As for the title of this post…“Be Sure to Get My Good Side”….that is in reference to the OTHER side of the tank having a dent and road rash. My plan is to leave the tank the way it is though.
I finished doing all of the actual repairs to the bike a week or so ago. There are still a few odds and ends I may attend to, but mechanically the bike is sound. The finishing touch went on this morning. I had not replaced the bar end mirror and so I stopped by O’Reilley’s last night and purchased one of the standard 3-inch convex mirrors that are meant to go in the bottom corner of an ordinary side mirror on a car. Turns out it also fits beautifully in a high-dollar CRG that’s had the glass broken out of it. And keep in mind that the bike is an aesthetic work in progress. I like the current round headlight I have on there, but it’s maybe 7 inches in diameter at most. This week I purchased from Ebay what the guys on the board call a “train light”, which is more than 9 inches in diameter. I do think the big train light looks great on the muscley ZRX. And while the light on there now is chrome, I’ll paint the big train light flat black.
I took the bike out for a 150 mile run today. It was the first time doing any kind of real miles on the bike since the accident. I hit a twisty route up near Leavenworth. It was sunny and in the mid sixties here today – Thanksgiving day. I was a bit tentative at first. But honestly I am always a bit rusty after I haven’t ridden in a while. It was a little different this time; I could more easily envision hitting the pavement or worse. But I found my comfort zone about 50 miles into the day. I scrubbed all the dirt off the rear tire that I had picked up in the accident. That was pretty cool to scrub that off “the honest way”.
I made a lot of stops today as I was taking more pics than usual. I would say that I started the bike maybe 12 to 15 times today. And on two occasions, the bike didn’t want to start for some reason. It would turn over, but it just wouldn’t actually start up. Each of those two times it took maybe 10 to 12 attempts to get the bike running. The second time it happened, I turned the petcock to PRIME position since I suspected fuel delivery might be the issue. That seemed to help. I have never had this issue until now. The only thing I can think is that maybe in the accident some debris from the bottom of the tank got kicked up and is causing problems in fuel delivery. I am grasping at straws. I’ll have to wait and see if it happens again. But like I said, it started pretty quick each time. And the bike is running strong as ever other than that. Overall, a good day of riding.
As for me, I am pretty much healed up. I am still nursing a hurt knee. I had an MRI two weeks ago and the results of that showed a sprain (small tear) in the outer ligament of my right knee. The orthopedic specialist says that particular ligament gets good blood flow and should heal on its own. He suggested I cut back on my activities and give it more time, but the prognosis is good right now.
All I wanted to do was finish off the rest of that rear tire. I had about two thousand miles on it and I guessed I had maybe one more overnight trip into Arkansas left in it. So I set off Sunday with every intention of spending the night in Mountain View again.
I left out at 7:30am. Not too much daylight wasted. The main drag out of town (Metcalf Ave) was pretty deserted on a Sunday morning. A svelte, young chap in full riding gear rode up next to me on a Honda CBR600 at one of the stop lights. We behaved ourselves off the line once. But I think we both knew where things were headed. At the next light, we crawled off the line like adults, but then I slowly rolled on the throttle hard to see if he would follow. Sure enough…he took the bait and went right along with me. It was like a polite question: “Are we going to dance?” And we danced. We wound up through the gears hard. I damn near hit the rev limiter in second, but then I did hit it in third. I took that as my cue to back off as we had to be approaching 100mph at that point. I know I shouldn’t feel too much like a man for beating a guy on a bike half the displacement of mine, but racing like that puts a smile on my face every time. He gave me a wave as we slowed. What a heck of a way to start the day. And yes, I’m an idiot for doing that kind of stuff in town.
The slog to Carthage, MO, is always the hardest. That’s 145 miles of “super slab”, or 4-lane highway for you non-bike riders. Then another marginally decent 40 miles to Cassville, MO, where it feels like you’re getting into the twisties finally. By that point, I had hit a little bit of mist and some sprinkles and had donned my rain gear. I was in Eureka Springs by noon. But before I hit Eureka, I had started thinking I didn’t HAVE to go all the way to Mountain View. One option would be to come back to Eureka. But if I’m in Eureka, then I’m only 240 miles from home. Summer months mean more daylight hours. So it wasn’t long before I had talked myself into making this a day trip. The new goal was to be back home in Kansas City that night. I knew this was going to be a long day of riding.
I was able to shed the rain gear by the time I made it to Huntsville. I took hwy 23 (“The Pig Trail”) all the way to Turner Bend. I got there at around 2:30pm. Funny thing: I saw a guy I knew there. It was a guy I had met in Huntsville just three weeks before. We had sat and talked at a gas station there for about half an hour that day. He rides a 1000cc V-Strom. Just coincidence running into him again three weeks later.
