Around the world on a GS850G for a cause

[shirazdrum]

Ted has a garage size of a Boeing hanger with more toys he could possibly handle. We had a great time and the smoked salmons were delicious. Thanks for your hospitality Ted.
The ride to Seattle was a piece of cake and now I’m hunkered down here. Weather is good and in 70’s. I will start heading south on Sunday towards OR. Stay tuned for updates tonight.

Big T, I will contact you as I get closer. We might just have to do that. Thanks man.

[ronin1166]

Glad you enjoyed the salmon.

Have you tested the camera mount?
Curious to see how it works out.

.

[shirazdrum]

Camera moount is holding up pretty good, but the box it was mounted to broke off! Read on:

Sep, 22nd – Sep, 29th. Washington State

I know it’s been a long time since my last update but I’ve been sick ever since and been battling a bad case of influenza.
I got to Ferndale rather early on the 23rd, and had to wait around for Ted to get off of work. I bought some oil and another tube of epoxy for later patch works and waited at the library for Ted to call. I arrived at his house around 6pm and we got to work, changing the oil and drilling a hole in my front box for a camera mount. One of Ted’s friends name Carter showed up on an another GS and we got talking for a good long time. When Carter left, Ted and I talked about skiing for another 2 hours and finally I hit the hay after midnight in the “Man Cave.” There’s nothing like waking up to a fresh cup of coffee, two big smoked salmon steaks and a box of crackers. I said my goodbyes to Ted and got on the road for Seattle early in the morning.
If you have a choice between driving in Downtown Seattle on a loaded bike and no map or giving birth to a flaming walrus; look into the second option. Seattle is a city of agony. I rode around downtown for hours without finding a single parking spot that was safe or cheap. 0-2 hours of parking goes for $8 and more than 2 hours for $16. There are cheaper places to park but most likely the bike will get stripped as soon as you turn your head.
After a long day of cursing and swearing, I finally hooked up with my host, Natalie and hunkered down at her house. Natalie and Christy were my hosts in Seattle and they were so nice and cool I didn’t want to leave. I got sick the first night and was no good after that but I managed to make some Chicken marasala for them as a show of appreciation. Thank you guys.
Between the antibiotics and fever reducers I have no recollection of the small details but I got out of Seattle on Sunday and went to Chris Mathews’ house in Buckley, WA. It was 2 years since I saw Chris and the reunion was great. I stayed at Chris’ for the night and as much as I loved to stay longer, I had to leave the next morning. There is a big storm coming over the northwest that can be pretty nasty, plus it’s no fun riding in rain while being sick either.
After a great breakfast of sausage and eggs at Chris’, I fare welled with Chris and his hospitable and cool girlfriend and headed south again.
I was dozing off on the highway when I heard a metal scraping the road and to my horror, one of the front boxes was hanging on a shred of aluminum and scraping the ground at 70mph. I slowed down but couldn’t stop since I was in the fast lane and Hwy 5 is a 10 lane highway. By the time I made my way closer to the shoulder, the box finally came off and started bouncing up and down at high speed. Miraculously, it did not hit any cars and when it came to stop it was on the shoulder of the highway.
I picked up the box and lashed it to my rear pannier and got back on the highway again, for Portland, Oregon. I will be staying at Wade’s house tonight with a garage so I’ll put on a new rack and will adjust the load so this doesn’t happen again.

I’m still pretty sick, so bear with me here. I will write more as soon as I can.

[Big T]

Portland,OR

Chris stopped by today and we went to lunch. I tweaked his front end to offset the crash damage and sent him on his way.

He badly needs

Progressive fork springs - he's overloaded
Clutch springs - His are at least 50% stronger than my Barnett's
Fork brace - The front end needs all the help it can get
Reinforced side stand - his side stand mount is bending from all the weight
Valve adjustment - 6,000 miles and counting since the last one


Can anyone in CA help him out with any of this?

He's going to order up the parts

[tkent02]

You think an entire GK front end with it's 38mm forks and heavier springs would be a good idea?
Just gave one away, the whole thing.

