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.