Asshat Riders and Garmin's Incompetence

The past few weeks--and the coming one--have seen almost daily thunderstorms so it's been hard to get a ride in.  I did try to do a medium one--173 miles--last Saturday.  The weather was nice but storms in the preceding days had blown gravel into the road in unexpected places.  I hit a pile of it coming down off a mountain and nearly dumped the bike at high speed.  That made me a little tentative for the rest of the ride.

Then I was on Route 125 south of Shamokin.  This road, which has a couple of twisty mountain crossings, is popular with the sports bike crowd.  I was tooling around and checked the mirrors and

saw one behind me, so I stepped up the pace to my comfort level so as to not steal any more fun from the guy than I had to.  Then I was leaning hard in a curve nearly scraping a peg and one of the asshats in the group passed me on the right, in my lane.  He was inches from me.  We were both moving fast and leaning so even if our mirrors had made contact, it would have been disaster.  The other two then passed me on the left.  It was a double yellow line but I didn't care so much about that.

As I thought about it, I was angry at myself for not flipping off the first moron.  At least I can be satisfied that his single digit IQ will probably be out of the gene pool relatively soon.

Then the other annoyance.  For like the fifth time in a row, my Garmin Zumo 220 corrupted my route.  I had put in a help ticket to Garmin after the previous episode and they had me reset the unit to the factory configuration.  But this didn't resolve the problem.  So now they're telling me that they'll replace it for "only" $60.  Well, this would be the fifth replacement in three years (including one that cost me $120) so I don't think so.   I cannot believe that Garmin stays in business with such abysmal quality control.  Unfortunately though, there aren't any other motorcycle specific GPS units out there, so I don't know what to do now.

Back in the Game

I was laid low all week with back pain.  It was so bad I took a couple of days off work and then went to the doctor's office.  The physician's assistant couldn't figure out what it was, so just gave me some muscle relaxers.

But Saturday morning was perfect--70s and sunny--so I decided to get on the bike and see how my back reacted.  I took off without a plan.  Whether from the vibration or just relaxation, I was pain free while riding (although I did get a few shots of pain lifting my feet to the pegs after a stop).

I only rode a little over 100 miles but was glad I got to get a bit of such a wonderful day.

Some Good, Some Bad, Some Ugly

For the fourth time in less than a year, last minute changes in the weather caused me to cancel a long-planned West Virginia ride.  This time the Sunday forecast was 60% chance of afternoon thunderstorms, so I begged off.  But Saturday was supposed to be nice so I thought I'd do my first really long ride of the year, using one of my favorite routes that goes through the state forests of north central Pennsylvania, but adding a couple of new twists.

Spring and Autumn rides are always a challenge since there can be a large temperature variation from the beginning to the end.  This was no exception as it was mid 50s at the start and low 80s at the end, but I was able to peel off layers and stay reasonably comfortable.

I started with two of my favorite roads: Rt 74 out of Carlisle and Rt 235 north of McAlisterville, cutting west to Bellfonte, through Snow Shoe and Karthaus.  The plan was to swing north on Route 144 and back south on 44 to Lock Haven.  This would briefly put me into Pennsylvania elk country.  Then I wanted to hit the superb 477 south of Lock Haven, over to Mifflinburg, and south on 104, then 11, 850 and 34.

As it turns out the new roads were very nice.  They included Wykoff Run Road between 2004 and 120 (which someone told me about on Facebook) and 4001 north from 120 to 144.  This ran along Kettle Creek which is one of the better known trout streams in Pennsylvania (although I've never fished it).

All was well until I hit the northernmost part of the route and started back south on 44.  There were piles of gravel at random places in road.  I almost dumped the bike hitting one at high speed.  When I started sliding I instinctively reached for the brakes but luckily the experienced motorcyclist part of my brain vetoed that idea--hitting the brakes when you're sliding on ice or gravel is the exact wrong thing to do.  I assume that area had a very bad storm within the past 48 hours which washed all of that onto the pavement.  In any case, it caused me to ease along where I would usually rocket.

I had nice at an interesting honky tonk diner in Lock Haven.  As I parked and was taking my full panoply of protective gear off (full face helmet, leather jacket, elkskin gloves, protective overpants), a guy pulled up on a Harley and parked right next to me.  He had clearly spent tens of thousands of dollars on a intricate specialized paint job and after-market chrome.  The bike glowed--there was not a smudge on it. The paint glittered; I could see my reflection in the highly polished chrome. I'm sure guy rode it a few miles from his garage to the diner carefully avoiding anything that might mar it. I'd guess that he had an extra loud after-market muffler as well.  Of course he wore no  helmet, had regular faded jeans (which are worthless in a crash), and sported a Harley logo vest and boots.

My bike (and me for that matter) was bug encrusted and looked like it had just been ridden very fast over hundreds of miles of mountains.  Which it had. Anything aftermarket on my bike is there to improve comfort and safety, not for looks.  This was all emblematic: tt's a Harley versus BMW thing.


Then when I started back up, I noticed that the route was corrupted on my Garmin GPS.  This happens 100% of the time now and has across multiple Garmin units.  The utter incompetence of Garmin's software engineers continues to anger me.  After I designed the route using Base Camp, Garmin's bizarrely awful mapping software, it took four tries to get it to upload correctly without adding detours (which is normal).  When I previewed it on Friday it was fine but when I ran it on Saturday it decided to just draw straight lines between my waypoints regardless of whether there were actually roads.  I so wish there was some competition to Garmin.  (I have tech support request in to them but have never been successful at the dozen or so other times I've asked for help, so I'm not expecting much).

