I went paintballing today at Paintball Explosion in East Dundee. A realatively new field that took over part of Santa's Village. It was a blast to get out there paintballing again. I also took my dad out for his first outing and it seems like he had a blast. I hope to make this a monthly outing going forward.
So I have totally dropped the ball on updating my donations for the past couple of months, but I plan to get back up to speed on that.
My April donation is to Rolling Dog Ranch. Rolling Dog Ranch is a rescue ranch for disabled dogs and horses.
Rolling Dog Farm rescues and shelters disabled dogs and horses. They come to us from humane societies, animal control shelters and rescue groups across the country, literally from coast to coast. Every animal who arrives at the farm gets another chance to have a safe and loving home. Most of our dogs are blind, while some are blind and deaf, and others have neurological and orthopedic issues. Our horses are blind. Although these animals may have disabilities, they do not consider themselves handicapped. They just want to get on with life and enjoy themselves.
Actually Jack Hanna does an amazing job in this video showcasing and explaining the ranch. You can find more information about the work they do as well as information on each of the animals over at their website: http://www.rollingdogfarm.org/
This past weekend Megan and I attended the annual L.A.T.E. Ride of Chicago. This is a night bicycle ride through the various neighborhoods of Chicago design to raise money for the parks. It usually has a great turnout of 5,000 - 6,000 people. This year however seems to have a much larger number of people show up. I learned later that there was a Groupon at some point over the past several months.
Unfortunately it seems that this influx of people had a pretty detrimental effect on the overall event. Right out of the gate the starting times were excruciatingly slow. We were in the third group of riders and in the past the organizers generally late groups go about every ten minutes. This year the groups were let out in about twenty minute intervals, so we didn't even get out of the gate until an hour later.
Pace for the event was excruciatingly slow. Now this is not a race, but it seems that some of the people participating in the event didn't even know the most basic of riding etiquette, riding 6-8 across the street.
To top it off when we arrived at the rest stop half way through the course all of the water, bananas and snacks were gone. More than half of the participants must have still been on the course, so clearly there was some sort of breakdown in communication.
Overall not the greatest of events this year, and to top things off the front brake on my bike broke right when we got there. I have a decent Trek 820 that I have had since eighth grade. The bike is in OK shape, but is at least fifteen years old at this point. I think it might be time to get myself a new casual bike for riding around town in addition to a road bike for exercise.
Last week when I was off for vacation I had an opportunity to really sit down and record some music. I got four tracks recorded and an additional five mixed down. I am litterally one track away from completing my next net-album and I am hoping to get it completed within the next day or so. I originally had plans to record the last track this weekend, but I ran into a minor snag with my keyboard and mouse batteries dying for my iMac. I did take that opportunity to get teh final pieces of the track worked out though so the light is litterally at the end of the tunnel at this point. The last thing to do this week then is to simply create the artwork for the album cover.
It has been a couple of weeks since I last put up a post. I have to admit, I have failed pretty hard at my commitment for monthly donations. I promise I will get back on that.
Anyways, my newest hobby and obsession has been getting into road biking. I am constantly looking a new ways to stay fit since I get so bored with workout routines quickly. This past spring I went pretty hard with Yoga as a major component of my workout routine along with my tennis an weightlifting. Last year I completed Tough Mudder, which I was very proud of, but I have to admit that I absolutely hate running. I always have, and this year I have hardly done any running at all.
My brother has been into the bicycling sport for the past several years. I never really considered it for me, but recently it has sparked an interest. I have always loved biking and truth be told I wish I did more of it. Unfortunately my community (Bolingbrook) is not particularly bike friendly with the way the shops are setup.
I recently purchased my wife a nice casual bike for her birthday so I am hoping some of our casual bike riding can increase this year. I have an old trek mountain bike (which is a great bike truth be told) that I plan to convert to a single speed later this year. I never really use all of the gears on it and it could use a little bit of TLC to clean it up.
Getting back into my original statement though, I think road biking might be an ideal way for me to keep my cardio up. The sport appears to be relatively expensive with starter bikes apparently in the $800 - $1200 range. I am hoping to visit some local bike shops in the next several weeks to see what options are out there for me. I'll report back once I get a feeling as to what is out there.
View 05-20-12 Ride Log in a larger map
The weather finally cooperated this weekend and I think just about everyone was able to get out for a ride. I finally had a change to ride with RTRC. We met up initally in Schaumburg and then road north to have breakfast at a resturant called The Full Moon Family Resturant. It seems to be quite the biker hangout. The ride continued on throught he Highland Park area where we at one point stopped at a nice beach on Lake Michigan.
It has been a couple of weeks since I have had the opportunity to get out and ride. Last week I posted a status update on some of the upgrades I have been working on for the ZR-7. It was around that same time that I had been looking at the Powerbronze fender eliminator for the bike. To just my unluck I found this kit exactly one week after the manufacturer had decided to discontinue it. THe timing was truly remarkable and after following up with two different US distributors it seems I missed the boat. So in order to avoid a similar future fate I decided to bite the bullet and purchase the Competition Werks fender eliminator.
