"Faster faster until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." Hunter S. Thompson.
I'm sure all these KLR posts are starting to sound alike. I know they pretty much all look the same. I've found the "good angle" from which to take the best pics of the bike and so all the photos show the "Killer" off from the same vantage point. Come to think of it, it's pretty much the same angle from which I always shoot the Rex. Oh well, whatever, I can't stop thinking about this whole new world of dual sport and all the fun I'm having on the KLR. My girlfriend puts up with my KLR chatter like a champ and even the ladies at Scrabble suffer it without too much grumbling. But they don't share the passion. I want to talk about it with someone....to share how much pleasure and excitement it brings me to get out and explore on the KLR for hours and hours on end. It really is that big of a deal. When I got back from riding on Thursday, I was like a raw nerve the whole evening....on the verge of crying for hours. I even let the tears flow a couple of times, but I was watching Dolly Parton's Christmas special "Coat of Many Colors". That could have had something to do with the water works. By the way, since I mentioned the "Scrabble Bitches" (a moniker my ex-wife gave them in anger and that they wound up loving and it just stuck)….we've been playing Scrabble at the same coffee shop every Friday after work for 10 years now. Quite the milestone. My marriage didn't even last that long.
The forecast last Thursday was for temps in the mid 60s and even a mild low in the 50s for that morning. It was a no brainer; I took the day off work and headed back up north to St.Joe to explore more of the California Trail area. Not having to wait for it to warm up, I was able to leave the Lair by 8:15am. I arrived at the unpaved good stuff by 9:30am. To make it even better, I had the fresh new Shinkos on the bike. As my old roommate Derek might have equipped had he heard this set up, "It truly was the perfect storm."
Some things I'm particularly enjoying / high points & good stuff....
1. Getting chased by the same dogs over and over again as I pass places I've ridden before. I feel like a paper boy. I know where the sumbitches are going to come after me. I know which ones are going to make a feeble show and then back off, which ones are going to get out in the road to intercept me and which ones are going to come after me like they really want a piece of my ass. I'm 41yo, riding a dirt bike on a weekday, lifting my legs up up over the crash bars so I won't get bit. This is living.
2. I like going faster and faster. Of course I did this on my street bike over years and years. And now I'm doing it on the KLR. I catch myself ripping down roads that just a few weeks ago I wasn't sure about how to even approach. It's just dirt and gravel. No big whoop. And that process of going round and round and getting faster each time....that process always reminds me of being a kid. I did it on bicycles and gocarts and four wheelers. With each lap or circuit, I would push a little harder, a little faster. Riding the KLR is like being a kid again.
Riding the KLR is a lot like hiking, which I've always loved. But this is like hiking and motorcycling had a love child.
3. I saw several bald eagles the other day when I was riding down by the river. It was around 10:30am or so. I remember saying to myself "What a day!"….and it wasn't even lunch time yet. That's living...when you've already had an awesome day before noon.
4. I am continually impressed at what the KLR can do if I trust it and stay in the gas. When I turn off the main road onto what looks like a hunting road or perhaps nothing more than matted down grass where a truck or tractor has been.....I go easy and try to be careful. But when the trail heads up a hill, I've already learned that I commit to that hill way down at the bottom. Once I head up, I have to stay in the gas. I have to say I have really surprised myself with some of the hills and trails I've climbed so far....stuff that might have scared me if I had been given the time to think about it for very long. Not life threatening stuff, but bike-dropping kind of stuff. But like I said, that KLR will just go and go. It'll do interstate speeds comfortably and it'll run the trails like a boss. I am impressed and happy with the KLR!
I logged 267 miles on Thursday. I left the house around 8am and got home just as it was getting dark at 5pm. I visited Nebraska at the northernmost point of my day. I've clicked over 1100 miles on the KLR now in the first 2 months of ownership. I'm ecstatic with this whole new world that I've opened up. Unpaved roads used to be such a pain in the ass, an annoyance to be avoided on the ZRX or maybe suffered at best. The monster in the closet used to be speed traps and radar guns and now it's gun-toting landowners upon whose land I may have unknowingly trespassed. I'm getting more comfortable with not having a destination in mind, with meandering in circles on the map, and with choosing a location based on topography instead of availability of state highways. More pics and adventures to come. Stay tuned.
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