The Summer Road Trip Day 4

The Summer Road Trip Day 3

The Summer Road Trip Day 2

The Summer Road Trip - Day 1 continued...

St. Helena, Cali

I cruised through the Valley, and into St. Helena- what a great little town.  Wineries everywhere, great Main St., and beautiful scenery!  Can't wait to get back one day...

The Summer Road Trip- Day 1

"On the road again, I cant wait to get on the road again..."  

I sang these lyrics about a thousand times in my head as I headed down the 395 towards Interstate 80 and Cali!

Once I got over the Donner Pass, and through Auburn, the ride kinda turns to shit.  Heading west on the long stretch into and through Sacto kinda sucks.  Lots of traffic, and it was like 96 degrees.  But Im thinking "this will be the worst stretch of the trip, just suck it up, cause your "on the road again..."  Yeah, well just wait for Day 7's installment.

Anyway, got through Sac Town just fine, and caught the 12 to the 29 north...

 to Napa Valley...

Now, I've been to Sonoma Valley to my cousin Kathleen's house before, but never through Napa.  Holy shitake, as my son Sawyer would say, this place is off the hook beautiful!

Some of the sights I was treated to on my way to St. Helena were;

And all of these sights from the main road!  I thought I was in Tuscany- it was so beautiful...  I cant wait to go back their with my girl, and spend a week exploring all the restaurants, shops and wineries.

Day 1 continued in the next installment...

The Summer Road Trip...

A little background on my life first.  I'm in a relationship with an amazing woman, and we live together  along with my son, age 12, and her two twin 9 year old boys.  We have 2 full time careers, 3 kids half time, 2 dogs, 5 chickens, a social circle of friends, and everything else that goes along with a busy life these days.  My significant other has had at least 3 vacations away from home in the last 12 months.  Me, nothing.  It just worked out that way.  Needless to say, by August, I was burned out.  

So I decided to take a week off work, pack up the scoot, and head down to So Cal from Reno where we live.  I moved up to the Tahoe/Reno area from Ventura, Cali, where I had lived for 20 years- 4 years ago.  And I hadn't been back since.  I felt like I needed to check in with my mates, and visit the old stomping grounds...  Thus the destination to my road trip.  I was excited to be away from the grind for 9 days, get some saddle time in, and basically be on my own.  Yeah baby!

After contacting lots of friends and family along the way, the route started to take shape- leave on a Saturday and head to Napa Valley, then Carmel, on to Pismo Beach, down to Santa Barbara, then Ojai and into Ventura.  Taking my time doing 5-6 hours in the saddle would get me into Ventura on Tuesday.  An excellent plan... 


Leaving Reno about noon on Saturday:

Next installment- Day 1 on the road...

Bad Ass Suggestions On Surpassing Procrastination

Bad Ass Suggestions On Surpassing Procrastination

The Old Bike Barn has started up a site geared toward the small biz/home motorcycle builders called The Greasy Dozen .  They’ve had a number of business offer to become sponsors with the intent of providing ‘parts, paint, fab work, tech support for noobs’.  They will be sponsoring 12 bike in all; ’4 Cafe Racers, 4 Bobber, 4 choppers (one first time builder per category)’ .  I’m gonna go for it and attempt to get sponsored.  Here’s hoping!

Anyway, the following is quoted from their post called ‘Killing The Procrastination Demon’, which I found to be incredibly bad ass.

1. Make your project public, tell friends about it, ask for help and let your plan be known, nothing puts a fire under my ass better than saying I’m gona do something and having to live up to it. Start a thread, a blog, chronicle it on Facebook what ever it is just make sure you’re accountable to more than your self for the progress.

2. Don’t make excuses. Over the years I have found a laundry list of excuses why I didn’t complete a project over the winter. The fact is most of the excuses I have made are bullshit. I don’t have the money (I have seen plenty of $500 choppers that were cool), I don’t have the time (make it), I don’t have the skill (learn it or get help)… I’m at least 50% computer geek but I manage to figure things out when I decide to. Skinned knuckles heal and they make girly computer hands stronger. I have found none of the excuses most of us make hold water… when it comes to bike building you simply have to want it bad enough and commit.

3. Make A Move! It’s easy really, you can start right now… get out a pen and paper write some shit down, set you goals and your budget. It’s the first step and it gets you past the day dreaming point. Far too often people don’t realize how cheap it can be to resurrect and old bike or update their daily driver, but it takes figuring out what you want to do. Set some deadlines and make this a priority. The one irreplaceable commodity in life is time and if you don’t build now when will you.

4. Plan Ahead. Some of the obvious things that need to be considered: The parts you will need, the tools and of course the space to do it in. Now I know this all sounds kind of no-brainer, but how often do we PLAN UNTIL SPRING and not get the project done. Be mindful of the fact that it’s truly amazing what you can do with only a few solid weekends of work. Sometimes just getting a bike back in the wind is a good starting point. How many of you have a non-runner kicking around?

5. Always Have A Dedicated Area. Even if it’s very small, one too many bikes never see the road again because someone moved a box of parts and the wife or kids put it at the curb. Make it clear to people that you are working on something important to you and not to mess about in that part of the garage, basement, or living room (A special wife is required on that last one).
For me turning wrenches is 50% of being a biker simply riding one does not give you that title. Whether it’s a simple make over or a full on build does not matter, but turning wrenches does. I promise you won’t regret following through.

Just don’t get caught planning until spring! BUILT NOT BOUGHT it’s the only way to fly!