Wilsons Sandbox

-Thank you everyone for the insights in cleaning spokes. Both the serious and the not so serious were fun to read. David __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com

I went for a great ride today with the Central Coast Dual Sport Packers. This is the second ride that I have done with them and I look forward to riding with them in the future. My wife and I left Santa Maria,CA about 8:15am and flew (80-85MPH) up the coast to Los Osos where we met up with the other riders. I was on my A15 and my wife was on her Nx250. From Los Osos we got onto Highway 1 and headed north. This is the first time that my wife and I had ridden on this road and it was really nice, i.e. curvy, but cold due to the fog. We rode about 65 or 70 miles on Highway 1 before we turned off on Willow Creek Road #23S01 which is a nice dirt road that climbs steadily up the coast mountains. We rode up to a Y in the road where we decided to turn right and head towards San Martin Top to see where it went. About a mile of ups and downs, some fairly steep we reached a rather steep down, where my wife took a Real nasty spill. She said that she hit a rut which caused her to blip the throttle, which caused her to go up the embankment on the side of the road about 5 feet above the road before heading back to the ground. Anyway her bike and her slid for about twenty feet while taking out a few bushes and the bikes handle bars, fairing, headlight, turn signal, fender, mirror, and the bikes nice smooth finish!!! Not to mention my wife's nice Patagonia jacket. Amazingly she was not hurt!!! and she thought that the crash was great. I like this reaction too because just a few miles up the road she had told me she did not have the nerves for offroad riding and now after crashing she says she wants to go again. Women, I can't figure them out! We got the bike started again after digging out the huge rock stuck between the tire and low mounted front fender and cleaning out the mangled clutch lever and cable. We tried to straighten the bars and did a little. At this point my wife and I turned around and slowly retreated to Highway 1. She refused to ride my bike, which I thought was tough. We rode back to San Luis Obispo without any problems and had lunch. So overall the ride was a lot of fun including the fall. We rode over 230 miles and now my wife has another crazy store to tell her family who think were crazy for choosing the sports we do. Thanks for enduring this LONG post, I just had to share the fun with all of you. David Beyea __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com