But in this case it didn't really matter since I knew the route.  Unfortunately, when I got to 477, the state had recently resurfaced it using what they call the "oil and chips" method.  This is a Third World technique where they put down tar, cover it with gravel chips, and depend on traffic to imbed the chips in the tar.  The surface becomes solid (but still bad) after a few days or weeks depending on how much traffic there is.  But in the interim, the road is very treacherous because it is a just a bed of loose gravel.  I was crawling along at 20 as the road twisted along a mountain stream, pulling off when I could to let cars get by (which is an exact reversal of how things normally work).

I finally bailed out on 477 because I knew there was a mountain crossing coming up and knew I couldn't do it safely (thank PENNDOT!).  I jumped in I-80 for about five miles, took the next exit, then following my hypothesis that at any location in central Pennsylvania, I can ride for 25 minutes in any direction and eventually know where I am.  As it turned out, I picked up my original route and followed it the rest of the way home.

Being out of riding shape, I was exhausted when I got home. even though I'd only ridden a bit over 380 miles  I still didn't see any elk but the ride sure beat whatever else I might have done for the day.

Close By

Taking the Advanced Riders Course killed my Saturday and, of course, I can only do short ones on Sundays since that's when I write my column for World Politics Review.  The weather was so nice that I did bop down to the vicinity of Gettsyburg.

I'm excited about next weekend's ride to West Virginia.  It looks like I may finally make this happen after getting weathered out several times.

Stayin Alive, Staying Alive

I made a firm commitment to riding safety when I took up motorcycling exactly five years ago.  I always wear high quality protective gear.  (Well, almost always--I do ride the three miles to and from work in khakis or dress pants, and sometimes wear regular jeans when riding a local errand).  I read

every motorcycle safety book I can get my hands on.  I regularly go out on an isolated road and practice safety skills, particularly swerves and quick stops in order to sustain muscle memory.  And I regularly take safety courses with trained coaches.

I took the Basic Rider Course which was developed by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) a month after getting my first bike.  Over the years I've taken what used to be called the Experienced Rider Course and is now called the Basic Rider Course II four different times.  Last year I signed up for a new Advanced Rider Course (ARC) that Pennsylvania was offering but got sick and wasn't able to make it.  So I registered again for this year.

The course was four hours of classroom instruction and discussion (which, ironically, fell on my fifth year riding anniversary) and four hours on the riding course.  I was a bit disappointed because I'd hoped that this one would involve actual riding on a road with coaches, but it was more exercises in a large parking lot.  The difference from the earlier courses was the complexity of the exercises and the speed with which they were done--the earlier courses were mostly under 20 MPH and in the ARC we were often going 25-30 MPH.

A lot of people take the basic courses either to get an insurance discount or because it's required to ride on military installations.  Since anyone taking the ARC has already take the BRC and BRC II, the only motivation is a personal commitment to safety.  So it's like safe riding grad school.  That means the classes are pretty small.  The BRC and BRC II classes are often 12 riders; my ARC had me and three others.  But since we had two coaches, that was a good thing.

During the first classroom session we took a number of self assessments including our propensity for risky behavior.  We had to rate our overall riding skills level.  Then, to my surprise, the instructor wrote  everyone's numbers on the board.  I had given myself the highest skill level rating within the group so I figured I had self created pressure to perform the next day when we got out on the range.  But that was OK since I need pressure to be at my best.  (Plus, I still think my rating was right: I have myself an 8 out of 10.  Since my annual mileage is in the top 5-10% for all motorcyclists and I do things that the vast majority of motorcycles don't, specifically take a training course every year and go out on isolated roads and practice skills like fast stops and swerves, I really think I'm in the top 20% of all riders).

I did stumble a bit on the risk assessment we did.  One of the questions was "Have you recently ridden over 100 MPH?"  I put my and up and said, "Define 'recently'."  The instructor said, "This riding season."  I said, "OK, that's good" and moved on.

But as it turns out, that self assessment was fairly accurate.  We would break into groups of two to ride the various exercises.  When I was paired with one of the two guys in the group, they really held me up because they were so slow going through the complex exercises (which involves as many as 8 or 10 different maneuvers in a single exercise, including very tight descending curves and S turns).  One held me up so much that the coaches put me in front of him on subsequent runs and I would lap him and still end up behind him.

In their defense, both were riding big bikes--one a one a Kawasaki Vulcan 900 and the other a Kawasaki Concours.  And they weren't bad, just slow.  I did one exercise behind the guy on the Vulcan and he must have scraped his floorboards ten times.  The coach started calling him "Sparky" after that.  But the course was derived from the U.S. military's sports bike safety course.  That means the exercises emphasize quick maneuvers and hence are much easier on sports style bikes.  That's the reason that the two of us in the course with sportier bikes had a much easier time than the two guys on larger rides.

On one exercise I was paired with the fourth rider--a lady.  During the introductions during the classroom session she had said she'd only been riding a few years and had about 14,000 miles total, so I was expected her to hold me up.  Wrong.  She was very skilled.  She actually was increasing the distance from me in a few of the exercises (but I was pushing her in some).  I later found out she was a MSF coach who teaches the basic courses, so she'd been through coach training and done the exercises hundreds of times.  And she was on a Kawasaki Ninja 250 which is one of the most agile bikes out there (with an engine 1/5 the size of mine).  But she was just darned skilled, particularly on the exercises that were like the ones in the basic course.

Anyhow, there were no accidents throughout the day and, since there's not a test at the end, no failures.  So count is as a win.  The weather forecast had been for clouds and it turned out sunny so I was overdressed and physically exhausted at the end.  But it was worthwhile--I could sense things I'd learned in earlier classes but forgotten coming back.

Next year I'm going to enroll in something like the Lee Parks Total Control Course.  I'm very interested in a getting a critique of my actual, non-parking lot riding style.

