last night I encountered the first snatch with my upcoming road trip.

I was not able to pack all my stuff on the bike and don't even have enough space to take the camera with me with more than a single lens. This is just unfair.

The I ordered two bungee nets to see If i can use them to tie down my tent/sleeping pad/sleeping bag on top of the tail-bag. It's somehow the only chance to move it.

On the bright side my seat upgrade arrived and after getting used to it, it works quite well. It insulates me a bit more from the engine heat and dampens quite nice, while even raising me about half an inch - an inch. (1.3 - 2.6 cm) higher. Which relaxes the riding position a bit and decreases my knee angle. Actually while writing this I notice that my legs are not totally cramped up right now, which is normally the case.

The disappointing part is that it removes a bit of feedbag from the bike and you feel like you 'float' on the bike. I know it's the purpose of the pad, just strange. After 200 miles I was still being happy on the bike and was able to take the curves a bit more aggressively, to see how it behaves there. And it works quite well. I do need to push the bike a bit more to counter the floating on the pad to the right or the left, but overall I easily double the distance I can ride and will see how much I can push the bike tomorrow. I really need to get some pants next. At 80F+ my current pants just cling to me and are incredible uncomfortable. I hope to get this fixed at the first of the may weekend, once I got money again, now if I just could raise the handle bars an inch and move the controls an inch back I would be in heaven. But I think they call this a yamaha FJR and it would make more sense to trade the bike instead of investing money in it.

I also managed to submit my abstract for the conference in amsterdam and paid for the registration. Short I will be there soonish, but now my credit card is maxed out with the tire purchase, hotel costs and registration fee for 2 conferences, well I should be reimbursed in june-july.

One another note, I'm riding the R6 now since 5000 miles + without any major technical issues. I even managed yesterday to replace the brake fluid, which only took an hour for all 3 brakes, after my practice run on the Rebel. (This did take about 3 hours for one brake and spilled fluid all over the floor)

Last, but not least. I managed to sign the lease for a townhouse in north davis for the next year. It's a bit early, but I hope all works out with the visa. In the worst case I have to sublease it to someone.