Cool/Fun Badge Creation Application

I saw this today on the yearrounders motorcycling forum I frequent. It's a cool web application to create name badges for reunions, gatherings or just for a little bit of fun.

The rounders are planning a gathering called the Road to RUIN, which will be at Niagara Falls, although I won't be able to make it, I created my name badge that I would have worn if in attendance. There was a thread on the rounders site where people were displaying their creative results. Very amusing.

The application is HERE, worth checking out if you've a few minutes.

A Ride to an ICBM Farm in NE Colorado

Temperatures in the 50s, sunny and very windy at times.

I left the house today around 1020hrs, the goal being to see if I could get close enough with Maria to an ICBM Missile Silo Site while not breaking any laws.

I did not even know, till about two weeks ago, that there were active missile silos in Colorado! I found out purely by accident when I was reading about an upcoming ride hosted by my club, the coloradobeemers. It's scheduled for April 12, or next Saturday and includes in its stops a visit to a nearby missile silo near New Raymer, CO.

The ride posting included useful links such as this map of the Silo Complex for Colorado and neighboring states. It's hosted on an anti-nuke site called coloradopeace.org. First time I found any use for such a site! Here's a link to the map and directions that I used today. LINK

Took me about 90 minutes to reach the intersection of CO52 and CO14, near the town of New Raymer. I wandered over to N1 which is supposed to be a Launch Control Center. As I neared it I looked for "keep out" signs and saw none so I turned from CR129 and parked a few feet from the fence line surrounding a few small buildings. That's when I saw the sign advertising the site:



Very soon after I took the above picture, a couple of armed Air Force Security Police came to the fence and politely told me that no pictures were allowed except from the county road. I thanked them and left quickly. Good to know that the security for this site was not asleep at the switch! :)

I got back on CO14 and decided to see how close one could legally get to an actual silo. Turns out, there was one about 200ft north of the pavement on CO14. This was the N5 site listed on the map below.




I must admit it felt a bit weird to be standing so close to a site that housed a nuclear tipped ICBM. I guess the locals are used to it and they did not even spare the silo site a glance as they drove by in their cages.

Here's some pictures from Strategic-Air-Command.com and Titan2ICBM.org offering more details of these missile silos and the history/background of the whole organizations involved. Interesting stuff, the 321st Missile Squadron has the Minutemen III missiles according to GlobalSecurity.org but the pictures give you an idea anyways of what it might look like inside one of these sites.



I left the vicinity of New Raymer soon after 1300 after checking in with my loving wife. I decided to head South on CO71 instead of backtracking on CO52 which is what I'd used from I-76 to get to New Raymer.

CO71 is a pretty straight, nicely paved road cutting through Colorado's eastern prairies with nothing but ranches and farms along the side to break up the monotony. So it was with some relief that I saw a sign stating that the town of "Last Chance" Colorado was just a few miles up ahead.


Once I got to Last Chance though, not much there but a few buildings/houses. From Wikipedia: The town was supposedly so named because it was once the only place for travelers to secure fuel and provisions for many miles in any direction.

Shortly after Last Chance I came upon CO36 which I took westbound towards Denver. I passed through the towns of Strasburg, Bennett and Watkins with no issues except for the winds that buffeted me as I rode.

I took Watkins Road South out of Watkins heading towards Quincy Road. I had an Arapahoe County Sheriff patrol right behind so I made sure to stay just a couple of miles above the speed limit. He followed me till about 2 miles from Quincy road when he must have radar'ed a cage heading northbound and turned around with his lights on. Oh well.

Quincy Road I took westbound and soon I was back in home neighborhoods. Racked up about 281 miles of riding with about 5.5 hrs of saddle time. The roads themselves were pretty straight and boring for the most part, glad I did it though, now I won't have to go with the group ride next Saturday except perhaps for the Genoa leg of the ride to see the Wonder Tower.

Red Rocks Park and Deer Creek Canyon Road

Temperatures in the 60s throughout the ride. Sunny with gusty winds later in the afternoon.

Beautiful riding weather again today, I set out after 1300hrs and headed over to the west side of Denver, near the town of Morrison, to the Red Rocks Amphitheater Park to try my hand at panoramic pictures again.

