Eastside Motosports Track Day

About a month ago (actually, almost two months now) I took part in Eastside Motosports annual track day. It was awesome, I highly recommend it to anyone. Like all other track days in the area, it's held at Pacific Raceways. It appears they enlisted the help of the guys from 2-Fast (a lot of the control riders were from 2-Fast), which made for a very well run track event. And to make the deal even sweeter, they had a whole set of bikes from Ducati available for demo!

Now, while it's labeled as a track day, it's actually much more casual than your typical track day event. Track days are usually geared towards riding fairly close to your limit (say, 80-90%), and thus even the beginner groups end up going pretty fast, especially down the straights. The first thing they made clear at this event though, was this was not for race practice, and it was the kind of event where people should be trying their limits. For one thing, there was no air fence, so if you crash, there's a chance you could hit a concrete wall. Compare this to a typical 2-Fast track day: they always have an air fence for safety.

Instead, the EMS track day is more like a customer appreciation event. Instead of three 20-minute sessions (beginner, intermediate, and expert), they have four 15-minute sessions: beginner, intermediate, expert, and demo. Once the sessions got underway, you could immediately see they meant business. The beginner sessions were guided, there was no passing, and those guys were going slow. It was pretty painful to even watch. I think I could have rode my bicycle faster than those guys were going. My co-worker Scott, whom I had convinced to come along, started out in these beginner sessions, and I was feeling a bit sorry for dragging him along if this was how slow they were going to go.

Scott, ripping down the straightaway. For some reason, although I found like 4 pictures of Scott, I didn't find a single picture of myself

The intermediate class, which I was in, was running a much more typical track day pace. I had toned my riding down a lot, but there were quite a few other guys who had not gotten that same message and were making some pretty aggressive passes. I think it's almost inevitable that these kinds of imbeciles are going to be out there, but luckily the event staff did a good job reigning them in. After the first session I don't remember seeing any stupid moves.

The demos were ... interesting. Unfortunately, I didn't realize you had to go sign up for demo slots. This resulted in Scott and I getting near-dead last picks, and I was unable to demo the one bike I really wanted to: the 848. I was able to get the Hypermotard though, and ended up trying a few other bikes for the hell of it.

Scott, demoing a GT1000

I was a little apprehensive of the demo sessions themselves, since I had heard that they would be guided, and there would be no passing. I understand they're demo bikes, and the last thing Ducati wants is some tool getting a little hot-headed binning one of their bikes. But "guided tour" sounds like "boring". Luckily, the demo sessions were run at a fairly brisk pace. Sure, sometimes I got stuck behind some beginner who hit the brakes hard and early, but the pace we were going was more than adequate to get a feel for some hard acceleration, braking and turning. Scott said that the demo sessions were going way faster than the beginner session, which is kind of funny- unless you're in the beginner session of course.

So, all in all, I had an awesome time. The cost was $175, which is about the best price you're going to find for a track day anyway. Considering that the cost included 15 minutes of riding time on your bike, plus another 15 on a demo bike, that's not a bad deal. It was an excellent way to enjoy a day off. Just remember, if you're at all a "fast" rider, you probably want to be in the intermediate session, and also remember to sign up ASAP for the demo rides.

Here's the official page. There's not much info there though.

SV650 S Foot Pegs Comparo

One of the things that I've disliked about the SV since taking some "advanced" riding classes is its garbage foot pegs. The main problem is they come with a nice rubber grip area that gets really slippery when wet. When it's wet out, it becomes much more important to use your body weight to turn the motorcycle than by leaning (to preserve traction). This means putting a lot of weight on the pegs. Unfortunately on the SV, this is really treacherous- there have been numerous times where I nearly fell of the bike because I put the slightest amount of weight on one of the pegs and had my foot slip.

The first thing I tried to remedy this was suggested to me by a forum member at SVRider.com: strip off that rubber and you've got yourself a set of GSX-R foot pegs. Sure enough, hiding underneath all that rubber was a pointy metal footpeg:

While this was better than with the rubber still on, it still wasn't very good. The metal is not very sharply cut, so it is also slippery when wet. Having exhausted all the free options, it was time to look for a real set of pegs.

To Fold or Not to Fold

The biggest decision when buying a set of foot pegs is whether to try and get a set that folds up like the OEM pegs, or to get ones that are bolted right to the frame. The theory is that folding pegs give you some warning that you're approaching maximum lean. The danger with fixed pegs is that if they dig into the ground, they could cause you to crash.