[shirazdrum]

Thanks again for the help and the kalua Pig, it was great. Here's a shot of Big T with the Tank.

[SqDancerLynn1]

If he is going to be in the Los Angeles area I have a shim set & we could check the valves. I don't have any place for him to stay. I'm sure I have some stock clutch springs around too.. Could meet somewhere ?

[Tom MLC]

Let me know if those parts are coming my way. I'll keep an eye out for 'em.

I have all the tools you would need for replaceing the fork springs and pulling the clutch basket. No more room in my garage. I'll hafta evict one of my steeds. No worries with that.

Biggest challenge is a place to stay. I have a spare room. No bed. You gotta do the futon thing. And I'll need to get the okay from my wife. Don't know how she'll take to a stranger in the house. I hope you can understand.

I believe Todd gave you my number. Give me a call.

[shirazdrum]

Tom,
I sent an email to Rob at Cycle Recycle and gave him your work address. I tried to call him a few times but no luck getting through but will call again tomorrow. I'll see what he can scramble up from his store and I’ll order the rest from elsewhere I suppose.
Once I figure out what day I’m going to be in San Jose, I can find a couch surfing host and should be out of your way. The work space is much more important to me than a bed at this point .
Todd did give me your # and I will call as soon as I have some news of the parts or my arrival. I’m on the Oregon coast at the moment getting rained on but making my way down. I had to stay in Lincoln city for helping the local Food Bank but I’ll be on the road again tomorrow.

Thanks for everything again,
Chris

[shirazdrum]

