The Epic Ride Comes to an End.

Well, I don't even know if I remember all the shit along the way I was thinking I needed to add to this. The last 150 miles was so intense, I can't remember any of the rest. Maybe as I chat through some of it, part might start to come back to me.

It's 3:45am EST. I'm exhausted. But I want to get some of this out now before I forget details, because I know tomorrow is gonna be chaos.

So to start, I also noticed another part of the Tank bag by Coretech is also ripping. well, one of the seams on a pocket is failing. Really surprising how shitty that's built considering the price. I also noticed that the Alpinestar socks, that go up to my knees for when wearing a full size boot, actually made a lot of difference today in the comfort level. I only have 3/4 length boots, but with the socks up to my knees, it kept the skin of my legs off the vinyl type interior lining of the pants. So a significant difference in the heat and sweatiness.

Oh the Crampbuster... what an amazing little gadget that doohickey is. I never even installed the cruise control contraption because that Crampbuster is the bomb. I was gonna install the cruise if I felt like I needed it. I was so busy just hanging on due to all the wind that I never really felt comfy with letting go completely. But what a world of difference that makes. No cramps.. at all... nothing. Its awesome. In fact, my left hand was a little crampy and I felt no pain at all in the right. I'm contemplating getting another one for the left side just for comfort sake for longer rides.

(now the next day..obviously since I didn't post this last night... fell asleep right about here.)

So the road from Tulsa to basically Albuquerque is as boring as boring roads can get. and yes, I know, its the famous Route 66. Even dumping off on to the old historic road on occasion was pretty boring. there are some cool old antique shops...all closed. A few hotels that look like they were hoppin' back in the day... also closed. and some pretty cool looking old trucks rusting away in yards. I get the whole novelty of the historic Route 66. I saw the movie Cars. I think I even saw the tow truck in a yard along the way. He wasn't lookin' to good. If I had room on the bike for my camera equipment I would have had some really cool black and white shots of the remnants of Route 66.

So on this long boring road I had to entertain myself with little bouts of ridiculous speed, trying to remember if the cars I was passing I had passed already, and learning to handle the bike in the crazy strong side winds. The other day that storm scared the crap out of me the way it blew me across the lanes. On the trip yesterday I was blown all over the place, another reason why a installing the cruise would have been pointless, since I had to hang on with both hands the majority of the way just to stay on the darn thing. AT first it freaked me out, but eventually I got comfy with riding straight while leaning over and just fighting the wind. I'm still trying to figure out if going faster through wind gusts makes you more or less stable. Which would also help in dealing with passing or being passed by semi's

So, I get to Amarillo and I'm feeling great, minor ass and thigh soreness and a little stiff in the neck, but nothing a little stretching, rest, and dinner can't reset. So I stop at the Chili's and pop a seat at a booth in the bar, order a nice cold beer and a chicken salad, and pop up the laptop to check in on work. I figured I'd hang there for an hour or two and rest and get some more work done. So I did and then got back on and took off west. The sun was still pretty high in the sky, not even in my eyes yet. I think I stopped between 4-6pm - no idea which timezone that relates to though. I was hungry, so it was dinner time, that's all I knew.

So my plan now was to head to Tucumcari, see how I felt, check the time and either post up there for the night or head farther. I made it to Tucumcari in about 1.5 hours so I was making great time, felt great. So I figured I'd hang out for a bit, wasn't hungry again, so had a tiny snack to keep the blood sugar level hyped, and just stretched and walked around the gas station for a while. I made a few phone calls and while I was wrappin' up the call with my brother, I noticed something.... and thus, the end of a boring stretch.

There was what appeared to be a white stripe down the center of my back tire. Upon closer inspection I realized that the white stripe was the white threads showing thru where the tire had worn thin. It started at about 12 o'clock on the tire as a tiny thin point, widened up to about a half inch, and then thinned back out to a point all the way around to about 10 o'clock. Since I was not familiar with cycle tires I had no idea if I was lucky to be alive or if I had another 500 miles on them. I figured since that was the first I noticed it, that it was probably somewhere in the middle, leaning closer to the first one. I asked bill and he called a friend who is a motorcycle safety instructor for advice. the issue here was that Tucumcari is a small town that's built as a rest stop. No motorcycle shop anywhere nearby, and only a used tire shop - which was closed. So even if I posted up for the night, I'd still be screwed the next day.

Fortunately, he thought I could make it the other 150 or so miles if I rode slow and careful and avoided any kind of rain. I had a buddy on standby back in ABQ with a trailer by this point which was a nice security blanket for me to try to attempt the run. At that point, I figured the farther I could get the less he'd have to drive to get me. The weather had been showing clear skies for the whole trip so I wasn't worried about any rain. I was worried about keeping the speed down, but I would just need to pay close attention. So I got on the road.

