Author: me
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Easter Sunrise: Clear Skies, New Peeps
Easter Sunday on Mount Tamalpais—I’ve been doing this ride for years now, and I’ve written about it enough times that you’d think I’d run out of things to say. But 2026 handed me two firsts, and both of them changed the morning in ways I wasn’t expecting. For starters, I didn’t ride to Tam Junction… Read more
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Highway 168: Chasing Winter in the Central Sierra
Every Wednesday at diabetes camp, we’d hike to the Grant Tree. Camp Sequoia Lake sat just outside Kings Canyon National Park — a week each summer for kids with Type 1 diabetes, up in the Sierra at elevation where the air is thin and the trees are enormous. I staffed that camp for 15 years,… Read more
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Two Generals, One Long Overdue Visit
For over 15 years, every Wednesday at Camp Sequoia Lake, we’d hike to the Grant Tree. The camp sat just outside Kings Canyon National Park — a week each summer for teenagers with Type 1 diabetes, up in the Sierra where the air is thin and the trees are enormous. This is a very special… Read more
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Chigee AIO-5 Review (1 Year Later): CarPlay on the BMW GS
Summary: The Chigee AIO-5 delivers on its core promise: bringing Apple CarPlay to the BMW GS in a way that actually works while riding. It’s not a replacement for a standalone GPS, but the usability, screen quality, and Wonder Wheel integration make it one of the best options available today. Sometimes this device drops the… Read more
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The Warring of Seasons
It’s no secret that I love Mount Diablo. I’ve ridden up and down that mountain more times than I can count, on the V-Strom, on the GS, in the Volt and the Rivian, and the destination is always the same. The summit. That’s the whole point, right? I love the technical nature of the road… Read more
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Pea Soup – Tule Fog Returns
The alarm goes off at 6:40. It’s still dark outside, and the warmth of the bed is almost convincing enough to skip it. Almost. But my neighbor is already up, his dog waiting, and I’ve made this commitment to myself and to him: fight the winter sedentary together, one early morning walk at a time.… Read more
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Peak Design Qi2 Charger
I got tired of unplugging my phone every time I stopped the bike. Gas station. Unplug. Lunch. Unplug. Photo stop. Unplug. Back on the bike. Plug back in. I’d been using a Peak Design phone mount on the GS for a while. It was solid — the case fit well, the magnetic mount worked, and… Read more
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Hey Kid
A few weeks ago I hosted my first motorcycle movie night, streaming films from the Toronto Motorcycle Film Festival library. Pizza. Friends. Many two-wheeled adventures showed on screen. A little moto-livery was exactly what a dark, wet January needed across my riding community. Of all the films, Hey Kid hit the hardest. I’ve been thinking about… Read more
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Toronto Motorcycle Film Festival Movie Night
New Year’s resolutions become a key topic of conversation in that week between Christmas and New Year’s. By the time late January rolls around, we’re lucky if we even remember them—much less make demonstrable change in our lives. My 2026 New Year’s resolution is to host two gatherings a month at home. I want to… Read more
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Above the Fog
The relentless tule fog had been sitting on the valley for weeks. Not just a few days with sun here and there, but literal weeks. Low 40s every morning, mid 40s throughout the day, my solar system throwing errors as it wasn’t getting enough sun. It was always gray until dark with everything being damp… Read more
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Reality Check: The XR650L That Wasn’t
I squeezed the front brake lever and it went straight to the bar. I was maybe a quarter mile from the seller’s driveway. The temperature was 40 degrees and damp. My fingers were already getting stiff inside my gloves. I was on a 20-year-old bike with zero wind protection that I had driven two and… Read more
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Peak Design Roller Pro: One Fatal Flaw
Update: Peak Design confirmed this is an issue with some early Kickstarter models. They are doing warranty replacements on these bags! Woot! I’d been rolling around with my North Face Base Camp Rolling Thunder for seven years—bright yellow, water-resistant-ish, tough as nails. My suitcase was still going strong. But there was one problem: two wheels. When… Read more
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Celebrating Thanks
The last few weeks have been a blur of airports, Ubers and rental cars, and reconnecting with people across the continent. It started with a cold and wet HackDiabetes25 in Vancouver—a weekend that reminded me how powerful it is when passionate people from around the world gather around a shared mission. From there, I flew to… Read more
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HackDiabetes25 – Vancouver
This past weekend I spent three days at the Sheraton Hotel in Richmond with about 40 people from literally all over the world—developers, endocrinologists, advocates, and people living with Type 1 diabetes who’ve built the technology that not only keeps us alive, but thrive. In the beginning, I felt like a fish out of water… Read more
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Finding Fall in Vancouver
I’d been meaning to get out and catch some fall color all week. We came down from Squamish over the weekend and I could see that color was there, but fading fast. November’s here, which means most of the leaves have already made their way to the ground, but I figured there had to be… Read more
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Give Blood this Holiday Season
