Please shop local...

Brandy and I ran down to Eugene today, unfortunately not on the bike, as we were on somewhat of a mission to find birthday gifts, some new clothes and other odds and ends.

As with any trip to the 'big city' we always make time to stop at at least one, if not two motorcycle shops as well as our favorite accessory shop Discount Motorcycle Parts.

I've mentioned Steve and Annette's shop in a previous post and have linked their page in my sidebar. We rarely walk out empty handed and today was no exception, Brandy found some gloves and other treasures and we picked up a couple of their new designed T-shirts.



Steve proudly declared that he designed the artwork himself...



Thank you both, the shirts are great and will be worn on many a ride.




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We normally get one to two weeks of beautiful sunny, warm weather in February and this week looks promising.

The past couple of mornings I have been met with rain, fog and drizzle but the afternoons have been absolutely beautiful. I passed three fellow riders on my way home from work last night, more than I have seen all winter and a sure sign of Spring.

Being from the Great White North I know that the sighting of the first robin of the new year was a sign that Spring was coming.



This folks tale doesn't hold true in Oregon as robins reside here all year round. I'll have to find another folks tale to signal Spring's arrival and the increasing presence of motorcyclist does seem to hold some accuracy.

Here's a wave and welcome back fellow riders, Spring is near.





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My morning commute

I've been wanting to mount a camera to my bike for sometime but thought I'd wait until summer to figure out how to do it. Then Stacy mounted one on her bike and had the nerve to post how she did it.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.


I thought about wind noise and the wet weather (fog) and I tried to figure out the best way to to eliminate both. I considered wrapping the camera in a ziplock bag and then dub over the audio with music. Instead, I had an epiphany, standing out in the cold garage I noticed the dash on my cafe fairing was just big enough to house a camera.



I drilled a hole in the dash, took a mounting knob off a small tripod I had kicking around and mounted the camera for a trial run on my commute the next morning. I took another video on my way home and loaded both videos on YouTube and then started playing around with iMovie. Here is my first video and editing job.



A much better ride and a lot less traffic than the four lanes of Speedway 34.


EDIT: as per Stacy's request, the camera I used is a Kodak CX7530.



à tout à l’heure


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Bike night

Over a year ago I wondered why there wasn't a local meeting place for motorcyclists to gather, chat and set up rides. I searched the internet and Googled every motorcycle term and local town to find nothing other than local shops advertising. So, off to the local shops I went and again I couldn't find any flyers for any groups. I checked forums and discovered Portland, Salem and Eugene bike nights but still nothing local. I lurked in the forums, watched and waited with little luck so I started Corvallis Bike Night. I made bike night non-obligatory, it wasn't a group or club, just a standing bike night. It was a little slow to start, we made a few mistakes changing locations and trying to meet too many nights, too often, but we have learned a lot in the past 16 months and our last gathering had a great turnout of new faces and I hope tonight will be better yet.

Thank you to Stacy and Women In The Wind for your help getting the word out, thank you to Premier Motogear and Fred's Honda for posting flyers and final billing to pnwriders for setting up the forum for everyone to use.

Local readers, please stop by, we've set up evening and weekend rides and met some fantastic people.

1st Wednesday of every month at 6:00pm - Feb. 4th, Mar. 4th, Apr. 1st.
Just stop by…


American Dream Pizza
214 SW 2nd St.
Downtown Corvallis
Between Madison and Jefferson
from 6pm til…


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