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So, I had the pleasure of going down to Las Vegas for the 2nd Round of WERA with the Pirelli guys from CTRacing. I got a phone call around Tuesday evening saying “we’ve got room! We’ll take care of ya!” and they sure did. Not only does CTRacing offer the SICKEST tires ever, but they’re some pretty rad dudes as well. I can’t thank Chris Maguire or Corey Neuer enough for taking me down there under their wing. We stayed at the Stratosphere hotel and casino for 3 nights and had a blast, that by the way there’s an excellent site about gambling online check it out https://www.dacreate.co.uk/. Thanks again, guys!

In return, I offered up to get some publicity shots and video on boomtownbingo.com/history-bet365-stadium/ for their go-to 600cc guy Jimmy Wood! On Friday, during a trackday/practice for the WERA races, we got some pretty damned good stuff! Be sure to click “720p” to watch it in all it’s HD glory!

Camera is a GoPro HERO HD. It’s freggin RAD! I’m totally in love with this little piece of video bliss.

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i headed up the mountain to go visit rweezy. i ain’t seen him in about 2 years, so i figured it was time for a surprise visit. i didn’t bring my camera, but i did bring the gopro..i took a few pics on the way home. nothing special.

did an oil and filter change at his shop really quick and threw on the obligatory 4theriders-red grips like i do to all my bikes. i can’t help it…dunno what it is…i HAVE to have red grips!

gsxr dirt road

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soooooo… i met up with chris from pirelli (trackmonkey) and we went to vegas for the 2nd round of wera… i brought the gixxer too, for some mucking about akshunz.

we landed in vegas on thursday night. i really didn’t feel like lugging around the camera on the strip or anything, so i actually ended up taking ZERO pics of the

bike+lights or anything. who cares about all that anyways?

instead, on friday EARLY morning, before going to the track, i rode out to red rock canyon. it was cold. REALLY cold.

OMGHAI!!
red rock canyon gsxr

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I’ve been walking around in a bit of a daze for the better part of the evening trying to figure out how I’m going to write up this little “race report,” for lack of better words.

Should I write it like I normally would trying to make jokes and being happy-go-lucky? Should I talk about what some of you already know happened? While I’m still sitting here, pondering on it, I sometimes think it’s best to speak of things (or write them) as you think them…so that’s what I’m doing now.

First of all, I want to mention that a WERA racer passed away yesterday in a solo accident during his race. His name was Joe. He was a Salinas Police Officer. He had a wife. He had children.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone lose their life at the racetrack. A few years ago, I saw Allen Rice hit a k-wall at Infineon, never to breathe again. He was a good friend of people that I know. I didn’t know him personally, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget his name. Or what he looked like as he lay there.

Yesterday, I watched, with my 400mm lens, Joseph Pusateri crash his motorcycle, ending his life. I watched his wife run out onto the track crying and trying to fight her way past the corner workers who were trying to hold her back. At that moment, I felt somewhat removed from the situation as I’ve learned to do over the years; watching people crash…some harder than others. Usually they just get up. Or they twitch…or move…at least after a few seconds, there’s SOME type of tell-tale sign of life.

You sorta become immune to it. There’s no more adrenaline rush like I used to get when someone would crash right in front of me… There’s no more tightening of the chest in a sort of empathetic physical reaction like there used to be…There’s nothing more than simply being a robot who documents things that unfold in front of him. Yesterday, while bursting off a sequence of photos of Joe crashing, was no different. It didn’t even seem that severe, to be honest. I fully expected him to get up and limp around a bit and maybe punch the air a few times in dissapointment. He didn’t move. I assumed maybe he was knocked out. He wasn’t.

I’ve seen friends and family members hop fences to try to tend to their loved ones in the past. I simply watched Joe’s wife crossing the track while speculating on what the extent of Joe’s injuries might have been.

It wasn’t until about an hour later that I’d learned the Joe passed away. Suddenly, as I was being told, the image of Joe’s wife flashed through my head. It hit me hard. I don’t even know how to explain it. Suddenly all this emotion that I’ve learned to put to the side to do the job I do hit me hard. I can’t even begin to imagine what’s she’s going through right now. What Joe’s family is having to deal with right now.