Sep, 29th – Oct, 1st Oregon, The Beaver State

This flu took a lot out of me as big city traffic, rain and popping pills don’t really mix. There were many people who sent me get well emails including Debbi Matte, my battery sponsor (Batteries Plus) who looked after me like a mother hen and sent me jokes to cheer me up. Thank you guys.
I made Portland a little after 4 and started looking for a rack to replace the broken one. The only place I knew that carried the same rack was Wal-Mart but since Portland is anti Wal-Mart, I had one hell of a time locating one and when I did, they were out. After riding for another hour I found another Wal-Mart on the other side of the town and luckily they had one left. I called wade and got directions to his house and was home free.
Wade read my posts on ADVrider.com and offered me his garage and a sleeping quarter which I desperately needed. After couple glasses of wine, we got to work and replaced the old rack with the new one and mounted the solar panel that Debbi gave me on the right aluminum pannier.
I stayed with wade for two nights and reorganized my gear and shifted the weight backward a little.
While I was in Seattle, I stopped at the Touratech USA and Tom the owner was kind enough to supply me with a great Ortlieb dry bag which made my life easier. No more garbage bag over my backpack for water proofing!
Another member name Todd from GSresources offered his garage while I was in Prince George, so I called him and met up with him in Beaverton. He took me out to lunch to a Hawaiian joint and I stuffed myself with kalua pig. Man that was good. He performed some surgery on the front forks to straighten the bend I had in it along with drilling another hole in my broken windshield and I was on my way. Todd is a canny navigator and every time he gave me a direction, it was right on. Thanks to his gift, I found my way out of the wine country and toward the coast quickly but wetly.
The Oregon coast is a phenomenal place, 800 miles of sand and giant rocks coming out of the ocean, with little towns scattered all along the way. Speed limit is 55 at the most and I don’t like it but the scenery makes up the difference.
After Beaverton, I stayed with my couch surfing host, Corrina in Otis for two nights. She was the only person in the area on the site and I was lucky to be her guest. A non-profit environmentalist, she lives in a cute house nested into the woods of country side with 13 chickens and a cool cat. She made a killer dinner of fish and pasta with fresh vegetables and I devoured the whole skillet.
The next evening I worked with the Lincoln City Food Pantry and got to get more familiar with the Food Bank system in Oregon. My observations are mixed as it was very much like the other food banks I’ve visited and volunteered; it lacked the educational infrastructure.
With shelves full of food, it is sad to witness people coming in and stacking up on unhealthy garbage and passing up on the fresh produce they had to offer. There was only one lady who picked up an apple in 3 hours that I was there and I had to take a picture of it.
Feeding without providing education is wasting resources. As simple as that. Food education is something we are lacking and there has not been a serious attempt to make it a reality. Let’s try a cooking sessions in churches one Sunday out of the month. I’m sure God would be fine with that.
In the year 2009, the obesity rate finally caught up to the hunger figures. According to United Nations, there are 1.1 billion people worldwide who are suffering from hunger and the exact number hold true for obesity. Of course there is no relation whatsoever between these two phenomenon and you would be a communist if you ever made one.
In our own country, we have an obesity rate of over 30%! That means that out of every 3 people, one weighs as much as the other two, and what do we do? We switch to Diet-Coke instead of the regular Coke! They are the two ends of the same spectrum; poverty. Have you ever wondered why George clooney doesn’t weigh 400lbs but the guy in the trailer park down the road does? Education and healthy diet is the answer. Education and healthy diet is the answer. When you are on food stamps, you don’t pick the healthiest food, you pick the most filling one.
Sometimes I think that human race is not as evolved as other species. We care more about our lawns and Halloween costumes than we care about our neighbors.
I read an article on Vampire Bats not long ago that made me shiver. Vampire Bats, which primarily feed on blood of mammals and birds, must obtain a blood meal at least every 3 days or face starvation. On a given night, there are individuals that do not successfully feed. Fortunately for them, those who do get their share of blood, regurgitate their meal for the unsuccessful ones. This trait has persisted through evolutionary time, and they have developed a level of recognition which they will refuse to regurgitate blood for those who have not participated in food sharing in the past.
With our IPods and million mega pixel cameras, with our triple over-head cam engines and Mars Rovers, we still don’t possess a decency of sharing our meals with those who need it desperately. It doesn’t cost us much, maybe if we didn’t buy another $18 stupid gadget that ends up in a box in our 19 door garage, maybe if we cooked a meal once in a while instead of stuffing our guts with **** shiny Chinese food from a buffet, or buying a 50 gallon drum of mustard from Costco, we could scramble up 20 bucks to feed a family of 4. To get them educated so they don’t have to eat fat and sugar when they do get to choose their food. Maybe I’m a visionary or maybe I’m just talking to my god damn self or maybe both. Perhaps that’s the problem.
This month is a month of giving. Spare that ugly orange walnut turkey that you put on the kitchen table to bring the “Holiday Feel” to your home, instead bring joy and life to a family by giving them their very basic need: Food. Scroll down and take a good look at what a “Mechanically Separated Turkey” (This was on the label, I didn’t make this up) looks like in a Food Share freezer, then compare it to what your Butterball will look like on Thanksgiving Day.
For the month of October, I’ve chosen a well deserved and a unique organization called “The Centro de Recuperacion Nutricional Infantil Bethania” in Jocotán, Guatemala. It is a private medical center that treats about 400 malnourished children each year. They are desperately underfunded and your donations are matter of life and death.
Children that are being treated in this facility are extremely malnourished. Antonio they boy pictured in my donation page on the website had a weight of a 6 moths old baby although he was 3 years old at the time the picture was taken. Every recovery costs $900 per child, in a nation that 75% of the population live on less than $2 a day.
Please make a donation of any amount (think of it as a second turkey for thanksgiving dinner) and I will pitch in $2000 out of my travel funds, although it will cripple the expedition. Donations can be sent by checks, cash, kiss, hugs and credit cards. Please visit the Donation Page for more information.
Let’s not be human for a while, let’s be vampires…(if you make a bumper sticker out of that, I want royalty )

[shirazdrum]

[Speedo]

You are welcome in Monterey. I'm only apx. 15mi inland of Hwy 1 (I'm assuming your route?) so close to on the way I would think?

We have a comfy room w great bed attached to outbuilding garage off Hwy 68 in Steinbeck's "pasteurs of heaven"...it's beautiful up here so might be worth ur while.

I've been unemployed for 6mo now so not much $$, but all kinds of time to help. Garage w/ all basic toolage. No expert mechanic, but willing to help any way i can.

