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.