About 30-40 miles down the road, I noticed the sky getting really dark, a huge thundercloud was developing to the North West of me. I could see lightening and areas where it was raining, but I was still dry. I couldn't tell where it was going though so I stopped in Santa Rosa to call Bill back and have him check out the weather for me. Sure as shit, it was headed South East and there was no way I'd beat it across I-40. So I hunkered down at another gas station to wait it out. It barely rained, I think the worst part had cross over farther west of where I was, which was fine. I decided to get all the rain gear suited up and head out to see how far I could make it.





I've actually got a tip for any car drivers out there. It's something I never gave much thought to, until I was on a bike, in the rain. Try to get as far ahead of the bike as possible before getting back over in front of the bike. The spray off a car is brutal and dangerous. its hard to see through it, its mixed with road oil so it doesn't wipe off easily nor does it wick off in the wind. plus its wet and cold, which is just uncomfortable. and it doesn't have to be actively raining either, even wet road after a rain kicks up a lot of spray. So please, for all bikers out there, give them some room in the rain.

Oh yeah, speaking of courtesy or just general good manors, here's another interesting observation I made. I had two drivers, that I noticed, could have been more, flip me the bird while I passed them. I'll give you the scenarios only because I'm struggling with a reason as to why they felt compelled to flip me off. What kind of existence must one have whereby you actually get pissed or offended by someone passing you on the highway? I wondered if they also flipped the bird to their 5th grade classmates who scored A's on their tests when they only got a C. (and yes, I'm assuming the mentality of an individual like that is a steady C achiever at best)

So, first offendie was on a two lane road in the country, there was a line of 3 cars. I approached rather quickly and tucked in behind the last one, a pickup truck, rusty, exactly the mental image you might be thinking, actually. All inclusive of a trucker baseball hat and a dirty T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. His name had to be Cooter, or Cletus, it was just too perfect of a sterotype to be anything else. So I'm waiting on oncoming traffic so I can pass these 3 cars who are crawling along at about 8 under the speed limit. the second that last car passes, I nail it and fly by, and as I'm going past him, in wonderment of the perfect outfit for the vehicle, he give me the bird with a stern look on his 3 day old scruffy double-chin beard. I'll bet a C note he had a half full can of warm beer between his legs. So, what exactly did I do to piss off Bocephus? The only rational thought, which isn't very rational from a normal vertical walking human perspective but its the only thing I can think of besides the fact that he's just pissed I can go faster than he can, was that he wanted to pass the line of cars first and somehow felt slighted that I had slipped out into the lane faster than he could take one hand off his beer and pull out. Even that's kinda retarded since I would have just passed him anyway.

So that's the first one, and the second one is also beyond me. It goes like this. On the long boring stretch of road from Tulsa, I approach a few cars. There is a sedan in the right lane and a minivan in the left lane and another sedan behind the minivan in the left lane. The right lane was going slower, as a good right-laner should, and the sedan behind the minivan pulled over to the right after passing. The minivan did not pull over yet, so I approached the minivan and hung there for a few. People had been very good about moving over to the right on the whole trip, not like in Florida where people have no fucking concept of the whole, slower traffic keep right... well about any common courtesies, really. So I didn't want to bust out around to the right if he was just taking his time to get there or hadn't seen me back there yet and then cause a ruckus on the right as we both try going over. So after about 25-30 seconds I slid over to the middle of the two lanes and leaned around to check if it was clear and I saw him look at me in the mirror. I should probably preface this with the fact that I was not flashing him, or acting frustrated in any way. I wasn't tailgating him, or waving at him to move over, or pressuring him in any way. So I slowly slid out to the right, and when he didn't make even the slightest move, I went ahead of him and out of the corner of my eye I see him "wave". My first thought was that he was being friendly and actually waving to me. But as I was sliding over to the other lane ahead of him I saw him flipping me the bird in the rear view mirror... quite vigorously as well, pressed right up against the windshield. Another very upset individual for no apparent reason other than I was going faster than they were.

Both scenarios bother me. Not because I give a shit that Billybob and Suburban Dad don't particularly like me. I just have this innate need to make sense of everything and this one isn't coming together for me.

