The Cruiser Life

So a few weeks ago I tried out a Ducati XDiavel at the demo day in La Honda, and figured it was about time to write up my thoughts.

First, to answer the most important question: it is not the bike for me. The cruiser seating position is an exercise in pointless absurdity, and does not lend itself to relaxed, comfortable riding.

I also found myself a bit disappointed with the attention to detail. The bike felt like it was about half way there, they did a decent first pass of cleaning up and hiding all the unsightly bits of mechanicalness, but it fell far short of being the rolling sculpture I was hoping for.

In terms of riding experience, the wide rear tire makes for very curious handling. It tends to feel like the rear of the bike is the end steering you into the turns, though the rest of the bike seems to be well engineered to compensate for it.

The engine was quite well suited for the bike, though we were riding in the 100hp "urban" mode due to wet roads, down from the usual 160-something hp in full power mode. I feel like it's a much better match for this bike than it was for the Multistrada. That said, I did feel like the engine, and the bike itself, were just too big: you could easily shave 20% off the bike and engine size to make a midsize cruiser and end up with something that, for me, would be a much more appealing package.

In the end, I find myself still searching for my next-next bike.

An Uplifting Experience

So I'm riding home on ANGRY BEES today, because on Wednesdays we ride motorcycles.

I pull up to the NHRA simulator onramp meter from Shoreline onto 85. The traffic is reasonably light and the road is clear ahead of me. The light goes green, I let out the clutch, and pour on some throttle.

Everything is going smoothly as the revs start to climb, and I keep the throttle pinned as I wind things out. Then the front wheel also starts to climb. "Oh, hmm," I say to myself, "I should probably go ahead and set that back down."

I roll off the throttle a bit as I kick the gear up, and the front wheel delicately settles back onto the pavement, at which point I wring it out the throttle again because why waste a perfectly good onramp pull?

Prior to swapping sprocks, ANGRY BEES had just the right amount of torque to make the front end very, very light under hard acceleration in first gear, so I had a reasonable expectation of being able to power it up after doing the -1/+3 conversion. And, lo and behold, that's exactly what has come to pass.

This brings up something that's been bubbling beneath the surface for a while. Ever since I got into motorcycling, and certainly ever since I got ANGRY BEES, I've been contemplating taking a wheelie course. Not so much for the hooligan factor, but just so I have a reasonably safe environment to get used to controlling wheelies so that I would have some experience to fall back on should my front wheel suddenly decide to slip the surly bonds of earth and dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings. Of course the hooligan factor isn't exactly a negative...

I'm not honestly sure what direction today's experience has swayed me. On the one hand, it's brought the theoretical possibility of an unexpected wheelie entirely into reality. On the other hand, I didn't have any trouble with controlling it, so it hasn't left me riddled with fear and uncertainty.

I suppose I'll just have to ponder it a bit more.

To the Ocean! Or not.

So on Saturday I decided I'd make another attempt to escape to the ocean. I failed. This time I saddled up on ANGRY BEES and headed up over Page Mill, down Alpine, with a thought to take Pescadero to get to the sea.



When I got to the top of Page Mill I started to get a bit concerned about how much gas I had left in the tank. I rolled out with half a tank and the bike was being a bit thirsty on the way up. Thankfully there's a gas station in Pescadaro itself so I wasn't too concerned. Pictured above is ANGRY BEES at the bottom of Alpine where it meets up with Pescadaro road. If you look really hard you can probably see the low fuel light on.

So I continued along Pescadaro road, thinking I was home free, up until about a mile out of town when I came upon a tiny little speedbump in my plans...



The above should usually look more like this:



So you can see the issue. And sadly, there are no alternate routes around this rather unfortunate choke point. Like, none. Nada. Zip. Zero. Bupkis.

With no other reasonable option, I turn myself around and head up to La Honda, hoping to find a gas station there. Nope. Turns out I need to ride all the way up to Alice's to get gas, and luckily I had just enough fumes left in the tank to make it up there and pay Alice's somewhat premium prices for fuel. I mean it's only got a 4 gallon tank but it's the principle of it.

I had a nice ride back along Skyline and down 9, but I failed to reach the ocean once again. Que sera, I suppose.

A travel blog maybe?

I'm starting to think I should repurpose this blog as a travel blog of sorts, especially since I'm planning to ramp up my touring quite a bit once I get my new motorcycle this fall sometime. In that spirit, here's a short entry for today's travels...

