Trying to catch up to the year 2010, I’ve finally installed a purpose made dash cam, as opposed to my temporary GoPro installs (which were disappointing at best) of the years past.
After a few days of testing, I feel that the installation location is good, and the amount of dashboard reflections I’m seeing have been minimized to the maximum extent I can.
To date I have clipped a hand full of videos, looking at hte day and nighttime performance. I plan a more informational post in the next week, but for now, his is a short example I shot while getting gas at a local Buc-ee’s station here in Texas.
Here is a snapshot for a night time clip. There may be settings I can adjust on the camera to improve night capture. It works OK, but unless headlights are on, it’s able to resolve almost nothing.
A few days ago, I posted the first test video shot using 30 second exposures with a GoPro3 camera, located at our home in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
For my next test series I set the GoPro3 Camera, to fire the photos at 10 second intervals. The number of photos captured before the battery expired was almost 1100, netting a much longer and smoother looking video.
Wednesday, I took in a nice set of the coast’s best back roads, including a lunch at the infamous Alice’s Restaurnt, all with the help of the great people at Club Sportiva.
Being a complete car nut, instead of borrowing one car, I borrowed these 6 examples of driving awesomeness:
#1 The Batmobile
Blessed Mother of Acceleration, that thing is more than the sum of it’s parts. For all that it looks, with it’s massive motor, massive hood and ridiculous (ridiculously awesome!) gull wing doors.. I expected just it to be a muscle-bound pig. OK, so it is musclebound, but it didn’t feel like a pig. Not in the least! And to the company listed below, it was a pure joy to drive. Reasonably loud. When set in AMG manual mode the shifts were crisp but not abrupt (unlike one of the other cars in the list). This was probably tied with car #6 for the easiest of the lot to drive.
I fully expected this thing to scare me. And considering we’d be ascending the Calamari Highway at pace, I was apprehensive. I mean, if I bin the car, it’s going to cost me (or at least to me) a small fortune to repair or replace. And these guys check these things OVER before they hand off a set of keys.
So.. the car. It’s like sitting in a leather coffin. It’s tight inside. It makes a Cessna 152 Aerobat seem, accommodating. The door sills are pretty thick, and rather high compared to most any other car. Getting in and out can be a little amusing for an observer. Having the gull wing door shut, which feels like it’s 2′ thick, really made me feel sealed in cockpit of sorts, and just a tad claustrophobic. However once that lump in front was lit up and grumbling, I forgot about all that.
Suspension just sucked up the ratty road surface so well, It didn’t feel at all like the bumpy road of my youth. But that smooth driving didn’t come at the cost of a wishy-washy ride, like a couple of the cars I drove today.
Overall, this is one really fun car to drive. It’s refined enough to be a daily driver, and rude enough to be what it is; one super car.
#2 Street Legal Go-Kart
Wow.. what a HOOT!! It’s not much in the power category (190 HP) but the weight (1900 lbs) more than makes up for it.
Now, talk about cars with high and thick door sills. This is the patron saint of making men look absurd getting in and out of a street car. If the Benz was like being in a 152, this was like being in a Cub. Getting it started is a little odd. You put the key in, click it forward a few notches, then hunt for the START button (only 1 car today didn’t have a start button) way in the upper left.
For the set of cars today, I thought.. meh… they tossed this in as filler. I can’t say I was really excited about the prospect of driving it.
For the leg of the route I had this car, we made the run across the ridge (Skyline Blvd) to Alice’s. This is one of the sections of road things can really be cracked open. It’s very easy to hold a good 70-80 MPG avg. speed for the section, if you’re balls or wallet are big enough.
I lit it up, listened to the big Benz motor sound (I could not hear the Lotus over the Benz), and we set off. I think it took about 5 seconds for me to start grinning like a complete moron. OOOH BOY, this car is FUN! I want one. It reminds me of my old FZR400. Not much power, but light, and makes you feel sporty when you drive it. Did I mention it’s hilariously FUN!??! Banging up and down in the gears, heel-and-toeing the little thing into the corners and back out again.. it’s fun as snot! I’m going to start checking CL for them!!!
It does have a rather nasty bump-steer on corner exit throttle if you hit some nasty pavement. Of all the cars I drove today, this one scared me the most. You have to be ON your game, or going 25 MPH or it feels like it might dart off into the weeds before you can can finishing crapping your pants. It’s that on edge and that tight. You FEEL the road in that thing, in all the best ways!!! If you haven’t driven one in anger…. DO IT!!
