My knees in the breeze...

More good stuff going on at the Scooter Factory, boys and girls…we have a couple of new accessories we are wringing out, and Steve needed somebody to put a few hundred miles on one of the test mules this weekend. Hey, I know somebody who can do that! The weather’s perfect and I don’t need much of an excuse to go for a motorcycle ride, so I grabbed Ol’ Yellow and I was in the wind.

I wanted to wring out another new toy, too, and that’s my smart phone. Yep, I joined the legions of people who bought an iPhone. I’m still just learning how to use some of its features, but the two I’m most interested in are the camera and the email feature. So, the jury’s in and as far as I’m concerned, the iPhone is okay but I wouldn’t spend the money again. The email feature is slow to receive and slow to send, and the photo quality is not up to what I consider acceptable. And, the thing is huge compared to my previous phone. Admittedly, my previous phone was a bare-bones model, but this iPhone is a monster. My daughter immediately told me not to drop it because it’s easy to break the screen, so I’m a little leery of the thing.

On the plus side, the iPhone is definitely easier to carry around than my Nikon (it’s a boat anchor, and when I wear it around my neck on long motorcycle rides, it gets heavy). I love that Nikon, though…it’s been all over the world with me, and I love the images I get with it. I have the Nikon D200, which is an obsolete model, but the image quality is so good I just can’t see dropping another two grand for the latest model. A lot of the image quality it provides is due to the lenses, and I’m pretty fussy about those. I mostly use prime lenses (non-zoom lenses, because the image quality is better), and lately I’ve been using a Sigma 50mm macro lens as a good “all around” lens. I shot the Nikon photos on this page with it.

So, back to riding…check out a few of the photos I grabbed this weekend. Let’s look at the iPhone photos first…I grabbed these when I rode around the San Gabriel Mountains yesterday afternoon.

This first photo is on Angeles Crest Highway. It’s one of the premier motorcycle roads in the world, and you may remember that we took a California Scooter ride on it a couple of months ago. It’s a great ride, and after carving the corners for a few miles I stopped to grab an iPhone photo. The cool thing about this self portrait is the iPhone feature that lets you take your own photo. There’s a thingamajig on the screen that lets you see yourself on the screen and then take a photo, just like this one…

A self-portrait on Angeles Crest Highway, courtesy of the iPhone...

This next one is on Angeles Forest Highway, which is another stunning road. It heads up toward Palmdale. My next turn would be on Mt. Emma Road, which cuts around the northwestern edge of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Another iPhone shot...this one isn't bad, but the image quality is not as good as my Nikon.

And here’s a shot on the long straight just after sweeping through the twisties. This is a cool straight section of Angeles Forest Road, and it’s the first straight section after the road’s terrific twisties.

Another iPhone photo...I had just come around the corner you see in the background.

Here’s a shot at the exact same location, staring down that long straight. I once was riding with my friend David on this road…he had a highly modified BMW K100, and I had my ’97 Suzuki TL1000S. We both shot through that corner shown above, and then we touched an indicated 145 mph before slowing to make the right onto Mt. Emma Road. Yeah, I know. It was pretty stupid. It seemed like a good idea at the time…

The long straight at the end of Angeles Forest Highway.

Today’s ride took me in the opposite direction, and I took my Nikon with me this time. I got on the freeway by my place and rolled east for about 60 miles out to Yucaipa, and then I left the freeway and rode surface streets back. It was pretty cool. My route took me by my friend Art’s dealership (he sells Triumphs and Royal Enfields). I parked my Scooter next to a big Triumph Rocket, and it made for an interesting shot…

2300cc and three cylinders versus 150cc and one cylinder...shot with the Nikon and a Sigma lens.

Art has a bunch of Royal Enfields in stock. They have a retro look like our bikes do, and they are kind of cool. Royal Enfield has an interesting story. They were originally a British bike, and the Brits opened a factory in India to make their single-cylinder model. When the original company in the UK went belly up around 1970, the folks in India watched it happen, shrugged their shoulders, and kept on making bikes. I grabbed this shot in Art’s showroom…

Royal Enfields at Douglas Motorcycles...shot indoors with the Nikon and no flash.

After leaving Art’s place, I rolled through downtown San Bernardino and found myself on old Route 66. There’s lots of interesting places on Route 66, but a lot of it is fake stuff trying to cash in on the Route 66 vibe. One place that is still the original, though, is the WigWam Motel. Check out Ol’ Yellow in the WigWam parking lot…