From Turner Bend, I took hwy 215 east to Oark, AR. I wanted to go to Catalpa and venture out onto that 8 or 9-mile stretch of gravel road that hooks up with hwy 21. We’ve talked about that gravel road several times as a shortcut, but no one wants to lead a group of guys on shiny bikes down an unfamiliar gravel road. So I thought this would be the perfect chance to scout the route. It looked to be 7 miles according to Google Maps. The gravel is quite large and it makes for slightly scary 2nd gear riding. It’s not so bad if you can find a “swept” track to ride in (as the rally car drivers would say), but the bike never really feels stable.
I was making my way along at a decent clip and was feeling fine when I thought……I can’t believe this bike handles THIS poorly on gravel. Then it occurred to me that I probably had a flat. Sure enough, when I stopped the bike, the ground was WAY closer than it’s supposed to be. At this point, I was about 4 or 5 miles down a gravel road, heading up a slight incline and staring at a completely flat rear tire. My immediate concern was that I had no idea how long I had ridden on the flat….2 miles?…4 miles? I was worried that I could have separated the bead from the tire. My second concern was that I immediately saw one obvious puncture in the tire. If that was the case, how many more punctures were there? I inspected the tire and found only that one puncture. Huge relief! I took out my plug kit and used the biggest plug I had. So easy a caveman could do it. It really is simple to do. The catch is that you just need to HAVE the plugs. In my haste, I forgot to use the glue that comes with the plug kit. But the tire aired up to about 15psi with the cigarette lighter air compressor I keep under my seat. That may not sound like much, but the tire feels decent with that much air in it, and it got me up the road. I traveled at least another 2 to 3 miles on the gravel. There was one juncture where I wasn’t completely sure I was making the right turn. But luckily I chose right and I hit hwy 21 before too long. Pavement at last. It had been exactly one hour since I went off road there at Catalpa. The 8 or 9 miles of gravel road and the flat tire repair had eaten up sixty minutes of my day. Not too shabby really.
I headed north on hwy 21 and within 3 miles I noticed an older gentleman in his back yard. Carl Sory was his name. Sure enough, he had an air compressor and he had me aired up to full pressure in no time. Super nice guy. Still works as a truck driver for the lumber yard. With my dad being a trucker, we were able to trade trucking stories. I just remember being hot and sweaty in my gear, being powdered with dust from having fixed the flat, and being happy as a pig in shit to have come across a nice guy with an air compressor. It was probably around 4:15pm when I left there. I was at roughly the southernmost point in my day trip and I had about three and a half hours of daylight left……and I was riding on a plug at this point. I’ve got to say….I still felt great about the day.
I took hwy 21 to Boxley Corner. I made my way over to Ponca and saw the elk heard out in that piece of bottom land there. Then I headed north on hwy 103. Hwy 103 took me pretty much all the way into Missouri…..Blue Eye, MO, to be exact. Then back to Cassville, MO, which I had passed through earlier in the day. I stopped in Cassville and took some pictures of my bike in front of a bad ass army tank. I also had myself a nice Sonic dinner there. Grilled cheese sandwich with lettuce, onion, and tomato and a side of onion rings. Up until that point, I had been nourishing myself with bananas, a pear, and one fabulous nectarine that I had brought from home.
Within ten miles of leaving Cassville, I stopped to switch from a tinted helmet shield to a clear shield. At that time, I noticed my rear tire was low on air…maybe down to 20psi. Evidently I had a tolerably slow leak. I assumed it was leaking from the plug. Perhaps the glue was an important step that should not have been overlooked in the plugging process. I knew that if things got bad enough, all I had to do was get the tools out and put a new plug in there with glue this time. And that would have been easy enough since I would have likely had my choice of WHERE to do the RE-repair.
As I was slowly making my way back over to Carthage, MO, on the back roads, the sunset was really beautiful. I never really plan to ride in the dark. I think it’s a crap shoot whether you live or die because you can’t really “be prepared” for the deer that’s going to dart out in front of you or t-bone you. But I do really love the sights I see when I get caught out at dusk. For example, I passed some cows on a hill and all you could make out were their perfect silhouettes. It was dark and I was far away from home still, but I had to stop and take a picture. Okay…..I took nineteen pictures to be exact. It was well worth it.