#3 The Barge
Following a great lunch, the next leg was going to be down one of my favorite Nor Cal roads. Highway 84 to the coast. It’s got great sight lines, 100+ sweepers, technical banked (properly banked) turns… through the rain forest and to the coast. It’s a driver’s (or rider’s) road. And I had what I can only guess is made of neutron materials, for a car. :/ Can’t win them all.
Then I started to drive it, really drive it. Once I pushed it out of auto mode in to tiptronic mode and was able to use the downshifting on corner entry instead relying on the brakes, I reeled the Lotus in with ease.
Wait.. no, not a typo.. yes it’s big, yes it’s fat, (yes it’s big and fat) but wow the motor in that thing must have been stolen from an cargo ship. It’s a monster. Not a fire breathing monster, but a torque shooting out your kiester and never wanting to stop monster. Speeds in excess of ….. were easy, on that road, a road that I nearly never ride my bike on that fast. It’s not a sports car, I know that, and it should royally stink but damn.. if I was old, like in my 40’s or something and needed a luxo-barge… this would most likely get the nod!!! The specs say it has almost 500 ft./lb. of torque and yeah.. OH YEAH!! … I say BRING IT!!
So it turned out that this one favorite part of the road, was enjoyed by a really pretty freaking fun car!!!
At the base of Hwy 84, we headed south on 1 to Pescadero State Beach where performed the next swap. Just as we arrived 2 bus loads of local kids were visiting the beach on a science field trip. The boys were going bonkers checking out the cars, taking pictures with their cell phones (these are like 9-11 y.o. kids.. what are they doing with smart phones!??!).
Exchanging Keys at the Beach, Pescadero, CA
We give them some extra revs on the way out and manged to put in some WTO runs down 1 before turning up Pescadaro back to the top of the mountain. This is another fantastic piece of road!!. This time on one of the finest sounding cars of the bunch..
#4 Bond, James Bond.
OK, it’s not a DB9. They sold that one because it was too sloppy feeling. Maybe the DB9 coupe is better but the DB9 vert was supposedly a not mess. And frankly… and this was the biggest disappointment of my day, so was the Vantage. The body didn’t feel especially loose, but the car was nervous, and not in a good way. No matter what I did, what adjustment I made to the nannies, how I brakes and exited corners, I just COULD NOT get this car to handle like I wanted it too. It just felt out of sorts. Now, it could have been the tires, having just been replaced with Hankooks. Most of the cars are on PS2s, except the Bently was on some Continental tire.
Digressing… the sound from this car was FANTSTIC! The exhaust baffles are opened up, so it’s loud, proud and makes an intoxicating sound. And the single clutch computer controlled manual trans (like the BMW SMG) was really fun and responsive, and shifted like a human would shift, not really smooth at all. It had a very nice firm engagement on the up-shift. Maybe my Bimmers clutch is going, or my SMG needs to be re-programmed, but I liked this Aston’s trans a lot.
What I was not so much impressed by was the very obvious lack of power. It really needed the bigger Aston mill with at minimum 500 HP to make this worth the $$$ to me. I have to say.. this car is really making me re-evaluate my desire for an Aston Martin down the road. I was hoping a Vantage would be so much more. Of all the cars today, this is the only one that scared me, really scared me into thinking I could easily bin it, and not because it had too much power! Color me more than a little bummed.
#5 Italian for WT*?!?
Having returned to Alice’s, I jumped in the next car. This is the only one that I could hear over the Benz. Also uncorked a bit, and the only other row-your-own manual trans in the lot, outside the Lotus. I was a little apprehensive about driving this car, after the bitter disappointment with the Aston. I figured a vaunted marque would once again, show it’s flaws.
And I was not far off the mark, it’s flawed. It’s heavy (ish), It’s old-school manual… AND IT’S A BLOODY RIOT!! OHHHH MY GOD. damn damn damn damn DAMN.
Almost any day I’ll take lucky over good. And this time I was putting my butt in one of the hottest cars of the bunch, for a return run on Hwy 35. And, I had nobody holding me up. 😀 We rocketed along the ridgeline at ludicrous speed. Well, maybe more ludicrous noise than speed. Of all the cars today, this one hit every note you want for an exotic.
Looks great
Sounds great
Goes like raped ape
Crude
Rude
Socially unacceptable.