Rain City Bike Crew was organizing a blood drive over the December holidays. I wanted to participate with them, but I knew I’d be back in the States by the time December rolled around. So I decided to donate early—and Remembrance Day seemed like the right day to do it. Gay men have had a… Read more
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Where the Wild Things Are
I grew up on the East Coast. Summer days were spent on the lake, jet skis cutting through still, warm water, humidity that settled on everything the moment you stepped outside. Those were good days – the kind where time moved slowly and you didn’t think much about what came next. Once a month, Boy’s Life (now… Read more
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The Ride Up for Ride Down
It’s no secret that I love riding my motorcycle up and down Mount Diablo. It’s the ride that doesn’t require hassle. No bridges, tolls, or traffic exist on this technical squiggle. Last night I needed to clear my head, so I grabbed the Speed Triple and the Canon R5 and pointed them both toward the… Read more
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ALSO. Launch: Rethinking The Bicycle
I remember getting my first “real” bike when I was 10—a late 1980s Schwinn Sierra. It was a mountain bike, and I felt invincible riding that monster around the neighborhood. Two wheelers have always been a part of my life. First bicycles, then motorcycles. Bicycles have definitely gotten better over the years, but have fundamentally… Read more
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#kindness
I’d been wanting to get the Speed Triple out for a sunset ride all week. There’s something about that bike and golden hour—the way the light hits the tank, the temperature cooling down just enough to make the ride comfortable, the roads emptying out as people head home from the weekend. I couldn’t decide between… Read more
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One GS Apart: Why So So Cycles & Cycle Gear Rock
This blog is about 5 years in the making, but after a great experience at So So Cycles and Cycle Gear, I wanted ensure I told this story. I rolled into So So Cycles in October 2025 for the 36,000 mile service on my BMW R1250 GS. This was the big one that required valve… Read more
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A week with the 2025 Silverado EV: I’m left confused
I walked into the garage a few weeks ago and noticed a small puddle of brown, oily fluid under the Rivian. Fuuuuudge. I suspected hydraulic fluid—not something you want leaking anywhere, much less in your garage. The good news? The polyaspartic floor coating did its job beautifully (thank you Rassmussen Painting), making cleanup easy instead of… Read more
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Crisscrossing the Shasta Cascades
Back in the day, M and I used to run motorcycle tours for motorcycle riders who hadn’t done an overnight ride before. Over the years, we picked up more and more riders and developed quite a following. Our last tour was called “coast and volcanoes,” wandering through some of California’s most epic coastline and empowering… Read more
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Same ride, completely different experience 
The BMW Club of Northern California’s Range of Light ride has stuck with me for a couple of weeks. Being up in Quincy reminded me how much I really do enjoy that part of California and how much I miss the many secondary roads that crisscross the landscape. In the central Sierra, many motorcyclists know… Read more
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The Moto Social SF September 2025: Baby Blues BBQ
R introduced me to The Moto Social about five years ago. At first, I was a casual attendee, but over the years I’ve tried to make it a priority, as it gets me out of the burbs, into the city, and connected with other cool motorcyclists. As I’ve written before, the Triumph Speed Triple, in… Read more
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Part 3: Using Lightroom Mobile and the Frame TV
This is a multipart series in a blog series about using Lightroom and the Samsung Frame TV. Check out Part 1 (Lightroom configuration), Part 2 (using ChatGPT for generating an upload script) and Part 3, Lightroom Mobile integration. I originally bought the Frame TV as a large-format outlet for my photography. The Canon R5 truly… Read more
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Part 2: Using ChatGPT to Create a Frame TV Upload Script
This is a multipart series in a blog series about using Lightroom and the Samsung Frame TV. Check out Part 1 (Lightroom configuration), Part 2 (using ChatGPT for generating an upload script) and Part 3, Lightroom Mobile integration. It’s amazing how much can change in a year with technology. In June 2024 I wrote a… Read more
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I like your bike!
If you’re curious to see my tastes before this bike, check out Chapter 3: Gelände Straße I don’t know exactly how to phrase it—so I’ll be direct: aesthetics usually haven’t been high on the criterion list when I purchase a motorcycle. My first bike, a Kawasaki Vulcan 750, was a mix between power cruiser, 80s… Read more
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Exploring Sand Harbor
With the long summer hiatus in Canada, early September hit me with the realization that summer in Northern California was fleeting. Time didn’t stand still here. Many of the things I would normally do over the summer here I exchanged for wonderful adventures in Canada. One of the things on my list for Northern California… Read more
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The Moto Social SF August 2025: Excelsior Coffee
I just need to say it: I’m so far behind on my blog. I was supposed bright about the Super in August and now here it is in September. Plus, I don’t think I’ve finished quite writing about Canada. Forgive me for authoring out of order. Tonight’s Moto Social at Excelsior Coffee was in… Read more