Dmulk's 2007 CreSTOC Ride Report (big photos)

[dmulk]

Thursday, May 3, 2007 -

As some of you know, I commute from Chula Vista, Ca to Carlsbad, Ca every day for work. I usually drive my '04 Corolla as it gets a wonderful 32-37MPG. That being the case, I had debated riding the ST to work and leaving from Carlsbad, but I still had a few things to pack, so I headed home to finish up.

I made it home at about 6PM and jumped right into it.

By the time I was finished packing, eating dinner and spending time with the family, it was already pushing 9PM. I hurried to throw on the Alpinestar Vented suit (BIG MISTAKE!!) as the weather showed that it would be clear and warm during the majority of the weekend. I then jumped on the bike, gassed up at the local Chevron and took Telegraph Canyon to the 805 Freeway, North.

Things started out fine. I was cruising along in 55 degree weather and was feeling great. Three days to meet up with some (new and old) friends, do some fun rides and hang in one of my most favorite places in SoCal - Crestline, Ca - Lake Gregory. After a month of being cooped up in my 750sq.ft. condo, healing from a sinus surgery and subsequent infection, I was ready for this.

What I was not prepared for was the drop in temperature from en route. By the time I had reached my cabin, the temps had dropped close to freezing (34 F). While the Alpinestar vented suit is great in weather above 50F, it gets painful as the temps fall.

My saving grace was the Honda heated grips and Corbin heated seat. It's the only thing that saved me. Anyway, I made it safe and after a little post drywall construction cleaning, I was in bed by 1am.

Friday, May 4th, 2007 -


Dana buzzed me to let me know that he and Vickie would be at my place around noon. I mentioned that they should dress warm because although the day was sunny, it was cold (in the 40F's).

With some time to kill, I figured I would shoot a couple photos with my new Canon XTi (I still don't know how to use it, so these photos aren't the best...):

My 2006 ABS on the parking deck at my cabin:



And again...




Dana an Vicki rolled in about 12:30pm and by the time they got here, the weather had drastically changed. The temps were pushing the lower 40F's and the clouds were rolling in...

Dana attempting to earn another of Finewest's "Zippo Awards":





View from back deck of my cabin:







After a short debate, the three of us decided to head to lunch locally and forgo any long rides for the day. Byron and a few others were planning on hanging out for the meet and greet later in the afternoon. So after lunch, we headed back to my place to shoot some pool, wait for others to arrive.

To our utter surprise, the weather started to clear at sunset and I was able to snap these:

Off the back deck of my cabin @ Sunset:




And another...



And the final....





With the sun setting in the back ground (literally), we joked the night away...



Byron's arrival to any event never goes unnoticed!




As the night wrapped up, we all agreed that we needed to get online and paypal a couple buck to the "weather gawds". The wind was blowing so hard that I feared one or more of our parked bikes would fall over.

Of course, Byron's reply was," Well, if mine falls over, your's is right next to it to break the fall..." Gee thanks buddy!

More to come later.... (Will also fix the photo size when I get home....)

You can see the resized, raw photos, here:

http://www.dmulk.com/bikes/CreSTOC07/

Thanks

<D>

[Mellow]

Nice pics but probably not viewed by most with dial up, wouldn't hurt to have some thumbs.. just a suggestion.

[dmulk]

Hehe.... yup... that's why I posted about having to resize them...also... I am a total n00b with this camera.

Will fix it tonight after work.


Thanks Joe!


<D>

[Mark]

Good warning...
Beautiful shots...
I the thumbnails might help too...

Even with my monitor set at 1600x1200 I had to drag back and forth to see the shots.

Mark

[Raven]

I'm sooooo jealous. I so wanted to be there!!!!

On the other hand, I DID pass my MSF Dirt Bike School Coach training this weekend so I missed for a good cause!

Hopefully there'll be another CaliSTOC soon!

[dmulk]

Originally Posted by Raven

I'm sooooo jealous. I so wanted to be there!!!! On the other hand, I DID pass my MSF Dirt Bike School Coach training this weekend so I missed for a good cause! Hopefully there'll be another CaliSTOC soon!

Wish you could have made it! I am sure I'll do something up there again with in the year. However, this will probably be the last one that I foot the food bill on alone. hehe...

The next one will be a Bring Own Meat.

I am thinking of doing another one near the end of summer...sometime in September maybe.

Anyway, hope you can make it Raven!!

<D>
PS: Ran out of time tonight... sorry about the whacky too large photos... I'll try and get them fixed sometime tomorrow and also finish up the log. Anyone know what picture dimensions work best for a 19in monitor when posting to the forum?

[Mellow]

I usually stick to 960x720 or around there... I just take my large pics and open them in windows w/pain then stretch/skew 25% and it's good enough for websites.

[dmulk]

Originally Posted by Mellow

I usually stick to 960x720 or around there... I just take my large pics and open them in windows w/pain then stretch/skew 25% and it's good enough for websites.

Good suggestion. Thank you.

I wonder why VBulletin doesn't incorporate auto resize in the post bodies... Actually, maybe they do, but at the bottom of the page of this post it shows: HTML off? Just thinking out loud...

Anyway, will resize ASAP.

Thanks,

<D>

[Mellow]

turning html on would open us up for hackers, not gonna happen.

the software will resize attachments and create a thumb but when you post from your own site then it's just showing what you post.

There are mods to auto resize pics but they are questionable as the break other things and act 'funny'. I'll keep an eye out if I see something that is good and works.

The best thing is to just create thumbs on your own and link to them or create smaller pics - it's just a friendlier way to allow people to see your pics. Yours are so big it even takes too long at work on a T1 line. They're something like 4 meg each. which isn't all that useful for viewing on a monitor.

I use smugmug and I like it as it auto creates 3 different sized versions of my pics once I upload it and I can choose which one to show, thumbs, small, medium, large or original.

Sorry if I'm critical but I know anyone on dial up is ignoring this thread as it will take too long to load. Which is too bad as they are great pics

[dmulk]

No debate here. I know the post size of the files are too big at this point. I was just wondering about the auto resizing I get when directly viewing them from a web browser.

I also have a 25 meg pipe so....call me spoiled... hehe

Anyway, I'll resize properly ASAP and get it all fixed up.

Cheers,

<D>