I really don’t know where I’m going with this right now…I’ve just been typing as I think. All I know is that a complete stranger to me passed away yesterday doing something that he loved, that I loved, that everyone at that racetrack loved, and I’m pretty torn up about it all. I wish I could turn back time and simply tell him not to race that race, and he’d have gone back home with his wife to Salinas.

Rest in Peace, Joe. I’m so very sorry to all the family and offer my deepest condolences.

Officer Joseph Pusateri, 43, of Salinas

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I just got a sweet little package in the mail not 10 minutes ago…new bits for the 2007 GSXR600 4theriders trackbike. Pew pew pew! Axle sliders front and rear, plus a Sportbike Cam rear mount so I can hook up the digital still camera on there to get track photos of you while ON TRACK. :)

I’ve used some of Harry’s products from Supermoto Engineering and Sportbike Cam in the past, and I gotta say: top notch stuff! Check out their site and see what they’ve got to offer for your bike! You won’t be dissapointed!

sme sportbike cam sliders and mount

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Well, I saw that the forcast called for rain. When I had a bike, and the forcast says rain, those of you that know me well know what that means: It’s time to go for a ride! Well, I had a bike. A 2007 GSX600R.

I sent out a few text messages, and before I knew it, Matt and I turned into Matt, Rob, Han, Kev, Mike, and myself, all about to embark on a little fun.

We took the fastest route to the mountains possible from Elk Grove, slabbing up 99 to 50 before exiting off the freeway and jumping on Salmon Falls Road. I hate the slab. Freeway is not, nor has it ever been my friend. Anyways, the trip up Salmon Falls was fairly uneventful, as we the trip up hwy 49 (The Gold Country Highway) to Old Auburn Foresthill Rd. However, things changed ever so slightly when we made our way up Foresthill Road to Get to Mosquito Ridge Road…it started to POUR. We could see blue skies to the north whilst we road towards the darkest, nastiest looking clouds we could find to the North-west. Hehe.

…Lets take a quick step back first… A couple of the riders in our small group had never ridden in the rain before. At least, not intentionally. They’d been caught-out in the rain while riding in town before, but never had they experienced the True Grit kinda’ ride that I’ve been HIGHLY accustomed to over the years… Morale was not high amongst some of our group once we reached the gas station at the MRR turnoff, to say the least. In fact, as the ride organizer, I was nearly overthrown and our merry little band of wet rats almost disbanded before the ride had even started!

After a bit of pep-talking, and a crapload of peer pressure, everyone was in. Reluctant, but in.

I’m not gonna go through a mile-by-mile play-by-play, but there was something worth mentioning: as the clouds above pummelled us with cold, stinging rain, we got to witness one of the coolest things I’ve EVER seen in nature… a rainbow. But not any ordinary rainbow…this one was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was AMAZING! The topmost portion of it sprayed out of the hillside roughly 100ft up, only about 500 feet in front of us. It was VERY thick… and bold… and vivid. It arced over the road and down the hillside before planting itself back into the rocks about 500 feet below. I could see both ends of this rainbow touching the ground. I half expected to need to swerve and dodge leprechauns and unicorns and rivers of Skittles as I passed beneath it. I know, it sounds like I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but really, you had to be there to see what I mean. Unfortunately, it was DUMPING rain and I didn’t want to stop to take a picture. I really wish I would have though. I’m still kicking myself for not.

I’m really tired of typing, and think I’ll simply let the pics do the talking. There’s only a few as I only pulled out my camera twice. It was a good day. Lots of fun and ZERO mishaps…unless you consider someone making a u-turn, losing their footing in the wet, and simply falling over a mishap. *giggle*

Our group of wet rats
group of bike gsxr yzf r6 thundercat

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So, we’re taking 4theriders to another level. We’ve decided to offer up VIDEO as well as photos for 2010. Though, it’s not going to be the typical bike-chasing-bike kinda of video that we’ve all seen done in the past. We are offering up GoPro Hero HD cameras for rental to customers.

Not only are we going to be renting them out, but we’re also going to be providing a video editing service, where customers can unload all of the footage taken from the cameras to us, and we will edit them up into a 3-5 minute long video of the best parts of their riding from the day, edited up to their choice of song/genre or whatever they want. Even an option to surprise them with whatever we feel suits the video best. Customers will be able to keep all the raw footage as well.

