How to get the Missus to love your RocketThree

My wife was not thrilled when I told her that I had bought my rocket3 way back in Jan. She was pretty pissed actually. This created a significant problem - Its all lose-lose when - every time you ride - you're doing something that your signifcant other has no "buy in" into and while there are blokes who would do it and say "F*&k it" thats not how my wife and I have built our relationship. In our marriage, We dont get to say "F*&k it" and go and do whatever we feel like doing, cos then whats the point of being married!

So we both sat down and talked it over and came up with a pretty amazing solution, she gets to be my riding partner and that means she's going to learn to ride a cruiser, get a motor bike license, buy a bike and ride with me. So she's started taking lessons and by the end of the year she's going to hopefully get a sportster (or a Bonneville).

Now she's a great sport and when our 6th anniversary came by, we planned to spend it riding down Pacific Highway CA 1 to Big Sur, have a nice anniversary lunch and ride back. It was magic, one of the best rides I've ever taken with my favouritest person in the whole wide world. I'm looking forward to the day when my son is grown up enough to join us on the scenic byways of Cali.

Here's the ride map and some snaps.

Im your turbo lover .. better run for cover

Just so you know, when One Hundred and forty lb. ft. of Torque is not rich enough for you, it is NOT the end. Shoe horn a Supercharger on to your Rocket3 to get to 240 lb. ft.

Rain - 2 weeks and counting

4 Days Riding in Death Valley CA

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live

Could a place have a more morbid name? Could a name sound more final yet insidious than a name like Death Valley? Since I was 12 I've been fascinated by the story of the 49ers who passed through this place, desperate and willing to risk life and limb, for wealth and fame, in California's hills and valleys of Gold.


Day 1 :: Friday And the Route Plan ::
After Dealing with a Dead Battery and replacing it with one from Harley, I left home (Redwood City) with Doonga and Bernie for a 3 day ride to Death Valley. Doonga has a brand new Electra Glide that he bought in Chandler AZ (its a couch with a VTwin and wheels really) and Bernie on his Vulcan. In the next 3 days we were going to cover 1200 miles - the longest ride I've ever been on. Our route was divided into 3 parts - Head West to Monterey on 17 to meet Pacific Coast Highway (PCH 1) to Santa Barbara, from there on to Lancaster/Mojave through the Ojai Valley, And on to Furnace Creek in the middle of Death Valley National Park. And Reverse.




Riding 17 up the Santa Cruz mountains is Awesome - nice curves and tight lanes with fast traffic. A couple of other bikers out on the road (mostly crotch rocket types). A very experienced BMW rider is in front of me and I follow him up the sharp curves for 10-15 miles. Doonga is a very experienced rider and he rides behind me to make sure I'm doing ok on my new Rocket3. Bernie finds the curves at the speed we're doing quite challenging (about 50-70mph) and very wisely decides to cut his speed down. Soon we hit the coastline on PCH 1 just outside Carmel and the ride is pure bliss for the next 2 hours. We stop for a quick photo on the way.




We Lunch at Nepenthe (which has to be THE restaurant with the most fabulous view in the world). And then we continue down PCH 1 to San Luis Obispo. The last hour
is spent blazing 100 MPH on empty roads. A quick gas up at SLO and we take 101 to Santa Barbara. Its almost 7 PM by the time we get there. We dine at the Madam Lu's restraunt on State Ave (highly avoidable) and stay at the Motel 6 (cheap and best as we say in Bangalore).

Day 2 :: Sat ::
On Saturday we start bright and early. After a quick bite at Burger King (breakfast of Champions) we make our way off 101 to a secluded mountain road through Ojai Valley. If any one doesnt think that California has to be the most blessed place in the world, it because they've not ridden a motorbike through Ojai Valley. Its gorgeous. A quick refuel in Ojai and we make our way to Fillmore. Lots of Big Bikes and Bikers on this road. Lots of peace signs exchanged with kindred spirits. Soon we leave the peace and solitude of Ojai Valley for the noise and smog of LA as we approach the city of Santa Clarita on Interstate 5. A pit stop at Wendy's and I look up my map on my "BarakuBelly". It pinpoints my location to within 5000 meters. The Positioning system sucks - but it runs a version of Google Maps and I can define waypoints on the route. This one feature redeems it AFAIC. With lunch completed we head off on CA 14 through urban canyons and the Antelope Valley. Strong Gusty (60 MPH) cross winds make it challenging .. and in between we have a nicer time riding through Red Rock Canyon. We refuel at Lancaster and again at Mojave because we could use a break.

