Sportbike Northwest - The full saga (w/ pics!)

1999 Cagiva Gran Canyon packed up and ready to depart Bremerton WA. 8:00am Saturday morning August 27th 2005. Bungy cord holding the tail case together because it tends to 'open' itself out on the highway. A feature I find a little less than desirable but easily worked around.

Several hours later. Stopped at Wakeapish Snow Park (not much snow at the moment though). Wakepish is at the base of Windy Ridge (FR-99) which leads to....

.. Mt. St. Helens. Volcanic Monument. It's the closes you can get to the volcano (about 4 miles) with a motorized vehicle. Before it started errupting again this past fall you could hike to the rim of the volcano (shown as the organge zone in the lower part of the map).

Still at Wakepish. Find a nice shady place to park the bike and take the first real break of the day.

That's me, writing some notes in my logbook. Still need to practice with the camera timer and framing myselt but since I had to balance the camera on the handlebars I think it came out OK.

Heading down the 'back side' of FR-25 I came across one very scary example of motorcycle.. riding? Hard to call it riding they were all over the road. That person and not business riding that road much less putting his passenger in peril as well. I hope they made it off the hill. Sheesh.

Later on I thought I would find another fine examle of horrible mountain driving after having to smell smoked brakes for the couple of min it took me to come up on the back of this white minivan. Sheesh. I guess some people never heard of 'downshifting'. Amazing... where did these people get driver training!??!

Another fine example of moutain jackasses. These were not driving poorly, they were simply driving WAY under the already too-low speed limit. It's one thing to put along the mountains at 35 MPH, it's another do do it at 25 MPH! This is the sort of stuff the causes crashes.. coming up on a vehicle moving way to slow. They probably should not have been on the mountain either. Learn to drive or stay home, PLEASE!

Here are the hikers (picture featured in my logblog). These guys were 2100 miles into a Mexico-Canada hiking trip and changing shoes for the 4th time. This is to be thier 5th and last set of shoes for the trek. Wished them luck.. I think they needed more of it than I did. Notice the guy on the left, I think those stripes are where the backpack kept the sun from fading his shirt! It was nice chatting with you guys!!

Here are some people canoing/kayaking on the river near the fairgrounds in Stevenson. Interesting culture there. Lots of the time a woman would pull in with a kayak on top of her SUV (riding solo of course) then a guy would pull in. They'd chat for abit then speed off (I mean really SPEED off) with kayaks still alot the vehicles. Maybe it's some sort of mating ritual where they show each other the kayak and decided if they meet each others requirements then head off to the speedy-motel to.. do whater kayakers too??

Campgrounds on Saturday afternoon. A LOT of 200+ participants stayed in hotels around the fairgrounds. Wimps! It was pretty quite when I got there at 2:00pm.

David Hough (in the blue short, left) speaks with a couple of the Poker Run participants that were starting to filter back into the fairgrounds. I guess under WA state law you can't have just a Poker Run as that would be 'gambling' but it must be a game of skill. Thus the dart-board for the last checkpoint. More worthless government regulation

WOW! It was so warm one of the posts near the walkway burst into flames! Hard to see there but it is on fire! We never did exactly figure out why it was burning but it was speculated that a cigarett was pushed out on the wood and eventualy caught it on fire. Some people..

Ah yes, the trains. Moving frieght up and down the Columbia River is a big BIG business by the number of trains I lost count of. Here pair of Candadian Pacific loco's drag containers west.

Bikes continue to filter back into the fairgrounds. Here a small group of riders discuss the day's ride and wait for dinner to start cooking at the event center.

Still quiet at the event center.

Just a bit of the wonderful backdrop to the fairgrounds and SBNW 2005 in Stevenson. Serious good roads out in those moutains!

Dinner is served! Crowd quickly gathers as the BBQ's come alive and we have some real impressive (for a cookout) food. Nice work to the company that DONATED the food and time to come out and cook for 200+ people! Hat's off to them!

Part of the Pacific Northwest VFR Group. Er.. forgot the guy's name on the left. Next is Mary at the table, then er.. another guy who's name I forgot and in the front is Joe (who loaned me $20 the next morning so I could eat). Oh yes.. and the guy in the maroon shirt in the back. He was the one who had the 'Air Kill' and dended up covered with rabbit meat and guts after a hawk didn't quite clear the road. The local farmer's daughter would not answer the door for the guy in black leather and 1/2 coverd with blood and rabbit body parts but the farmer appeared suddenly with a bucket of soapy water and scrubber for him to cleanup. Great story about how they were finally hosed down in the guy's front yard, picked the meat bits off the bike and then continued on thier way to the next checkpoint.

Another shot. I just liked the subject mater.

Post dinner getting ready for the big raffle (and I do mean huge.. must have given out 50 prizes - including some helmets and communications systems!). David Hough is on the far right in blue short and hat. Beer keg is just barley visible on the furthest right. We all hung up the keys for dinner. No irresponsible riding happens or would have been tolerated. A good group at this event!

Night time was a bit like a bike show with some interesting imports. Excellent weather was enjoyed by all!

More bikes. That is Bruces tow vehicle there in the background. Very nice and patriotic! I need to get one of those!

Group milling around during a break in the door prize givaways. Thank goodness for perfect weather. Not too hot not too cold.

Dave Presont from Cycle Barn fame (also hosts a radio show on biking) was the Memcee and a pretty witty one at that. Had most of the crowd rolling in laughter.

Dave telling more stories. Or big screen there in the background where we watched "On Any Sunday" after the giveaways were over.

Cut to next day. Dave's GS all set up for LD riding.

Mary's VFR. She won and award for best paint job. It's very professional looking and just about everyone though it was factory. Pretty nice, picture does not quite do it justice.

Here we are on one of the secret roads. What a great place to live and ride. I'm truely blessed!

Bruce pulling up on his CBR929RR as I snap away with the camera.

Mary rolls up a little while later. Everyone grinning ear to ear. And it was just the first road of the day!

Taking a break in Stabler after Secret Road #1 and getting some water we meet up with Rich (in blue) on his DL650 (far right). Nice guy Rich and very smooth rider who schooled me all the way down FR-25!

Out between Wind River and FR-90 on Curley Creek (if I recall corrctly). Fresh pavement, lots of traction.. lots of boot scraping traction!

Another short of the basically deserted, feshly paved bit of tarmac heaven.

As I said.. it's not always easy to get those moving shots.. here I get more of my camera than anything else!! I guess the secret of those action shots is out.

Final shot. Mt. St. Helens from somewhere on FR-25 as I am rolling down into a most excellent left-hand sweeper. What a great day, what a great trip! One for the books no doubt!