The Two Brains

While I have yet to get in what I would consider a long ride this year (at least 350 miles), I did ride a 225 mile loop today.  There were good parts.  In particular, I was able to float unimpeded through the lovely section of Pennsylvania Route 30 from Fort Loudon to Breezewood.  This includes four wonderful mountain crossings but there's so much traffic on it that the chances are very good of getting stuck behind a slow car or truck.  But not today.  It was sublime.  Later, though, the weather turned out to be much hotter than predicted so I was roasting in my black winter jacket with limited ventilation in 90+ degree heat.  It really sucked the life out of me.

I'd ridden most of the route many times before but used my Garmin mapping software to add one new section.  On this part I could have stopped, gotten off the bike, laid down in the road and taken a nap and would not have been disturbed.  I was going five and even ten miles through rolling farmland and small stretches of forest without seeing another vehicle, even one of the thousands of Harleys with riders dressed like pirates that were out on the road..  That I like.

I noticed something today that has never occurred to me before.  Having upgraded my ten year old camera a few weeks ago, I was looking for things to photograph.  But I wasn't seeing anything worthwhile or would see if after I'd passed.  It dawned on my that my motorcycle brain and my photography brain are very different, and I can't run both at once.  Photography brain scans for shapes, colors, light and dark, and interesting composition.  Motorcycle brain scans for potential threats and is constantly calculating time/movement trajectories and curve apexes.  When motorcycle brain was running (which is was most of the time), I'd miss things that photography brain would have been drawn to.

Ultimately I'd probably see and take better photos driving a car, which takes much less concentration and constant calculation, than while riding a motorcycle.  But I'm not going to do that.

Horns of a Dilemma

I have a dilemma: all motorcycle safety training stresses not getting on the bike when you're not in the right frame of mind, especially when you're angry.  But because of things at work, I'm walking around with big honking piles of anger all the time. So to ride or not?

I did yesterday and the results weren't good.  In less than a mile from my house I got into a big screaming encounter on a single lane bridge when six cars failed to yield the right of way to me which I had at the time.  After counseling the  lead driver on his road skills (the lack of which he acknowledged after I explained it to him), I thought about turning around and riding home.  But I continued on and once I began floating through an isolated state forest road, the anger melted away.

So I'm stupid to take the first few miles of a ride now, but OK after that.

Next weekend I'm taking a Motorcycle Safety Foundation Advanced Riders' Course.  Pennsylvania just began offering it last year.  I signed up then but got sick at the last minute.  I'm curious about this one--I've taken what used to be called the Experienced Riders' Course (and is now called the Basic Riders' Course II) four different times, so it has declining utility for me.

I would like to get in some longer rides.  I just upgraded my ten year old camera and have been quite pleased with the results.  These were all shot nearby on my short after work rides.

Motorcycle Safety

I have two articles to write this weekend so only a short ride for me.  I did get into what is a typical online argument on motorcycle safety, this one strangely enough on a sports board.  A yutz there claimed he put straight pipes on his bike as a safety feature.  Having had this argument many times before, I pointed out that none of the organizations in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia or elsewhere concerned with motorcycle safety, whether the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, the state highway safety organizations, state police, or insurance companies, recommend loud mufflers as a safety feature.  Yet all do recommend high visibility clothing, full protective gear, especially a full face helmet (preferably white), getting regular professional safety training, regularly practicing skills like fast stops, and developing a hyper defensive riding still with minimum distractions.  I asked Mr. Straight Pipes if he did those things.  I haven't received a reply yet.

Back in the Saddle

After spending the last few months of winter in meticulous planning for the three day Virginia-West Virginia ride I wanted to take in April, I ended up cancelling it.  The tires on the bike were almost shot.  I thought I would get a replacement set under the one year warranty that I purchased when I got them, but I was a few weeks past it.  I decided that I couldn't both pay for the new tires and the trip.  As it turns out, I probably would have cancelled for weather reasons anyway. 

Between weather and health issues, I did the least riding over the winter of 2012-2013 since I began in 2008.  Spring was more than welcome.  I have again gotten in a few 300+ mile Saturday rides the past couple of weekends, the first west of Carlisle out the fantastic section of Route 30 and up to Raystown lake, the second to the World's End state park east of the Susquehanna and then through coal country around Shamokin.

The second of these included a lunch stop at the charming Forksville General Store, just over the covered bridge

The weather was great for both rides but, as has happened so often over the years, my Garmin Zumo GPS screwed me.  It added random diversions and detours to the routes I had designed and uploaded.  I tried stopping then restarting the routes but then they became hopelessly corrupted and I had to just ride until I figured out where I was.

This has been an ongoing problem as long as I have had a GPS on the bike.  I've contacted Garmin multiple times but the company simply denies the problem.  As one of their tech support people said to me, "That can't be happening."  Well, it has happened to me dozens of times, maybe more than a hundred.

All I want is a device that takes the route I designed and runs it--I don't want Garmin to "improve" or shorten it for me. Here's an illustration.  I just designed a route using Garmin's bizarrely bad Base Camp software.  The program shows it as 72.5 miles and taking 2 hours, 2 minutes.  I then transferred it to my Zumo.  On the Zumo, the same exact same route shows as  74.9 miles/1 hour, 36 minutes.  I'm going to ride it later today after I draft my weekly column and would not be surprised if detours and short cuts that I didn't design show up in the route.  I simply cannot understand why Garmin can't find competent software engineers who can successfully integrate mapping software and the GPS devices.

I would dearly love to throw the Zumo away and move to something else, but there is no serious competitor.  The only other motorcycle-specific GPS is the Tom Tom Rider, and I can't even figure out if it's still being sold in the United States. 

And this is more than a nuisance.  When the GPS screws up, I tend to become so angry and distracted that I lose my concentration and my riding erodes.  Yesterday I had a near miss when a yutz ran a stop sign and pulled out in front of me while riding through a town.  He avoided a crash by hitting the brakes but if I hadn't been distracted, I would have been in control of the situation and wouldn't have had to depend on the driver to prevent diaster.