I was feeling a bit of cabin fever on the way home from work today, riding Scooty-Puff Sr south on 85, so instead of taking a left on the Stevens Creek exit I decided to take a right with the thought of hopping over the hills to go see the ocean. You know, just look at it for a few minutes, then ride back home.

As it turned out, even though it was a balmy 20c down here in the valley, the air was quite a bit chillier as I rode up Stevens Canyon and Redwood Gulch, so I decided to make it a shorter ride and just go across Skyline to Page Mill to make a loop.

About part way up Highway 9 the traffic ground to a halt, and I split past the cars to the head of the line to see an accident had occurred, a perfectly aligned  head-on collision between a car and an SUV, with a sufficient impact force to origami-weld the two cars together. Thankfully the local authorities were quick to clean up the mess and I continued along my merry way. I considered snapping a photo, but I didn't know if that would be considered impolite?

Anyway, the ride across Skyline was delightful despite the somewhat wet and dirty roads. There were quite a few places where mudslides had encroached onto the pavement, though they'd been cleaned up sufficiently such that they weren't impeding traffic. I should mention that Stevens Creek was a whitewater torrent, and the Stevens Canyon Reservoir was nearly bursting its banks. Drought is over, everyone start wasting water again!

The ride did serve to remind me why I'm replacing Scooty-Puff Sr though, as my butt started to go numb for the last 15 minutes of the ~1hr ride.

Changing things up, because that's just how I roll

Yesterday marked my last day on the Android Email/Gmail team at Google, now that Email is fully folded into Gmail. I think I'm leaving the project in really good shape, and certainly in a fantastically better spot than just a year and a half ago when I first joined the team and Google as a whole. It's been a hell of a ride, but it's time for something new.

Next up on my plate is AndroidTV, where I'll be working with my old buddy Chris McKillop again. I'll be brining my familiarity with Android development along with me, but other than that I know basically nothing about the project, which is exactly how I like it. Life is boring if you're too well prepared.

That said, bringing my Android experience with me is perhaps more than I'd like for taking on a new adventure, so it remains to be seen how long this team will hold my interest. I think a lot of it will depend on what sort of projects I get to work on and what direction the platform develops in.

I had initially set my sights more broadly throughout Google, but since Android is the new hotness it's a lot easier to find a seat in an Android team rather than somewhere else, and I ended up getting declined by teams who wanted me to join but didn't have an open space for me to fill.

I suppose I can at least look forward to a relatively easy transition.

That pesky Scaphoid

The story so far...

It all started on a sunny Easter Sunday afternoon. I had just got my bicycle, The Red Devil, tuned up and fitted with a new chain, and I decided there was no better time to give it a shakedown ride.

I headed out shortly before lunch time and made my way up Stevens Canyon road. It was a nice gentle uphill ride with the option to turn up Redwood Gulch road if things were looking good and I wanted a bit of pain. As luck would have it the bike was riding great and I was feeling good so I took the opportunity to hang a left and grind up Redwood Gulch.

As luck would have it, I arrived at the base of the climb just behind another rider who seemed to be climbing at roughly the same pace as me, so I used that as encouragement to keep my own climb going on pace rather than slowing right down as I might be tempted to do.

The climb was pretty tough going and about half way up I gave up on the idea of being a manly man of manliness and stopped at the side of the road to catch my breath. This was a mistake, as my blood pressure and pulse rate immediately crashed. I tried to control it with some careful breathing, but the world was starting to feel a bit fuzzy so I decided it might not be a bad idea to lay down for a moment.

When I regained consciousness I felt very relaxed and rejuvenated, the feelings only slightly tempered by my disappointment of discovering that I was, indeed, still laying in the dirt half way up a mountain and not taking a nice peaceful nap on my couch at home. It was also at this point that I first remember noticing a pain in my ribs, but after reluctantly dusting myself off and waving off a few concerned motorists I decided to continue the climb. This was also the point where I noticed that I was pedaling two gears higher than I thought I was, which explains why I had such a hard time of it and had to pull off.

I geared down properly this time and then set off up the hill again, adjusting my pedaling so as to not irritate my mysteriously sore rib. The rest of the climb up to highway 9 went uneventfully, and I chose to head back down rather than pushing my luck by continuing up the hill to Skyline.

