Data Collection

I've been playing with an Android-based app on my phone to collect some data about my riding. The goal is to see how consistent I am from lap to lap. In addition to the sensors (that include accelerometers and gyroscopes) and the internal GPS it connects to an external GPS via bluetooth.  I did this because, quite honestly, most phone GPSes stink for this kind of thing.  They update once per second (at most) and are accurate to maybe 20ft.  I picked up an external GPS for about $90 that updates much faster and with greater accuracy.

The app isn't nearly done but I took it on my drive yesterday to collect a large data set.  Here's the position and elevation data it gathered.

Which correlates well with the Google-Map route I posted yesterday.  So my code isn't completely broken.  (The two gaps in the elevation graph are the two long stops I made for food 9:15 and 12:30.)

But since I'm not planning to use this 460-mile loop as my track I need to look at the noise at a much smaller scale.  I found a nice hairpin turn to focus on.  (The little red circle in the first picture.)  Here's what it looks like on Google Maps.


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Here's what my app collected

If you look closely you can see the individual data points.  I get 10 samples per second so about one every 6 feet as I drove through this turn.

North Cascades Highway

For the third weekend in a row I made a significant contribution to global warming. This time on four wheels. After having ridden WA-504 I thought I should try WA-20. According to Destination Highways WA-20 is the #1 road in Washington to drive. (WA-504 comes in 2nd or 3rd.) Here's the route:


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Expecting a 12-hour day I got off to an early start.  I headed out about 6:45am.  I arrived in Sedro-Woolley around 9:00am and figured that would be a good spot to refuel, grab some grub, and make a quick sanity-check on the car.

Sedro-Woolley is pretty typical small-town-Washington.  Which is to say that it's nothing like Seattle or Redmond: the locals are happy to chat and the ethnic diversity is about zero.  Other than WA-20 itself I think 50% of Sedro-Woolley is in that picture.  If you find yourself there I highly recommend the cinnamon rolls at the Hometown Cafe.

S Skagit Highway and WA-20 East of Sedro-Woolley is the road I had come for.  I definitely wasn't disappointed.  Most of the road is tree-covered, narrow, two-lane blacktop.  It's rural farmland.  I'm not sure it's better or worse than WA-504 but it's definitely different.  Where WA-504 has wide lanes and huge vistas that seem to beg for more throttle WA-504 has a sedate, back-country-road feel.  In retrospect the TR6 was the right choice.  The Ducati just wouldn't be as happy here.

The town of Winthrop marks the end of the more amusing section of WA-20.  I guess every summer weekend Winthrop sees a lot of visitors (the town seems built around tourism) but today had the added bonus of being a charity ride for a local motorcycle club.  There were probably 100 bikes in town.  I was lucky to find a place to park.

After grabbing some homemade ice-cream, a drink, and some sunblock I was off again just after 1pm.

If you're planning a trip, and you don't have time constraints, and you have to choose between "US-XX" and "Alt US-XX" I recommend "Alt".  Why?  Dunno, it just seems to work for me.  I might encounter more traffic lights but I'll almost always have less traffic.  So I picked Alt US-97 which takes a nice route around Lake Chelan and the Chelan River. ... The people in the city of Chelan have a good gig.

If you're planning a trip, and you don't have time constraints, and you think a "NF-XX" road looks interesting I suggest you be careful what you wish for. In my attempt to get off of US-2 I decided to detour up Chumstick Road to Little Wenatchee River Rd to NF-65 and NF-6700.  Chumstick was great.  Little Wenatchee was nice too.  Then I passed a sign that said "End of County Road" and suddenly the road was 4 feet narrower.  No problem, by car is pocket-sized.  Then came NF-6700.  I'm sure I checked the satellite images on Google Maps.  Apparently I didn't.  NF-6700 is unpaved.

At first I thought it was just an unpaved section and I'd soon get to the good stuff.  After 4 miles I realized there wasn't going to be any good stuff.  I could either backtrack the 4 miles of dirt and another 50 of asphalt or just finish the last 8 miles of dirt.  I chose the latter.  Although progress was slow it was some of the best scenery in the whole trip.

After getting back to WA-2 things went smoothly.  (Well, except for the one deer that made a foray into my lane.)  I arrived back at home around 7:30pm.  Both me and The Triumph seem to be in one piece but we're both pretty dirty.

Going Back For Seconds (and Thirds)

I've been in Seattle 8 years and, despite it's status as one of the nicest drives around, last weekend was the first time I'd been to the West side of Mt St Helens.  As luck would have it the second time came 6 days later.  A friend was part of a BMW motorcycle event and he wanted to get out and do some more riding.  He convinced me to meet him in Centralia on Friday.

I often say "Even a lab-rat learns from experience." and I like to think I'm a step or two ahead of a lab-rat.  Since I hadn't completely recovered from long ride the previous Saturday, and getting to Centralia is about as boring as you can imagine, I decided to take the trailer.  (Sure, go ahead, tell me I'm a poseur, a fraud, a typical Ducati owner.  I'd rebut your statements but first I have to finish my venti, no-whip, one-pump, soy, iced, chai latte.)

Friday afternoon Wil and I decided to go up 504.  The weather forecast was not good but the rain had been holding off so far and the weather was supposed to be improving.