So back to the storm, while I'm riding the next few hours I get to watch the most amazing lightening happening just off to my left. and only had a few spurts of sprinkles while going back. a few wet pavement areas which had me all nervous, but I kept it slow, which is why it dragged on so long. I was wide awake though running through a million scenarios of what could happen when/if the tire did go on me. Would it fizzle down slowly or explode and I'd have to try to control the rim on pavement? Every slightly bumpy part of the road made me think my tire was going. But it wasn't. At the last stop, 36 miles East of ABQ I did notice that the vertical threads were worn through in one part and the horizontal cross threading was now showing. This made me wonder just how many layers there were and how much longer I really had. I figured 36 more miles was pretty quick so based on the slow wear the last 10 miles, I should be alright.

I made it to I-25 North and was one exit away from my home stretch when I felt it. The unmistakable wiggle of the ass end as the air rapidly exited the tire. It was exactly as I had anticipated. I slid off to the shoulder and gave Raice a call with the good news/bad news of needing a ride, but only being 10 miles away now. And he came and scooped me up with his kick ass little trailer and brought me the last couple miles home.



And that, my friends, was one fantastic Bucket List item I had an absolute BALL crossing off my list. Everything about it was awesome, even the blown tire, and the redneck bird flipper were perfect. The whole story is so much better with both of them in it. All in all, I had a great time on my crotch rocket, and while I admit, there were a few times when I felt like leaning back and kicking my feet up Old Man Harley style, I wouldn't trade the rocket for the cruiser. I might, however, chose more exciting roads the entire way next time.

Now I'm plotting the next epic road trip. I'm thinking California coast line. Anybody up for a road trip next summer? or maybe in the fall? I think the next one needs to include sleeping out under the stars somewhere. No tent, just chillin' with the bike and the night. oh yeah, one more thing... an mp3 player that lasts longer than 3 hours on single charge. Its so much better with music.

OK, hope you enjoyed the story.

Ciao for now... more adventures coming soon!

Another long day...

I woke up this morning an hour before my alarm went off. I just couldn't wait to get back in the saddle. Even as sore as I was, I just didn't care.

I got on the road at about 7am. I planned to get in a few hours and then post up somewhere and work for a few hours.

Highway 60 West thru Missouri is a great road. And so is, as I mistaken found out, Highway 67. The two Highways pair up for about 3 miles. Or in my case, 40 miles. I apparently missed the 60 breakaway and went 40 extra miles North. The only good way back was to straight up backtrack the 40 miles. Fortunately the road was so kick ass that I really didn't care.

The only problem was I was not as far as I wanted to be by 10 so I wasn't posting up in a Starbucks somewhere, I had to make my own little Starbucks experience at a BP Minimart on the side of 67. Where I heard, by the way, two gas station owners discussing how they are going to be raising gas prices every day from now through the holiday. So fill up now, people!

My Verizon Wireless had one itty bitty bar but that was enough to check over some work and touch base with the team and keep things rolling. I spent about an hour there getting things checked over.

I'm product dropping like crazy so maybe one of these companies will sponsor me. ha ha I'm not even sure what that would mean. I am gonna be talking about the gear a lot though, because I am a gear freak and totally believe in the right gear can make a huge difference. So I'll be critiquing everything. I think there are a few riders in the group who are reading this so they may appreciate the reviews.

I should probably point out that my reviews and critiques are not exactly expert in nature. While I am extremely at home on all things of the two wheeled nature, this is my first motorcycle that is really mine and not my brothers, my neighbors, my friends, etc. This is also my first major road trip on a bike. In fact, other than being younger and riding the dirtbikes for hours, this is really the longest time my ass has been in a saddle ever...with an engine underneath it.

Here's the interesting thing about the whole "sore ass" thing. I ride constantly. so my ass is no stranger to being on a seat. I rode the 50 miler, I ride all the time. I figured that my ass was used to being on a seat and in fact pedaling might make that even more able ot withstand the saddle to do the strenuous nature of sitting while moving the legs. oh was I wrong. I almost wish I had a thinner seat. the thicker seat, while very comfy, totally rubs on a different part of my thighs and ass than the other saddles, so its a whole new "getting used to" experience. How fun. So I slide back and forth to change the position every couple minutes. Except when the road is really fun, I actually only notice on the long straight-aways. If I'm curvin', I don't notice anything. If I could just stay on a curvy track the whole way, I'd probably never stop.

Ok so where was I? oh yeah, backtracking. So I make it back ot 60 and just have a ball through most of Missouri. The Mark Twain Forrest or something like that was just a great ride. I never expected Missouri to offer such a good road. I think that might be the only redeeming quality of Missouri, actually. Oh, and the Arch, that's pretty bad ass, too. Missouri doesn't really deserve the Arch though. I think they should move it to some place more "werthy"of such a kick ass piece of architecture.