I stopped in Carthage and got a cup of coffee at McDonalds. Knowing I had another 145 miles ahead of me, I was really worried about what that last leg would be like. But luckily being on the slab in the dark was better than being on the back roads in pitch black. The slab has more distractions, more lights, more reflectors, more signs. Back roads can get difficult because there is a real absence of stimuli. It’s like a dark tunnel. It actually starts to feel scary after a while. Not scary as in I’m going to wreck, but scary as in I’m afraid right now. It’s a strange feeling. But then when I got on the slab from Carthage to Kansas City, while it wasn’t scary like the back roads, I caught myself staring at my instruments a lot. I felt compelled to look at something stationary…..like I had been watching movement for too long. These are just the strange things your mind does when it has to do things it isn’t used to doing. (This bit reminds me of a book I read recently: Unbroken. The main character is stranded at sea on a 2-man raft for over a month and eventually the lack of stimuli becomes unbearable and little things like the smell of his own ear wax become coveted distractions.)
About midway between Carthage and Kansas City, I stopped in Nevada, MO, to check the rear tire. It was down to about 20psi again, so I found an air compressor and aired it back up to 40psi. That was my last stop before I made it home to Kansas City. I pulled into the garage just after midnight. From 7:30am to midnight (almost 17 hours), I traveled 682 miles. I’m pretty sure that’s my personal best for one day of riding. And just as I had intended, I polished off that rear tire. Now I’m ready for a new tire just in time for the Fall Rally in a few weeks.
I love reading motorcycle travelogues and Jupiter’s Travels is one of my favorites. The author, Ted Simon, says that a biker should travel alone sometimes so you meet people and see how connected you are to the world we travel through. And I will not say that getting a flat tire is “fun” in the typical sense. I’ve been in that pickle before where you have to put the route on hold, backtrack to the nearest town, and then pay Baghdad black market prices for a rear tire. But when you can pull out that plug kit and get the bike back on the road in less time than most lunch breaks, well that just rocks! I dig that shit. Some of the things I remember most over the years were the jams we got into and out of. For example, at the very first rally I ever attended, I recall missing an upshift. I immediately looked down and saw fluid trickling down onto my boot and thought, “Oh shit, I BROKE it!” I pulled off the road and Jody pulled in behind me. He quickly assessed that it was merely coolant and he calmly instructed me how to “pull the tank” using the factory toolkit. He walked me through that whole repair on the side of the road. I still can’t believe we cobbled Deek’s bike back together and got it road worthy after his accident. And then there was that day spent trying to track down that short on my bike. All memorable experiences.
I went home to Tennessee this week to visit family for the 4th of July holiday. On a lark, I went ahead and threw my helmet and one of my riding coats, my boots, and gloves into the car. Turns out that was a good call. When we visited with my mom on Tuesday, one of the first things she asked me was if I wanted to go for a ride. She recently purchased a Honda Shadow 1300cc for her girlfriend and so she has TWO bikes under the carport. It didn’t take much convincing. The next day I was at Goodwill purchasing a pair of black denim pants for $2. Riding pants were the only thing I forgot in my haste. I spent Wednesday night on Google Maps coming up with a good route. My mom does a lot of riding in the area but could not remember being on the Blue Ridge Parkway since maybe back in the 70’s when her and my dad were together. So the BRP was my goal. See the route details below. We would take the back way to Gatlinburg (via Cosby) and then take 441 into Cherokee, NC. Get on the BRP there in Cherokee (where it starts, by the way). Take the BRP for maybe 60 miles or so, then get off before Asheville and head north. Through Canton, then Hot Springs, then back to her home in White Pine, TN. See route details below. (See the Google map HERE.) We left my mom’s place at around 9:30am. That was a bit of a scare. I had never ridden this behemoth bike before. My mom’s first instruction was to ride the bike out of the carport, uphill through about 40 yards of wet grass, and then out into the gravel driveway. Ugh! But….I watched my mom do it with no trouble and I executed the same bad idea as effortlessly as she had. The first few stops were pretty standard stuff. Nice sunny weather and pretty easy riding. The road from Gatlinburg to Cherokee (441) is pretty busy, but it’s still a very winding, twisty road with plenty of vistas. It sprinkled on us a few times on the way to Cherokee, but we didn’t get soaked. It was well after noon by the time we got on the BRP and we had only gone maybe 85 miles by that point. We weren’t setting a blistering pace. We were taking plenty of breaks and just enjoying the ride. My mom smokes like a chimney, so she never complains if I stop. See below a pic of my mom at the very start of the BRP in Cherokee, NC. Once we were on the BRP, I was in heaven. That big heavy V-twin is quite a different ride from the smooth power delivery of an inline four. The Shadow I was riding has handlebars that sort of swoop back like the old vintage bikes, so it was easy