Racers use fixed pegs, for two reasons. One, they don't need any "warnings" about maximum lean angle- they already know how far over they are, and how further they can lean. Two, a lot of people believe fixed pegs give you a more direct connection to the bike, so you can feel what it's doing better. I kind of doubt this is true, but a lot of riding is mental anyway, so if people believe it's better, they will convince themselves it is better anyway.

I decided I wanted folding pegs, not only because of the safety margin they add, but also because they tend to be wider. Racing style pegs are shorter to let the rider lean over farther at the expense of comfort. But since I'm mostly touring and commuting, comfort is much more important. So, I went off to eBay in search of some pegs.

The first pair I bought actually didn't fit my bike, but I'll talk about them briefly because of how they're designed. This is a set of Competition Werkes folding pegs.

The thing I wonder about is if these would really fold up if they hit the ground. They're cut at an angle to increase ground clearance, but it doesn't really seem like a shape that would scrape smoothly across the ground. Now, I might be totally wrong about this (they don't fit my bike), but it doesn't seem like the folding part would ever happen.

Having examined these slash-cut pegs, I now had it in my mind I wanted rounded pegs, that would be able to contact the ground without catching. Luckily, there's a seller on eBay that sells exactly this type of peg, so I ordered some. They look like this:

They've got a nice bumper on the end that should slide smoothly, and the knurled body provides good grip against my boots.

There's only one problem with them- they give me much less ground clearance than the stock pegs. I noticed this as soon as I put them on.

The red line is the stock pegs, the blue line is these eBay pegs. The difference is a bit magnified here (I had to guess the angle the stock pegs would be at, and I'm holding the stock pegs a bit higher than the mounting point) but there is a sizeable loss in ground clearance nonetheless. Basically, the stock pegs point a little bit up. The eBay pegs point a little bit down. Even with the feeler nub, the stock pegs are a lot higher. Here's another shot where you can see these pegs clearly pointed downwards:

The reason I believe they are like this is that they lack a crucial design detail. The stock pegs have little bits that stick out, and keep the pegs angled up:

The eBay pegs don't have this, and instead let the body of the mount rest against the peg holder. This results in them drooping a little bit. Another thing is, the stock pegs are made out of what appears to be steel (or some other very strong metal). The eBay pegs are aluminum, and feel rather soft. I jumped up and down on them and they held up fine, but I think I'll be keeping my stock pegs around just in case..

Conclusion

So, how do they ride? Well, on streets I think you're unlikely to notice the difference, since you'd have to be pretty insane to be leaning over that far in the first place. But I did do a track day with the new pegs, and I did scrape them. They scraped fairly smoothly (the bike was a little bit upset), but I can definitely tell there's a loss of lean angle. The thing is though, the grip is so much better than the stock pegs. So, I think I'm going to keep them on for casual riding until I can find something better.

Free-Range vs. Factory Farmed Rib Showdown!

Mmmmmm.. ribs.. Regular supermarket meat is on the left, pastured meat on the right.

So far I've compared free-range, pastured chicken and steak to their factory farmed counterparts. Now, I continue the trend with one of my favorite meats of all: pork ribs. In general, I've found that the pastured meat is often gamier, most likely since the animals have more freedom to move around and live a "normal" life. However, ribs are different from most meat in that they should be extremely tender, no matter what. The ribcage of an animal is almost completely stationary, and thus shouldn't be able to develop into a tough meat like the shoulder or leg meat. Also, there's a lot of collagen in the rib area, which when cooked slowly, dissolves, leaving what remains even more tender.

For my comparison, I'll be using a rack of ribs from Skagit River Ranch, and one from the local Uwajimaya supermarket.

I bought a rack from Skagit River Ranch, and one from the local Uwajimaya supermarket. Now usually, pastured meat costs at least twice what normal meat costs (giving the animals room to roam around takes land, and maintaining land costs money). Interestingly enough, in this case the pastured rack was not much more expensive than the supermarket one. Anyway, in the interests of fairness (and my belly), I cooked both racks at the same time, using the same method. The recipe I always use is Alton Brown's Who Loves Ya Baby-Back?, which basically consists of using a dry rub on the ribs, then braising them in the oven. It's a good recipe for me to use, because I still live in an apartment and don't have access to a real barbeque or smoker. Also, it's easy to replicate when I go home and need to cook something to bring to family events.

