Ride to the Ruins

View Case Grande Ruins in a larger map

The Freewheelers had a ride last Sunday to a national monument just north of Tucson.  I've included a map of our ride above.  The monument is called the Casa Grande Ruins.  Casa Grande is Spanish for 'great house' which was the name given to the structure by the very first European to see it, Father Kino back in 1694.  It is/was a 4-story, 11-room building built about 700 years ago by the local natives.  Pretty impressive considering the lack of building materials at hand at the time.  But enough of my park ranger tour skills.  Just read up on it yourself:

National Park Service Website

Wikipedia

As usual we met up at the local Starbucks.  It's not a real ride unless you're fueled up on caffeine and scones.  We're talking tough as nails bikers here.  I hear Hells Angel's always stop at Starbucks when possible.

This was a much smaller group then the weekend before.  We probably had 11-12 bikes total.  The ride up was uneventful except for one moment when I almost dropped my bike at a stop sign.  We were about half way into the ride, when the group came to a halt and I quickly put both feet down to lift myself off of the bike for a stretch.  I got a little over eager with the leg bends and the bike started listing to one side.  It took every ounce of strength to keep it up right.  Would have been pretty embarrassing dropping the bike at the front of the pack with everyone behind me rolling their eyes at the noob.  Here we are at the parking lot of the ruins.

 The Bonnie can be seen dead center in the photo below.  What a sharp looking bike!

It was five bucks per person to get into the monument.  I didn't have to pay as some of the other older members bought national park passes which allowed the younger crowd to get in for free as "guests".  I guess the passes really work out in the summer if you intend to tour the states and camp at the various national parks.  Paying every time you arrive at a park tends to get a little pricey from what I hear.  The visitors center had tons of various displays with information on the site.  Here are a few photos of what you can see.

Then you get to go outside and explore the ruins.  The large metal structure was built back in the thirties to help prevent weather erosion.

Nice self shot if I don't say so myself.  How did Kiri ever hook up with someone as handsome as I am?

One of our fellow riders.  His name is Kenny and he rides a Harley Sportster that only has a 2 gallon tank.  It's sort of the running joke at all the rides, as he can only go 90-100 miles between fill ups.  He loves the bike though, so we just make sure we plan the gas stops accordingly.

There was graffiti etched all over the walls of the ruins.  Some of them quite old.  Man's eternal quest to be remembered.  Here's an example of one that seemed to read 1887.

The building was made with mud and Caliche.  If you've ever lived in the Southwest and tried to dig a hole you find out what Caliche is pretty quick.  You can click on the photo below to make it readable.

Time for the group photo op!

After the ruins we drove over to a Chinese restaurant for lunch.

Another great ride.  I believe it was roughly ~170 miles round trip.  This weekend I'm on-call so no rides for me:(  Let's hope for a quiet week pretty please.

Two's company, Thirty is a crowd.

Last weekend the riding club had a get together for one of our fellow riders. She had gotten her bike back from the garage, after a nasty run in with pavement a few months back.  What better way to celebrate getting your bike back then riding with a few friends.  When I first signed up for this ride there were only eight people going.  The day the actual event was upon us there were 30+ sign ups.  I prefer riding in small groups. But since this was a short ride around the Tucson mountains, and the weather was beautiful, I said what the heck.  After a safety talk to get everyone on the same page, we were off.

We had a few bikes that still needed to fill up.  So we stopped by the gas pumps on our way out of town.

I talked Tuyen into coming.  Nothing like starting out on your first group ride with a huge mass of motorcycles making you nervous.  I like this picture though.  I'm sure he's thinking "lets go people, I've got laundry to get back too!"

A quick shot of myself and we were off.

I wouldn't want to lead a large group of bikes through town.  Keeping everyone together through lights and stop signs would be a nightmare.  Luckily we just did a quick loop around the Tucson mountains, where there are very few stops.

We pulled up for lunch at a small airport outside of town called Ryan Airfield.  There's a restaurant at the entrance called Todd's Place.  I had never heard of it, but the food was good.  Here are the bikes in the parking lot.

And the view from inside the restaurant looking out at the planes.

Here's the final shot of the day.  We got everyone together for a group shot.  A waitress took the picture.  I'm in the back, eighth head from the right.  Overall a fun day.

Nice Rack!

One thing about the Bonneville, there's absolutely no storage whatsoever.  So two things I've been trying to decide on are bags, and a nice rear rack to strap things like sleeping bag, tent, etc.  At the same time I don't want to ruin the overall look of the bike.  While reading through various blogs I noticed a picture of a Renntec rack on another T100, and thought it complimented the bike pretty well.  So I purchased one through newbonneville.com.  It took forever!! to get here...back order and all that.  But it finally arrived and I bolted it on last weekend.

It wasn't to difficult.  You undo the two bolts which attach the rear suspension to the frame and then there are four additional bolts which attach, to the frame, under the seat.

After removing the seat you can see the four bolt holes on the left side.

