Virtual Tour

Alright, for all of you Ohioans, here are a couple of videos that I so ingeniously shot by turning around in a circle. Sorry to those of you that are bummed out by the inclusion of videos on the blog, I know they take a minute to load and all... but I suppose maybe you ought to think about joining the rest of the technological world and getting some broadband!

Here's the view from the Seattle waterfront; looking across Peugeot Sound to Bainbridge Island and the rest of the Olympic Peninsula... and of course, the city behind me..
(((((correction.. since mine don't seem to be working,, here's something just for entertainment.. not me.. found on youtube))))



This is from a trip to Mt. Rainier a couple of weeks ago.. Shot from hwy 410. The mountain that I zoom into is not Mt. Rainier.. oddly enough it's not in this video at all.. (I'm not sure why this one isn't working.. if it doesn't fix itself in a day or so, I'll attempt to fix it...)







And Just for fun, this is one of my favorite videos from the transamerica trip.. in the middle of nowhere, and going absolutely nowhere... (I recommend waiting until the song is over or scrolling to the bottom to pause it before watching this one.. )


Tomorrow it's over the Sound to the Peninsula, so stay tuned...

Forest roads and a long A** day

Finally another ride report! I hooked up with this dude Jason from ADV this morning and we were off to find some forest roads.. I had picked out quite a few of them on the map to hit, and at the end of the day we actually rode about 10% of them! Nonetheless, the ones we hit were perfect.. a little mix of everything.. some gravel, some really loose gravel, some hard pack dirt, some bad a** rocky stuff, and some super sloppy, puddle-ridden mud.. and these puddles, well, they were more like mini lakes.

Seems like no matter where you are, you've got to do a little slabbin' to get anywhere.. necessary evil I guess.. and, if I'm gonna slab, these slabs are some of the prettiest I've ridden.


Shortly after getting onto the gravel, we had the first, um, well...

awww, it looks like he's taking a nap...

Except when he awoke, he had a nasty rash!



All in all, though, it worked out ok.. nobody hurt, no bikes over the cliff.. and we kept riding.

We decided to take this little jaunt up to the summit of a mountain just for fun, and as it turned out, it was a very cool road with quite the reward at the end..

Another from the summit..

Here's Jason coming out of the muddy section.. the puddles started out small, but got bigger and bigger.. when I came across the first massive one I stopped and commented "uh, this one looks deep".. honestly, with no experience riding through water, I was pretty freaked out by the situation, but I mustered up the courage and kept riding.. it turned out to be a sweet road and the puddles were lots of fun!

Once the afternoon rolled around, I was practically falling asleep, so a pitstop for coffee in this little Bavarian Village was mandatory.. you know, Bavarian bikes.. get it?

I didn't keep track of mileage, but we rode for about 10 hours..


Another ride planned for Sunday and maybe more dirt riding next week, so stay tuned for more reports!

Video madness

I finally figured out how to get videos on the blog.. duh, the solution was in front of me the whole time.. but anyway... more to come later, but check these out:

New Arrivals

Admittedly it's been quite a while since my last post, and I still can't say that I have all that much exciting, or even interesting news to report. I have all but abandoned the idea of landing any sort of 'regular' job in Seattle, and have subsequently established myself as an official 'business' again, in the hopes of making a go at the freelance world.

I am, however, pleased to announce the availability of two new feature publications via Motopsychosis! These two books are intended to exist as 'hard copies' of some of the more infamous events and philosophies that have transpired on Motopsychosis, and moreso than anything, they were produced for my own record of them. They are being offered here for sale as an opportunity fo the loyal viewers of Motopsychosis to own a little piece of it, and to potentially provide me with a little interim fund raising. I don't expect to sell many! (if any!).
For the most part, neither book contains any 'new' material, and you will not find that they will captivate your attention for very long; they are being featured here, but are certainly not feature length!

The first is a 3.5" x 2.625", 11 page, full color, soft cover mini book with excerpts of moto-philosophy:
"wk clickenger, On Motopsychosis, Volume 1"
This is a very small book.. about business card size.. It makes a good bathroom reader..
This one is $20.00


The second is the full size 8.5"x11" 37 page, full color, hard bound travel book from my most recent adventure:
"8,012" "45 days. 15 States. 8,012 miles. A Photo Journal."
Here you will find some full page photos, collage layouts & several pages of commentary in retrospect. It's a nice book, but not cheap!
This one is $100.00


If anyone is interested in either of these, just send your shipping information along with your payment via Paypal. My account is under kclickenger@c-jr.com.
Or, if you just have to do things the old fashioned way, send a check.