Saw plenty of motorcyclists, bikers and donorcycles out and about all day. Where I usually could count the number of fellow riders on one hand, today I lost count within the first hour of riding. Good deal, it would have been wrong to be not riding today, no matter what you ride in this part of the country!

I spotted this small park run by Jefferson County called Dinosaur Ridge, I went in and got a picture of Maria next to a patriotically themed stegosaurus:

Dinosaur Ridge

I made my way into Red Rocks Park from Dinosaur Ridge and here's the panoramic shot that best came out of the three attempts I made to capture this particular view of the North Parking Lot.

North Parking Lot, looking towards the South

Ship Rock

Ship Rock from further away

After Red Rocks, I made my way back to Morrison and from there to US285. I headed South on US285 until I got to the Turkey Creek Canyon Road exit. This road is quite twisty in parts but one has to keep somewhat close to the speed limit as there's lots of houses along the road where a car might exit from without much notice.

Once I got to Fenders, I turned onto Deer Creek Canyon Road and twisted and turned my way back towards the Denver Metro Area. The road was pretty clear of sand and gravel though some still remained. I was able to enjoy the turns for most of the road, that is until I caught up with this cager who was cautiously making his way through the last third of the road. Oh well.

Once I was near the Chatfield Reservoir, I just took the usual road to the Waterton Canyon area, from there making my way back towards US85 towards Sedalia and beyond that to Castlerock. I elected at this point to make my way past the "rock" and onto Gilbert Street which eventually becomes CO11. A pretty good road with a few twists and turns to keep one amused.

Eventually, I came to the junction with CO83 which I took North towards Franktown. Past Franktown, I soon came to the town of Parker and from there it was the usual backroads towards my home neighborhoods.

Perhaps 130 miles of riding today, about 3.5hrs in the saddle. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I think I'm getting the hang at shooting for panoramic shots. Still some slight issues with the sky portions blending better, but that's OK.

A Lowered Shift Lever for Maria

Back in October of 2006, having recently acquired Maria, my 2004 R1150RT, I had felt the need for some additional legroom and had bought and installed the Suburban Machinery Lowered Peg Kit for my motorcycle. Here's the link for that posting: LINK

They did the job and gave me about an inch or so of needed legroom so my knees would not bind up so fast or easily on the longer rides.

However, since I'd lowered the rider pegs, the stock shift lever was now a bit higher than normal. I'd read online where others had bought the same peg lowering kit and they had simply "adjusted" their shifting motions and adapted to the new position of the shift lever relevant to their lower foot position. I did the same and it worked out great. No need to get the shift lever lowering kit from Suburban Machinery I said to myself back then.

Well, having recently bought "real" motorcycle boots, I had started missing the shift to second gear once in a great while. Mostly it happened on long rides after a long stretch of no shifting and my legs having gotten a bit stiff and tired. Sometimes it happened when I was briefly distracted or not concentrating hard enough on smoothly shifting. Regardless, it had become an annoyance to roll the throttle on only to find myself in neutral! Rather embarrassing too. : )

So I spot this auction on Ebay from Australia, won it and got a used shift lever lowering kit that was made by Suburban Machinery. Right about half price from MSRP including shipping from Australia.

Here's the lowered gear shift lever

Here's the stock gear shift lever

The main difference from the stock shift lever is the 60'ish degree bend from the main part of the lever. Installation was not too bad once I figured out where a couple of bolts where that were holding the side plate onto the motorcycle and how to remove the old gear shift lever. It pays to be patient and I managed to do it without damaging anything. The only painful part as always is removing the tupperware in order to get to things.

Took Maria out for a 10 mile test ride after I buttoned her up and it's definitely different having the new shift lever where it's at! I did some hunting for a while for the peg since its smaller than the oversized peg cover I'd placed on the stock gear shift lever before.

Still, it did not take me long before I was smoothly shifting up and down the gears. It's much nicer on my left foot now to upshift, no more ackward position of the foot. Shifting down is so much easier now, I don't have to lift the left foot from the rider peg anymore!

It'll take a few miles to really get smooth on the shifting but I am more than pleased with this new farkle for Maria and me.

Before (pic from 2006)

After

Note how much closer to being level with the rider pegs the gear shift lever is now

Yeah, she's a little dirty, but that's because I'm riding every day! Rain or Shine.