Priceless

My daily commute is on Alamden Expwy, 101, 87 and Lawrence Expressway. Once in a while I use Central Expressway and San Tomas Expwy (it also turns into Camden and Hillsdale). You will be hearing these names a lot here.

The title says it all. I did not ride to work today. I was too lazy to put on all the gear and ride. So, I decided to drive. I was on Almaden Expwy about 1/4 mile from the 87 on ramp. I need to turn left to get onto 87. During the normal commute hours, it is very common to have a lot of cars waiting to get onto 87. It wasn't any different this morning except that I was in the front of the pack. It is also common to see a lot of dickwads who just cut infront of cars waiting to turn left.

As I was approaching the signal, i noticed something bright in my rear view mirror. It was a bright yellow Honda S2000 zooming past all the cars . I knew this was just another dickwad. I decided to not let him cut in front of me and i was successful in doing so. He got behind me. As we get to the signal, the left turn lane splits into 2 left turn lanes. He moved into the lane next to me to turn onto 87. I can see that he was mad and once the signal turned green, he floored the gas turning left. Thats when he lost traction and fish tailed almost hitting the on ramp guardrail.

He panicked and hit his brakes and somehow managed not to hit anything but swerved into my lane. I have already stopped and he was lucky that I wasn't stupid like him to floor the gas. If I had done the same thing i would have ran over his ass with my jeep. He stopped there shaking and shivering. I rolled my window down and drove past him pointing my hand towards laughing out loud so that he could hear me. The look on his face was priceless.

Another Friday Morning Commute

I was already late for a 10:00 AM meeting. It would normally take me 18 minutes to drive vs. 20 minutes to ride (i need 5 minutes to put on the gear and warm up the engine) after the rush hour traffic. I decided to ride as I didn't want to get stuck in the Friday evening traffic and it is a beautiful day (pleasant, sunny 65-70F) to ride.

I jumped on my SV650 and got on the road. No hiccups on Almaden Expressway and as I was merging onto 87 I saw a white corolla in #2 lane. I have a programmed a "Stupid Driver Alarm" into my brain. As soon as I saw the white corolla, the "Stupid Driver Alarm" was ringing ant it never stopped. I knew I had to be careful around that car and I planned the escape route of all the scenarios possible. As I was passing the car, I noticed that the car was drifting into my lane. She changed lanes into me without even using her turn signals. Since I have already planned my escape route, I moved on to the shoulder and accelerated past her. That's when she saw me and she was shocked. I went past her shaking my head.

It was only because of my accident 5 years ago that I was able to plan ahead and look for an escape route and didn't go down.

Riding Blog

I am going to convert this into my daily riding blog.

I have been driving this whole week and today finally decided to ride to work to beat the traffic. It was a little more exciting than my regular ride.

I was riding in my lane on Almaden Expwy and she just flew by me in her white E320. I caught up with her at the next stop light. I lane split my way to the front while she was stuck behind 3 cars. I was going my regular chill pace and was watching my mirrors, and suddenly i see the E320 behind me in the next lane. She managed to dodge the 2 or 3 cars in front of her again going very fast and then decides to cut me off as soon as she passed me. There is no reason for her to do that as the road in front of us was completely empty. I kinda expected her to make a bone head move and once she cut me off, i just smiled. I caught up with her at the light to 87 on ramp. I used the carpool lane to merge into the traffic while she was stuck behind the cars in the regular lanes. I had a smooth ride onto the highway while she disappeared in the mirrors behind the cars she was trying to dodge. There was a smirk on my face again.

Ride on 87 was smooth except for the slowest cars in the #1 and #2 lanes (from left) while i used to #3 lane to go past all of them and merge onto 101. I was surprised that i didn't have to slow down even a little bit to merge on to 101. I decided to go right at the speed limit and I chose to do it in the right most lane with a few cars in front of me. I usually use the #1 lane and stick to the left part of the lane which gives me time to react to any asshat moves pulled by other drivers. So, was in the right most lane doing 60-65mph, following the cars in front of me at a safe distance, and I see a pair of head lights closing in on me. I keep my eyes on the head lights and see that they are getting dangerously closer. I tap my brakes and no use. He follows me for almost a mile during which I decided to increase the distance between me and the car in the front for an escape route. I wasn't sure if this agitated the driver or if the driver was completely clueless as the car was only a few feet behind me. If s/he really wanted to go fast why is s/he in the slowest lane tailgating???? it didn't make any sense. I was a little annoyed and the turned back and looked at him for a split second to make sure s/he gets the message that was dangerously close to me. That did the trick and the driver backed off. S/He took the same exit and again I split to the front of the pack while he/she was stuck behind the cars.

As I split to the front, I saw a yellow corvette at the front. One of my colleagues/friends has the same car and I looked at the driver to see if it was my friend. I couldn't see his face properly so, I had to lean a little bit more to find a middle aged white guy ( my friend is young and asian). The driver saw me the extra effort from me to look at him and I didn't realize that he got the wrong message. He was slowly creeping to the front with the intent of racing me. Once the light turned green, he roared past me just to stop at the next signal which was barely 100 yards away. I was again smiling. Both of us were the first ones in our lanes and again as the signal turned green he roared away just to see me turn right at the next signal which was only another 150 yards away. I just laughed really loud again. It made my day.

A hot young asian chick and a middle aged white guy wanted to race me today. Too bad, I am already past that period where you can't instigate me when I am on my motorcycle. If I really wanted to race you, I wouldn't have sold my R1 and riding my SV650. Even if I did race you, I would have still smoked your ass on the SV650.