Bite-Sized: Week of June 19, 2023
Sierra Nevada trip, MotoGP & renewable gas blends.
My story posts tend to go long because I think big and dig deep. I blame it on my ever-present curiosity and a need to share, going back to my long narrative magazine feature story days. With a promise to publish at least one MaD story each week – with an itch to do more – I’ve decided to include a new entry called Bite-Sized, a summation of what’s on my mind based on what I’m reading or researching. Inspiration comes from Marc Maron’s weekly email blast for his popular WTF podcast, where the comedian/actor shares plenty in his peeled-back life.
Here goes…
Sierra Nevada Trip
Jean and I finally committed to a European motorcycle tour, guided by a French outfit. We depart California on August 8, returning August 24. Pal Brian is joining us, and we’re stoked.
We’ll acclimate to the time and altitude changes with a few lazy days in Annecy after landing in Geneva August 9. I rode the L'Etape du Tour from Annecy in July 2013, so this is a sort of homecoming.
Starting in Aix-les-Bains on August 13, the 12-day, 11-night tour takes us into Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and back into Italy. We’re climbing and descending 11 major passes, including Gotthard, Stelvio, Grossglockner, the Dolomites, with a tour of the Strada della Forra around Lake Garda. We’ll tour the Moto Guzzi Museum on Lake Como before continuing west over the Little St. Bernard Pass back to Aix-les-Bains. Maybe George Clooney will be in the area staying at his swank digs on Lake Como?
To prepare for riding two-up on a BMW R 1250 GS in Europe, Jean and I are doing a two-day 460-mile tour of the nearby Sierra Nevada passes (Sonora - 9,624 ft, Monitor - 8,314 ft, Ebbetts - 8,736 ft, and Pacific Grade Summit - 8,050 ft) on our Moto Guzzi Quota 1100 ES this week. We have several objectives: gain experience riding longer distances over several major passes (6,000 footers-plus); minimalist packing; weather preparation; and enjoying the vistas together.
I’ve ridden this Sierra Nevada route several times with Brian since I rode an Indian Roadmaster Elite for Cycle World in June 2018. This will be Jean’s first time seeing the mighty peaks; I’ll share a ride report soon.
MotoGP
Father’s Day 2023 was fantastic. It began with a backroads two-up ride on the Quota with Jean to meet Samantha and Henri at Sue’s Gallery Cafe for coffee. Sam’s new puppy Tonka was getting acclimated to new sounds, smells and people. And after a robust Mexican dinner prepared by Henri and Lauren, we all sat down to watch the MotoGP Sachsenring race.
We’ve enjoyed MotoGP action since late 2014, and something that’s become evident this season is how predictable the racing has become. Despite a proper duel at the front toward the end, Michelin’s front tire spec, rapid qualifying to make pole position for Saturday’s new Sprint races, aerodynamic winglets and ride-height gizmos have contributed to a technological arms race that’s removing an unpredictable podium, something we enjoyed merely a year ago. Recent world champions and race winners are either off the back, crashing, or recovering at home.
This has also led to one of the greatest racers of all time – Marc Márquez – trying to bend the Honda RC213V to his will, with nasty results. The 8-time world champion crashed five times between Friday’s free practice and Sunday’s morning Warm Up session, pulling out of the main event with a fractured left thumb. Riding with determination, the 30-year-old Márquez was so desperate to make it into Q2 he lost the front and torpedoed Jean’s favorite rider Johann Zarco’s Pramac Ducati with three minutes left in FP2 on Friday.
The red mist of competition blinded Márquez from realizing his ability on a now subpar bike, something no one would ever have thought when he trounced everyone to the 2019 title (his sixth premiere class) with 12 victories. Am I a Márquez fan? Not really. I preferred Valentino Rossi when they were duking it out in 2015 and ‘16, and cheered on Andrea Dovizioso on his factory Ducati, who placed second in the championship behind Márquez in 2017, ‘18 and ‘19.
Renewable Gas Blends
Living in Silicon Valley has its pluses and minuses. Every day seems like a battle for financial survival, with rising costs of living in a fairly insulated world. Don’t get me wrong: we make ends meet with plenty of hard work, choices, restraint and an appreciation for the natural resources of the Mediterranean climate, Pacific Ocean and the surrounding Santa Cruz mountains we enjoy frequently. An underlying threat of major earthquakes with occasional high winds and forest fires is better than the annual guarantee of tornadoes, flooding, scorching heat and bone-numbing winter temperatures with black ice to navigate and snow to remove that we experienced in our 40 years living in Wisconsin and Ohio.
For years we’ve also been inundated by electric cars (Tesla has several offices and a huge factory here, with new kid on the block Lucid poaching talent to design luxury EVs in the East Bay) and cheap electric scooters getting underfoot everywhere we turn. Harley-Davidson has its LiveWire engineering office in nearby Mountain View, with Zero Motorcycles designing and building its electric motorcycles over the hill in Scotts Valley. There are several start-ups trying to cash in on the EV push, and the silence here is deafening.
While enjoying a short cruise in the Los Altos Hills on my ‘62 BMW R 60/2, I wondered if there’s been an effort by the major oil companies to circle the wagons and protect their future by exploring renewable gas blends to bring down emissions standards to rival those predicted by EV makers. Here’s what I found.
Back in late April 2023, Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp divulged they’re road testing renewable gasoline blends that they say could bring down emissions from conventional autos to levels competitive with EVs.
"We really believe there has to be alternatives for the light duty vehicle," Chevron President of Americas Products Andy Walz said in a Reuters report. "Electrification is not the only answer."
I’ve ridden and driven several EVs since 2015, and while the novelty of instant torque and a cleaner emissions promise was initially intriguing, electric vehicles alone don’t seem to be the solution, in my opinion. There should always be room for gas powered, if the gas-producing companies can use their massive profits to come up with a solution for us while continuing to enjoy massive profits in the future.
According to Exxon in that same Reuters article, bringing the cost of these renewable gasoline blends to affordable levels would depend on supportive government policies. Chevron added it could be years before the renewable fuel could be available in pumps.
"We believe it is going to need government help to get up and running, and get scale," Walz added, referring to existing incentives such as those provided for biodiesel and renewable diesel.”
The companies use different metrics to measure emissions. Exxon said its renewable gasoline could reduce emissions by as much as 75 percent compared to conventional gasoline on a life cycle basis. Chevron said its blend was more than 40 percent less carbon intensive than traditional gasoline, including the carbon intensity of manufacturing the vehicle.
“The most efficient way to bring scale to renewable gasoline would be through a carbon price, but not all jurisdictions are ready for it,” Chevron's Vice President of Strategy and Sustainability Balaji Krishnamurthy said.
Chevron and Exxon disclosed partnerships with automaker Toyota Motor Corp. using renewable gasoline partially made from soybeans or other non-fossil feedstocks. The blends could be used by the existing U.S. car fleet and gas stations, the oil companies said.
Several of my riding friends who are employed by EV manufacturers love owning and operating gas-powered bikes, cars and trucks. Several travel extensively, burning fossil fuels along the way. And with limited range still an EV reality, let’s hope the oil companies can work things out with the government to bring renewable gas blends to our pumps.
I’m all for choice, so wouldn’t it be cool to have electricity, hydrogen, renewable gas and possibly something else to power our people movers someday? I’m only asking for a friend.