Morning Commute to Naechon Middle School

I teach at 3 locations and 4 different schools. Naechon Middle school is located in Naechon county and is about 20-30 minutes from my house in downtown HongCheon. The first leg of the journey is a lot of highway riding, which is excruciating on a bus, but is not so bad on a bike. Morning commuters are a lot more friendly on the road than weekend travelers so it's a bit more of a breeze to negotiate my way through traffic on the way to school. I'm planning on putting together a compilation of highway riding as most of it is fairly boring to just watch.

This particular school is in the middle among all of my schools as far as distance from my apartment. I'm going to have more and more trouble filming as it is currently the typhoon season in Korea and although I don't mind riding in the rain, my fragile point and shoot digital camera does. The furthest school I teach at is about five minutes down the road, but as the rain is becoming more and more unpredictable, I decided to film this as the morning sky looked clear that day.

This particular road goes through a lot of farm land and there is also some construction going on further down the road. What does this all mean? Random piles of dirt and mud washed all around if it happens to rain or the construction workers wash down the dirt. Even though there are a few hazards, I find my commutes to and from this school thoroughly enjoyable. Cutting down on the pace doesn't particularly seem to mean cutting down on the fun factor. I have had a few mishaps on this road. One time I had a dump truck taking up a lane and a half just around a blind corner and ended up locking up my rear tire while still leaned over. Luckily, I was riding cautiously and I simply glided my way over to the shoulder. If you look at the video, you'll notice that there are yellow and white striped bars on the road at certain places. Some of them are speed bumps and others aren't. Last year I got extremely lucky on my 250 when my tail kicked out from under me and I should have in all rights highsided, but instead I just ended up having one of the most ass-puckering moments of my life.

The scenery really is beautiful along this route. If you are heading away from HongCheon towards Sokcho, you get off after you pass through a tunnel and come to your next light with a police station to your right.

There are quite a few blind corners where they have convex mirrors set up so I can still have a bit of fun without worry of running into a stopped or slow moving vehicle. Although I don't hit this commute hard enough to get the normal adrenaline rush of riding through twisties, it still works to get me to school with a smile on my face and to bleed off stress on my way home. On a side note, I wouldn't suggest you pay too much attention to the scenery around you if you commute to a rural school on a motorcycle. I'm just making note that the scenery is there. Farming vehicles and cars seem to appear randomly at times and because many people have the mentality that no one travels the road due to its rural location, you'll have people parked on the road for no reason. Also, do not take the random dirt piles lightly. There have often been times when I have had to travel for a good 100 meters or so over a layer of dirt. I was on another country road once and there was a pile of dirt in the middle of the road right as I passed the "point of no return" in a blind left hand turn. My front wheel completely cocked to one side, my bike pushed forward and slid out to the median about a foot before I regained control. I don't want to detract you from riding country roads here in Korea as there are many opportunities for you to explore, but just be cautious. I've taken the habit of scouting a course once before I decide to have some fun on the road and it might be a good idea for you if you're spending the day on a set of twisties. If you count the oncoming cars and pay attention to the road surface, you'll be able to manage your pace so it remains at a safe level.

HongCheon to HoengSeong

I recently went on a tour with ChunCheon SpeedBike. CCSB is a club of riders who are all really cool people and even better riders. I've been riding with them for most of this season and it's been a blast.

Most of our tours involve going to eat lunch at some random place. A couple of weeks ago, we decided to go to HoengSeong to eat some HoengSeong Beef Soup. Now, if you don't know about Korean beef or don't live around Gangwon-do, you might not know about HoengSeong Beef. I don't like to say I am a connoisseur of beef, but I do eat a lot of it and let me tell you this,

HoengSeong beef is some of the best beef I have

ever ever ever had. The cows are never given

any steroids and are free-range as far as I know.

I've been to the HoengSeong cow farms and it looks like they are given great treatment... besides the fact that they are eventually cut up to be served as food. Anyways, I was excited and decided to bring my camera along.

The food we had can be seen in the picture to the right. You get a stone pot of beef stew and then another stone bowl on the side with rice. You take most of the rice and put it into your soup bowl and then pour some water into your rice bowl and put the wooden lid on it. While you eat your soup, the water and rice cook and you get something called 누룽지, which is basically burned rice porridge. I'd suggest you don't knock it until you try it because it is delicious.

The ride wasn't that long, it was probably about 20 minutes from HongCheon. CCSB started in ChunCheon of course, but I woke up late and decided to meet them by the bus terminal by my house. It wasn't the usual ride leader and we had a couple new faces in the group so the riding was a bit disorganized, but we all got there and back safe so I'd count it as a successful tour. It was an extremely hot day so most of us opted for vented gear. Although I don't own an exo-skeleton type jacket, I bet it was great in the heat. All in all, it was a fun ride and the food was great. Here's a short edited video of our highway ride. Enjoy.

