Hey guys, Lance Armstrong will be tearing up in the mountains this weekend. I think I may just make plans to stand on the side of the road and cheer him on. This will be his last race here and I've never seen him run. Anyone interested?

 

Ooh, neat. Is there a website with details on this race? I'd like to watch. May be near-impossible for me because I'm leaving for LA on Thursday and still haven't packed, but if I can get out there, I'd sure like to.

Don, you breaking in your 8 well?

 

markd, I'm approaching 3,000 miles now and concluded the 4K RPM at 1000 miles. Charlie at Mazcare, convinced me that at 1K miles you need to start expanding the full range of RPMs making sure to keep the throttle moving. So, yea, she's broke in and I'm loving it. Now I'm trying to see how much gas I can save by skipping gears and staying below 3500RPM. For some reason I can't seem to achieve the 19.5 mpg I got on the first tank.

I haven’t looked into the schedule or route of the Tour de Georgia but I will later today. This is an opportunity to see one of the true overachievers in sports in action. I want to get a picture of him climbing the steepest point of the race with the first group behind him and also holding his hands up at the finish line.

 

markd, The Tour de Georgia is on a 1 week delay on OLN
May 1: Dodge Tour de Georgia, 5-7pm ET

http://olntv.com/htmlpage.asp?htmlid=24
http://www.tourdegeorgia.com/2005/index.asp

 

So did you go shoot the climb or any of the Bike Race? It ends in Alpharetta, I think.

Have you heard if anyone is driving tomorrow?

I'm going to try to see Nabil and his new toy!

 

Nope! I stayed my butt home. I had several things to take care of, including weeding out the images from the Grand Prix of Atlanta. 800 images are WAY to many to choose from, crop and apply copyrights to. I just finished and will be uploading later this evening.

Don't know if anyone is cruising the hills tomorrow.

I followed your lead and spoke to Charlie. He ordered screens and I told him I wanted him to install them when they come in. Don't want to go the Nabil route.

 

Hey guys, I finally finished the Grand Prix of Atlanta pics and uploaded the site (254 images).

First link at:
http://www.silvereightstudio.com

 

SilverEight, I don't think you missed much this morning in the mountains. I was up north of Dawsonville to play golf, and it snowed. Yes, snowed in April. The roads were wet, and it was cold.

 

OMG! Yea, I don't think I missed anything.

 

Hey, guys--I'm off to California for at least a month (mostly for pleasure but really to go on a journey of self-discovery), flying out in just a few hours, so don't forget me while I'm gone and I'll check back periodically! Keep it strong, Ga 8'ers!

 

Today I treated myself to a mountain tour up 129 and Richard B Russell Scenic Hwy, turned around and came back the same way. Had a few hours to kill and thought it would be perfect... and it was. My car has never beeped so much. I actually got pretty good at the heel/toe thing. Well, at least I did successfully do it properly several times. Its seems more natural when your going down a mountain and into a sharp turn than when you are farting around on the flatlands. I pushed my silver bullet to the point the DSC kicked in a lot of times. I would really like to learn how to drive with it off but I'm not touching >THAT< button!

I had my video camera set up and thought I had pushed the record button when I approached a Cobra (probably a kit) but I found out later it was not turned on, just damn! I had what I thought was some great footage of me chasing the Cobra up the mountain. It was awesome. I'm sure he could have left me if he wanted but he didn't for some reason. He was scared of the turns and I was eating him up on the twisties. When we would come to a straight... well we all know that story. But I always caught up and when we were heavy in the turns he was constantly trying to get me off his ***. I pushed him up the mountain. Oh my, that was fun. He kept looking in his rear view mirror to see where I was and I filled it with silver.

I did successfully get some other video but it's not up to par with Nabil so I'll just wait till some other time for better footage.

 

Post it anyway, I am sure we will all watch it, a bunch of junkies we are. It would be nice to see how someone else drives up there. The Russell Highway is a lot of fun.

 

I have not started the 8 since Nabil's pictures. I'm working way too hard.

Anybody want to drive this weekend?

 

I'm out for this weekend. Got to spend some time with my two sons who are coming home from college and Sunday is Mother's day. I'm looking forward to eventually getting together with you guys up in the hills. Seems like we all pick different weekends. I should be posting one run from my Sunday trip tomorrow.

 

Yes, I was planning on going to the mountians on Saturday morning, thought I would see if anyone else is up for it. I was going to go early, maybe be at the Burger King of Mickey D's around 9 or 9:30.

 

OK, here is my Sunday cruse in a huge 9 1/2 min. wmv file. It's gonna be slow to download, 105MB. I really need to make it smaller! Don't bother unless you have high speed access.

RBR Scenic Hwy

 

I thought about doing that too, but it woudl end up taking too much of the day, I would not want to leave. I would rather go drive the mountian roads, than watch someone else drive this weekend.

Quick question to you guys with helmets, mine came in today, and while I know it is supposed to be snug, I think mine is too tight. It puts a lot of pressure on my lower jaw, and the crown of my head. How tight should it be?

 

^^that would be cool, I just want to go tomorrow. Let me know what you think you will do sometime today.

 

OK, hope you guys had a great time in the mountains today. I stayed home to enjoy being with my son and we painted my calipers. :p

 

We had a blast. A couple of pics are over int he GA club thread. Check the last page. It was a lot of fun. We are going to try to plan another one and get a few more people on the trip.

Your calipers look good, how hard is it to do that?

 

I spent about 6 hours working on them. I insisted on doing it right. I originally purchased caliper spray paint but after masking off one corner of my car I decided it wasn't worth the trouble. So I went back to the parts place and purchased the brush on type. I took the calipers off but did not disconnect the hoses, cleaned with break cleaner (spray) and painted each with 3 coats of paint, installed, and painted with one more coat before putting the wheel back on. One rotor was really rusty so I use a wire brush on my drill and cleaned it up, masked it off and sprayed with break caliper silver paint. It really looked good (see the detailed shot above). I may wind up doing that to the other three wheels later. Right now they are OK. I took my time and made sure I was very patient. Masked off all of the hoses, brass, and bolt heads to make sure it looked professional.

 

Wish I could but my turn at the girlfriend's place for the weekend in Rome. Where exactly do you guys go on this drive? My parents have a lake house in Blairsville so I have driven the Blood Mountain run many times, although not in my 8 yet.

 

How about a Sunday trip up to the mountains? Nabil, Val, Chris... anyone?

Splan8 and I would like to get a few of us together. All interested, please report to the principals office after school!

 

Sure, if my car is clean... lemme check... yup, ok by me.:D

 

OK, for Sunday mountain trip:

- Splan8
- Nabil
- valpac
- SilverEIGHT