Soon we're the only ones on the road. Not a soul in sight as my rocket3 chews on mile after mile of tarmac at 115MPH. Doonga keeps Bernie company behind me at a more sensible 80 MPH. WE break for a drink and refuel at the town of Inyokern - a town that only seems to be populated by bikers. Lots of folks come up to me to talk to me about my Rocket3 and ask me about how she rides. Leaving Inyokern we make the dash for the last 150 miles to Death Valley. A right at Olancha Junction on 190 and we soon enter death valley national park.





I ride through a landscape that I imagine is how Mars looks like. Canyon walls and mountains that rise sharply to the sky and vast white salt flats in their valleys. We ride up the mountains to 4250 Ft above sea level (its the snow line and there's snow on the sides of the road) and then we descend 4400 ft to 200 Ft below Sea Level !! Its another world this death valley. A world of absolutes, of blacks and whites and no gradients of gray in between. By the time we get to Furnace Creek, its just after sunset and we settle in for the night at Furnace Creek Ranch after a meal of Filet Mignon and a well paired glass of Merlot.



Day 3 :: Riding around Death Valley and Rhyolite & Back to Civilization::

We started Day 3 with a plan to go to Darwin a ghost town. We get to the Rangers Station to pay the park fees (we crossed in after they had closed) and the Ranger warns us that the folks at Darwin dont like strangers poking around their town. Clear that I have no intention of staring down the business end of Shotgun - the guys and I decide to visit Rhyolite just outside the CA border in neighboring Nevada. 40 miles later, I'm feel like I'm on the sets of Good Bad and the Ugly. Rhyolite was a mining town, abandoned more than a 100 years back. The place has dozens of such town but it shocks me that a town of this size could downsize.





We ride up to Panamint Springs, fuel up and wrap up the first leg of our journey. A goo d lunch at a great biker bar in Panamint Springs, we befriend a couple of old time bikers who are happy to see that Triumph is making great bikes again.



And we make our 650 mile journey back to the Bay area after a experience of a lifetime in death valley.

Pics from The Death Valley Ride Feb 8th-11th 2008

How Rocket3s are made .....

Pure Genius who ever came up with this gem. This company is all soul!

sac·ri·lege

My Battery Went DEAD last week. All b'cos I turned my bike off, took the key out and accidently left the parking light on.

This kinda pisses me off about the Rocket 3 (and its the only thing right now) the parking light can be left on and the key removed by turning the ignition off all the way. That key position is just wrong to put the parking light switch at. As a rider you expect to be able to turn the ignition key off, turn your handle left, push the key and turn all they way and remove it to lock the bike. Guess what it does - leaves the parking light on.

This one afternoon, while showing my Rocket to a friend on a particulary sunny day - I did just that and completely killed my battery. I was riding to Death Valley the next day and it was past 7 PM when I discovered the problem. So I get my hands on a battery tender and 6 hours later - zip. The battery is completely dead.



So I did the unthinkable, the reprehinsible, the ugly, the most dastardly thing you could think of - I bought a harley battery from Peninsula Harley (about 0.5 miles away compared to Hattar Motors in San Rafael - about 45 miles away) and put it into my Rocket.

Somewhere out there is s a dead man spinning in his grave!

Bernie Buys a Bucolic Bike

My friend and collegue, Bernie found himself a steal on ebay. A '97 Kawasaki Vulcan with just 4K miles and in mint condition. Bernie works with me at my software company and he's pure genius. His passion for coding is matched only by his passion for beer and a good ride. So when he triumphantly announced to all of us (in his uniquely thick flemish accent) that he had bought a bike and needed a ride to go pick it up - I immediately volunteered. (My intentions were not all altruistic - I hadn't ridden my Rocket 3 with a pillion before and I was eager to see how the bike handled!!).

So with Bernie as my guinea pillion, we set off on a lovely Feb morning to Brentwood, CA from Palo Alto - a total distance of 130 miles roundtrip. Our trip took us over the dumbarton bridge to the east bay, a short ride on the 880 till Oakland and then onto 580 to Vasco Road. 580 is a nicer freeway than most. Most freeways are straight, flat and as interesting as Main St, Stillwater OK. 580 on the other hand is cut around a few hills (instead of through them) and makes for a nice ride around the castro valley.