Riding down highway 9 is always a spectacular rush, and this ride was no different, easily hitting 40+mph. I had the option at the bottom of the hill of either dealing with the reasonably flat route full of traffic by heading up Sunnyvale-Saratoga, or taking a left onto Pierce road for a mildly hilly back-road route.

I decided on the latter, and as the left turn onto Pierce approached I slowed to about 25 or so and geared down for the steep uphill at the start. Then shit went down.

I heard a loud grinding and my bicycle lurched backwards, and I could immediately tell that my rear wheel had somehow locked up. I did everything I could to keep myself upright as the rear wheel unpredictably alternated between sliding uncontrollably while locked up and grabbing the road as it managed to rotate for a fraction of a rotation at a time.

My valiant effort to save the situation was in vain as a particularly bad lurch dropped the bike out from under me, and I flew off and hit the pavement, landing heavily on my hands and left knee.

I immediately suspected I might be properly injured as I noticed a characteristic weakness in my left hand, but I didn't concern myself with it immediately. The visible damage to myself included a bit of a scuff on both palms, a bruise on my left elbow, and a nice scrape on my left knee.

A quick inspection of my bike revealed the cause of the disaster: the chain had fallen off the larger gear on the cassette and got itself wrapped up in the spokes of the rear wheel, ripping off both derailleurs and making as right mess of the chain itself. The frame was also dented on the seat stay where the rear derailleur struck it after it had been turned into a metal pretzel, which had bent the frame enough that the rear wheel was just noticably not sitting straight, and was in fact resting against the left brake pad.

A friendly couple with a station wagon had stopped to help, and I bummed a ride home with them. During the ride I inspected my wrist and couldn't find anything too wrong with it save for the weakness, so I didn't think an immediate trip to the ER was needed. I iced it once I got home, and decided to hit up the hospital the next morning, and then take the remains of my bike back to the shop to file an official complaint.

So Monday rolled around and I drove myself to the hospital. The visit was quite uneventful and I got a half dozen X-rays of my wrist done, followed by a diagnosis of a fractured scaphoid. They applied a splint and gave me some post care instructions and directed me to follow up with an orthopedist. I didn't examine the X-rays myself, and the post care instructions indicated that scaphoid fractures are often difficult enough to diagnose that they're sometimes treated as if they were broken even without a positive diagnosis, so it left me questioning whether I had actually successfully broken the bone or not.

The visit to the orthopedist on Wednesday cleared up any doubt, however, as I was able to examine the X-rays myself and see the fracture clear as day. I got a CT scan done to evaluate whether the fracture was displaced (it wasn't) and the orthopedist told me that, with the location of the fracture approximately half way through the bone I had the option to either treat it with casting alone for 8-12 weeks, or with surgery to install a screw followed by 4 weeks in a cast.

I opted for the surgery and had the screw installed on Friday morning. On Wednesday I go back in to have the post-surgery dressing and splint replaced by a proper cast, and then sometime around the end of May I'll get out of the cast and into a brace for a little while longer, and then I'll basically be done save for the usual physiotherapy for post-immobilization joint recovery.

The bike shop will be rebuilding my bike for free, so with any luck I should be back out on two wheels by August maybe? Hard to tell, we'll see how it goes.

I've got oats of steel!

When I had initially jumped on the oatmeal bandwagon I had fully intended to go the steel-cut route. Then when the time finally came to stock up, I looked at the shelf and saw a tiny little satchel of steel-cut oats on the shelf for $3, and just below it a giant drum of rolled oats complete with a fold-out hand truck for getting it home all for the low-low price of $2 and, well, the steel-cut oats stayed on the shelf.

This week, though, I finally decided that I needed some more excitement in my oatmeal life, and finally shelled out the $3 for the tiny satchel. The verdict? Not too shabby.

The flavour is as oaty as you might expect it, perhaps a bit more than the run of the mill rolled oats, but the real difference is the texture. The steel-cut oats maintain a lot more of their individuality, and provide a very interesting almost popping sensation when you chew on them. There's also a fair bit of distinction, in the finished product, between the oats themselves and the creamy liquid they're suspended in, but no so much as to make it seem soupy or separated.

I think I'll still stick with the rolled oats for the majority of my oatmealing, at least in the short term, as the steel-cut do take longer to cook. I'll probably split it out by doing rolled oats on weekdays and steel-cut on the weekends. I think that should be sufficient to banish my oatmeal-ennui.