Dan Crouch Blog » Honda

Happy New Year: 1 Owner 89 CRX Si with 52k Miles!

Dan — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:43:34 +0000

Just spotted via the VWVortex forums, here's a car I'd love to snag: An unmolested, one owner, 52k mile CRX in yellow. Paul and I had a friend in college that had a low mileage car EXACTLY like this one and it was a blast to drive. Spirited acceleration, go cart handling, and great Honda ergos on the inside.

1989 Honda CRX Si on eBay

$11k sounds high to me but they're accepting bids. Considering super clean MKII GTi's can fetch 7-9k these days when they surface, I'd put this in a similar category value wise. I'll be watching to see if it sells for sure!

P.S. New Years Resolution: Post more on this blog! I'm going to be less winded and hopefully more frequent as a result. For anyone still subscribing, thank you for hanging on and I hope to make this a cool place to hang out again this year. Feel free to friend me over at Facebook too if you like, just shoot me a note with the invite so I know who you are -dc

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Corvallis Bike Night Snaps

Dan — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 21:02:39 +0000

Stopped by American Dream Pizza for the monthly Corvallis Bike Night. This is a nice casual gathering and when the weather is nice there is a good showing and variety to be enjoyed. I haven't made it out to one of these since I bought the Ducati -- seems like there is always something going on the same night! I didn't ride down because I wanted to have a couple beers on the rooftop seating area, but here are some quick pics of bikes that I saw. The red, white and blue F2 was my favorite, though I always love seeing Bob's K100 too.

Late Night Photoshop: 1953 MG TD I was fooling around with Photoshop tonight with an MG...

A Quick Trip to Cape Meares on the Ducati and VFR

Dan — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:08:31 +0000

I had tried earlier this year to sell my Ducati 750SS, but admittedly it's a slow market and I was asking a premium. Fast-forward to June and the weather has finally turned to summer. Time to take the bike off the market and ride! Paul suggested the following route for this Sunday:

View Larger Map

As you can tell, it's a good day trip. But especially long if it's your second ride of the year! My body is tired after this trip, but so worth it. Here are the pics (click for hi-res):

Yep, this is what the Oregon Coast looks like when it's 70 degrees and sunny outside!

The beautiful Oregon coast

Cape Meares Lighthouse

Cape Meares Ducati 750 and VFR 750

Thanks for the great ride Paul!

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Our Visit to the 2010 Portland Auto Show

Dan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:45:21 +0000

Nearly two weeks ago now, Shana and I made a day of the Portland Auto Show. We used to go every year to fantasize about new cars, but have missed the event in recent years. It's fun to check out everything up close and personal without the hassle of a salesman crawling down you neck.

We started our day by hitting up the S2ki Forum Hillsboro Honda meetup for S2000 owners. I only got a couple of quick pictures but it was fun to finally meet some forum members I had met online numerous times but never connected with in person. Great job getting 30 cars to come out in the middle of winter Ira! Check out all the pictures on S2ki.

We were fairly rushed at the meet because we had an appointment after that to check out a used Infinity QX4 for the missus. Looked promising in the pictures, but was a little too rough for us. We're actually having a pretty tough time finding a suitable car for Shana because we're so used to enthusiast vehicle shopping, which usually results in clean and documented cars to shop for. We were thinking of going with a more dependable Japanese variant, but they're just not cared for like the European rides we're used to looking at. Now we're thinking of going back to European shopping in the form of a Land Rover Discovery. We're back in Portland this weekend, so we'll probably stop and look a few then.

Then it was on to check into our downtown Portland hotel, Hotel Lucia. What a beautiful place and fantastic service! Not to mention it was in the center of everything we had planned and easy Max trip to the Convention Center for the show. Can't wait to stay there again!

After freshening up, it was on to the Portland Auto Show. Tickets were reasonably priced at $10 and at the ticket window we were reminded that many major manufacturers were not there due to cutbacks and slow sales. This was a bummer as BMW, Saab, Mercedes, and many others were definitely cars we were looking forward to jumping into.

{warning: really crappy images ahead. I've been too busy to post-process these but wanted to put up what I had.}

Ron Tonkin brought out a few new cars and a couple older ones from his collection. These were all front and center outside the main conference areas:

MotoCorsa was also in attendance with the latest Lotus and Ducati offerings. The black Sport 1000 was exactly like the demo bike I rode a couple years back.

Then it was on to the Audi and Porsche areas. I have to admit, I wanted to check out the Panamera because it looks so bad in pictures. It didn't disappoint, it's ugly and HUGE! First the blasphemy that is the Cayenne and now this abomination. So sad that a more true to spirit business model couldn't have been used to get them into the 21st century.

The local SCCA chapter also had a nice area set up. There were several car corral areas that usually aren't present, likely due to so many manufacturers pulling out this year.

And here are few more random snaps. You'll notice how crowded Saturday afternoon was. I think every Dad in town got babysitting duty as there were lots of kids running around. Reminds me that we prefer going on Thursday mid-day when it's super quiet!