Now this kit is stainless steel compared to the fiberglass of the PB kit. It has some advantages and disadvantageous over the other, but it seems it was my only option. It arrived this past week and I was not completely planning on installing it for a while, but I was planning for a nice bike ride up to Lake Geneva on Saturday (more on that in a bit) so I wanted to get it installed for the big ride.
So Friday afternoon I went at it. Overall the kit was fairly easily to install once you figure out how it goes. The biggest problem was the instruction manual was absolute garbage. If anyone plans on getting this kit themselves, my advice is to just look at the photos and work your way from front to back on putting all of the screws in. I spent probably a good thirty minutes trying to figure out where the signal panels went before realizing that they went on the outside of the kit. Overall though the end results turned out pretty good.
So the point of getting that thing installed as quickly as I could was to get ready for a large ride up to Lake Geneva this weekend with the Road & Track Riders of Chicago. Unfortunately my neighborhood got nailed by thunderstorms and I couldn't get out to meet up with the group and I was left with another weekend of no riding. Needless to say I was very disappointed.
Made with Paper
After picking up my ZR-7 last year I was determined to learn a little bit more about motorcycles and wanted to stick with something that had a carburetor to do some fiddling on. So far this year I have accomplished most of what I intended to do with only a few items left to get on later this summer. Most of my focus for 2012 was to upgrade the lighting system to LED's, get a new seat and perhaps re-paint the bike. I haven't decided yet if I want to try reupholstering the seat myself or just go and purchase a Corbin.
My basic goals for the rest of this summer are to get the turn signals upgraded to LED, replace the flasher relay, install a fender eliminator and also install the Screaming Banshee Horn. All of this will probably happen together in one shot since the fender eliminator is a good time to replace the rear lights and I will also need to remove the tank again to get the Banshee Horn on.
As I have been searching for fender eliminators several other ZR-7 riders over at RiderForums.com have been opining for a black fiberglass kit made by PowerBronze. After finally finding out the manufacturer we all found out that they decided to discontinue its manufacter litterally last week.
ZR-7 Upgrade List:
- Clean Carbs
- New Tires
- HR Relay Kit
- LED Taillight
- LED Signals
- LED Instrument Panel
- Banshee Horn System
- New Seat
- Paint Job
- Jet Carbs
- Threaded Brake/Clutch Lines
- Wheel Stripes
- New Headlight and Bucket
Had a blast at the Kawasaki Demo Day yesterday. The crowd was pretty full because the weather was poor on Saturday. Kawasaki had about thirty bikes there to demo. I signed up for the Versys and the KLR 650 since I am currently most interested in a dual sport at the moment. I wanted to get a ride on the Contours, but it was booked up until the late afternoon and I didn't want to wait that long to ride it. The day was already long enough as it was.
The demo ride was about 20-25 minutes long and first up was the Versys. After the ride I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. It has a very standard seating position and a sporty overall feel. Ergonomics were great on it, but I can't say I was a huge fan of the instrument panel. Personally I think the dual speedo/tach is the most perfect of designs since everything can be very easily read at a glance. The Versys however had an analog tach with a digital speedo. I am not sure if it was just my newness to the bike or not, but I just couldn't make my mind click with it. Granted I only rode for 20 minutes. One other minor gripe was the positioning of the foot pegs. They were set so far forward that I had to put my feed on the ground behind them. All just a minor annoyance that has more to do with my personal habits more than anything else. Overall though I could see myself owning this bike. It is a perfect size for someone who is 5'8" like me and has the bones to do longer trips.
The second ride of the day was on a KLR 650. Having demo'd the BMW F 800GS last fall I was prepared to try and handle a bike that was too tall for me. To my surprise however I was able to get both feet on the ground, although tip-toed. Everything about this bike surprised me quite a bit. It is only a single cylinder engine, but it had plenty of "git-up" in it. It won't be winning any speed races, but it cruised along about about 70 mph very easily and I was able to mostly hang with the other cruisers in the group ride. The bike setup was also a very standard riding position that was incredibly comfortable. The KLR is definitely more of a dual sport than the Versys and it showed in its suspension. It is a very tall bike that rides high. I can see how people take this thing across the country. The only minor gripe I had with it was that the turn signal indicator was a single light for both signals. There was one instance on the demo ride where we had to make a right and then left very quickly and I wasn't quite sure which way my blinker was going. Overall though super appealing and I came away a little more interested in it than perhaps the Versys.
With the riding position so upright on these bikes and both having fairly high suspensions hoping back onto my ZR-7 at the end of the day sort of felt like getting onto a toy cycle. Bike ZR-7 isn't small by any means, but it is comparatively small to a bunch of these other bikes.