fill-up and were in Virginia in about 1.5 hours. Once we got to the track, we dismounted, took off our gear, grabbed some beers and walked off the stiffness!

Part two coming soon …

Jarrod