If I remember correctly it can only support 5-6kgs of weight, so we're talking light items here.  I bought an expandable bag to go with it.  Nice to throw an extra shirt or pair gloves in so I don't have to wear a backpack while riding.

Here she is with the seat back on.  Overall I'm pretty happy with the final look.

It's the Fuzz!

It was an interesting weekend.  Yesterday I met Tuyen for our first ride through Gate's Pass.  After stopping up at his house, we headed to the nearest gas station to fill up.  Tuyen pulls up to the pump and I park right behind him.  I get off my bike just in time to see a Tucson police office coming right at us.  My mind starts racing, trying to figure out what traffic violation we may have broken.  You know that feeling. Your heart starts pounding and your palms begin to sweat.  As the officer comes to a stop he yells out the window.."Hello fellow VFR rider!".  WHEW!  It turns out this officer rides a Honda VFR and the weird thing is he has a friend who rides a Triumph Bonneville!  Talk about a small world.  He saw Tuyen and I, and couldn't help himself.  He just had to say hello.  We talked motorcycles for about 15 minutes.  Both he and his fellow riding buddy are big into the cycle forums.  And they had just gotten back from a ride through California, which entailed riding through rain most of the time.  We got to see some pictures on his iPhone.

It was just one of those fluke encounters that you never see coming.  There's more to this story later.  But after saying our goodbyes, Tuyen and I headed off over Gate's Pass.  It was a good ride and Tuyen had a blast.  We stopped for lunch at a Subway before heading home.  This was the shot from the parking lot.

I usually meet friends for Disc golf every Saturday.  So I had to cut the ride short and head home to grab my discs.  If you've never heard of Disc golf...check it out.  It's a great way to spend time on your weekend with friends.  Tuyen split off and headed over to a motorcycle shop to pick up a tank bag.

Unfortunately I played like crap :(  I was really off my game and came in last out of six people.  I don't think my head was in the game.  I did get to see another bike at the park.  A Suzuki SV 650.  From far away I thought it might have been a Triumph Street Triple.

After golf I filled up the tank and headed home.  I stopped along the side of the road to grab a quick shot of the sun setting on the Catalina's.  The picture doesn't capture what I saw.

So, when I get home Kiri mentions that Tuyen called and wants to go out to dinner.  He wants us to head over to his house first so he can show us his new tank bag.  Kiri is aware of more information at this point..but she doesn't fill me in.  When we get to his house the first thing he asks me is if I've ever heard the sound of fiber glass breaking.  I'm not quite sure what to make of this.  Anyway..here is his new tank bag.

If you're the type to pick out strange things you might have noticed the "little" scratch in the middle of the picture.  Turns out that after buying the tank bag Tuyen wanted to see if it would actually stick in place.  For those of you who don't know it's held in place by magnets.  So Tuyen starts rocking the bike back and forth in the parking lot just to see how those magnets work.  The good news is that the magnets work like a charm.  The bad news is that gravity works just as well and when Tuyen was at maximum swing the weight of the bike got away from him and he went down.  Here's a close up of the damage.

Tuyen's ok.  He just bruised his pride a little.  He was pinned under the bike and was lucky enough that the motorcycle salesmen was able to help him get out from under it.  Kiri and I got to hear the whole story over dinner.  We decided it could have been worse.  He could have fallen over onto another persons bike.

I got a text from Tuyen this morning.  Turns out he contacted the police officer over the VFR forums and got a tip on where he can take the fiber glass panel to be repaired.  Tuyen also told me that the office wants to go riding with us!  No pressure:)

Tuyen's new bike

A friend of mine picked up a bike yesterday.  There's no truth to the rumors that I've been pressuring him to acquire a new two wheel toy.  Tuyen is a grown man and makes his own decisions!  At no point did the following facts influence him. 1) We live on the same side of town. 2) We just happen to have access to some of the best motorcycle roads around the city.  And, 3) Much like the old tv show Chips..I needed a Jon Baker to my Poncherello.  Needless to say Tuyen came to his senses and purchased the Honda VFR800, otherwise known as the Interceptor.

I rode over to his house this morning to inspect the new ride.  It looks like it's doing 60mph just sitting there.  I'm sure the cops won't give him a second glance.  After much grunting of approval we headed out on some of the local roads to get his sea legs back.  From what I could tell in my rear view mirrors, the red dot seemed to stay upright for the most part..so we headed over to the local bike shop On Any Moto.  Tuyen wanted to add some softer hand grips, as the current "hard" grips were causing some pain in his wrists.  There he is ladies, don't hold back...call now!!!

New grips installed.  Notice the color choice. Apparently there wasn't enough red on the bike already.

After all the hard work of having someone else perform manual labor, we decided it was time to get some grub.

I was going to snap a shot of my burger and fries, but that thought lasted less then a second before it was completely forgotten.  The burger never had a chance.  Once the belly was full we decided to head back.  We made a small detour to the top of A Mountain for a view of the city.

I'm sure the tales of our future adventures will grace these pages soon.  Until then, ride safe!