to imagine I was riding an old Indian. We sputtered along between 35mph and 45mph most of the time. And on a bike like that, it’s easy to get into an enjoyable rhythm and savor the curves even at that slow speed. It was quite a leap from the start of the day when I was utterly flummoxed as to how one goes about riding a bike with no tach. We ran through a decent amount of rain on the BRP and that’s where I eventually got soaked. But we also had some sun and I took some great pics of us, the bikes, and the view. Pounding Mill Overlook is very close to where we had planned to exit the BRP. We stopped there and took shelter from the rain under an overhanging rock. At that point, you could see a very ominous “cloud” tip toeing around the next corner from where we were parked. All of the bikers there, including a couple of squids in ripped blue jeans were eyeing the cloud and debating on just turning and heading back the way they came. But my mom and I suited up and rode on…..heading right for the “cloud”. As soon as we rounded the corner, we were in the “cloud” and I was assessing visibility. I looked back and all I could see was my mom’s headlight. That fog lasted maybe a mile at most. In another couple of miles we were exiting the parkway onto 276 and heading north toward Canton. However, at that point, we were in a heavy, steady rain. And as most of us well know, all roads leading to and from the BRP are typically steep since the BRP runs along the ridge of the mountains. So now we were descending on 276 in heavy rain. I saw a yellow speed advisory sign that read “15mph / Next 4 Miles”. I dropped it into first gear and we crept down the mountain. I kept an eye on my mirror and could see a car behind my mom the whole way down. With rain too heavy for me to see through my visor, I raised my shield and just drank in the rain. I was hyper focused on not wrecking this big Shadow and then it dawned on me that my Mom was behind me doing the exact same thing. She’s got 20 plus years on me. I know she’s in her early sixties, she wears glasses, she surely can’t be as strong as she once was, and here she is riding this cruiser down a mountain in heavy rain. When it finally leveled out, we pulled over and I told my mom she had earned her merit badge. We were both soaked to the core, but both very relieved to have made it down in one piece. We made our way toward Canton, NC. We merged onto 215 at some point. We fueled up in Canton. (I don’t go on and on about all of these roads, but they were ALL good. Western North Carolina is replete with great riding.) At Canton, I needed to be on the lookout for a small side road that would allow us to wind our way over to 209 and into Hot Springs. I kept looking for this Thickety Road that I had found on Google Maps. Finding Thickety would keep us from having to resort to interstate travel. Luck was with me and I found the road. It took us right over Interstate 40 and I gave a middle finger salute to the interstate traffic as we crossed overhead. Thickety took us to Crabtree Mountain Road. Ah…….Crabtree Mountain Road…..a meandering little road on the Google Maps that gave no hint at the adventure it held in store for us. Crabtree Mountain Road was just supposed to be a back roads route for us to get to 209 (a GREAT road) and then into Hot Springs. It wound up being a generous reward for having ridden in so much rain a half hour earlier. With almost no warning, the road turned into steep switchbacks, the goat path of all goat paths leading to the top of the mountain in the absolute shortest distance possible. The inside corners were scraped by cars’ undercarriages……as we have all seen before. It was probably only two or three miles of road, but it was a first-gear climb that required courage, finesse, and a smile. It was very much like Mount Judea in Arkansas, but it went on for longer. When I finally crested the summit, I HAD to pull over and get my mom’s reaction. She went on and on like it had scared the shit out of her, and I do believe it did, but it was also something she seemed to enjoy. Quite an adventure. All I kept thinking and repeating to myself was that the “road had redeemed itself.” Riding in the rain earlier had sucked, but climbing this mountain goat path in the warm sun of late afternoon had been the reward. We eventually got back on the bikes and made our way down the other side of Crabtree Mountain Road. Luckily the other side wasn’t quite as steep and we were able to safely control our descent. At the junction of 209, we tried to take Max Patch Road (107) over into TN instead of taking 209 (a road that we have both been on previously). But Max Patch turned to gravel and we had to double back about 5 miles. We (the Hoolie Crew) have all been on 209. It goes over into Hot Springs where a lot of Appalachian Trail through hikers stop for respite. 209 is a great road. I think some people in the area call it the Snake or the Rattle Snake, or the Rattler, or something like that. My mom and I stopped there in Hot Springs and ate dinner at a little diner she remembered was there. See below a picture of how my hands were inked blue from a day of riding with wet gloves and a through hiker who had been eating at the diner. We left Hot Springs at about 8:30pm. As we made our way back home, we crossed over the French Broad River as the sun was setting. A beautiful view to end the day. We rode along the river most of the 25 miles back to Newport. We finally returned home at around 9:30pm. 12 hours on the road. 257 miles on the trip meter. One hell of a great day of riding.