I fell in looooove. She’s not perfect. In fact this car also put me on edge. Much like the Lotus, it’s tight, stiff, had really noticeable bump-steer, real manual trans, NO rear visibility, it’s about 8′ wider at the rear than the front (or so it seems when you’re worried about dinging wheels that cost about as much as I pull down in a month). Aside from a close call with a pair of bambies, the driving experience was exhilarating!!
The car has no practical purpose. None. Zero. There is no place to put anything in the passenger box. The frunk is smaller than the glove-box on my old Miata, and there is NOTHING for storage to the rear, unlike other exotics I’ve examined. It’s just… a car. A small, low, wide, exhilarating Italian car. The thing feels like it has a soul. The soul of Satan but a soul none the less. This car put a serious case of smiles on my face!!!
The motor was super responsive. Re-reving the motor to coax it into a missed gear, was super easy. It was hard to drive, in just about every good way possible. If I’d had to pick from one of these cars.. it would be up there with the SLS and the next one….
#6 Godzilla
Straight up. I’m not a big fan of Japanese anything (wait, I take that back, Yamaha is an exception). I’d read the articles, heard the rumors, listened to Klick-and-Klak blather on about the $1000 it costs just for the transmission fluid. It was the closeout car of the day. It’s quiet, it’s big, it’s not at all flashy. It’s like an appliance.
Like a twin-turbo charged fire breathing video game from hell is more like it. It’s easy to start. It’s really comfortable. It has 4 seats, and a truck that can old more than a 1/2 PB&J sandwich. The array of electronic doo-dads is mind numbing. 5 custom display screens with boost, temps, G’s, TPS. YOU NAME IT!! It’s any 10-year old video gamer’s dream. And it’s FAST AS ****.
I’d been warned. When those turbos really start to spool, things start happening fast. My God, of all the vehicles, only the Benz was close with off-throttle torque awesomeness. Despite being a “little” V6 she just about stole the show!
If you want super-car fun on a budget, and also be able to get kids to school and carry a week’s load of groceries.. and you’re on a “budget”. I don’t know how you could go wrong with this thing. WOOO LORDY!!
Popped the trans in race mode, set the suspension to normal (not comfort or race), selected some house music on the sat radio and set about chasing the Lambo down Hwy 9. OK.. so you just gotta let the statement sink in a bit.
Chasing a Gallardo, down the amazing Hwy9, in a GTR.
That.. for me, was almost as epic as hot-lapping Laguna the weekend before! Chasing a dream car, down a road I grew up learning to drive on, while in a car that would murder the Lambo in a drag race while eating sushi.
Oh my… I must say. That as some of the most grin-inducing 5 hours of driving I’ve every done! My how the world has changed for me since I moved back to CA!! 😀
Conclusion:
I’m going to do this again. Next time I’m taking one of the kids with me. One dad had taken his 11 y.o. out of school to do this today. It was his birthday… talk about a kick-ass BD present. At least I think it was!
I realize most of you have been buried with my non-stop picture posts from today… well, all I can say is…. meh.. I was excited, I love cars. so sue me.. 😀
Oh.. and to answer the question.. if I had to pick one of these cars…. which one would it be?
Well, I did have to pick, because I can only drive one car at a time… so I picked this one. She matches my Ducati nicely, NO? YYYYEEESSSS!!!!
I do have to return it tomorrow…. but the entire family sure had some fun when I got home!! Miranda was the first to take a ride up Hwy9 (which started 1/2 mile from our house.. which.. is sorta nice in itself) with me. Then AJ, and finally Deb went for a ride. Wow.. she had the biggest grin on her face as I ripped that thing up through the gears. WOOOO!!!! I think that if I manage to buy one, she’s not going to complain one freaking bit!!! But.. I don’t see that happening any time soon. Until then, I’ll just keep borrowing them. I think I’m going to grab the SLS next. 😀
A bunch more snapshots
Here are a bunch more snapshots from today!
Exchanging Keys at the Beach, Pescadero, CA
Club Sportivia – Italy vs. Britain
McLaren awesome
McLaren awesome
Lining up the cars for today’s tour
My first car of the day, what a beauty!
Aston Martin – stunning in red
Business viea from the SLS
I’m upside down with joy!
SLS AMG – Jeremy is right, this is a hooning good time!
The little Elise.. what a gem and joy!
The most commonly seen view of the SLS.. from behind!