Otherwise, you're welcome to check out my personal copies, you just have to buy a plane ticket to do so!


In other news,, well, there really isn't any. I'm headed back to the dirt trails on Wednesday, so be sure to stop by next week for the ride report!

down came the rain

As Saturday morning came around, I was geared up and on my way north to Monroe, Wa to meet up with Brian from Adventure Rider for both our first dirt real riding experiences. The plan was to meet there, then continue up Hwy 2 over Stevens Pass, then take forest roads the rest of the way to Lake Wenatchee. Supposedly there's a big system of 150+ miles of forest roads around the lake. The first attmept stopped us about a mile into the forest road; apparently there had been some catastrophic even in the last few weeks that downed about half a dozen trees right across the road. Assessment: impassable. So we tried a couple more roads that were thought to take us to the lake, and never really got there. There was plenty of dirt riding to be done, though. Both of us progressed markedly by the end of the day; going from a timid 20mph, to a little over 40mph with much more confidence. In fact, we both commented that perhaps by the end of the day we were bordering on cocky.
The reward for the day was here, at the somewhat-summit of one of the forest roads-

The Strom performed very very well if you ask me.. at the level of my riding skills, Brian and his Strom were right there with the GS.

I would imagine, though, that there aren't a whole lot of bikes that feel as confident and capable as the GS in this stuff. At one point we both splashed through what seemed to be a regular old mud-puddle, but turned out to be much deeper and difficult than expected; almost throwing Brian off the bike. The GS got a little squirrelly when I got in there and hit the ruts, but remembering the words of the germans: (spoken in a german accent) "Use the power of the motorcycle!"- I got back on the throttle instead of the brakes, and the beast just powered right out of there.. In that case I was pretty much just along for the ride on the GS.. My goal is to learn enough and develop my skills so as to feel like I'm riding it, not being taken for a ride.


No action shots this time, but I'm planning on doing some more shooting when it's not raining, and when there are a few more riders to shoot.

The let-down of the day was returning home at the end of the day with a clean bike.. It rained pretty much consistently all day long, and with 100 mile pavement ride back home in the rain, the dirt had all but washed away. Oh well, there's always next time! I had to remind myself all day that if I'm going to live in the Pacific Northwest and ride a motorcycle, I'd better get used to being a little wet...and in the end, it just wasn't all that bad.. you get to a point that you can't get much wetter, and resign yourself to having fun regardless!

8 thousand

I got to thinking today that, in retrospect, it would've been nice if I had started a completely new blog just for this past trip. A blog that serves only that purpose, and at the end of the trip, just lays dormant; a complete and dedicated documentary record of the event and leaves Motopsychosis to serve it's original and intended purpose. So that's exactly what I've done. Motopsychosis can now return and continue to function as a philosophical moto-journal, and since I didn't have the forsight to put that thought together ahead of time, I've just painstakingly copied all of the blog posts from the initial map to the final map to a new location. It's called 8thousand. All of the posts will continue to reside on Motopsychosis as well, this will just create an easier avenue for those who feel like going right to the good stuff..

Just for fun..

I spent the majority of the day on a quest for some new (riding) overpants, and rode all over the damn place trying to find some.. finally success in the joe rocket ballistic 5's.. easy on, easy off, and waterproof.. that was the goal.
Have an interview tomorrow morning, but I wont reveal what the job is until/unless I get/take it..

In the meantime, and since I don't have a whole lot to say, here are a couple of entertaining photos, and if you're looking for more of this stuff and have 1/2 hour to waste, check out the slide show on the homepage of Adventure Rider!


I least now I know what that scraping sound was....

This is a much nicer version of a photo I took at Mid Ohio last year.. nice pan!

the record..

For the record, no, that's not actually me all leaned over on the GS.. But, the only reason that's not me in the photo is that I haven't had the opportunity to have someone shooting from the sidelines! Let's just say that there are no chicken strips on my Tourance's.

In other news, as I continue to contemplate my next move, it looks like I may spend some time selling bikes at a local motorsports dealer.. something I'm pretty excited about.. we'll see how it goes, and I'm sure I'll update on the progress..

all for now,

The repetition

What I've found most interesting in recent days is how similar things feel even when they are completely different; and how, regardless of how many things have changed, that I either attract the same situations, or that they continue to present themselves to me.


Here's the view from my front door.. The Olympic Mountains



And here's a glimpse of the city from Alki Beach



And perhaps most importantly, here's proof that the GS Adventure can hang with you sport bike freak shows..

Yeah.. that's right.