Mandatory freetime

How I spent my forced day off work.

Cool stuff from the basement

I am constantly in awe of the all the people out there who put in massive amounts of time and energy to make wildly beautiful and original motorcycles, loaded with one off parts of their own design and construction.  

Due to time and money constraints and my own general level of laziness I am not one of those people.  Once in a while though I manage to make a few flanges and brackets.  All of the parts I didn't make were just laying around in the basement, so that was nice.

I lied

Still obsessing over this DR.

Waiting on more parts.

Reborn-ish

Still a lot to do.

But for now it's on to the project I was supposed to be working on during this fine but fleeting abundance of free time.  A hint: it starts with T and ends with a 500 and in the middle is a -.

DRI

Look familiar?

Awhile ago I went to a D.R.I. show at the High Noon.  They are old farts and ruled nonetheless but their merch guy was a royal smegma smear.  It was all I could do to endure his sarcasm and general disdain for me in order to buy this sticker.  It has stayed on this fender despite a dumb Madison stop sign running bicyclist being wrapped around it and an total tranny grenade incident.  Not to mention my own idiot antics.  Now it has a new home.  I am thrilled.

Que sera, sera

The net says that in a small number of DR650 transmissions, the gear that drives 3rd, 4th, 5th can and will grenade without warning, usually around 20K miles, and will take the piston, sleeve, crank, conrod etc with it.  Mine was in that number apparently, though I only got 11K miles.  It was fun while it lasted.

KLUNK!

Is the sound my DR made today on Hwy 14 before it completely died.  Just went over 11000 on the clock.

Luckily I have super rad friends who were offering help right and left.  Also a guardian angel with a box truck.  Thank you all!

Encouraging words to drink by and learning to surf, taking advantage of a break in the weather.

Thanks for the help Dave and Ben!
B & D, the more tall boys, the better the footage... from tom on Vimeo.
I've been fighting my wat through a learning curve with new software (Adobe Premier) so with that and getting camera settings dialed in a bit, it's getting closer.  Without any kind of post production the video footage looks like a Mexican soap opera, but the motion is clean.  Shot in Cine mode at 60 fpsi. Neatrual white balance, and about four beers in me.

road salt, winter sun, and no common sense...

ice, salt, and the will to survive from tom on Vimeo.

Aaron, you were right, having a $50k Red camera would be awesome for the ability to do kick ass slow motion (and they look pretty cool!). I still have much to learn on this camera tho, this is filmed in 30 fps progressive, the camera has a 60 fps interlaced setting that I need to figure out. Also, my lens was dirty... Thanks for taking a look!