I was hoping to make it to Springfield to post up for work again, but I just had to rest around Mountain Grove, MO which is about 30-40 miles away from Springfield. I was hoping to find a motorcycle shop that was open so I could get the funky hand spatula thing that's supposed to make riding more comfy on the hand and some sort of cruise control devise. I was searching the gazillion cycle shops on google maps and with Dawn's help in calling them while I was riding, it turns out that a lot of shops, almost all of them, are closed on Mondays. Isn't that wonderful?

I think my hand cramping is the single worst part of it all. the ass and neck thing I can totally tolerate. But there comes a point when I simply can't grip any longer and need to rest. And no I won't throw a masturbation joke in here, that would be too easy. Oh wait, I think I just did anyway. Sneaky.

I was feeling fatigued more today than I was yesterday, and the only real difference is that I started the day with coffee, and kept an ongoing run of caffeine going almost all day long. I started feeling like maybe I was fatiguing so badly because I was dehydrated and thus caffeine would only make that worse. so I started interjecting Gatorade and water into the mix which seemed to help a lot I think tomorrow I'll try to not have any caffeine and see if that helps.

Oklahoma is OK... at best. its a perfect slogan. unless of course they are referring to the roads, which are not only boring as hell, but also pretty crappy. I had to hang on more in the last two hours than the entire rest of the journey thus far.

Tulsa, however, did have a CycleGear (6701 E 41st, exit 230 on Hwy 44...2 minutes from the Highway, in case you are ever in need of some equipment or parts) - I am bothered that more cycle shops are not advertising on billboards outside of towns that are clearly heavy biker towns. Springfield, for example had like 30 cycle shops in that small city, and not one advertisement to the riders who are strolling through on Highway 60 and 44. One small advertisement that said where to go to get your broken whatever, I would think would bring in a lot of business.

So I got the crampbuster (crampbuster.com) and I dropped that puppy on in a second. I also got a universal cruise control clamp mechanism from Sound Off Recreational, Inc. and I'll try that tomorrow. That takes some installation and assembly and I was just too tired to mess with that tonight. So you'll have to wait for the review on that one until tomorrow night.

A few more side notes on the gear. The AplineStar 3/4 boots are awesome. Totally comfy. Even walking around off the bike are not annoying. I didn't have room for any more shoes in the backpack so I figured I'd just deal with them. When I was walking around the Riverwalk in Tulsa tonight, which, according to the front desk chic at my LaQuinta, was the ONLY thing werth seeing here, I was totally comfy. And the Riverwalk, is pretty cool, if you ever find yourself stranded in Tulsa, I do recommend the taco platter at Los Cabos, or something like that. You'll see, its the closest restaurant to the motorcycle parking, and they have a dude playing guitar and singing strange versions of songs like SOS by Sting and then some Skid Row song - not "18 and life", the other one.

























Oh yeah, and a very disappointing gear failure tonight. My $117.00 Tank bag which is a Tourmaster by Coretech, totally broke a zipper tag tonight. That's way too expensive of a tank bag to fail on a zipper tag that's supposed to get years of wear and tear. Other than the obvious malfunction, though, the bag itself works great. I'll let y'all know how customer service over at Coretech is when I call to have them replace that bag for me.

So Im 950 miles into it and absolutely loving it. In fact, after I settled in tonight, I could have walked next door to eat, but I chose to ride the bike to the "hotspot" in stead. If I wasn't tired, I'd still be riding now.

Here's most of the gear all in one shot. jacket, pants, boots, tank bag, helmet, gloves.... bike.

Gettin' Started

"You're nuts! You're doing that on a crotch rocket?

Seems to be the majority consensus on a response to this next adventure. I find it interesting paying attention to who thinks its cool, and who thinks I'm crazy.

I really could n0t wait for this adventure. I've been really looking forward to it and just knew that it would be a good story. So we'll see. Already its been eventful.

I'm technically in my second leg of the journey. I left Friday from Fort Wayne, Indiana to head down to Evansville, Indiana. A trip that should have taken between 5 and 7 hours, ended up taking about 11 to 12 hours.

I started heading out around 11am. First place was the gas station to fill up and reset the mileage gauge so I could keep tabs on when to stop. After filling up and messing with getting the helmet on and keeping the earbuds in place, which can be a daunting task at times, the bike would not start. Totally acted like the battery just died.

I made severeal attempts at push starting it but could not get enough speed up to get it to flip. Thankfully, the support van was there. Dawn was driving down to Evansville at the same time to go to the airshow with me. So I hopped in the van adn went back to the hosue for tools.

