Riverside Dickens Fetival, February 2010

Since my college days I’ve know that Dickens Festivals exist. I was surprised a few years ago when I learned that there was one in Riverside. Previously, I’d only been to Riverside to visit the Air Museum at March Field or to visit the now defunct Riverside Brewing Company. I was thinking of visiting the festival last year, but the prospect of heavy rains deterred me. I decided that I had better go this year, in spite of a heavy work schedule; my co-workers covered for me on Friday so that i could take off.

I made a late start and we had heavy rains in a repeat of last year. The 60 mile trip from Los Angeles to Riverside via Corona took three hours almost exactly, most of that time spent in the traffic jam west of Corona. Even without rain, this stretch of freeway has become a permanent parking lot with the build-up around Corona. I got into my quaint little hotel right at 6PM, which gave me time to prepare myself for the first event of the festival, Pickwick’s Pub Night. I got into my car and drove to the civic auditorium , and then drove right back to the motel when I realized that the I could walk there. In general, the downtown area of Riverside is very compact, and Saturday I left my car at the hotel and just walked, even in the rain. Everything was between the freeway and the Mission Inn, and between the Unitarian and Congregational churches, which took part in the festival. The location of the former Riverside Brewing Co. was near the freeway, but it is now a pizza parlor.

The pub night was the most expensive event of the festival, $60 for a single person. This included beer and wine and indeed a pub style dinner, including bangers and mash. Entertainment was meant to be in the style of a music hall, including naughty humor and a drag queen. I met some of the organizers of the event and learned a little about how the festival works and about Dickens events in L.A.

The weather on Saturday was off and on wet, making the setting authentic. The first thing I noticed about Riverside was that there aren’t many breakfast choices in walking distance. I did find a deli called Relish where I had a nice plate of lox, onions, and eggs, and where I could make a wifi connection. Due to the rain the outdoor festival events were moved indoors to a gym around the corner. I didn’t bother to see if they were going to raise the Union Jack in the rain. I did arrive in time to see Mr Pickwick open the Festival, joined by Mr. Dickens himself. That was the only event on Saturday that made use of the outdoor stage, and it was quick.

Overall, the festival was very much like an anime convention, with better costumers (except for that period in the early 2000s when cosplay hit its peak in the USA, before apparently all the good sewers went over to Gothic Lolita). The musical entertainment was very good. Evensong was a concert and religious service of chorale music at the Congregational Church, with organ accompaniment and solos for some pieces. There were also a couple of performances by the Riverside Concert Band and numerous folk and period music performers.

The biggest surprise was the discharge of rifles and then a real gattling gun by the Gordon Highlanders, who also performed flag raising ceremonies and acted as the honor guard for the Queen.

There were several dramatic performances, including The Christmas Carol by a large middle school ensemble and a scene form The Old Curiosity Shop by a high school troupe. There was another longer performance of scenes from The Old Curiosity Shop by and adult group, as well as scenes from Nicholas Nickleby.

The biggest event was probably Mr. Fezziwig’s ball, where the costumers were out in full force, with a vist by Good Queen Vickie and the Prince Consort. One Gentleman, appeared in Yul Brynner’s outfit from The King and I, including bare feet and the shaven head.

Dining being a problem in Downtown Riverside, there was a Festival food court supplemented by soup and bread at the Unitarian Church. The latter reminded me of the udon tables at Japanese American Obon festivals. The food court included Hawaiian ice cream and crepes, plus a booth serving English food. I had to try the fried apples. Beer was served at the Marquis of Granby Ale Pub. The porter actually wasn’t bad, better than the pale ale I had at the pizza place. However, the barmaids were dressed for Oktoberfest with short swishy mini skirts and red tights. No complaints, but black and white period waitress outfits would be pretty hot, too. There were also numerous booths selling clothing, books, musical instruments and things I didn’t check out. There were also costumers or actors portraying Dickens characters or typical Victorians and speaking in character.

Two days are needed since the plays basically fill an entire track and then there are a series of lectures which fill another. First of the talks was an interpretation of a reading by Dickens in America. This was followed by short lectures by UCR graduate students on Dickens “101” and the role of children in Victorian England, as it relates to Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop.

My final event of the festival was afternoon tea with Queen Victoria with music hall entertainment provided by Mr. Treacle and his group. Speaking of child labor, the servers at the tea were all younger than Nell’s age. They did a very good job and it was worth the $18. The venue was the basement of the Unitarian Church. There were also teas available without Queen Victoria and with or without Mr. Treacle.