For anyone NOT familiar with the official "There, I Fixed it" web site, I highly suggest giving it a look. I love receiving their daily emails. Something about that mentality of fixing things on the fly and making do with what you've got really resonates with me. That's actually one of the many reasons I enjoy hanging around with my buddy John. As he puts, he was 12 or 13 years old before he realized you could just BUY things; his dad was the type to fix or fabricate anything they needed or needed repair. Anywho, my family is very much like that. I still remember being with my cousins at my grandparents house and trying to ride an old bicycle that had no tires.....just bare rims. Not an easy task on pea gravel. My papaw saw us doing this and he took some old, thick, rigid, pink fuel hoses and mounted them on the rims. Not an extremely pleasant ride, but it was a hell of an improvement over bare rims. On a recent visit to see my grandparents, I noticed this old lawn mower body in the shed. I asked my granny about the mower and she explained that my papaw used it to cart a water pump to the creek when he need to pump water out for the garden. Notice the piece of wood so the pump mounts up just right. Anywho, I am always saving containers and reusing them when I can....often in the garage. But tonight I needed a way to preserve a can of sweetened condensed milk I had opened. (I use it for my coffee.) I had a plastic peanut butter jar in the cabinet. The can fit in nicely, but how to retrieve it each time. The solution gave me a little giggle when I figured it out. There, I fixed it.
I swear to Jebus it felt like I was 36yo FOREVER. I even did the math at one point a few months ago to make sure I wasn't adding it up wrong. But it had to end sometime, and that sometime was Saturday. I celebrated by getting a haircut, having a late lunch at Houston's on the Plaza. Houston's makes the world's BEST veggie burger in house, and they also serve a crazy good roasted artichoke. I LOVE their artichoke. There's not a lot of "meat" on the leaves, so it winds up being all about the taste. What better way to spend a summer evening than at a dirt track. We drove out to Grain Valley, MO, which is just a few miles outside of Kansas City. Valley Speedway has a 3/8 mile dirt oval. They had Modifieds and Street Stock racing last night. The heat races were a little bit better than the actual races. As you would expect, the more cars, the more cautions. I uploaded and embedded some video below. I use to go down south to Adrian, MO. There was an awesome little dirt track down there that was only 1/3 mile. Seeing modifieds race around that tiny track was quite the spectacle.
I knew this day had to come. I sold her tonight. I won't use this time to reminisce too much. We had a good run with lots of great memories, but it was the Corobra's time to go. I knew I was selling it to a good guy, but I was for sure when I went to lay the money down after the sale and noticed he had kept with tradition, scibbling on the bank envelope simply "Corobra $".
About three months ago, I started looking for a new car. I knew I wanted a small 4 cylinder, something that would get good gas mileage, and preferably a wagon. I also wanted something with dark interior, an automatic of course, and something with AIR CONDITIONING. I looked at a lot of cars and did a lot of searching and researching over the last three months.
I kept coming back to the Pontiac Vibe. 1.8L, 4cyl. Rated at 29/36 mpg. The Vibe has lots of neat features like the 110 volt outlet, fold flat rear seats, the front passenger seat that folds flat (ideal for a laptop). The Vibe also sits a little more upright that most compact sedans, so it's a little easier to get in and out of. This one even has the sunroof!
Now I am the LAST person who would recommend owning a Pontiac / GM product. However, something you may not know is that the Vibe was built alongside the Toyota Matrix at the NUMMI assembly plant in Fremont, California. And the Vibe and Matrix are built on the Corolla platform with the Matrix power train and drive train. The is the closest there there is to a contemporary Corolla wagon without buying the less attractive Matrix. I'm all about the Corolla, as you all know. The Vibe gets good reviews, has built a good reputation for itself, and is less expensive that a Corolla of comparable age and mileage.
So, I located a good one at a large Chevrolet dealership up in Des Moines, Iowa. I drove up today (420 miles round trip) and pulled the trigger. Found this beauty with a mere SIXTY THOUSAND miles on the odometer. It's a 2003 model. I talked them down from retail and basically got it for what Kelley Blue Book considers "private party price". That's okay with me. Clean one-owner, no-accident CarFax and I was allowed to inspect it closely on the lift prior to purchase.
I'm the proud new owner of this 2003 Pontiac Vibe and the newest member of what my two female Vibe-owning coworkers fondly refer to as "The Vibrator Club".
Blizzard at my house too for that matter. The "Northern Alliance" constituency of the Hoolie Crew is collectively screwed. An actual blizzard is forecast. 10 to 15 inches of snow in the works. Hold on to your hats.