After the show we met up with our good friends Danno, his wife Angie, and our close friend Julie who also happened to be in Portland that day. We had a fantastic dinner at Mother's Bistro just a few blocks from the hotel. What a meal! Plan on leftovers no matter how big your appetite is!

And by chance, another friend of ours was in town for a whirlwind 48 hour tour, my close friend Ed. He lives in Atlanta now, but amazingly we've managed to meet up several times in the past few years. We met for a nightcap at Pazzo and then stumbled upstairs to crash after a very long day.

We're heading back up to Portland for a wedding at Edgefield this weekend. That makes about 4 trips up there in 5 weeks. Maybe we should get a condo!

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Honda RS125 Onboard Video

Dan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:59:50 +0000

As stated in the previous post, I'm totally jealous of the recent acquisition Alex made with his Honda RS125 track bike. Here's an excellent illustration of why the lightweight 2 stroke can make bikes with 3-4x the displacement look like amateur hour:

The super fast change in direction and razor sharp lines in this video make me an absolute believer in the bike Alex got, even if it's not quite the same model. But I'm eager to learn more about these and will report back when I know more.

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Photoshop Fun with a Honda RS125

Dan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:04:19 +0000

My buddy Alex who is a contributing author on Rare Sport Bikes For Sale is about to pick a Honda RS125 for track days. What a great early Christmas present to yourself! He sent over this picture of the bike to show off his latest acquisition. I started staring at in Photoshop and ended up with these two versions of the image. The first one is more photo-realistic and the other has a filter applied for a more stylized look. I'm leaning towards the latter. Probably end up wallpapering one of my garage walls with a huge print out.

Congrats on the new bike Alex! Can't wait to see it in action!

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It’s Been Quiet Around Here, But It’s Been Going Off Over at RareSportBikesForSale.com

Dan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:09:49 +0000

I know my personal blog has really been neglected this summer, but I've been very busy consulting. And when I'm not helping out moto-clients with web services consulting, I'm working with a great team to really dial up the Rare Sportbikes For Sale site. Check out some of the sweet rides this week alone: MC28 NSR250 SE, CBR250R Hurricane, Huge Teaser for some OW01's, VF1000R, Bimota YB9, and well you get the idea.

If you're in a shopping mood, I'd subscribe as the best deals are always had in the fall and early winter.

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Honda S2000 Update: Track Day #2

Dan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:34:24 +0000

Back from another great track day with the Cascade Sports Car Club. This club is always well organized with good instructors. Turned out to be a nice late summer day with the temps touching the low 90's, which provided fantastic grip!

I'm really feeling very comfortable in the S2000 and despite all the internet folklore of the AP1 being tail-happy, I'm pleased to report that this is another rumor we can put to bed. Sure if you lift off and yank the controls in the middle of a turn 9 at 100mph, you kind of deserve what you get. But I had two gotcha moments and both were easily caught with smooth controls. This isn't to say I'm a genius driver, but rather, it's a really well balanced car and very forgiving with gentle hands.

Here are some pics from the pits that my buddy Gabe took:

I hear he has video too, so I'm hoping to get my hands on that and will post if I can.

Sadly this was probably my last track day of the season, but one of the most memorable days out in recent memory for sure. Big shout out to Gabe who convinced me to attend at a late date!

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Steve Hislop Onboard at Isle of Man TT 1994

Dan — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:18:18 +0000

Check out this fantastic lap ridden and narrated by Steve Hislop aboard an RC45 in 1994:

I love how he talks about that first section and how he normally hits 170mph through there on a flying lap! This is such a strong reminder that I need to visit this event in person sometime soon... I mean how much longer can such a bad ass and dangerous event continue to run like this?!

source: Hell for Leather

By the way, have you been by Rare SportBikes For Sale recently? It's been great having a co-author and we've found some beauts this summer. Stop by and say hi!

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The VFR750 and 750SS Attack the Willamette Valley Again!

Dan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:03:37 +0000

The VFR750 and 750SS attack the Willamette Valley again, but this time the VFR is being piloted by Blake in a very generous loaner agreement with Paul. What can I say, the man is the shit for extending such an offer!

We took the back roads on Thursday for a killer ride up to Portland to visit with our SEO and PPC Vendor, Anvil Media Inc., on official OSU business. The weather on the way up was spectacular and we were treated to the best the valley has to offer while passing up all the various crops Oregon is known for: grass seed, wheat, filberts, strawberries, hops, grapes, green beans, corn, and many other types of organic produce. A ride like this reminds me why we live where we do!

Here are a couple pics from the Wheatland Ferry where we crossed the Willamette, and the current Anvil Media headquarters:

Here is the Google Map of our route up and pictures from the trip:

To follow up our trip, we assaulted Mary's Peak on Saturday morning via back roads again of course! Highway 20 leading to the peak has recently been repaved at the base of the mountain and the road to the summit is still one of the best hillclimbs out there in terms of corners per mile and scenic views. Here are the pics from the Peak:

Many thanks to Paul for loaning out the bike to Blake, the best in SEO and Social Media for hosting us: Anvil Media, and rural Oregon for best and most scenic roads anywhere!

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