Speaking of which, in June I'm taking the advanced safety course that Pennsylvania began offering last year.  I've taken the basic riders' course and what used to be called the advanced riders' course (which was a compressed version of the same thing) four times.  Those courses are useful but limited--since they're given in a parking lot, speeds never exceed 20 MPH so it doesn't replicate real street riding.  This new advanced course is at higher speeds, so may be more helpful.  That means it requires a bigger course, so I'll have to go to Gettysburg to take it.

I also need to get out on a isolated road and practice some fast stops and U turns.  I may do that today.  I'll continue to try and do long Saturday rides, leaving Sundays to write my column for World Politics Review.  Hopefully at some point I'll be able to do a multi-day ride.

There is one other thing.  While my R1200R remains my favorite physical thing I've ever owned, I'm just starting to look ahead.  It has 43,000 miles which is young for a BMW (and I have about 78K total in a little under five years of riding), but I'm beginning to think that it might be a good idea to move away from a sporty bike that compels me to ride hard and fast, and shift to a bigger touring bike.  In the 1990s I drove a 3 series BMW sedan which forced me to drive fast.  I have five wrecks in the five years I owned it.  I traded it for a larger sedan, first an Audi A6 and now a BMW 528i and haven't had a wreck in either.  So there may be a BMW K1600GT in my future. 

I Need Spring

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The Silence of the Hexheads

During the past six months I've ridden the least since I began almost five years ago.  A number of things have caused this.  In September 2012, I began writing a weekly column called "Strategic Horizons" for World Politics Review.  Since this is moonlighting, I have to do it on weekends, so it fills much of every Sunday.  Then during the autumn I had a few lingering health problems.  None were major but they did keep me off the bike.  Once winter got here we've had month after month of cold, grim weather.  We haven't had any huge snowstorms but there have been enough small ones to keep the roads covered in gravel, making all of the fun mountain roads very dangerous to ride.  Finally, there's Fritz.  He's an absolute sweetheart but very needy and takes up a lot of time.

Because of all of this, all I've been able to do is an occasional hour ride just to make sure I still remember how.

As winter grinds to an end, I'm hoping this will change.  I'm already plotting a two day ride through Virginia and West Virginia for late April to try and make up for the two failed attempts I had last year.




View VA WV April 2013 in a larger map

I'm tingling with excitement about this but it remains contingent on weather and my job conditions since like hundreds of thousands of other civil servants, I'm being used as a political plaything by Congress.  If I'm furloughed, I'll have to cut my riding back dramatically.

Finally

Various commitments--canine, family, and professional--have dramatically cut into my riding this year.  In previous summers, I would have been on 350-450 miles rides every weekend.  This year, I hadn't been on a single long ride since my disastrous late June/early July unadventure so I decided to take yesterday off of work, take advantage of having a dog sitter, and ride one of my favorite routes to the north and northwest of home, stitching together routes 74, 235, 144, 120, and 477.

The weather was good and the traffic light.  It didn't take long until my riding was back in the zone and I was deep in the ecstatic feeling of flying.  There wasn't anything particularly noteworthy or photo worthy on the trip but I did notice something about diverse motorcycle subcultures.

Since it was a weekday, there weren't a lot of other motorcycles on the road.  But I did encounter other riders twice.  The first was in a lovely section of Route 144 that runs for nearly twenty miles through state forest land,  It is purely woods--no businesses, no farms, no cross roads.  It can be a hoot to ride but can also be a problem.  There are no passing areas whatsoever for the entire length so if I'm alone, it's great but if I get stuck behind someone, not so much.

In this instance after I was a few miles in, I came up behind a couple of other motorcyclists.  I won't mention what brand they were riding but just say they were dressed like pirates and had after market "mufflers" that literally caused me pain when I was behind them even though I was wearing a full face helmet and ear plugs. 

Their riding skills were pathetic.  They wallowed below the speed limit on a completely empty road.  Their brake lights came on at the slightest curve. And they did their best to avoid leaning in the curves.

Luckily they eventually pulled over and let me pass.  A bit later I'd stopped at a picnic area to drink a Red Bull and they went wallowing past again.  Of course I felt and heard them coming long before I saw them.  But by the time I was finished they had ridden away, undoubtedly to a local bar or wherever else wannabe pirates hang out.

Later I was sort of lolling along on Route 11.  It's a heavily patrolled road, so I don't speed there.  In my mirrors I saw a bike coming up fast and it passed me in the left lane.  To my surprise, it was another BMW R1200R.  They're rare enough that I've only seen another one on the road a handful of times.  The rider was clearly one of my "own kind," not only riding my bike, but also geared up the way I was (white Arai helmet, BMW and Rev'it protective gear).

He got a bit ahead of me and turned off only Route 34.  I decided to chase.  The easternmost section of Route 34 is nicely open, running through sections of forest and farmland with a few twisty sections.  I thought I'd run the guy down but quickly realized he was GOOD.  He was running in the mid to upper 60s so I had to really rocket to catch up.

When I pulled up behind him, he didn't acknowledge me but I know he saw me.  So then we began to play.  We were knifing through the curves on perfect outside-inside--outside lines a couple of inches from scraping a peg.  Pennsylvania posts a sign with a recommended speed before most curves.  We were averaging 20-25 over that.

I didn't push him but stayed glued about 20 yards back.  This went on for about ten miles.  But then we hit the section of 34 where there were a series of little towns.  And I never speed through towns.  The other rider turned off on what was probably a shortcut and I lost him.  Pity because that was someone I'd really like to ride with on a regular basis.

My Worst Vacation Ever

I often tell people that my stories have a short version and a long version.  This one has no short version.