I didn’t get to see everything, and I didn’t have time for the official tour of the Mission Inn, although I did wander in and check out the Spanish Patio. Riverside has created a pedestrian area on Main Street near the Mission Inn, but it doesn’t seem to be fully occupied by businesses. It could definitely use some more cafes and restaurants. Things were definitely dead on Sunday. To make up for the lack of a real brewpub in Riverside, I stopped at Taps in Corona which turned out to be a nice restaurant in spite of the Superbowl crowd in the lounge. Actually Saturday night in Riverside hadn’t been that bad since I found Mexican seafood restaurant nearby that was good and reasonable.

Photos at http://ikemi.info/graphics2/Dickens2010/index.html

Slamming those bikes

After knee surgery on my left meniscus, I was a little worried about supporting the weight of my bikes on my left side when I dismount. After looking at new bikes I decided that there was nothing really out there that I liked and would go easy on my weakened leg. The closest was a Suzuki GS-500 which was low and light enough, but I’ve been spoiled by fuel injection and water cooling.

As an alternative, I decided to lower my GSX-650F and the DL-650. I had been intending to sell the latter bike after returning from Alaska with it, but the recession made for a bad sellers’ market. It’s also too good of a bike to let go. I had lowered it once before, but with the skid plate it was too low and always banging into things. After Alaska I had replaced the skid plate with a fiberglass belly pan meant for a SV-650 and I no longer had the severely humped driveway approach. Of course, I couldn’t find the old lowering links I’d gotten off ebay, plus they had deformed around the bolt holes. I found that Burkhart now offered links machined from a tougher alloy, so I gave them a try. As before, they went on pretty easily, especially when I used my Makita electrical impact wrench to remove the nuts. Not so easy was lowering (raising) the forks so that the tubes rose above the top triple clamp. DL owners typically drop the forks a 1/2“ or more even without lowering, so the amount that has to be lowered is substantial. After Alaska I’d returned the bike to stock handlebars so the tubes now would run into the handlebars. I had to dig into my parts box and fish out a pair of setback handlebar risers so that the fork tubes I could clear. I decided on 11/8” of fork above the triple clamp since I didn’t want to reduce my fork clearance too much. I was afraid that the handlebars might become awkward since they are rather high, but the ergonomics worked out fairly well, so far. I’ll have to go on a longer trip to really say. So far, the steering feels okay and neither the belly pan nor SW-Motech center stand have hit anything. No problems using the center stand and the kickstand seems to be okay without alteration, just like the last time I tried this.

The GSX was a little more difficult to lower. I bought lowering links from Burkhart again, although heavy duty ones aren’t offered for the GSX. The forums said it was supposed to be easy, but I was confused for a while. You do have to remove both footpeg mounts and the rubber chain bumper from the swingarm, or at least get it clear. The problem is that you can’t get at the nuts which secure the links. I finally gave up trying to put the socket on the nuts. The bolts used here by definition have to be pretty tough. With extensions, I was able to use my Makita impact wrench to reach the bolt heads. After that, everything was easy. Dropped the forks about an inch. The result felt pretty good. The handling was okay for what I do so far, in fact I think I like it better now. Unlike the DL, I did have to do something about the kickstand. Per one suggestion in the forums, I decided to grind the kickstand stop instead of cutting and welding or bending the kickstand. I got out my Makita electric die grinder and a burr cutting tool. I have a pneumatic grinder I inherited from my father, but I don’t like the noise if I have room to use the electric grinder. It’s kind of like a giant Dreml tool. It wasn’t as simple as they claimed. It actually required some 3-D grinding. Suzuki wasn’t taking any chances. Besides the the most obvious stop the other side of the kickstand needs to be ground as well as inside. It is doable, just a little tricky, and the result worked. Unfortunately the center stand didn’t work out so well. It was tough for me before and impossible after the lowering. I made a little fold-up platform out of two short pieces of 2X4 that I joined with a pair of hinges. I roll the rear wheel first onto the little platform, and then roll the bike onto the center stand.

Well, actually physical therapy went pretty well, and my left leg feels pretty good, now, better even than my arthritic right knee. Still, after lowering, it’s much easier to balance the GSX in parking lots with more of the soles of my feet on the ground.