While enjoying a meeting up of the Nor Cal Ducati Club this evening in at Cibo, in Monterey CA., the subject of the Seattle VME (Vintage Motorcycle Enthusiasts) came up, specifically the wonderful and wacky “Isle of Vashon” event. The coolest aspect of the bikes you’ll see in these videos, is that they are ALL ridden to and around the island.
What others have posted about the TT
Sample videos shot by others: VME Isle of Vashon 2011
What, you missed it again? VME’s Isle of Vashon? Nooooo? Why? Didn’t know when the date was? Where was it listed?[…]
Motorcycle club appreciates the Island’s support http://www.vashonbeachcomber.com
The Vintage Motorcycle Enthusiasts (VME) would like to thank the Vashon-Maury Island community for supporting our 29th annual old bike rally, known as the Isle of Vashon TT.
Thanks to the event’s con[…]
Now this is really cool, and geeky.. but a big post about VME on a Gamers forum!!
Vashon island is located in lower ventricle of Puget Sound:
Situated above Tacoma, south-west of Seattle and south-east of Bremerton, Vashon Island is one of the few Puget Sound island that is serviced only by ferry. No conventional roads exist to get to this island, unlike the rest within Puget Sound that are connected via some sort of bridge or another.
VME events, and the Isle of Vashon in particular, you can find not only a nice variety of vintage bikes, but a number of strange and often amusing customs.
I certainly wouldn’t mind attending another one of these unusual events some time in the near future!
Granted, it’s been a couple of weeks since the pros packed up and headed off to Pipeline for the last event on their years tour. I’m not always the quickest to get photos uploaded, with clients to service, mouths to feed, cars and bikes to work on and in there somewhere I try to have a little fun for myself.
So this morning I’m pulling up some pics from a few weeks ago that I’ve wanted to post up. One of these days I’ll get my watermarking done, but for now.. I’ll just have to trust that nobody finds these compelling enough to steal (here’s hoping).
One of the things I did today, was sign up for ‘foursquare‘, an app that lets you ‘check-in’ to places, and those with participating incentives will send coupons to your phone. It’s and interesting experiment. I’ll see how that works out today.
M.V. Kitsap mid-sound, enroute BremertonPassengers on stern pickle-forks of ferry M.V. KitsapM.V. Kitsap about to make starboard turn into Rich Passage.M.V. Kitsap foreground, Olympic National Park, background.
Not to scale, clearly.All the years I have lived up here, and traveled down I-5 to California, I wondered if this sign, just south of Portland was misleading. It always seemed to take far longer and be far more easterly to take the I-205 bypass around Portland, than the I-5 central route through the city. The sign implies a little extra distance. Reality? Read on.
Here is what the area looks like. Now that you have seen the sign, here are the mapped routes, with mileage. Should the OR DOT be smacked for putting up such a misleading sign? You be the judge.
I-5 Route through PortlandThis time, I decided I had to find out for certain. On the way down I took the I-5 central route through Portland and measured the mileage. As you can see here, the route looks pretty straight, with a little bend just south of the city.
Measuring the distance along I-5 came to 27 miles. Longer than I thought! No wonder why it seems to take forever to get through there, it’s about a 30 minute drive without traffic!
The I-205 Sucker Bet On my return, I took the I-205 bypass, touted as a faster way around the city, and of relatively equal distance. I present this image for you, and the following data.
Clearly, you can see that it’s a MUCH longer route. And the actual path looks, quite different, than the sign suggests.
So, how much of a sucker bet is it? How about 67% longer than the I-5 route?! It’s just a hair over 40 miles!
Traffic would have to be a crawling 30 MPH all the way through and past the city to break even! Now, here is the kicker. When traffic is bad in Portland, it’s just as bad, if not worse on I-205 (been there, parked in that).
So, no matter how you cut it. Unless you are going to the airport, East on OR-84 or WA-4 it’s a sucker’s bet and one you should NOT TAKE!
Traveler beware. The Oregon DOT and that sign LIE!!
While talking about cool places to go, I was looking up links to St. Maarten (visited there in 2001).  Which, inevitably brings me to look up YouTube videos of landings there.   Here are a few that I really liked.. the last one gives you a REAL feel for how hairball that approach is!
Airbus A340 landing. Keep our head down:
No, really, you want to keep your head down! (KLM 747)
First of the takeoff videos. Does not show the human windsocks but.. you sort of get the idea:
What it looks like inside the jet. Yeah, that mountain really is pretty damn close!