I hadn't been able to take a summer vacation for several years so planned a three day motorcycle ride for the end of June.  I had worked out the details for months, designing and re-designing the routes, carefully putting together exactly the right gear, and getting the bike in tip top condition.  I'd anxiously watched the weather forecast beginning about ten days out.  While it shifted daily as it often does during the summer, as the time approached the forecast was very hot but with a fairly small chance of scattered thunder storms, so the trip was a "go."

As events conspired, it turned into a disaster.  Like a Clark-Griswold-in-the-Wagon-Queen-Family-Truckster disaster.  But without Christie Brinkley in the swimming pool.

The plan was to take ride the 110 miles to Front Royal Virginia on Interstate 81 following work on Friday.  The first day, I was going to ride the full length of Skyline Drive then most of the Virginia section of the Blue Ridge Parkway, spending the night in Galax.  Both of these are stunning national parks twisting along the ridge of the mountains.

The second day I was going to pick up Route 16.  I'd heard that the section between Marion and Tazewell Virginia was one of the best motorcycle roads in the country.  I planned to stay on 18 to northern West Virginia, skirting about 35 miles from my ancestral homeland near Charleston, and overnighting in Weston.  The third day would be a fairly short ride back to Carlisle on some of my favorite Pennsylvania roads.  At least that was the plan.

The Friday afternoon ride to Front Royal was OK.  I hit triple digit temperatures once I crossed the Potomac, getting readings as high as 106 in the motorcycle's ambient temperature gauge.  But a new Rev'it mesh jacket I'd ordered the previous day had arrived, so I wasn't unbearably miserable.  I checked into the Front Royal Quality Inn--which was crawling with motorcyclists--walked a couple of blocks, had a nice dinner and a couple of excellent IPAs, and stumbled into a free concert in the park by a folk trio named Chatham Street.  All in all, it was a good start.

As I was falling asleep I got a text message telling me of a tornado warning in my area, but I didn't know if that meant Carlisle or Front Royal.  I heard a thunderstorm outside but at that point had had four beers and sleeping pill, so I slept the sleep of the dead.

The hotel served breakfast at 6 so I'd set my alarm for 5:30.  But by 5:00 I was completely awake so I grabbed a Red Bull and a pickled sausage at a convenience store next to the Quality Inn and headed for Skyline Drive.  I could see that it had rained the previous night, but it didn't look too bad.  The only strange thing was that the stuff sack to my bike cover, which I'd left on the seat UNDER the cover, had blown about 50 yards to the other side of the parking lot.  But the cover stayed on the bike, so I didn't think much of it.

The Skyline Drive entrance was only about a mile away.  No one was at the ranger fee booths at the park entrance but there was a sign saying that if no one was there, you could pay when you left, so I dodged my first deer of the day and headed up the mountain. The sun hadn't come up at this point but it was light enough to see. 

I hadn't gotten 500 yards when there was large tree down across the road.  I stopped, took off my helmet, and tried to figure out if I could move it or get around.  A couple of guys on Harleys pulled up and they did the same.  The three of us decided there was no way to get past the tree.  Luckily I had bought a Virginia road map when I filled up with gas the previous evening.  So I found the next entrance to Skyline Drive which was about 25 miles south near Luray.  I got on Route 340 and headed that way.

By then the sun was coming up and I began to see the effects of the storm.  It was immense. Trees were down and branches blown around everywhere.  From Luray, it was a short jump on Route 211 up the mountain to Skyline Drive.

Heading south on Skyline, things were looking good.  There was very little traffic and it was nicely cool.  The only problem was that the road was covered with wet leaves and debris from the storm, so I had to ease through the curves.  When I stopped for a photo at one of the overlooks, the same two guys on Harleys pulled up.  I asked how they'd gotten on Skyline and turned out they came the same way I did, but were a bit behind me.

About another 15 or 20 miles down the road I was getting hungry so decided to stop at one of the store/restaurants that the Park Service runs on Skyline Drive.  The sign on the place said it opened at 8.  It was 7:40 at this point so I decided to wait.  I went to the restrooms which opened on the outside of the building.  The light didn't work which seemed a bit strange.  About this point the two Harley guys showed up again and also decided to wait for the restaurant to open.  Turns out they were from Indiana and were meeting their families for a vacation at Myrtle Beach, so we talked about that for a while.

At 8:00 the staff opened the door to the restaurant but told us they had no electricity, so couldn't serve anything.  So I mounted back up and headed south.  That had made me hungry enough that I decided to jump off of Skyline and find food.  The next exit was Route 33 and I could see from my map that the town of Elkton was about 6 miles away.  So, dodging deer as is normal for Skyline Drive, I twisted my way down off the mountains and went to a McDonald's in Elkton.

The place was jammed.  As I listened to people while I was standing in line, most were saying they had no electricity and thus no way to fix food at home.  A woman in front of me said the pump on her well was electric, so she had no water either.  And the afternoon temperatures were heading for triple digits.

It was strange that Elkton had power and surrounding areas didn't, but I figured it was just a local thing. Having not seen or read the news, I had no idea that this effected the whole mid-Atlantic region and Midwest.

I ate then backtracked up the mountain to get back on Skyline Drive. By now  there was a ranger at the entrance.  When I tried to pay him, he was saying something.  I had my earphones in and the music going, so had to take all that off to hear him.  He told me Skyline was closed and impassable to the south.  I decided to go back down the mountain to Elkton, again pick up Route 340 and head south to Waynesboro.   There I could pick up Interstate 64 and get on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  That was annoying since it meant I would miss the best section of Skyline Drive, but I didn't know what else to do.

On Route 340, I tried to top off my gas.  But every station I pulled into had no electricity and was closed.  Riding through Waynesboro was weird--there clearly was no electricity in the whole town.  Even the traffic lights weren't working. That reminded me, in miniature. of driving through Basra in May of 2003.