Check out the fat on these supermarket ribs (to the left of my hand)

One thing I noticed right away when prepping the ribs was how much fattier the supermarket ribs were. When I was breaking down a free-range chicken, I couldn't help but notice how robust the bird was, with a strong skeleton and joints. With the ribs, there appeared to be very little fat on the pastured rack of ribs. In the picture above of the supermarket ribs, there's a substantial layer of fat on the concave side of the ribs. On the pastured rack, there was no fat at all: just meat and bones.

The Results

Before and after glazing

Ready for gormandization

So, maybe I should have expected this: the pastured meat is a lot tougher than the supermarket pig. Basically, from what I can see, there is very little fat on the pastured rack. It has texture closer to a pork chop than rib meat. The supermarket meat however, has little pockets of fat all over, and the meat is practically falling apart already. I also noticed that the pastured meat ... well, has a lot more meat. Here is a profile view of the two, side-by-side:

The pastured meat is on top. Notice how much thicker it is than the supermarket version

The pastured ribs are far thicker. And it's not like I was comparing two different ends of the rack- it was like this from end to end. So, what does it all mean? For sure, it fits in with my previous experiences with pastured meat. My theory is, because these animals are a lot healthier, and live better lives, the meat is also hardier. I mean, it's only logical to expect that an overfed animal living in cramped conditions is going to be a lot fatter, with poorly developed muscle. And just as size "medium" in the U.S. (or small, at Eddie Bauer) is an extra-large in any other country, it seems that the meat from factory farmed animals is also the norm.

Another thought is that maybe the pastured meat should just be cooked differently. I remember in Omnivore's Dilemna that when chefs started using eggs from real, health, free-range chickens, they had to reduce the number of eggs in the recipe, because of the superior cooking characteristics of the eggs. So, it's possible that I should try reducing the heat and increasing the duration.

In any case, I enjoyed eating both racks. Sure, the supermarket meat was more tender, but it was also a lot fattier. And, seeing how the pastured stuff is not much more expensive, I'm definitely willing to give it another try, and see if tweaking the recipe works.

Beef and Horror

UPDATE: I found the video for the news story on CNN. The workers are not so much ramming the cows as much as they are trying to pick up the cow and move it. However, it's clear these animals are in poor health, not even able to support their own weight or defend themselves. I know cows are pretty dumb, but healthy ones would be able to run away. These ones are lying on the ground from exhaustion and poor health.

I recently read that schools in Washington and Minnesota have been told to stop serving beef from a certain California supplier. Apparently, an undercover humane investigator videotaped "workers at the plant repeatedly kicking cows and ramming them with the blades of a forklift as the animals squealed in pain." Ouch.

This little guy went through enough torment to let his spirit linger around. What about all the animals who are mistreated on factory farms?

For some reason, it made me think of the theme of a lot of horror movies today, (like The Orphanage). The ghosts in these movies are not evil, but rather the victims of some horrific wrongdoing trying to find closure. Their pain is so intense it stains the place they lived in, to haunt future residents. I imagine cows at a modern factory farm have a lot in common with these ghosts.

First, they live in cramped conditions, essentially standing in their own excrement, only able to fight off constant infections by being pumped full of antibiotics. Then, they're constantly food-poisons them since they've been evolved to eat grass, but are fed only grain. And now, they're being kicked and rammed with forklifts by some rednecks in California. The final straw in this long string of insults is that they get chopped up into neat little parcels to make delicious lunches for little school kids.

So, if there's any truth behind these horror movies I see, then it really makes me wonder: who are these cows going to haunt, the farmers, or me? Makes me think twice about the regular supermarket variety, and instead springing for some grass-fed, pasture-raised beef.

Satsuma Imo: the Best Mash Potatoes EVER

A while back when I had lunch at Flying Fish, I ate some mash potato that really left an impression on me. It looked like regular mash potato, except it was a little yellower, had a super smooth texture, and tasted slightly sweet. I was so intrigued that I had to find out what it was before we left.

Satsuma Imo is a Japanese yam. It looks like mostly like a normal potato from the outside, but upon picking it up it's immediately clear this is no normal potato. It seems less dense than normal potato, and it's much, much firmer. Whereas a normal potato peels easily because of the soft flesh, when I peeled the Satsuma it was more like shaving down a piece of wood. And when I cut it up, the flesh had a lot more texture and grain.