No idea of ur timeline / route but if your interested, let me know (so I can let the wife know. Again, no imposition at all...seriously.

[shirazdrum]

Andrew,
Thank you so much for your offer, it sounds great and i will keep you posted as i get closer. i have a direction (South) but no firm plans, i'll go where the wind blows. if i end up on that neck of the woods, i will stop by and we can ahave a beer or something. Next stop is San Jose but the route is still in question.

Chris

[shirazdrum]

Oct, 2nd – Oct, 8th. Rogue Wilderness Crossing

When I was in Beaverton, I asked Todd if he knew a road that went from the coast to Medford avoiding major highways and he said yes. “There is a road but you don’t want to take that with a loaded bike like that”.
The road that goes from Gold beach to Merlin is indeed a challenging road. I know that because I rode it. It passes through the Rouge Wilderness and Kalmiopsis National Forest and is 50 miles long. It is a one lane road with two way traffic, with blocked sections due to slides and loose gravel patches. It is a gorgeous ride through some the oldest forests in Oregon that goes from sea level to 4500 ft at the Bear Camp Pass. The wind was so strong that at times I thought I would get blown off the ridge and the temperature dropped by the minute.
To begin with, at the junction in Agnes, I took a wrong turn and I was officially lost. After riding for 40 minutes, I got to the conclusion that there was something wrong. The map showed that the road was paved and heading east but my compass kept on pointing north and the road turned into single tracks.
For the second time since the start of the expedition, I fired up the GPS. (I used it once to tell Todd where I was in Portland but I wasn’t lost that time). My GPS is not a mapping unit so I had to match the coordinates to the map and figure out my location. The problem with the map that I have is that the latitude markers are not very precise and had to be divided into minutes and seconds so I could get an exact fix on my position. With no ruler to measure, I did a good job of dividing degrees and to my horror, I found myself about 12 miles north of my intended route. My compass was right, I was going north indeed.
I backtracked to the junction and found the sign for 23E to Merlin. At Bear Camp Pass, my thermometer showed 29 degrees Fahrenheit in full sunshine. My hands where frozen in my summer leather gloves and I could swear I had an icicle hanging from my nose. All I wanted was to get to lower elevation quick and be out of the wind but the road didn’t go down. Instead it kept on going at 4000 ft for another 5 miles before descending down. It was getting late in the day and I had to find a camping spot but I had no water. I saw a truck camper in the woods and approached it to ask the guy for drinking water.
The man in the camper; John Scullion turned out to be one hell of a nice guy and in all strangeness; he was from South Carolina, where I lived for few years. We knew the same fishing spots and beaches and had a lot to talk about so I pitched my tent next to his camper and got down to talking.
I made chicken cacciatore with Basmati rice for dinner over the fire and he told me what gold mining was all about which I found very interesting. He even showed me some of the gold nuggets he found and we got along pretty good. The next morning, after a mushroom omelet, (regular mushroom that is) I hit the road to Medford.In Medford, The Rogue Regency Inn sponsored my accommodation for two days while I went around the town looking for sponsors. The hotel was clean with indoor pool and spa and friendly staff.
Motorcycle Superstore headquarter is located in Medford and I wanted to get those guys on-board. I have not call me back yet but I hope they do. While in Town, Kurt Beckman from the Bike Barn Motorcycles did sponsor me and Medford was all good again. Bike Barn is on the N. Pacific Highway in Medford and their focus is on dirt bikes but nevertheless, it was a cool shop. He had some Husaberg dirt bikes which you don’t see around very often along with some cool Moto Guzzies. Thank you Kurt for your Support.
I left Medford this morning and will stay in Ashland tonight with Gib (we finally caught up again). I will head south tomorrow towards San José to meet up with Tom, another member from GSresources to do the final adjustments to the bike before crossing the border into México.
P.S. I have not received a penny in donations for Centro de Bethania. Get moving guys. I’m counting on you.

[shirazdrum]

Why can't we post more than 4 pictures at a time? this sucks...