Where did it go?

Trobairitz and I took the first week of June off from work, turning a three day holiday weekend and a short 4 day work week into a 9 day vacation. Make that a staycation, for some reason I wasn't up for packing up the car or bike and spending hours on the road. Instead I had thoughts of spending those hours in the yard replacing plants that hadn't survived the winter deep freeze, tidying up the shrub beds, laying a stone patio and finally getting a garden area started. We would also be able to get a few rides in on the bikes and get Trobairitz some miles under her belt. I had a few errands I wanted to get in too as it is difficult to get away from my work mid-week. We booked the time off weeks in advance and were excited to finally get all of our chores done.

Well, it finally stopped raining yesterday, day 8 of our 9 day staycation. Needless to say, nary a plant was planted, barely a weed was pulled, the lawn didn't get mowed, it has been too wet to even think about digging an area for the patio but we did get a ride in yesterday.

When you live in Oregon it is much too easy to complain about the weather, I try my hardest to stay positive and reflect on the nicer of the days we've had lately, but they have been very few and far between. Bobskoot doesn't call his blog 'Wet Coast Scootin' for nothing.

My last post I was dodging rain showers at the Oregon Vintage Motorcycle Show and Swap Meet and since then I took Wednesday, May 26th off to dodge rain showers at the OSU Motorcycle Visibility Day.



I thoroughly enjoy taking this day off from work to park my bike on campus and talk motorcycles. It was a great turnout despite the less than desirable weather and what better time to promote motorcycle visibility than a rainy day. Although it did have some of us ducking for cover.





The weather did improve and the sun made an appearance that afternoon however, the rain didn't stay away for very long, putting a damper on the Memorial Day weekend. We did manage to get a ride in on Sunday, barely.

We met up with the gang Sunday morning to ride south of Eugene along Wolf Creek Road, a road I've been wanting to explore for sometime. I generally keep a pretty close watch on my tires and I knew my front tire was pretty worn so I had ordered a new one. It's no secret that I am a bit of a procrastinator and I had put off mounting the tire for one more ride, I had the week off and plenty of time to change it then, or so I thought. After arriving to meet the group I noticed an odd dimple in the front tire, no nail head but just a dimple.



I poked and prodded around a bit to find it was the cords showing through. It looked like bright neon green bubble gum inside the tire, no hole, no puncture just what I assumed was the cords.



"Sorry guys, I have to sit this one out". "I have a new tire in the garage, maybe I can get swapped out and meet you in Creswell". This unfortunately would put us past Wolf Creek Rd. and the one part of the ride I really wanted to do. The last tires I changed were on the Ninja and they whooped my butt so I was afraid this would be the same. I hadn't given up hope and now know a cruiser tire swaps a lot easier than a sportbike tire. My lovely assistant and I had the tire off and the new one mounted, balanced and back on the bike in less than an hour. Double check, triple check, yep, I called Rick and had them wait for us in Noti, just north of Wolf Creek and hustled to catch up to the group. I have never scrubbed in a tire so quickly before, it isn't the cornering that does it, get on the gas and pull hard on the brakes, by the time I met the group I was confident the tire was sufficiently scrubbed. The rest of the day I was confidently scraping pipes in the corners and having a blast.



Memorial day was wet so we ran up to Salem for lunch and wandered around the local sports shops checking out camping gear. There is rumor of a blogger's convention and I am thinking about checking out Sport Bike Northwest this year. Yes, my America qualifies as a sport bike.

The rest of our staycation was pretty uneventful, the rain has a way to demotivate a person. I did use the time to install heated grips on Trobairitz's bike and get her out on a couple of rides. It is a pleasure to watch how quickly she progresses once the weather improves and we get out for a ride. I risked dropping the new camera for an impromptu video.





Come on summer...


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