Lost a beautiful remote control Corsair airplane flying in the mountains. Helicopters are better for forest flying, but had to give this fighter a try. After a successful takeoff it soared straight down the canyon never to be seen again. I had already mentally prepared myself for this event, but hummm… I liked that plane.
Robbin Williams, when asked why he liked bicycling so much said, “because it’s the closest thing to flying.” This Labor Day weekend, like most weekends I spent a lot of time on two wheels. Three days climbing some 10,000 combined feet in the Santa Cruz mountains on my mountain bike. And one morning riding with a group of sport-bike friends through the tight twisties of the same Santa Cruz mountains, then down beautiful Highway 1 for lunch in Capitola.
One of the things I like most about riding on two wheels, is that it is an individual pursuit. For me, riding a bicycle alone for two hours with techno music in my ears is a very physical but for me zenfull time. Alone in the quite mountains….allowing the natural energy in my body to power the experience.
Riding with a group of sportbike riders is a very, very different two wheel experience. Powering through the mountains in line, going way to fast… but that is what it is. Lane splitting through traffic and occasionally being very loud. It is still a very exhilarating and at times scary/thrilling two wheel experience.
Usually I have found two wheel riders are either bicyclists or motorcyclists, but very rarely are they the same. For me it’s being a good dog and a bad dog at the same time. I guess I need a bit of both in my life.
This being the busy mid-season, I’m either at work or at the track most days leaving very little time to ride on the street. And when I have had a chance to commute on a bike to work, I’ve not been in the mood to ride a sport bike. So…to change things up a bit I have started to ride my little 250cc, 17hp Yamaha dual dirt and street bike to work and for errands. Its strange with such narrow-knobby tires, small motor and limited brakes this bike is still incredibly fun and fast to ride. Faster than any car on the road under 50 miles per hour. Likely due to how light it is, feels like a mountain bike with an engine. And best of all it gets 73 miles per gallon pretty much all the time. Goes to show, its not always the expensive things that are the best values or the most fun.
For kicks, I painted the bike black to make it look like a Harley kind of. With a small motor it can get loud at high revolutions so I would rather folks think its a loud obnoxious Harley than a Japanese dirt bike.
Mountain Charlie road high in the Santa Cruz mountains is one of my favorite weekend bicycle rides. Its a very rough and steep road, even riding a mountain bike. It takes about sixty minutes to climb the 2,000 feet up to the summit but the fifteen minute downhill back to Glenwood road is an awesome reward. Its a crazy decent with a lot of tricky turns, unexpected cars and fast vanishing point drop-offs. A bicycle is the fastest way to go.
Yesterday afternoon while I was recording an aerial video from my DJI Phantom drone. I accidentally flew it out of range and it never came back. Usually when a drone looses contact with a transmitter it stops adds some altitude for clearance then returns home to its takeoff spot. I liked this feature because I could fly the drone in one direction including straight up and when it lost contact it would return back to its launch pad. I think my error was that I flew the drone down a canyon about 700ft so when it lost contact with the receiver it just added about 100ft of altitude before returning home and as a result crashed into the tree tops below. It was a pretty sad sight to see it disappear – yelling UP!! UP!!! UP!!!… a moment of silence… ####!
Before writing off this expensive lesson I did try to locate the drone by hiking down the canyon. Once I got down there, I realized the chances of finding it were going to be slim. So now I need another drone to help find this drone. A drone search and rescue drone. Drone, I know you are out there, can you please find a way to text me your GPS coordinates so I can come rescue you.