I hopped on I-64 and hit the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The northernmost eight miles or so of it aren't great but then I began getting into the more entertaining sections. The wet leaves had dried and blown off at that point, so I was able to lean through the curves. Things were looking up.

By then I was down to about 60 miles of fuel at that point so decided to go looking for some. My Garmin Zumo told me there was a Sunoco eight miles away in Raphine, so I headed that way. 

Getting down from the mountain was a challenge.  Route 56 is tiny and very twisty, and was covered with wet debris.  When I got to Raphine which is right off I-81, people were pulling up to the pumps at the Sunoco.  But when it was my turn, I saw that the pumps were off and the store had no electricity.  By then my fuel was reaching the critical level so I decided to get on Route 11, which parallels I-81, and ride south until I found gasoline.

Just north of Lexington there was an Exxon with long lines of cars waiting to fuel up.  By this point the temperature was in the upper 90s and even a mesh jacket didn't help when I was sitting still.  But I waited it out and gassed up.  I did want to kick the butt of one geezer from New York who was in front of me--with the line of cars 20 deep, he left his parked at the pump while he went inside and used the restroom.

But anyhow, I checked the map and saw that the closest way to get back on Skyline Drive at this point was to take Route 60 through Buena Vista.   It was  fun ride back up the mountain and I was starting to get my mojo at this point, leaning hard enough to scrape a peg in the tight turns. 

When I got to Skyline, a Park Service lady had a truck across the entrance and said the road was closed until south of Roanoke.  That was at least 100 miles.  I was getting annoyed at this point.

I once again reversed course, back down the mountain, back through Buena Vista, and back on to I-81.  At this point it was over 100 degrees and there was a lot of traffic, so riding was no fun.  I was growing grumpier by the minute.

I went past Roanoke and told my GPS to get me back on the Parkway.  It sent me through Salem,  This is a sprawling developed area with malls and traffic lights every block.  I was broiling in the triple digit temperatures.  By pure happenstance, I rode past Frontline Eurosports, a new BMW/Triumph motorcycle dealership, so decided to stop in.  It is a gorgeous store and I spent a very nice half an hour in the air conditioning looking around and talking motorcycles with the owner.  If it was closer, I'd be a regular.

After that, I continued to wander around Salem and Cave Springs, looking for the Parkway and sweating like a pig.  When I finally got there, it was closed with a gate across the entrance.

I decided to get on Route 221 which parallels the Parkway and just shoot into Galax.  There was one very short but very nice section of high speed twisties that allowed me a few peg scrapes but other than that, the road was no great shakes.  Certainly not worth coming all that way for. 

Then I reached a point where there was another entrance to the Parkway right off Route 221.  I figured it was worth checking out.  Amazingly, the road was open.

So then I was having a little fun even though the southern Virginia section of the Blue Ridge Parkway is not nearly as nice as the parts north of Roanoke or in North Carolina.  At least it was bit cooler on it and there was limited traffic given all the closures. 

Continuing the theme of the day--which apparently was Annoy Steve As Much as Possible--it began raining.  I pulled off in the deluge, wrestled into my rain suit, got back on the bike and, as I should have expected, it then stopped raining.  After a few steamy miles, I stopped again and took the rain gear off.

As it came time to get off the Parkway, my Zumo told me to take the next right.  But there was no next right.  Then it told me to do a U turn.  As it turns out, Garmin's data base was screwed up--Route 97, which I was supposed to take, crosses the Parkway as an underpass but does not intersect it.

I backtracked a bit, got off on a little country road, and let the GPS get me on to Route 97.  From there is was only about 10 miles into Galax.

I checked into my hotel which was quite a bit newer and nicer than the previous night's one and rode back into town to the Galax Smokehouse.  I got a nice barbeque platter and listened to an excellent bluegrass trio playing in the restaurant.

Back at the hotel I was looking forward to a a few beers I had left from a six pack I'd bought in Front Royal which I had chilling in the little refrigerator.  I could hear my cell phone ringing in my jacket pocket during the ride.  By the time I got to the room, I had a couple of voice mails.  One was from Jayne but the other was from the hotel in Weston, WV where I was to spend the next night.  It said they had no electricity and no idea when they would get it, so they couldn't honor my reservation (although I found out when I got home that they did charge my credit card for it).

Now I was in a pickle. If that hotel had no electricity, none of the others in the region would either, so I couldn't ride the route I'd planned for the next day.  But I hated the idea of just getting on I 81 and returning home at that point.  Not only would it be a boring day, but the whole trip would be shot since at that point I'd had maybe one hour of decent twisties. And I'd miss the crown jewel of the whole trip--the section of Route 16 I'd heard so much about.

So I decided to split the difference.  I'd ride Route 16 through the Virginia section and in West Virginia until Beckley.  Then I'd pick up Interstate 64 to 81, shoot through the Shenandoah Valley, and come home a day early.  It would make for a long ride but I thought I could do it.  Little did I know then that the previous day would eventually look easy by comparison.

The Virginia section of Route 16 between Marion and Tazewell was all that it was cracked up to be.  It was a stunning series of tight twisties, ascents, and descents.  The only down side was some gravel in the tight turns washed in by the storm, so I had to carefully scan them before leaning.





There were some pretty nice sections in West Virginia as well but I was traversing McDowell County which is read hard-core, rural poverty coal country.  The whole place smelled of cigarettes and despair.

At  Welch I hit rain again so had to suit up for about an hour.  The further north I rode, the more storm damage I saw.  It was truly amazing with trees down all over the place, many of which had fallen across the road and been removed.  At one point a power pole with the wires attached had been blown down onto the road.  The transformer had smashed on the pavement.  But I was able to work around it.

I talked briefly to an old man when I stopped for gas and he indicated that electricity was just spotty.  Some spots and towns had it, but others didn't. 