The Rocket 3 as expected was sheer soufle! She chomped the tarmac in large mouthfuls. She sprinted from 90-110 MPH in micro seconds as I squeezed the throtlle. She whined as I barelled down the freeway with Bernie in tow. Bernie has a doctor's handwriting and he mistook his own written directions and we ended up going the wrong way on Vasco Rd. We passed the Sandia Labs and made a U turn towards the city of Brentwood after checking google maps on my blackberry (which uses highly complex and sophisticated Alien technology to pin point my location to within "1700 meters" using cell phone signal triangulation techniques - I was told that Larry Page himself thought up the algorithm right after he finished debugging "Deep Thought "and typed "make" to build and run the ultimate computer to the ultimate question - what kind of shag carpeting would look groovy on the Goooooooooooogle Jet?"

The last 20 miles to Brentwood took us through some amazing scenery. Lovely rolling hills with windmills as far as the eye could see. And the most gorgeously curvy road. Sensing a golden opportunity to learn how to corner my rocket 3 - I started to bank left and right to meet every curve just right. This bike is Mohammed Ali - she's a butterfly on the curves and a she stings like a bee on the straights.

Brentwood is a laid back little town (with a (sorta sleepy look). We picked up the Vulcan from Steve - an enormous human being wearing an even more enormous hawaain shirt. Steve has an interesting little auto dealership, he buys and restores old pickups and transforms them into collectibles. He does the occasional bike but old pickups are his forte. We rode back home through the serene pastures and hills of Brentwood with Bernie learning the ways of the Vulcan.

Somewhere on the way back ... I thought it was time to make a nice long road trip to an exotic place and it struck me - a ride to Death Valley CA.

Get out of my dreams, get into my Garage!

Sunday Jan 27th 2008 is a special day. It really is. B'cos that was the day that I stopped day dreaming, fantasizing that SOME DAY I would have a Rocket 3. Sunday Jan 27th was that SOMEDAY. 4:30 PM and I'm doing my weekly browse of cycletrader.com and I see the posting for a NEW 2007 Triumph Rocket 3 Classic with $2000 of accessories free. 20 minutes later, Doonga and I are furiously racing up US 101 to Hattar Motorsports in San Rafael (45 miles away from Redwood City). 5:05 PM and I stand breathless in front of what will be my bike - she is magnificent. A finer steed was not hewed out of steel. A dual tone (white/black) paint, massive engine block, 2294cc Displacement, 3 Cylinder, 140 Horsepower - behold the MOST POWERFUL CRUISER IN THE WORLD.

Prior to riding a Triumph, my riding experience was limited to the Royal Enfield Bullet (One of India's greatest national treasures right up there with the Kamasutra and Aishwarya Rai!). Now the Bullet is massive by Indian Standards (mine was the somewhat exotic 550cc engine) and has a gutteral yet bassy exhaust note (If James Earl Jones was a set of exhaust pipes - he'd be on a bullet). The bullet has a dry weight of around 380 lbs, the Rocket 3 in comparison is 705 lbs and close to 4.5 times in engine displacement. This looked like a machine that I MUST treat with a lot of humility and respect.

Valerie, the finance manager (turned sales person) seemed even more nervous than I was about (me) riding the bike home (it was raining 2.5 inches that weekend). Michael the chief technician gave me a short seminar on breaking the engine in and asked if I was nervous. I lie and say "Nah! course not". In Michael's own words - "anyone who doesn't get a little bit scared about riding this bike must be crazy". I sheepishly admit to be being a "little nervous".


I buy my gear (riding jacket, gloves, boots) and get ready to make the 45 mile ride home. The heavens are pissing down. I decide to do a practice run in the parking lot. I fire up the 2.4L engine. It seems kinda whiny (not throaty and gutteral) and my buyers remorse kicks in (for the record that was the one and only time I ever felt like I did something stupid). I click into First Gear and Ease the clutch on the horse and she takes off (Oh my fckg lord I've never felt torque like this). I ramble around the parking lot several times trying to build my confidence and courage to ride this monster of a bike home. Doonga suggests its time to get the show on the road. I ride the bike out of the lot onto the main road in second. Make a turn on to the freeway entrance, say a little prayer and twist the throttle. Immediately I know that I don't have the highly developed and fine motor control over my nerves needed to handle this throttle - a single degree of extra twist and she pounces ahead.

10 minutes later I'm on 101 South bound on the Golden Gate Bridge in complete awe of the sheer brilliance of the folks at Hinckley and my profound privileged life to own one of these utterly magnificent machines.

Its been almost 3 weeks now since I brought her home. In those 3 weeks I've ridden all over the San Fransisco Bay Area and done a 1200 mile ride to Death Valley, CA and back (A ride report soon I promise). But every time I sit on that saddle, every time I flick that ignition on, my heart starts to beat faster, my forehead gets sweaty and I breath shorter.

Its truly awesome when you realize a dream!.