Author: Silver

Barcamp Yerevan

Barcamp Yerevan is kicking off tomorrow, 18 April.

If you’re a geek and blogging, you should definitely drop by to meet at least two amazing, extraordinary and just plain cool (did I forget to mention humble?) people – Jaguar over at Starlight Galaxy and your humble servant.

Most importantly, Jaguar is throwing off a mega presentation at 12:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, and I do know it’s gonna be nothing anyone expects (oh yeah, and missing it is lame).

So, be sure to register and see you at Barcamp.

Riders on the Storm

Err, rain!

Yerevan has been flooded with rain this whole week, and even as I’m typing this there are gloomy clouds  up above.

But here’s the cool thing:

I love riding in the rain!

Last two days I have experienced the most pleasant ride on my current motorbike ever (yes, it’s been whole two weeks now I think), partially because it no longer feels like ‘who’s motorcycle is this?‘ (it’s mine, baby, and I’m everything but dead!) but mostly because riding in the rain feels so damn good!

The imposed carefulness and smoothness of the ride, the imposed extra attention, the feeling of survival, the mystery of the water-filled potholes, the raindrops vortex on the helmet visor, the smell of the rain on the coat and the gloves afterwards is just so addictive — you keep wanting to ride more and more and more.

What, the bike washing thing? Meh, screw it!

Snow

We haven’t made it.

After a whole night’s preparation and a lot of excitement, the morning was grave: 1° C, frost-covered trees, freezing wind and, well, the promised precipitation.. snow!

The trip is postponed till the next weekend: although there is the damn 60% precipitation chance on both upcoming Saturday and Sunday, the expected temperature is much higher, which allows one to expect a safer type of stuff that falls from the sky (for those of us on two wheels): rain.

On the other hand, it might even be that I change my trip to a fully-blown ride with an overnight stay. Let’s see how the things roll.

The Perfect Vehicle

Traditionally, an excerpt from the book The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles:

…Riding on a motorcycle can make you feel joyous, powerful, peaceful, frightened, vulnerable, and back out to happy again, perhaps in the same ten miles. It is life compressed, its own answer to the question “Why?”
Why? they ask, those who don’t ride. Those tho do ride are incapable of understanding the question. Riding feels good, they say – it feels damn good. But I think there is more, just as there is always more underneath the obvious, and a little more underneath that. The great layered mysteries of human motivation are oddly both variegated and amazingly uniform. And they are revealed in the many reasons, as well as the one simple one, why people ride.
Motorcycles are what they feel like (profoundly sensual – vroom, vroom – and perhaps a bit primordial) and also what they look like (fearsome with a strange deep beauty). Look at that engine, out for anyone to see, and those two simple wheels: what else announces its intent so brazenly?…
What bikes feel like is an extension of the self – a better you, a perfectible, fixable you, an ominously powerful you.

First Wash, First Rain

Took the bike to a wash this morning, as the day was bright and the bike was dirty. The guy did a professional job and asked for 1000 drams. I paid double. He promised to do a spectacular job next time.

Made a new purchase:

Powerpuff Girls Helmet

Just as I was sitting at the office and crawling about credit card processing problems, the rain rushed in — I do believe there’s an Armenian Murphy’s law about a relation between washing vehicles and precipitation! On the positive side, enjoyed some nice rain ride and figured that I miss tripping in the wild.

On Saturday I’m planning to hit Geghard as the first trip on this bike.

Trip: Yerevan - Garni - Goght

Let’s see how that goes.

And yeah, guess I’ll need to wash the bike again.