Turns out it didn't.  The ride up was okay. There was occasional drizzle but nothing to worry about. The ride down was cloudy. "Cloudy" meaning "in a cloud." The rain and visibility ranged from bad to worse. In some cases I had to use the taillights of the car in front of me to know where the road was. By the time we reached the bottom again I was soaked.

We got back to the hotel, cleaned up, and went for dinner.

In the morning we took a round-about way to a little roadside diner in Oakville.  From there my friend headed home and I went back to the hotel.  After packing up and checking out I headed off on another ride.

For the third time in 6 days I was at the Johnson Observatory so I figured I should pay the fee, see the exhibits, and try to learn something besides "BMW drivers think 'Slow vehicle lane' doesn't apply to them."  The exhibits are about what you'd expect.  There were a couple of short films about the 1980 eruption (spoiler alert: the mountain explodes at the end.)

By 4pm I was back at the hotel and more than ready to call it a day.  I loaded up the trailer and headed home.  The executive summary:

• 415 miles on the bike
• 200 miles in the car
• 2 educational films about Mt St Helens
• 1 unnecessary rainstorm

Friday:

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Saturday:

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Spirit Lake

An inventory of yesterday:

• 1 group ride
• 5 bikes
• 6 people
• 11 hours
• 350 miles
• 0 rain

The ride was to Spirit Lake (the West side of Mt St. Helens).  Here's roughly the route we took:


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I'd never been to the West side of the mountain and WA-504 is supposed to be one of the best motorcycle roads in Washington. So I'd been looking forward to this ride for awhile.

Things did not get off to an auspicious start, the forecast called for rain, the sky was threatening, and the first hour was spent on freeways or in light-to-light traffic.  Things didn't really improve until we stopped for lunch in Elbe.  The roads were better, the traffic was light, even the sky had cleared.  We made our last gas stop near Toledo and from there it was a non-stop run to the visitors center at Spirit Lake.

Whoever built (and maintains) WA-504 needs a raise.  The lanes are wide and smooth and clean.  Even at decent speeds there aren't many blind corners.  The scenery isn't bad either.  I didn't get it all on video but this will give you a good idea of what it's like (no mom, I wasn't going this fast, the video is at 4x speed).

The visitors center has some pretty good views of Mt St Helens.  Even MiniMe enjoyed it.

After Spirit Lake the group separated.  Three bikes were headed to a camping event near Mt Rainier while my cousin and I headed back home.  The ride back was less pleasant.  We returned to Toledo then simply took the freeways home.

Going Green With Envy

Things around my house break.  I feel like I've spent the last 2 weeks just sticking fingers in the dike.  The compressor on the fridge gave out, the garage door opener broke, even the dog has needed weekly trips to the vet.

I finally entinguished the fires this afternoon.  So I went to Home Depot to get a jump on some less critical projects.  And what do I find in the parking lot?...

That's a Fisker Karma EV.   An electric, 4-door sedan.  It looks very nice in person.  Here's what Car and Driver had to say about it.










I'm guessing (although he is at Home Depot so I could be wrong) that his fridge still works.

Zombie Apocalypse on Wheels

Do you know why the zombies always lose?  Because they gimp around on foot.  Clearly you can't conquer anything on foot.  What the zombies need is a car.  What kind of car would a zombie drive?  One that's come back from the dead of course.

On an almost unrelated note...

Today I put 60 miles on The Triumph.

That's more miles than it's seen in a long time.  How long?  It last left its garage in the Fall of 2007.  (For this picture.)  And even then it had to be pushed because trying to start it resulted in a quart of fuel on the floor.  At the time I figured I'd fix it when I got around to it.

I got around to it 4 1/2 years later.

By then its gas was 6 years old.  The tank came out, the carbs came off, the fuel filter and some of the lines were replaced.  It could have been worse.  In the end the fuel leak was caused by bad o-rings on the float bowls.  But 6 years of storage meant a little more work was required.  Most of the fluids were flushed, rubber hoses replaced, and some minor electrical work done.

The "recent" entries in the log book now look like:

   Date     Mileage
--------------------
2004-03-12  141127
2004-05-13  141338
2005-05-30  141524
2006-05-15  141692
2006-06-03  141790
2006-06-03  141873
2012-06-02  141894

Which means in the 8 years it's been in Seattle (it arrived in March 2004) it's covered less than 1000 miles.  But there is hope on the horizon.  I woke up this morning to see this weather forecast:

Custom Sportbike

Don't get me wrong, I like sportbikes.  They're an impressive mix of design and engineering.  But I've always thought they were too homogenous.  One CBR1000 is pretty much the same as the next.

Cruisers (and in particular Harleys) span a much wider range.  A stock Harley bike is a blank canvas used to draw almost anything imaginable.  Where a stock sportibke is a nearly finished picture that only leaves a few minor details to the discretion of the owner.

That's why I was happy to see this bike:

It's a Yamaha FZ1 that started it's life something like this:

It might not be a huge amount of work (remove the fairings and fenders, new seat, new taillights, new mirrors, new exhaust) but the personality of the bike is radically different.

Kudos to someone willing to draw outside the lines.