The Days Are Getting Longer!

Yep, it's true... the sky is no longer black when I go to work - now it's just mostly black. The days are getting longer!

We've had some pretty crazy weather here this winter. Lots of days when the temperature was above 0C (it got up to +7C or something a little while ago, and was +3C one day this week), and I think most of the winter has been warm enough for me to ride. Unfortunately, while we don't have nearly as much snow as normal, there's still enough ice and packed snow on the roads to make riding impossible for me. Ah, well...

I've been quite busy with school but things are going quite well. Last term was particularly difficult, as I needed to get used to balancing between working a full-time job and fitting in time for studying, but things went quite well and this term so far has been going pretty well I think.

But enough about that - this blog is all about riding and riding stuff!

Let's see - quick recap about this past riding year. Lots of firsts in there, too:
- First replacement of OEM part with an aftermarket part (LED brake light).
- My first solo trip. Planned for 23 days, crashed on Day 6, but had an amazing time, made some great friends, saw places and things I'd never seen before, and learned a lot about myself and riding.
- First crash (see above).
- First broken bone (see above above).
- Retrieved the bike the day after my little boot cast thing came off, and rode back with a friend from town. It sure was nice to have someone along for the ride back, especially when I was fighting to get my confidence back!
- Rode it to work every day I could (missed out on about seven weeks, what with me not being able to ride for a while and then needing to get it fixed).
- Discovered that either I need to lose a whole schwack of weight, or the KLR needs a stiffer rear spring, heh.
- Rode 7198km (so sayeth the odometer).

Despite the small setbacks, 2011 was a really great riding year for me, I learned a LOT and thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

I got a pair of heated grips from my folks for Christmas, too, so that'll make riding in the cold and/or rain even easier! I haven't had the chance to install them yet - I'm waiting on a switched fuse block and a ground terminal - once they arrive, I'll be putting the grips on as soon as it warms up a bit.

So far, I'm not sure what my plans for this riding year are. I'm hoping to take a month off work and do a summer term of University classes, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have left over. I'd really like to do another trip (and Mrs. HAL has voiced her support of it), but if I do, it will probably not be 23 days long - probably in the 10-15 day range. I'd still really like to get back out to Bella Coola and take that ferry, but it may need to wait another year. As soon as I figure out what's going on, I'll be posting.

What I'd really like to do is take a trip once a year or every couple of years and try to cover a different part of the country. Once I complete a trip through BC, I can then think of heading east, or north, or anywhere! A neat thing about Canada is that it's huge and there's so much stuff to see.

Ugh... the more I think about this stuff, the more I want to get out and ride!

Let's see... gear. My gear this past year held up quite well. The only thing that really didn't cut it was my boots. To be fair, they weren't full-length or anything, but I think that if I'd been wearing motocross boots (or something similar), I would've been able to continue my trip this summer. I can't remember if I mentioned this earlier, but I did end up picking up a pair of Alpinestars Tech3 boots. Mrs. HAL calls them my "hooker boots", and I wore them on the trip to ride the KLR back home in August. I do believe that I'll be wearing them on any trip I take out of town from this point on.

My jacket, helmet, and gloves did their jobs quite well and I'm happy with them. I did, however, pick up an HJC modular helmet, and I think it makes a great helmet for bopping around in town with. I'm still quite pleased with the Icon Variant, though, and will be purchasing another one soon!

And the big question - what about the KLR? Well, to be honest, I feel that this bike is nearly a perfect fit for me and the kind of riding I like doing. If I could change one thing on it, it would be to give it a touch more power so that I didn't have to wring the life out of the poor thing to keep up with highway traffic sometimes. Oh, and the manual says you can load the bike to a maximum of 400lbs, but even with the preload set to 5, the rear spring can't support anywhere near that amount. Wait - I guess that's two things. But other than those two minor things, I still love my KLR and if I could go back in time and talk to myself when I was looking for a bike, I wouldn't suggest anything for me other than a KLR. I'm very happy with it!

But it's getting late and I can feel my eyes starting to close on me here so I should probably close off this entry. I realize I haven't been around much lately and I do apologize for that. I plan to be a little more consistent next year.

A bit belated, but Happy New Year to you all, and I with you all the best in 2012!

Safe riding!

Odometer reading now: 16277.1km