Eventually I got on Interstate 64 east of Beckley.  As far as interstates go, this one is very scenic and at times is stunning such as when it crosses the New River Gorge.  I-64 is the West Virginia Turnpike but was quite a bit different than when I was last on it in the 1960s. 

At this point my fuel was getting a bit low so I pulled off to gas up.  The line at the gas station was 8 or 10 cars deep so I decided to get back on the interstate and keep going.  Bad mistake.  Bad bad.

By the time I got to Lewisburg I was down to around 60 miles of gas left so I again when looking for fuel.  I pulled into a Sunoco station which, like so many others, had no electricity.  A guy sitting in front told me one station about a mile away was functioning, but the line was two hours long.

I went over there and he was right.  The line went from the station on to the main road and then wound down a side road.  It was at least a quarter if not a half mile long.  But I went to the back and got in line.  After 15 minutes, I hadn't moved.  But the guy behind me came up to admire my bike.  He told me that he'd heard there was a station working in Clifton Forge which was about 25 miles further along on I-64.

So I headed that way.  The interstate was almost deserted at that point.  But there also was no highway patrol around, so it was like being on the German autobahn.

By the time I got to Clifton Forge I was down to 15-20 miles of fuel.  A Shell station right off the Interstate did, in fact, have electricity.  But it was out of gasoline.  A local told me that on Saturday, that had been the only place with gas for 100 miles so people were lined up for hours there with the police directing traffic.

I was at a loss.  I heard there was gasoline and electricity in Roanoke but I didn't have enough fuel to get there.  And it was south of where I was and I needed to head north.  The next town on I-64 was Lexington.  I didn't know if there was gas there but it was irrelevant because I didn't think I could make it.

I called Jayne and instructed her to buy several 5 gallon gas cans, fill them up, and be prepared to drive down to get me (which would have been four hours each way).  But then one of the clerks at the Shell station said that a fuel truck was on the way from Roanoke, but it would be two hours before it arrived.

Since I was out of options I parked my bike by one of the pumps and decided to wait it out.  At least the convenience store at the station had water and a restroom.  I was mentally preparing myself to spend the night beside the bike on the pavement.

I spent the time chatting, reading, and just sitting around.  People would occasionally pull in and get in line at the pumps.  I'd walk over and tell them it was going to be hours and most of the time they'd leave.  But out of anticipation of gas being available, dozens of cars converged around the station, spewing out of the parking lot and into the roads.  At least one person had run out of gas as he pulled up to the pump. The temperatures were back to the upper 90s at this point.  So I had a small hint of what it's like to live in a post conflict or collapsed society.  I wanted someone in a position of authority to take charge of this mess, but there was no one to.

Eventually the truck showed up.  I suspect it's the first time that driver was cheered as he delivered gasoline.  He fought his way through the massive crowd of vehicles and after 15 minutes or so, filled up the station's tanks.  I'm sure that supply of gas only lasted an hour or so but since I was parked at the pump, I had dibs.  And I exercised them.

My bike takes premium fuel and all the truck brought was regular, but I sure wasn't going to quibble  I filled up and was back on the road in minutes. 

I knew that tankful wouldn't get me home and was a bit concerned about that because I'd heard a rumor that everything was down all through Virginia and into Maryland.  I figured that if Jayne had to bring me gas to somewhere in Maryland, that would be better than coming all the way to Clifton Forge. 

Once I got to I-81 it was the normal summer traffic.  The road was jammed, it was in the upper 90s, and I was pretty tired at that point.  I was grumpy enough that I showed no mercy to people lolling in the left lane.  South of Winchester I pulled off to see if I could find anything open where I could get some fluids back into my system.  To my surprise, everything had power, so I ate a couple of hotdogs with a Gatorade, topped off my gasoline, and continued north.

With a couple of more Gatorade stops, I was moving along.  I was surprised that I felt OK considering the temperature, what I'd been through during the day, and the fact that it was turning into my first ever 500 mile day on a motorcycle (540 actually).  As one more little poke in my eye by the fates, there was a wreck on I-81 around Winchester but I was able to get off on Route 11, skirt around it, and get back on at the next exit.  By the time I got to Pennsylvania, the sun was going down and it was cooling off.  I could have ridden another 50 or 100 miles if I'd needed to.

I remember seeing a flatbed truck with a military vehicle beside the road near Chambersburg and thinking, "Wow--that was sitting in the same place when I left on the trip."  Then I remembered that it had only been about 50 hours.  So much had happened that it seemed like weeks.

I eventually stumbled into the house, drank the only beer around, soaked in a tub, and fell into bed.

OK, maybe it wasn't the worst vacation ever in an objective sense.  But a quirk of my personality is that a lack of control bothers more more than pain, discomfort, or other challenges.  That, and the fact that I had so anticipated this ride, made it "my" worst.  And I realize that it was a very, very fortunate chain of events that led me to be standing at the only gas station functioning for miles around at the very time that the clerk announced that a fuel truck was inbound.  I could easily have spent the night by the side of the road out of gas.

The good news is that my bike and all my gear performed well.  After exactly two years, I have about 38,000 trouble free miles on the motorcycle.  Now I know that I could, if necessary, ride 500 miles a day or more, at least as long as I was stoked with Gatorade and energy shots.  And, more importantly, the routes I'd designed were great.  So now I'm thinking maybe I'll try and do this same ride again in September.  Maybe this time I can avoid Armageddon.   Or at least get Christie Brinkley in a swimming pool.

The Kingston Ride

My puppy had really cut into my riding this year so I'd been anxiously awaiting early June when Doug Lovelace and I were going to ride to a conference our organization co-sponsored in the lovely town of Kingston,Ontario.

We were anxiously watching the weather forecast as the date approached, but got very lucky.  It was a bit hot on the way up, with temperatures touching the low 90s, but certainly decent riding weather.  It was above the range for my beloved Roadcrafter riding suit, so I opted for a new AGV Topanga perforated leather jacket I'd recently  bought for warm weather rides.

