Ride to Julian, CA

I have been pretty busy with work lately so I have not had too many chances to ride. One of the rides I have gone on was to Julian, CA. I took some friends out there because one of them wanted to try out a Buell Blast. She was riding a Yamaha VStar, but it was too heavy of a bike for her. Her husband is still riding one of the two VStars that they bought and she is on a Blast that she found on eBay.

The bike that she bought was from another state and they are importing it into CA. As they go through the process I will get the info from them and post a quick how-to.

Anyway, we rode out to Temecula Harley and from there headed out to Julian. If you are in that area you really should check it out, it is beautiful. One word of caution, there are CHP officers and Sheriff's Deputys everywhere!






The roads were pretty fun with nothing too technical. Great place for new riders to get used to riding twisties. There are no large groups of people speeding down these roads, so my friends were able to enjoy themselves.

BTW, Julian is famous for apple pie, so you might want to save some room. ;-)

Here is the map:


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Jumping the Santa Monica Pier

RedBull is sponsoring a rider to jump the ferris wheel at the Santa Monica peer. The jump is supposed to happen at 7PM Friday July, 11 2008 which is tomorrow. I am going to try to make it. If I do I will take some photos.

Here is the video from the RedBull site:

V-Twin Meetups

We have a new meetup group that is for Sport-Twins. There are tons of groups for 4 bangers and Harleys, and even for Ducati's, but the rest of us get left out. So far everyone that I have met is pretty cool. We have 3 Buell, 1 Aprilia, and 1 Ducati in the group. There are other members, but these are the only ones I have met.

Anyway, I have noticed something about Sport-Twin riders, we all get a long and don't have an elitist attitude. Not to say that all others do, or that some of us don't, it is just an observation. Well, due to the bike feeling like it is slipping on me I had to opt out of a great ride this past weekend lead by Ray on his Aprilia. Hopefully I will be back in the saddle this weekend.

It sucks having only one bike. I may get a Blast or similar to tool around on when my Uly is getting worked on.

Doing a little catching up

I was tired of my 1203 Harley engine sounding like a sewing machine so I put on a new exhaust. I purchased a Jardine RT1 from my local Harley / Buell dealer. They installed it, and the next day I rode out to the race track to watch Higbee and Dixon battle it out in Willow Springs.

Oh, the power!!! The beast has been released. Never mind the awesome sound, I have a lot more noticeable power! I also added the K&N air filter to allow it to breath. Man, it is a whole new bike. I can't wait for them to come out with an 08 race ECM. This bike is so much fun and I love riding it.

I did have some small issues recently that has caused me to lose confidence with my machine. I am taking it in to get looked at before I get back on the road.

What am I going to do next to the bike? Paint it. I will post a poll to see what people think. I am leaning towards a matte black with spot gloss Harley orange racing stripes down the middle.

Since I have disconnected the actuator cable...

Since I have disconnected the actuator cable to the exhaust on my XB12X the bike has been running great. I was on one of the Buell forums someone corrected me on the default position of the valve in the exhaust. It fails shut which forces the exhaust gases to pass through the entire can before exiting.

The bike seems to run better in this configuration. I have enjoyed consistent power with no delays. Really makes things nice in the canyons. There has been one thing that has been bothering me though; the bike feels like it has more power hidden in its guts.

Ride to Willow on Sunday

We will be meeting at Glendale HD - Buell to ride out to Willow Springs. They are in the first race of the day and finish at race 5 so we will need to leave by 7:30AM. I think we will take two routes out there. One over the crest for the adventurous, and one via freeway for everyone else. On the way back we will all take the canyons. Let me know if you have any questions.

motocaliblog@gmail.com

WSMC Club Races

So, here is a taste of what to expect at Willow Springs this month.




Music by Nine Inch Nails from their new album.
Album: "The Slip"
Song: "1,000,000"