Friday, December 26, 2008

ROLO 2.0.1

New & Improved
Now with Video!

Laura received a Flip video recorder for Christmas from her dad. That's it, on the right. It fits in the palm of your hand, has no tape or disc and is completely self contained. The best part, it shoots in HD, 60 minutes worth of video.

Laura was off work today, and I worked a half day. I headed out to the barn, where Laura was riding Little Horse indoors, to shoot some practice video.

So, here is our introductory video featuring Little Horse and Laura, enjoy!




-Rich & Laura -

Heated Grips and Fried Turkey!

Christmas day in Denver was 52 degrees and sunny. So, after a nice breakfast, Laura and I both went for a ride. Me on the motorcycle, Laura on Little Horse.

Here I am heading out for a ride around the city. It was great riding around downtown Denver on Christmas day, NO traffic at all! (Nice truck in the background, BTW ;) It was quite windy, so once I got over 50 mph, the heated handlebar grips really came in handy(they need to make those for mountain bikes, too).

In the evening, we hosted some friends' for Christmas dinner. The menu was fried turkey, green bean casserole and cheesy baked potatos, heart healthy to be sure!

This was the first time, since leaving Michigan in 2005, that we have not traveled back for the holiday. While, we missed being with family, we definitely made the best of the day.

- Rich -

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace. Agnes M. Pharo


- Laura & Rich-

Sunday, December 7, 2008

I'm a GS'r !

A what?

Before you get a chance to start putting your own word combinations together (which I'm sure would be evil, too! ), let me tell you what a GS'r is: GS refers to either Gelände/Straße (German: off-road/road) or Gelände Sport. In other words, there is a class of motorcycle called GS or dual sport, meant for both on road and off road travel.

There are untold miles of fire roads, old mining roads and unimproved dirt roads in the rocky mountains just waiting to be explored.

My friend David and I took the motorcycle safety course and got our "M" endorsements on our licenses back in October, with hopes of getting BMW GS bikes. David was looking at the F800GS and I was looking at the F650GS.

I was originally planning on waiting till spring, but besides being too impatient to wait, BMW announced a price increase on the wildly popular bikes at the first of the year. So, I decided to take the leap into motorcycle ownership!

I picked up the bike on Saturday. The weather was absolutely perfect this weekend, sunny and 60 degrees both days. So, between 1/2 day on Saturday and all day Sunday, I put 175 miles on the new bike. So, let's take a look:

This shot is with the optional panniers, for those overnight trips out to Moab, UT :)








This shot is without the panniers. There is NO storage on the bike, so I have the soft sided "day trip" bag on the back for small items.







Here I am posing in all my riding gear. Don't worry mom, I'm a huge proponent of all safety gear, all the time!








See Ya, I'm going riding!


-Rich -

BTW, Here is my friend David's bike, the 800GS. That's David in the background, preparing to take my bike for a little spin as we took a break from our 80 mile ride today