Lesson 1 for a motorcycle journey: Have at least a basic set of tools with you for soem basic emergencies. like jump starting, replacing teh battery, etc.

It was 90 degrees out and it took forever to get the seat off. fortunately the #10 Metric wrench fit. After ab out an hour of messing with it, I got the bike started by jumping it off the van. I put the bike back together adn we went in search of a new battery to replace the one that was in there ust in case that one was shot.

Finally get rolling around 1pm. The first leg was to Indy, to meet up with Ryan at the hangar to grab soem of Billy's Grayout stuff for him since he flew the plane and had no storage space. The plane has basically the same storage space as a motorcycle. Just outside of Indy I hit my first encounter with rain. I was getting a littel nervous after seeing another biker pull over to get his raingear on. I got off the highway and Dawn told me that we had actually just missed the storm and it was only a little spinkle that was lingering. So we pressed on and I only got a little wet. Enough to clean the bugs off the visor.

After stopping for the stuff at the hangar, we stopped at a Subway to grab a sub before making the next 3 hour leg. after debating on which way to go to avoid the storms, we decided that straight south to Louisville, Kentucky and then straight West on 64 to Evansville would be the best way to avoid the storms that were headed our way on a North Easternly path.

That all went smoothly. I was REALLY starting to feel the right hand at this point. I was begging for a cruise control clamp. I had to constantly adjust my hand position because my hand was cramping up consistently. the inside nad back of my thighs was also feeling rather tender as well. Turns out, no matter how much bicycle riding I can do, the seats are totally different and thus, my ass feels totally different. After the 5th hour I I was pretty much constantly switching positions on the seat and with my hand.

After stopping for gas about an hour outside of Evansville, Dawn tells me that we gotta haul ass in order to beat a really nasty storm that's racing us to Evansville from the West. So we got up on the highway again and just hauled ass. I had no idea teh minivan could move like that. Im rather impressed actually. It's a Chrysler Town and Country and that puppy can move. As we got to about 15 miles out of the Evansville exit, the sky got pretty gnarly lookin. Very black, with this ridge of clouds swirling as the leading edge of storm rolled our way.

After passing the second to last exit it became clear to me that we weren't going to make it. I started thinking it might be best to find a spot to flip a uturn in the median and out run it the other way and just wait it out and whatever was at the last exit. Just then, the wind went nuts, the rain started and I got whooshed over almost into the other lane. At that moment, I was done. I needed to pull over that instant, and it may already be too late to save the pants. I stopped the bike, pulled as close to the van as I could and got in.

We sat there and watched an amazing thunderstorm. Kept in touch with Billy back at teh hotel, who said teh power was out at teh hotel, there were tornado sirens going off like crazy. Great way to end the first leg of the journy.

After about an hour I decided to try to give it a whirl and see if I could make it to the next exist after all. This is where having great gear came in REALLY handy. My Powertrip Diablo Jacket with inside rain liner was awesome, I stayed bone dry and comfy even though I was soaked on the outside. I also didn't get sweaty and sticky either, which I expected. The FieldSheer pants were also a treat. Again, not a drop on me.

We made it to the next exit and met up with Billy for a few minutes before heading towards the hotel...well, actually, we missed an exit and ended up down in Kentucky again, but eventually, we did make it to the hotel. Checked in under candle light since the power was still out. Decided to change and head out to find food.

Went to O'Brians in Evansville, which was a great little bar with live music and moderately healthy food still serv ing at 11:45pm. The corner chair at the bar, we are convinced, was some kind of portal to or from another dimension because very strange people kept sitting there.

Back at the hotel, after a few minutes the power came back on and we could then, turn the lights back off to sleep. Or attempt to anyway, on that rock hard bed and with my allergies completely raging at this point.

I think I got an hour or two that night.

In the morning, checked out and immedaite went to check out the Marriott, which had much nicer beds. Got a room there instead.

So today, after being at the airshow long enough to video tape Billy's performance, we went back to the hangar to pack up, change my battery and take a ride in the PITTS before heading out.

We got to do some crazy upsidedown flying and then broke for our rides.

My ride thru the north west part of Kentucky was awesome. Curvy turning country roads for hours. I loved every second of it. Still feelin the grip cramping though. Totally gotta find something for that on the journey. I was going to make it to Springfield today but after the late start and the bugs that felt like rain in the Kentucky night sky were too much to push to SPringfield tonight.

The bugs sounded like a whoel line of little tap dancers on the visor. It was pretty gross. I posted up camp at a Drury Hotel on the corner of Interstate 55 in Sikeston.

Looking forward to getting up early tomorrow and getting a few miles in before the work day starts.