I received the first of several cameras a few days ago and have done a little bit of testing with it. I want to make sure to learn all the do’s and don’ts of using this camera before renting em out and getting less than perfect results with it. On Thursday, I took the camera up to Mosquito Ridge Road (my favorite road in all the land) and did some various mounting while shooting on the cameras LOWEST setting (720p, 30FPS) and here are the results!

That was just a quick throw-together from some of the footage I shot on a chill ride. I learned that mounting the camera to your helmet does NOT yeild the best audio results with the waterproof backing. I’ll have to try it with the opened backed one, which is supposedly better with noise at less than 100 mph.

Still more testing to be done before February 8th, but progress is being made!

4theriders has been fortunate enough to receive help from Pashnit.com, a motorcycle website created by a local rider over many years of riding and documenting the best riding roads all over California. Tim Meyhew, the owner, also offers motorcycle tours (which I’ve been fortunate enough to ride on several of them, and they are a BLAST! Even having sportbikes mixed with touring bikes and even cruisers, the comradery is top notch, and the experiences last a lifetime). The Pashnit forum is also a great place to meet like-minded riders from your area and beyond where you can share your experiences or live vicariously through the experiences of others as they travel through California, the US, and the globe!

Help support local moto business owners! If you plan on getting a GoPro Hero HD camera, buy it here: Pashnit’s GoPro Hero HD site.

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i needed to. so i did! as some of you know, i crashed hard on mosquito ridge road (MRR) in may of 2008. i broke my back and ribs and all kindsa other fun stuff, and completely wadded up my bike, kitty. i then decided to give up riding on the street, as i was too irresponsible, ham-fisted, and retarded (especially after bumping my head).

anyhow, since then, i did a slow loop out to posers in berryessa on an fjr1300 once (taking nearly all freeway), and then once on a drz400 (which i loaded in the back of a truck to get it there) on FR23 in the pouring rain which turned to blizzard snow. so technically, i have been back on the street twice since 2008, but NOT a proper ride.

a buddy of mine went outta town and was brave enough to leave me his R6 to play with. :eek

anyhow, i woke up bright and early yesterday morning and headed out. it was cold. damned cold. it was in the 40s, and the entire sacramento valley was under dense fog. i headed up hwy 99 to hwy 50 for a few miles until i was so cold that i had to turn off onto surface streets. slower speeds meant less chance of my balls freezing and falling off.

i meandered my way through carmichael and folsom until i reached the last stop before salmon falls road where i sat at startbucks for the better part of an hour, not only simply to thaw out and let some of the fog burn off, but to think about what i was doing, where i was going, and how to stay responsible.

at around 9am, i left thebux and headed towards salmon falls. the fog only got worse. in fact, it was so bad, i was having to wipe my visor clear of condensation every minute or so, and visibility was down to about 50ft. halfway up salmon falls, doing at or less than the speed limit (mostly less due to frozen joints, no visibility, and dew on the road), i started rethinking what the hell i was doing. i nearly turned around. i was getting sad.

i arrived in pilot hill. the temps seemed to have gotten just a little better. i stopped for a minute to thaw and have a cig. “to hell with it. i’ve come this far, i may as well mush on,” i thought to myself. i still wasn’t really enthused about it though. but i did. i mushed on. hwy 49 north, through cool, and dropping down into the confluence…when suddenly, the blanket of fog was 100ft overhead! i could see again!

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4theriders had a snow day. 11 of us came, only 3 returned. we left the dead for the bears. we have all kindsa video footage, including riding 2 up down a goat trail covered in mud and snow, carnage, towing sleds, ramming mountains…everything we could think of. hehe.

we’ll start with a “moto” so it’s relevant…hehe.

kevin, beating on my scooter.

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I have an abnormally non-celebratory set of parents when it comes to things like holidays. So, since Christmas came and went (please no “that’s what she said” jokes), I decided to gather my resources and bring Christmas to a deserving family.

My main source of helping hands was through a variety of local riders: Sac Riders Forum, Sac Crotch Rockets, Central Valley Riders Forum, 4theriders.com and even Throttle Worx. Regardless of how much anybody pitched in to help, it is greatly appreciated. Except for whoever donated the stuff that fell off the back of their motorcycle (kidding). Many people want to offer their time to help out for a good cause and instead of having those people search, I found them.

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