The Trip To Gerlachfest 2016

I had an interesting trip to Gerlach, NV for this year's Gerlachfest (a Cognoscenti/Iron Butt social gathering). Gerlachfest was a good event this year. As always, there are motorcycles, guns, and liquor. We're sane, so the liquor is never combined with the guns and motorcycles. But after we're done with the riding and shooting the liquor flows freely.

I usually do the 650 mile trip all at once but I get in late and am tired. Plus I haven't ridden much this year, so I took 2 days for the trip. Made a back road route of about 750 miles. I visited with a friend and had lunch in Hemet, CA then meandered to Lone Pine, CA where I stayed at a hostel. Good facility and considering the $30 total price was more than $100 less than the lowest cost (and probably cheapest) motel I was pleased.

I took off fairly early and my EPA for Gerlach was about 1430. That was before I got rear ended at a stop sign in Hawthorn, NV. I was stopped at the stop sign waiting for traffic to clear for a right turn. There was a pickup in front of me. Since the turn was at a 45 degree angle as the pickup rolled forward I was going to angle to the left a bit so I could see better. Just as I started this maneuver, my bike violently took off. In the split second before I hit the truck, I thought my clutch had engaged. Of course, once I'm crunching into the truck and going down that thought disappeared.

The young man that hit me had gone to sleep. He has no recollection of the accident. It's hard for me to piece together the sequence of events and I was awake. In surveying the damage to all the vehicles I'm having a hard time figuring out what really happened.

The impact was pretty major. You can see from the photos that his car traveled at least one car length after the impact. All of the ram ball mounted equipment on my dash shelf was completely straightened out. My Storm case which was securely fastened and had a security strap was ejected. I was thrown to the pavement landing on my right side.

Because I was slightly angled when he hit me his bumper got my tire and muffler. I think this launched my motorcycle into the truck at an angle. You can see that the truck took a good hit on the right rear bumper but the obvious damage to the front of my bike is the right crash bar and the left side of the windshield. Go figger. [This keeps playing in my head and I'm now wondering if my rocketing Pelican case is what hit the truck's bumper. The Pelican case does have some damage.]

I was damn lucky. This could have easily been a major injury accident. Incredibly the bike was ridable and after a 2+ hour delay I made it into Gerlach at 1630. The ride home was all in one leg and with the aches and pains from Friday's event was not particularly pleasant. But I did make it home safe and sound.

Here's a couple of the photos to show the accident.

Iron Butt Association™ Artwork

The Iron Butt Association™ has some pretty cool artwork they use on the Iron Butt Rally™. I regret that I haven't paid closer attention to it.

I recently borrowed a motorcycle from a friend to do some engineering work. He had it up in LA having a custom windshield made. He brought it down and later I returned it to LA. I really hadn't paid much attention to the windshield aspect until I pulled up the shop, met Paige Ortiz for the first time, and discovered I was at Aeroflow!

My son and I got a tour of their facility, learned how they design, form, and test windscreens, and best of all learned about Paige's background and skill sets.

Turns out he is quite an accomplished artist and has been producing the art for the Iron Butt Rallies for some time. I should have been paying more attention to this art over the years. He does these great line drawings and manages to "personalize" each one. The elements of his identity extend far beyond his signature.

Consider this image from the '07 IBR.

The theme that year was National Monuments and as you can see that reflected in the art with things like the Golden Arch, Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and so on. So where is Paige's imprint? First off is the motorcycle, that's his bike and him riding it. Next is Mount Rushmore, we have George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Teddy Roosevelt or do we? Look closely at Teddy and you'll see that it's a self portrait of Paige. I've been looking at this for years and never noticed.

There are lots more examples of this in past and present IBR art. Regretfully, I didn't take pictures at his shop where he has the originals. I'm going to have to make another trip before long and make up for that.

Thanks Paige for your support of the IronButt Association ™  and the long distance riding community.

Triumph Trophy Handlebar Risers

I was searching for something and ran across an ad for some handlebar risers for the Trophy. Since I had done this job I was curious about the product and read the ad.

First off the $139.95 (plus $5.95 shipping) seemed to be really pricey. Considering that I had raised mine by merely sticking a 1" spacer under each bolt and using longer bolts. I happened to have the spacers and bolts on hand but even if you didn't the cost at a local hardware store would be $20 or so.

The reason I haven't posted about doing my risers was because the wiring harnesses are pretty short. I raised my bars 1" and the wiring harness on the left side was stretched really tight. Enough so that turning to the full right position was initially impossible. With a little tugging and stretching I finally decided it would work okay.

So I was curious about these risers. I thought perhaps they were shorter and wouldn't pull the cables. Not so, they are 1" and the ad says; "does not require cable or wire extensions".

Nice looking risers but since you can't see the spacers I used, this looks like overkill to me.