ChunCheon SpeedBike

ChunCheon SpeedBike is the riding crew that I ride with regularly. Now, I know the store front says, "Win Bike". This is the shop where ChunCheon SpeedBike meets up and the owner of this shop is the leader of the crew (재명). I had originally come here way back when I had my Hyosung 250. Although it didn't really require full synthetic engine oil or NGK spark plugs, most other shops looked at me funny when I asked them about it. Win Bike is the only shop I've been to where the guy working on my bike has done what I asked and always pointed me in the right direction when I had questions. You would expect that if I wanted something extra that the shop owner would try and squeeze as much money out of me, but this guy's always pointed out cheaper options or better alternatives. If you want to find his shop, if you are going down route 5 with the Ganwon Education University (강원교육대학교) on your left, make a right at the next intersection and go up for a bit and it's a couple stores before the 애막골 post office. Don't worry, he actually speaks some English and knows almost everything you need to know as far as motorcycle needs in English.

The owner of this shop has owned several bikes including: several Honda CBR900RRs, Honda

RC51 SP2, Suzuki Hayabusa, and many more I can't recall. Every time I ride with him I've been wowed in one way or the other by his riding talent. He's currently riding a Honda CBR900RR which he rebuilt himself. You can see him to the

right messing with the suspension settings.

Most of the guys in the crew ride liter bikes. Back when I was riding my Comet 250, I didn't really have the power t0 keep up with them on rides. When I purchased my R1 and brought it in, 재명형 asked me if I wanted to ride out. Ever since then it's just been good times and great memories. Often after work I'll just ride over to ChunCheon to hang out at the shop, even if there are no particular plans and there are always a few guys in the crew hanging out to shoot the shit or plan night time rides. To the right you can see what it looks like inside the shop. Many crew members keep their bikes at the shop for storage as people don't generally have private garages in Korea. Right now it's a bit barren as this was right after a ride and many of the bikes are still parked outside. As you can see, he does work on everything from scooters and 4x4s to big bikes. It's fun to visit the shop just to see all the two-wheeled eye candy laying around the shop. Here are some pictures from a recent dash n' dine. No video, but this weekend we rented a pension somewhere north of GangChon and the next day we rode around ChunCheon. We took a trip up to Soyang Dam and then went into downtown ChunCheon for dinner.

Farewell Post: Tour to Sokcho

Well, where have these last two years gone to? I guess that's a really cliche way to start this final post. In a short term perspective, this is going to be my final blog. I am leaving for America on August 31st, which is only a couple short weeks away. I could technically continue blogging here since this blog is also about my personal development as a rider. Well, I guess I'd rather make this a short and concise chronicle about my time riding here in Korea and end it on one of the best of notes. Who really knows where my life will lead from here? For now, these will remain as some of my most treasured memories.

This past weekend, I had the privilege to take a two day trip with ChunCheon Speed Bike.

The destination was Sokcho, which wouldn't have been much of a ride except we took a route through some

of the most wayward mountain routes I've come across. The plan was to ride to Sokcho, eat lunch on the way at a rest stop and then proceed to the beach where we would do beach stuff then return to a cot that we had rented for some Korean style BBQ and soju. To the right was a picture of the first rest stop we made. I tried to be a photo ninja, but ended up being too pronounced in the photo.

The ride was somewhat stressful as we were trying to keep a moderate pace so that no one fell too far back. If you've ridden a sport bike, you know that it's about ten times more exhausting to ride slowly as opposed to a bit spirited. Well, once noon hit we decided to take a rest under an overpass to enjoy lunch when the sky decided to open up. In the photo on the left you can see that I decided to use my fuel tank as an improvised table. Don't worry, my riding jacket made sure there was no food spillage. Anyways, after we had finished lunch, the rain had still not let up. And this wasn't a light sprinkling where all we had to worry about was having to wash our bikes again, but this was a torrential downpour that left all of us soaked to our underwear. The rain was actually so bad that even cars stopped under the underpass in hopes that the rain would stop. What did we do? Well, what else was there to do but ride for an hour in formation through the twisties while getting drenched to the skivvies? After an hour of riding through this, we broke clear of the storm and hit the coast.

As you can see in the picture to the right, we wore uniform shirts that we had printed up just in time for the tour. They weren't made specifically for the tour, but are more like a "team shirt". Although we did some swimming, most of our time on the beach was spent sneaking up on each other and throwing each other into the water.

We grilled and drank into the night.

Our fearless leader had a pickup

truck type deal where we loaded everything including luggage and iceboxes of deliciousness for the trip. After we eventually unloaded everything, we used the half-barrel grill and tons of charcoal to got down to business. The menu included Korean bacon, Dak Galbi, and loads of soju and beer.

It wasn't my original intention to meet new people through riding, but in the end I'm glad I did. Living in another country for any period of time can be a difficult adjustment and this last year did a number on me as far as exercising my patience. Being able to meet up with this crew of awesome people and awesome riders helped me weather more than a fair share of storms. I'll be looking forward to the day that I can come back to Korea again and ride out with ChunCheon Speed Bike. Thank you.