you don't drive Truck Norris, he drives you!

Just over a week ago, we brought a new vehicle into our lives, making us a two-car family again for the first time in two years. Meet Truck Norris:


Truck Norris is a 2009 Dodge Ram 2500 with a 6.7L Cummins turbodiesel engine, an extended cab, the long bed, and the tow package. We've already had a Rhino Lining bedliner put in, and a canopy top for the bed is on order and should be here in about two weeks. The dogs ride in the backseat, which we've arranged nicely with a flat sheet ziptied to the folded seats to protect them, dog beds on the cargo shelf that folds out from the floor, and soon a net barrier to keep them from warming up the drivers' seat when we leave them in the truck. Phoebe is especially fond of sitting on the top of the seatback and vulturing at us with her beady little eyes.

We're pleased with our purchase, and looking forward to a long lifetime of use for both flyball and home needs. I already took a big load of tree branches to the dump over the weekend, and we've been using it to go to flyball practice and will be taking it to Canada this weekend for the tournament. That will be a bit interesting, as we don't have the canopy yet, so we will be putting our silver travel pod in the truck bed along with the cooler and bin wrapped in tarps to protect them! The new truck will give us a second snow-capable vehicle for the winter, as well as take the burden of long-range travel off of the Subaru (which is just about to turn 80,000 miles) which will help extend the life of that vehicle.

And of course, Truck Norris will achieve his calling next spring, when if all goes as planned we will be purchasing a travel trailer RV. Until then, however, he will have to be content with taking loads of stuff to the dump, bringing home our Christmas tree, and hauling around 110 lbs of dog in the backseat.

All hail Truck Norris!!

6am, 32 degrees, 11 thousand miles

Yesterday morning on my way in to work (turning onto Lake City Way from 61st, to be exact) my bike kicked over the 11,000 mile mark. I've had it right at about a year, as we bought it right before our cruise last January, and I got the new seat for it so I could ride it soon after we returned home. I've put a little over 8,000 miles on it in a years' time, nearly all of it commuting with only a handful of "fun" rides on it as well as the Experienced Rider Course we did last spring.

For Christmas this year, Mom got me the new windshield that I wanted and Chris bought me the laminar lip to go with it. The windshield was an easy swap that I did on Christmas day, but putting on the lip required warmer garage temperatures than we had, plus markers and a second person, so that didn't go on until the weekend after New Years. I was really worried about getting it on straight, as anything that is slightly "off" will catch my attention and bother me to no end, but Chris did a very nice job lining up the attachment points. The adhesive seems to be very strong and despite not fully attaching on two dots, I've never seen the lip so much as wiggle up to about 90mph or so. For comparison, you can look up at the blog title bar to see a picture of the bike with the old windshield, which barely came up over the handlebars.

The new setup is so much more comfortable it's unreal. I have almost zero airflow from my nose down to my chest, meaning that I don't have to wear the fleece tube around my neck and chin unless the temperature dips below 25 degrees. I've had a slight increase in helmet fogging from that as well, but with the wind blocking I can actually crack the visor comfortably. I've also put the "breath guide" piece that came with the helmet back into it, which is a soft rubbery piece that goes between the visor and my face to guide breath down and to the vents, rather than up across the visor. Basically, in summary, the new windshield is as great an improvement for cold-weather riding as the heated jacket was at this time last year. Yay for technology!

Back in October I mentioned my new boots, and I added a new pair of gloves to the tally in November after the old ones started ripping badly enough to leak. Men's XS size gloves are just not meant for me, and it was the yanking to get them small enough that did them in, unfortunately. Based on some experiences on a forum, I picked up a pair of RevIt Farenheits in their womens' line, complete with waterproofing, temperature-regulating core, fleecy lining, armor on the knuckles, and a windproof finish. For the first few weeks I was worried I had chosen poorly, as they were so stiff and snug that it was not easy to ride in them. However, in the past few weeks they have finally finished breaking in and I completely adore them - comfortable, fit properly (no "ratcheting down" past the intended sizing!), and very very warm. The boots have also broken in the rest of the way and no longer mark up my leg when I ride, and I'm looking forward to using them for quite some time in the future. My next gear purchase will be a new helmet in March when I get my bonus - I'm looking at a Shoei right now, but will definitely go back and try on all of the higher end helmets to find one that really meets my needs. The Scorpion I've got now is good enough, but the better helmets are much, much lighter and have some better airflow features, which I am in sore need of due to the fogging problems mentioned earlier. Mainly, however, I really want a lighter helmet that makes it easier to move my head as I do have some restriction in my movement due to the weight of the current one.

