Well where to begin? As I mentioned on the cover page of this month’s issue I’m going solo for a while. I’ll try to guilt the rest of the guys into contributing, but it hasn’t worked so far. Despite the fact that there have been minimal updates we still get 50,000-60,000 readers a month. Wow, that blows me away – Thanks! Also, I regularly get a lot of really great e-mail, unfortunately I can’t respond to all of it (I get as many as 300 a day). So anyway, to get you up to speed with what we’ve been up to, I’ll start with Conehead. I think I mentioned, in a previous issue, that he got married. We’ll he is now a proud father of a 1-year-old son. He is also back in school working on his masters degree.
Pinhead finally got his masters degree and went on to get his pilot’s license. I believe he’s currently working on getting his instruments rating (or something like that). He’s busy with work, his wife, and raising his two daughters.
Moving on to The Rookie, what can I say? About a year ago, a portion of his house burnt down. He’s spending most of his time rebuilding it, and adding a second floor while he’s at it. He also has his wife and two daughters to keep him busy.
So what’s up with me? Well in my last High Sides I mentioned that I was “stuck in a deep quagmire of really bad Karma.” Well it got worse and involved several more trips to the Emergency Room. However, I think I finally got through that. I’ve done very little riding with Conehead, Pinhead and The Rookie lately. In fact I think in the last two years we all got together once for Rubicon. Come to think of it, I don’t think Conehead made that one. Conehead, Pinhead, The Rookie (and his brother Steve) got together with Richard again last year for the biannual Baja trip. To summarize, Baja Designs did some excellent work on Steve’s XR350. Unfortunately, Steve slightly messed up the assembly. It’s close to terminal (dying on the first day). Well, The Rookie loaned Steve his bike and decided to use his truck as the group’s chase truck. After a hundred miles or so The Rookie’s windshield fell out and his tires went south. Meanwhile Pinhead’s bike died and while on the way to San Diego they managed to pitch it off the back of the truck on to the freeway. Lastly, The Rookie’s bike went fatal as Steve pulled it in to their final destination. Rumor has it that he threw it away in the parking lot.
Over the past year or two, I have met a few new riding buddies. It turns out that within a few blocks of my house I have counted at least ten houses with dirt bikes in the garage. There are five on my block alone. Recently I’ve been doing most of my riding with my neighbor, Mike. His son Scott, featured in one of our wallpapers, and his daughter Sarah also ride. Within the last couple of months the only family that complained about the constant rumbling of dirt bikes in the neighborhood finally moved out. Oddly enough, the couple that replaced them also rides.
However, the big news is that my son has started riding (check out photos of his first ride). We started him out on his sixth birthday with a Yamaha PW50; at the same time I got a WR426. Last weekend we upgraded him to a new TT-R90.
Oddly enough, my son starting to ride is opening up a whole new group of riding buddies. Though he’s not even seven yet, I think he now has more riding buddies that I do. He has two regular buddies, Eric and Adam, and usually a couple more kids show up as well. Honestly, the more the merrier. I have to say it’s very cool getting the kids together while the dads take turns riding. However, I have to say equally as cool is riding on the trail with the future of the sport/hobby. But hey, I’ve babbled enough for now, so more on that next time . . .