This is the longest of them all, at more than 7 minutes, but there are some great shots of the takeoff there too (check time mark 2:00).
Shortly but goody. It looks like the jet is just at the fence while you are standing them having sand hit you at near super-sonic speeds. Good times!
Here is a short one shot from the Sunset Beach Bar.
Now.. this is the most hairball of the bunch. That fence on the end of the runway is only 5′ tall for a reason!
And, finish it all off with a pilot’s view of SXM
I’ve pirated the pilot’s comments from his video post since, you might never see them viewing the video in my page:
Landing St.Maarten from cockpit 747. After nosewheel landing camera touched windshield causing crackling noise.
For those viewers who made comments (or new viewers who are thinking about making the comment) that this approach is too high and/or too fast or whatever else you might think, here some free 😉 flying lessons from someone who’s flying B747’s for 20 years:
On an approach on instruments a B747 should cross the runway threshold (= the piano keys) with the main wheels at ± 35 ft above threshold. The 747 is so big that at that point the altitude of the cockpit is 35 ft higher, so the cockpit is at ± 70 ft when main wheels cross the threshold.
On a visual approach, as is the case here at St.Maarten, we have to have some more margin. Normally the pilot aims to see the runway threshold disappear under the nose at 80 ft (mind you, the main wheels are at that moment still NOT above the threshold) to have sufficient main wheel clearance.
If you look at the video and notice the altitude callouts, you’ll see the threshold disappear under the nose at the call 50, so actually I am a bit too low in stead of too high. (In fact I am only too low for a visual approach. If you look at my landing at JFK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4YoXy… you will see that I cross the threshold also at 50 ft, which is normal on an instrument approach. Note: the automatic altitude callouts you hear on this video are Radio Altimeter altitudes. The Radio Alt is zero when the main gear is on the ground with struts extended.)
Now, there are quite some viewers who think we landed too far on the runway. What follows from earlier explanation is this:
We approach a runway at a three degrees approach angle. If main wheels cross the threshold at the correct altitude, the main wheels will hit the runway at approx 900ft (300m) behind the threshold, that is, if you don’t flare the airplane. If you look again at the video and wait till you hear 50,40,30,20,10 and see the solid white markers, they are at 900ft behind the threshold and the plane touches down right behind them, because I did flare the airplane. (Passengers seem to hate hard landings!!)
THIS IS THE NORMAL TOUCHDOWN POINT FOR A B747.
The FCTM(=Flight Crew Training Manual) from Boeing says: flare distance is approx 300 to 600mtr (=900 to 1800ft) beyond the threshold.
So, please, stop nagging about this landing being too far on the runway.
And then something about too fast: On this approach the 747 weighs about 260.000 kgs. The required approach speed is then 150 kts which is about 175 mph or 280 km/hr. So what about TOO FAST? If we fly slower, we will fall out of the air!!
Then then there were three (less). One person out with flu, another had a technical issue with their bike and a third simply decided to pass.
Myself, I’m going. Tank bag arrived today. Smaller than I expected. HOWEVER, it seems well constructed and for a day bag.. I think it will be perfect. The SW-Motec mounting system is SLICK! I’m going to order a second larger bag for touring, and maybe I’ll upgrade to the 12v powered plate too.
A review on my new gear, new tank bag and the prospect of a weekend of riding with only a small tail pack and a smaller tank bag will work out.
My how fast this trip came upon me! Time to get serious about packing my gear, selecting camera equipment to take and getting some new clothes.
On Thursday, May 7th I’m off to Barcelona (via Amsterdam — maybe I’ll get lost and miss my flight.. hahah) for 8 days. I love to travel, but all of it has been North America (Vancouver, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Maui), Central America (Mexico City, Cancun), or the Caribbean (Negril, Key West, Montego Bay, St. Maarten). This time I’m really going across the pond to the old country. Nervous and excited all at the same time.
The first leg is Seattle, WA -> Amsterdam Holland arriving at 8:00AM local time. From there I’ll be on a European version of SouthWest Airlines to Barcelona.
Then it’s back across the water via JFK in New York, arriving around 2:00PM or so. I’m really looking forward to putting my own eyes on the Big Apple, even if it’s only for a short time from the plane. 3 hours later I’ll be on the last leg of my journey home to Seattle. Hopefully wiser, a little more tan, and packing some gifts for the people that work for me.