Satsuma has a much more defined texture. The chopped up bits here resemble wood chips more than cubed potato

In the photo above, you can see some of the texture. A normal potato has such a smooth and fine grain it looks like it was processed by a machine before being shaped into the end product. With Satsuma however, you end up splitting it like pieces of firewood because it's so well defined.

Boiled and mashed. Mashed Satsuma is so fine that you almost don't need milk or cream to make it smooth

Luckily, once you boil it, Satsuma breaks down easily. In fact, normally I avoid making mash potatoes because of the workout I get mashing them. But Satsuma breaks down much more easily than regular potatoes. The texture was quite smooth from simply boiling and mashing it, and I was considering not even adding milk or cream. But, I ended up adding some half and half for flavor's sake, to try and replicate the recipe I originally had. The end result was delicious. I don't think it was as good as Flying Fish's, but it had all the major qualities- velvety smooth, and slightly sweet. Definitely consider using Satsuma the next time you want mash potatoes.

Flat Iron Steak: My New Favorite Piece of Meat

A while back while shopping for steak, I spotted a new cut of beef I'd never heard of before. It was labeled as a grilling cut, yet cost about $7/lb, putting it squarely between the cost of chuck and a rib-eye. Luckily for me, a butcher was standing right there and gave me the low-down. A Flat Iron Steak is a relatively new cut that has the flavor of chuck, yet is tender like a steak. It takes well to marinades, or can be grilled like a regular steak. I was surprised- this seemed too good to be true, so I asked again to make sure I could cook it like a regular steak. "Yup."

At that price, I really had nothing to lose so I bought one and promptly grilled it. It turns out, the Flat Iron Steak really delivers on all its promises. Since then, I've eaten it both marinated, and grilled using a simple dry rub, and it always tastes excellent. It's far more flavorful than most steaks, without being fatty like a rib-eye. The meat is a little more resilient though- for example, a rib-eye can get compressed if you put pressure on it, and lose 25% of its height. This does not happen with the Flat Iron. On the other hand, if it's to be used for quesadilla or burrito filling, it's essential to cut it into small cubes instead of strips. The meat is tough enough that you'll end up pulling the strips out when you bite down. But eaten as a steak, it's no tougher to eat than any other cut of steak. Where it's better than other steaks though, is it has far more inherent flavor. Most steak needs a little A1 or Worcestershire to give it some whallop, but these just ruin the Flat Iron's natural, juicy flavor. And marinated, it also tastes excellent. The meat really soaks in the flavor.

This is actually a pasture-raised cut from Skagit River Farms. It's about half the size of the ones I see in the supermarket, and about twice the price per lb. It sure tasted good though.

After doing some more research, I found that the Flat Iron is actually cut from the chuck, and was only recently found to be usable as a steak. It's somewhere inside the shoulder or something, which made it hard to get at. This makes a lot of sense, since it has the flavor of chuck, yet the tenderness of a steak. Since then, the price has remained steady, which makes it a best buy for steak. Let's hope it stays that way.

Garmin Colorado: the Ideal GPS for Motorcycles?

I've been looking out for a GPS for a while now. I mainly want one to lower the barrier to going on long rides. Currently, after picking out a route, I then have to carefully decide how to print it onto multiple pages, then annotate important turns and street names in big, easy-to-read marker. It usually takes a good hour or two.

I have experience using Garmin's official motorcycle GPS, the Zumo 550, when I went around Australia on motorbike. After such heavy usage, I have a pretty good feel for what a motorcycle GPS should be designed like. Garmin definitely did a good job with the Zumo, as it gets several things right that are essential for motorcycle use:

• Waterproof
• Can enter in and save routes
• Can manipulate it with gloves
• Has a high-sensitivity GPS receiver (actually, this has nothing to do with motorcycles, it's just a general requirement. No one should be buying a GPS that isn't high-sensitivity these days, it's just not worth it).

Unfortunately for me the Zumo 550 is still not everything I want. First, it's humongous. I'm not even really sure where I'd mount it on my bike. Compared to the Garmin's car line, it's about an inch or two bigger in width and height, and about twice the thickness. This might not bother someone with a Goldwing, but my bike is already tight on dash space. Second, I really want a screen that's taller rather than wider. I'll explain why later.