Then there is always the wish list - bar risers and a back mudflap being highest on that particular list. Chris' brother may be moving to Oakland, CA later this year and he's thinking it would be fun to take a riding trip to visit him. I agree that would be pretty neat, but at least with my current setup I don't think it would be so comfortable, so we'll see!

nine thousand miles

Yesterday I kicked over nine thousand miles on my bike while on my way home, probably somewhere on Mercer Street. It had about 2700 on it when I bought it in February, so that's just over six thousand that I've ridden this year. Double that to include the mileage that I put on the Vulcan, and I've ridden about twelve thousand miles in the past fifteen months, nearly all of it commuting. That is a lot of city riding, and thankfully I have had no accidents (knock on wood) and only a few truly close calls.

I would love to ride for fun on the weekends, but most of the time the thought of settling the dogs for the day, figuring out where to go, getting geared up, and actually heading out is just too much to overcome. I'd like to go ride on the peninsula by taking the ferry, especially with cheaper fares and preferential loading on bikes, but we just haven't gotten around to doing it. Add in that Chris has been working nights for several months now, and putting a fun ride in our schedule just isn't as easy as it could be. Last spring we did take the bike to go to the tulip festivals in the Skagit valley, and that was a good day. Maybe next year we can go to the lavendar festivals on the peninsula, or find some other destination that involves scenic riding. We both generally do better with a purpose to a trip, and not just riding for scenery.

I've been using earplugs since I got the BMW, as it is much louder than the Vulcan was due to the riding position and lower windshield. However, the earplugs I use have been hurting my ears after just the 30 minute commute, which was another mark against going for a longer ride. Yesterday the new earplugs I ordered online showed up, and so this morning I wore the first pair that I had the highest hopes for - the SilentEar reusable earplugs. They have a noise reduction rating (NRR) of 32, higher than that of the ones I was using (24), and look way cooler and also came in a small size. After one trip with them I am pleased, as my ears did not hurt at all when I got to work, noises were quieter, and they were easier to insert properly than the old ones. Depending on how I like them after a few more days, I may not even try the others - but the others were all $2 per pair or so, thus I am not fussed about the cost. I can probably use at least one of them for flyball, at any rate.

Now, if I could just find a manufacturer who believes that women do in fact ride during the winter and need waterproof, armored, insulated gloves just like men do, I'd be all set. Men's XS is just not the same as a properly proportioned Women's S size.

cold weather is here

This week it seems we have skipped straight over fall and gone directly into winter, at least temperature-wise. We had a nice windstorm on Monday/Tuesday and it's been very chilly in the mornings, down in the low forties already. I saw a temperature of 39.2 degrees at the bottom of my hill yesterday morning on my way to work, that's pretty darn cold for October in Seattle.

The cold weather means more than just another blanket on the bed at night, however, it also means both Chris and I are now wearing all of our motorcycle gear for our commute. Right now, my winter kit consists of the following items:

Olympia AST three-quarter length jacket in grey
Gerbing heated jacket liner in black
Olympia Promax armored pants in black
Oxtar Sunray Gore-Tex boots in black (recently rebranded as TCX)
Scorpion Exo700 helmet in Black Dahlia
Fieldsheer Polar gloves in men's XS, black
Schampa Doo-Z helmet liner in black
Turtle Fur fleece tube neckpiece in black/blue
Conic Fit earplugs

It sounds like a lot of stuff, but it's not really all that much when you put it on even though it can get bulky and time consuming. And after all, all but the helmet liner and fleece tube are necessary for safety! I had forgotten just how bulky the pants are when the liner is in, so that took some getting used over the last two days - I lose some of my leg length on the bike due to the extra fabric, making it a little harder to put a foot down safely.

Of all the gear, however, the most important piece for comfort is the heated jacket liner and the built-in heated grips on my bike. Without those two I would be cold and very unhappy, and probably unable to ride during the winter. On the old bike I was OK without the jacket until about December, but there was also a bigger windshield and more protected riding position on that bike. On the BMW my head, shoulders, and upper chest are pretty much completely exposed unless I'm laying down over the bike, and that is only feasible at speed on the highway and isn't terribly comfortable. As of yesterday morning riding on the highway was not fun at all, even with all the gear, so today I took Lake City Way in to avoid the highway as much as possible.

Despite what many people think, I actually enjoy riding in the cold and rain to an extent. Yeah, misty rain that continually covers my helmet is annoying, as is slightly-cold-rain that makes my visor fog up. There is just something about being encased in my gear and riding along in the elements that driving a car just can't match. I'll keep riding because of that.