The Road To Stardom Is Not Paved

Hey, Paulo! `Bout time you showed up here!

Well, it sounds like it only took one Husky to bring that big cat down, eh? Ryan had a lot of fun on my Husky, and now this morning I find out he just bought a WR250R and the Tiger is going to be up for sale soon Smart man...

The story of how Ryan came to own that bike is pretty interesting. He bought a new Triumph Scrambler and was really happy with it. He was on his way to Alaska on it when he had a total catastrophic failure outside Portland, OR. It was going to take 4 weeks to get it right, and I guess they didn't have another Scrambler to offer him. They offered to give him the Tiger (didn't have an XC to give him) and he accepted.
He said he needed luggage for his trip; no problem. Triumph got him all the accessories he needed, gave him some knobby tires and sent him on his way. That bike is worth much more than his Scrambler, not to mention all the boxes and bags and stuff. When he sells it he'll come out way ahead. It served its purpose quite well, I'd say. And good for Triumph for taking care of him without giving him any grief.

More on that in a few minutes. The operative word here is "Deja vu'"
He loves that 640, and it's no wonder why. It absolutely rips on the street. He's going to keep it for his commuter so he can keep the stupid miles off that beautiful yellow n' blue 610 He rode the 610 to work the last 2 days and he likes it a lot but he misses the explosiveness of his 640. On the other hand, he says it feels more like a dirt bike and he's going to end up under a bus or in jail if he keeps riding it to work

After playing in Tomas's garage we ripped down Cachagua in the rain. It was pretty cool...a true supermoto road. It turns to dirt towards the bottom and it was slicker than snot in the rain. At least, it was on our streety tires. It was pretty fun chasing Tomas on his knobbies. Slidey action! I brought home a bit of the nice dirt...


We hooked up with the crew at the Running Iron, had another lunch that couldn't be beat, then we all said our good-byes. Eric and I headed north to Salinas. We didn't want to slab it all the way back home in the rain, and we didn't want to camp in the rain, so we got a place to stay for the night. With the PGA going on at Pebble Beach it was hard to find a place closer. We didn't get more than a few miles out of Carmel Valley before a familiar scenario started playing out...

At first we thought it was a catastrophic failure of some sort when Eric took off the air box cover and motor oil started pouring out...


A little looking around, though, and we found the culprit. Sigh...deja vu' all over again...


The little specks of water are the beginnings of another round of good rain...of course

I guess the piece of broken slide plate was holding one of the valves open or something, hence all the motor oil in the air box

At least this time we weren't down in a canyon on a dirt trail with street tires And we learned something after that trip: check the spark plug gap! Yep, it was smashed so Eric re-gapped it. We also learned another trick on that trip: carry a spare slide plate...


This plate was from the WR426 and had slightly larger shoulders. A little work with the file on the world's finest Swiss Army knife and we were good to go. The motor fired right up, sounded horrific for a few seconds while it digested the rest of the metal and spit it into the pipe, then ran like a top all the way into Salinas. Hell, the sun even came out for a few minutes

Once we got into Salinas we cranked the heater and hung up all our sopping wet gear to dry. We then soaked away the chill from all the wet miles we'd done...

We bombed home early the next morning and 2 days later there was a link to the movie trailers in my inbox! These guys don't mess around! Each of the 3 had to make a trailer. Doug's ended up being really short due to hard drive issues, but they're all really good!

I don't know how to embed vimeo but here are the links...

Doug's short trailer...


Jeff's trailer...

View: http://vimeo.com/36793843


And Sal's super-slick production...

View: http://vimeo.com/36803040


Can't wait to see the final product! These guys were a total blast to work with. They all love what they're doing and have an infectious enthusiasm about them. Very youthful and bright, and just a lot of fun to be around. The whole experience was way more interesting and rewarding than I'd imagined it would be. I'm thinking it will be even more so when I can see the fruits of our labors. Heh..."labors"...it was probably one of the most fun things I've ever done I hope we get the chance to do some more work together in the future

Kind of a strange ride report, for sure, but I enjoyed sharing the experience and I hope y'all enjoyed it a little bit, too!

Seems like you did a fine job embedding the vimeo videos

Nice feature! I like it! Do the youtube links do the same thing?

I posted the vimeo link and it automagically embedded. Cool, huh?

So, by "tomorrow" do you mean today Sunday or do you mean tomorrow Monday? Hard to tell when you post at 2:55am

Thanks, Palmer!

And don't worry, stardom won't change us...much

Yep

Post #1, point number 4) HERE

Vimeo, youtube, and a few others. The exact list of what sites are supported will probably be in a state of flux forever i.e. more sites added (smugmug will probably not ever be supported unless they change their methodology for technical reasons)

I don't know if I can handle Hollister on a holiday...

Finally got to watch the videos. Outstanding!



Will you remember us after you rise to stardom?

Of course! It's always good to remember the little people you've trampled on your march to the top


Can't wait to see the private screening on the finished short documentary. They're putting together a full-length one for the participants, and there might be another project in the works, too