I've also looked at Garmin's marine line. They are also waterproof and have buttons that can be manipulated with gloves. However, they have two really, really glaring defects. First, they're not high-sensitivity. This is a deal killer for me. Second, they use outdated proprietary Garmin memory cards, which would be absolutely necessary seeing as they don't come with road maps pre-installed. Not only are they insanely expensive, they don't hold a lot. Standard cards like SD and Compact Flash are much more economical, and are constantly advancing in speed and capacity.

And, just for kicks, I've considered trying a car GPS. Of course, none of them are waterproof. They're also all standard or widescreen displays, which I think is the dumbest thing you can do on an automotive or motorcycle GPS. Finally, most of them don't let you design your route (they do shortest distance/time), which makes it much less useful for motorcycling (motorcyclists are interested in the quality and twistiness of the road, not how long it takes to get to the final destination).

After weighing all my options, things looked pretty glum. I really didn't feel comfortable buying any of Garmin's current GPS line-up. Fortunately, the new Colorado series should have all of the good traits, and fix all the things I don't like about the other GPS's I've looked at! Briefly, here's why I think the Colorado could be the perfect GPS for motorcycles.

Portrait orientation display

I really don't understand Garmin's current obsession with widescreen GPS displays. I think it must be some marketing move to go along with the current widescreen fad in computer monitors and TV's. The thing is, it makes sense for TV's and computer monitors to be widescreen. It doesn't make sense for a GPS. I first noticed this when I was using the Zumo in its default, faux-3D mode. What I noticed was that it was really hard to tell which road I was supposed to be turning onto by looking at the map. The 3D view makes the map less legible because it's basically a distortion of the normal map. After I switched to the normal bird's eye view, I noticed that I never felt I had enough "advance" notice of what was next. I found myself scrolling the map ahead to see what the upcoming road looked like, or what turn I would be taking. This led me to an important realization about using the GPS: I care about what's ahead of me, not what's to the side of me. A widescreen GPS is utterly useless to me. Give me a tall screen that lets me see really far ahead. Luckily, the Colorado continues the trend other handheld Garmins follow of using a portait-orientation screen.

Size

Seeing as the Colorado is meant for handheld use, it's not surprising that it's pretty small. I haven't held one yet, but it looks like it will be much easier to mount on my bike than the Zumo. Unfortunately, it won't have a motorcycle mounting kit like the Zumo, so I'll have to drop some extra money there.

SD card

I'm glad Garmin has gone with standards instead of trying to lock people into a Garmin-specific interface. This doesn't benefit Garmin directly, but consumers like me really appreciate it because SD cards are cheap, and I already use them for my other devices. I noticed they also used a standard mini-USB port, which is also to be applauded.

"Hard" buttons

The Colorado has a brand new "Rock 'n' Roller" controller that looks like it will be usable with gloves on. From early reports, the one problem may be that it's quite stiff, and therefore may not be that easy to use with only one hand. But, at least if it can be operated one-handed, it doesn't look like it favors one side over the other.This is good, since one thing I actually didn't find so useful with the Zumo was that its buttons on all the left-hand side. Obviously this is so you can ride and manipulate the GPS at the same time. However, I do most of my fooling on the GPS when I should be: when stopped. At these times, I prefer to use my right hand, not only because I'm right-handed, but also because I tend to keep the bike in gear, and need my left hand to keep the clutch engaged.

Waterproof

A lot of people don't ride in the rain. I don't mind riding in the rain, but it's certainly not my idea of fun. However, around here, rain just happens. So, while I don't see a lot of value in a waterproof GPS for riding around in the rain, I do see value in not having to worry about getting caught out in the rain.

High-sensitivity receiver

Again, this is just a basic requirement. Interestingly, the Colorado uses Garmin's own chipset instead of the SiRF StarIII chipset that pretty much all modern GPS's (including Garmin's current line-up) use. Fortunately, it still has the same great performance.

So, I'm really looking forward to the Colorado coming out. From a hardware point of view, it looks just perfect. Of course, since it's not made for motorcycles, I'm going to have to spend some extra money. First, I'll probably need to buy the City Navigator maps for North America (the Colorado is mainly made for hiking and has topographic maps, not driving maps). Second, I'll need to purchase some kind of mounting system. But other than that, it looks like exactly what I want, so the extra expense will be worth it to me. In the meantime, I'll have to drool over whatever other info I can find on it..

More info on the Colorado around the web

• Review in GPS Magazine
• Yay! Looks like Garmin now has official pages for these devices: 300, 400c, 400i, 400t
• Blog entry from Garmin
• Garmin's official CES page