Category: Feel Good Stuff

On the border…

You ask Why.  I ask Why not?

A mural in Why.
More Why art.

Whoa, it’s toasty…as in 112 degrees Fahrenheit.  The folks out here are complaining about the humidity, but it feels dry as a bone to me.  Certainly less humidity than we’re getting in So Cal, and way, way less than in other parts of the US.   The drill today was Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Ajo, and Why, Arizona (Ajo means garlic in Spanish, in case you were wondering, but I didn’t see a single one).

We were right on the border in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and we opted for  the 21-mile dirt road loop into the Ajo Mountains.

Awesome. South of Ajo, south of Why, and right on the border.
One mile. I didn’t to go any further because I didn’t know if I’d be able to turn around.
Yep. The real deal.
The star of the show, the Organ Pipe cactus. They grow here and no place else on Earth.
Our route….a 21-mile round trip through the Ajo Mountains. It was beautiful.

After the ride through Organ Pipe, we settled into Ajo for the evening.   It’s a cool place, even though it’s still 109 outside.

They like murals in Arizona. It’s a photographer’s paradise.

And that’s it for tonight. I noticed there were a couple of questions and comments on the ebikes (thanks very much for posting those). I’ll do my best to get answers for you.

Favored moto forums…

Ah, the motorcycle forums.   Truths, half-truths, and outright lies.  When I worked for CSC, I used to watch the forums regularly for people who posted about CSC so I could answer honest questions and take on the trolls.  After doing that for 10 years, I concluded there are a few mean-spirited people posting stuff on the Internet who don’t have a clue (I wrote an entire chapter about that in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM).   It didn’t take a full 10 years to reach that conclusion, though.  It took about 10 minutes.

Having said that, there are three forums I enjoy visiting, and here they are.

ADVRider.com.  This is the first forum I ever read. There are more than a few folks there who are full of what drops from the southern end of a northbound horse, but there are a lot more who are knowledgeable and helpful. My screen name on ADVRider is Gatling. If I had it to do over again, I would use my real name, but I chose Gatling several years ago (mostly because I wrote a book about the Gatling gun).  My favorite threads are the Shiny Things thread, the Thumpers thread, and the Electric Motorcycles thread.

Chinariders.net.  ChinaRiders is a much smaller forum focused on Chinese motorcycles.  Yeah, there have been a few yahoos on that forum (as is the case on all forums), but the ChinaRider monitors do a good job and the flakes don’t last long. My screen name on ChinaRiders is CSCDude. I picked that name when I was working for CSC. If I had it to do over, I’d use my own name.

ElectricMotorcycleForum.com.  My newest favorite forum is appropriately titled ElectricMotorcycleForum.com.  It’s also a small forum, but it’s picking up speed and I like the place. It’s a good source of information on all kinds of things related to electric motorcycles. My screen name on that one is Joe Berk.

If you have a favorite forum and you’d like to suggest it, please include it as a comment to this post.  We’d like to know about it.