New Walking Goal?

In one of the Nike+ challenges I've entered, one of the other competitors just mentioned that he had finished the Oxfam Trailwalker Challenge in Australia. It is a fundraising event to raise money for poverty. Anyway, the amazing thing is that it is 100km in under 48 hours and since the event is on trails, everyone must be in a team of 4 for safety reasons (everyone walks 100km). His iPod only lasted 22 hours so the entire walk didn't get recorded (only 55 miles!). Apparently, the winning time was in under 12 hours. I don't know about you but I am really impressed! After I read this, I started thinking if I even stand a chance of finishing such a thing. After all, it is roughly equivalent to 2 ultra-marathons back to back. I think I now have a new challenge to work towards. I wonder if there are any events like this here in Alaska?

Leaves Are Changing

Another sure sign of the end of the summer are the leaves beginning to change. To me, it all seems a bit early or, maybe, I have a bad memory. It was 38°F this morning on the ride in. You could see water vapor rising off of the wet areas on the road. Now that school has started, there is a lot of traffic in the morning. Many unpredictable drivers wildly weaving through traffic and for what reason, get to school early? I don't get it...

Last night, I finally got around to working on the BMW R100RT. I pulled the gas tank and carefully inspected the coils (one for each cylinder) looking for cracks but didn't find any. The plug wires were pretty grimy and touching the frame in several locations. This weekend, I will attempt to clean them up and maybe try and get some of the other greasy dirt in that area. Maybe I'll try and re-route the plug wires. Unfortunately, the only time the engine really runs rough is during a really heavy rain so I'm kind of at a loss on how to test. This winter, there is a lot of maintenance that I need to do on the bike. I may even go as far as pulling to heads to check for valve recession. After all, I'll have about 7 months to get it all back together.

I needed to walk down to UPark school this afternoon to pick up the car to run an errand and it was a great afternoon to get out and about. I'm not sure what the temperature is but I felt plenty warm. After running the errand, I dropped the car back off at the school and walked down Birch Lane to Fairbanks St, then along Geist and University back to the campus. I then took the bike path to Ballaine Lake then the Skarland Trail back up to West Ridge before heading back to my office. It was a wonderful walk and well within my allotted time and only around 10 km. Now I feel like finishing off the afternoon. I'm going to miss the mid-day walks once I start riding the bus again. I spend roughly 10½ hours at the university everyday so I can take 2½ hours off in the middle of the day to get in a nice walk. Since I had the errand in the middle today, I was only able to get in 6¼ miles instead of the usual 7½ miles. I still haven't even gotten tired of going on the same routes. There is enough options with the ski trails to keep me from going on exactly the same path every day.

It's Looking Like the End of Summer

It must be the end of the summer since the WIN for Alaska afternoon walks are over as of last Wednesday. Today, they handed out the "prize" for attending at least 10 of the sessions this summer, a rather nice water bottle. Not that I really need any more water bottles. From where I'm sitting right now, I can spot no less than 5 and that's just in my office. More at home and rolling around in the truck. In spite of the light rain, I rode my bike in this morning in to the University and then on to a board meeting in town. When I came back to the University, all of the "Motorcycle Parking Only" spaces were filed with cars. Fortunately, it was getting towards lunch time and people were starting to head out so I was able to snag a spot. I guess people figured that no one was crazy enough to ride in the rain. I guess there is at least one crazy person riding an old BMW.

I never did get around to checking out the coil and now the gas tank is now completely full. There is a lot more rain in the forecast so I guess I may have the motorcycle parking to myself for the rest of the week. Riding in the rain doesn't really bother me very much but I tend to go around corners fairly slowly i.e. vertically, than when the road is dry. I also keep a sharper eye out for gravel and sand in the corners and puddles on the road. It's also a bit more difficult to spot the potholes when the road is wet. This morning before the board meeting, I was looking at a blog post with a lot of pictures taken during a ride in central Oregon. Sometimes I wish that there were more riding opportunities and a longer riding season around here.

Riding to Mongolia

I have been reading a blog/travellog called Tiffiny Coates Travels the World logging a motorcycle trip to Mongolia on a 1992 BMW R80GS. Fascinating reading. I don't think that I will ever be able to make a trip like that. The closest I'll ever get is reading about one. There is some similarity to the Long Way 'Round trip but this trip is being done without all of the help at the border crossings nor having any support vehicles along with spare parts. The needed spares seem to be provided by locals along the way or brought by others volunteering to ride pillion for sections of the trip. I found this blog from another blog mentioning that she has arrived in Mongolia roughly on schedule. This is on a 17 year old airhead with carburetors and no fancy electronic gizmos or gadgets.

This morning, I passed on riding the bike in partly because I am almost out of gas and partly because of the temperature and the rain. I want to pull the tank and take a good look at the coil to see if there are any cracks. Until then, I would rather not ride in the rain since the bike is real difficult to start in the rain. I guess the tank is still pretty easy to pull when full just a bit heavier so maybe it is just a lame excuse. So far, there have been only a couple of things on the bike that had to be replaced or repaired so I shouldn't really complain. After all, it is 26 years old and I'm not trying to ride to Mongolia....