The total distance from Carlisle to Kingston is about 400 miles with most of the way on I-81, but Doug and I decided to split the trip up over two days and take the scenic route.

On Sunday we went through some of my favorite Central Pennsylvania twisties, stopping for lunch in Lock Haven, taking a quick side trip to Hyner View State Park which overlooks the Susquehanna valley between Lock Haven and Renovo, and then hitting the Finger Lakes district of western New York.  After passing through Watkins Glen and miles of vineyards and wineries on the shores of Seneca Lake, we spent the night in Geneva, NY, a cute little town that is the home of Hobart and William Smith College.  After a long day in black leather, I did some serious re-hydrating at a pub near our hotel.



Hyner View State Park



The next day we scooted along the shores of Lake Ontario to Cape Vincent, NY, took a quick ferry ride to Wolfe Island (which is Canadian so we had to clear customs and immigration), rode across the island, and took a much larger ferry into Kingston.

After a couple of days at the conference (which was in a hotel right on the shore of the St. Lawrence River as it begins out of Lake Ontario), we headed back.  We decided to do the return in one day so our plan was to cross the St. Lawrence at the Thousand Islands Bridge, stay in I-81 for a few hundred miles, exit at  Cortland, NY, pass through Ithaca and Elmira, enter Pennsylvania on Route 14 and eventually pick up Route 15, which would bring us home, just north of Williamsport, PA.

While it rained the first day we were in Kingston, the weather on the return was even nicer than going up.  Everything was proceeding according to plan until Doug, who was in the lead, missed the exit at Cortland.  I had a few seconds to decide whether to follow him or stick to the route and I opted to take the exit.  With hindsight, this was a mistake. 

Once Doug noticed I wasn't behind him anymore, he backtracked looking for me.  After I exited, I pulled over and waited a bit for him but thought he had decided to just come all the way back on I 81, so I took off on the planned route.  He tried to call me but called my work Blackberry, which was packed, rather than my personal cell phone which was in my pocket.  As it turned out, Doug also took the planned route but was probably a half an hour or so behind me.  Once I got on to the "go fast" isolated rural roads in Pennsylvania, he was probably an hour behind me.

Despite this kerfuffle, it was a great ride.  We went through some lovely country, much of which I'd never seen before.  The bike and the new gear I'd bought for the trip--the AGV jacket, a new Frog Togg rain suit (which I didn't need), and an additional Ortleib dry duffle all functioned as they should.

Now I'm all excited about my upcoming Virginia/West Virginia ride.  Stay tuned.

American and European Motorcycle Cultures

I've been thinking about the difference between American and European motorcycle cultures as seen in both how and why people ride, and in the bikes and riding apparel they use. It seems to me that this is a result of the different origins of the two cultures. 

While motorcycles had been around in the United States for a long time, motorcycling really took off after World War II. Many returning veterans had a difficult time re-adjusting to civilian life after their wartime experience. They had developed a high risk tolerance and felt more comfortable in the company of other men in a rough setting rather than "polite society." So they gravitated to riding. Some of them even formed the motorcycle gangs that still exist today.  Riding was not a necessity--America was the land of cars--but a lifestyle choice.

The key was that riding a motorcycle was intended as an act of nonconformity to social norms or even outright rebellion. So the riders reveled in a tough image and disdain for personal safety.

This continues today. Many, perhaps most people in American motorcycle culture, centered around Harley--which at least since the 1980s has been absolutely genius at making motorcycling "bad" and respectable at the same time--see it as an act of nonconformity or rebellion.  While Harley as a company doesn't embrace criminal motorcycle gangs, it also doesn't distance itself from the segment of its customer base that takes on that look and demeanor--the motorcycle gang posers. 

This heritage and culture is the reason that Harley bikes  and gear tend toward retro design. It's the reason that a lot of Harley riders dress like a pirate. And it's the reason that Harley riders are significantly less likely to  wear a helmet and other full protective gear than people coming out of different traditions and cultures.  Taunting death and the rules of "polite society" are a deliberate part of the ethos even though it's a statistical fact that things like wearing full protective gear and taking coached safety courses dramatically decreases the chances of a crash.

The origin of European and Japanese motorcycling was different. People rode not as an act of nonconformity or rebellion, but because few could afford cars in the decades after the war, and because they traveled congested areas with narrow streets. Because motorcyclists relying on their bikes for basic transportation had to ride in all kinds of weather conditions, the bikes and the apparel had to be reliable and practical rather than a statement of rebellion.

One good example of this was Honda's advertising campaign when it was making a big dent in the motorcycle market in the 1960s: "You meet the nicest people on a Honda."  In other words, it was intended to be practical, convenient and fun, not "bad." College students--future attorneys, CEOs, and country club office holders--rode them

This idea continues today, particularly with European motorcycles and motorcycle apparel which concentrate on cutting edge technology, performance and handling, and safety rather than the traditional or retro look. You'll seldom see someone on a BMW, Ducati, or Triumph without a helmet and other protective gear, or with "ape hanger" handlebars (which have to be the single stupidest thing people do to motorcycles) or extremely loud mufflers or, even worse, straight pipes (which are kind of a pathetic scream for attention). People with European motorcycles are much more likely to ride through the winter rather than putting their bikes up.  And they're much more like to take coached safety courses even if they don't have to (I've taken six in five years of riding).

I don't intend this as a critique of American motorcycle culture or Harleys. While I've cast my lot with the European approach, I'm not suggesting it's somehow better or preferable. But I just thought it was interesting to lay out the origin of the differences between the two cultures.

Anniversary

This weekend marks my fourth year of riding. I have a bit over 70,000 miles under my belt with only a few low speed drops, most during the first couple of months. I head for Ontario next Sunday and hope to get video and photos, weather permitting.