The Long Way Home (AKA Vacation, Part 7)

Editor's note: Yeah, we realize this is almost four months after the fact. It's still a story that deserves telling.

It was our third day driving home. The first day had been spent driving like mad through some of the country's best roads and scenery in order to get to Howe Caverns before the last tour of the day. We din't make it; near the end, we decided to spend the night there, and go on the first tour in the morning. (Too bad we hadn't decided to do that to begin with — it would have taken a lot of stress out of the driving.) The second day, after a tour of the caverns and a boat ride on an underground lake, we made it to our hotel in the middle of Pennsylvania.

Not the sort of weather you look forward to for a long, long ride.

The third day started out wet and gray. After wearing out the kids a bit in the hotel pool, we loaded up and headed out. I wore my rainsuit right out of the hotel — I knew it was wet, and was just going to get wetter.

It rained. Hard. For hours. Aside from the direct rain, there was the great clouds of water kicked up by every other vehicle on the road. I avoided the trucks as much as I could, but that's not easy on an interstate.

Somewhere around the third hour, I stopped to call Deborah and arrange to meet for lunch. For the fun of it, I even updated my Facebook status. My gloves made little squishy noises while I was texting.

Is making the long soggy slog home. 100 miles in the rain and counting.
3:19 PM Jul 29th from txt

The bike stuttered and stumbled the whole time I was stopped. The engine thumped slower and slower, and finally died before I was done. (I'm not a speedy texter.) I fired it back up and kept going, but the exhaust smelled rich with unburned gas. Something wasn't right — the usual snap and acceleration was gone. I could get up to highway speeds, but just barely. As long as I kept moving, I was OK, but by the time I got to the town where we'd arranged to meet, I had to restart the bike every time I came to a stop.

I stood there in the pouring rain, puzzling this over while I waited for the others to catch up. Nothing was visibly wrong...

Lunch was warm and filling, but desultory. I was shivering and soaked despite my rain gear, and everyone else was fairly subdued. I spent a good while in the bathroom abusing their hot-air hand dryer, and that helped me feel a bit better.

The bike wasn't feeling any better for the hour's rest, though. If anything, it was worse. I could barely keep it going. I took the next exit.

Is attempting a roadside repair. I theorize the engine is choking from all the water in the air.
4:59 PM Jul 29th from txt

I found a beautiful spot: an abandoned gas station, one with a roof to keep the rain off, and no one around so that I could spread out my tools and gear. I got off the bike, and started running through my diagnostics in my head — what does an engine need to run? It needs...

• fuel (obviously, from the smell, there was fuel);
• air (questionable; the exhaust smelled rich; which is usually a sign of too much fuel or too little air, and it seemed reasonable that the air filter could have gotten waterlogged);
• spark (the electrics seemed fine)
• momentum (the starter turned the engine over fast enough to start, so that wasn't the problem); and
• compression (I had no way to test it, but I didn't have any reason to doubt that it was fine, either)

...so it must be the air, I figured. Everything else was running fine. Or the spark, said a voice in the back of my head. I discounted that; I had lights, and the engine would turn over — there was plenty of electrical power for spark.

Motorcycles are different from cars. The open architecture makes some things are far easier — I can change my oil filter just by reaching down and twisting it off — but the need to package things compactly makes other bits much more difficult. Accessing the air filter is a good example: Remove the rear seat (to get access to the tools), remove the battery vent panels (to get access to the front seat bolts), remove the front seat (to allow the tank to swing up), raise the tank (to get access to the airbox), and then you can have a look at the air filter, which is bolted firmly to the airbox.

The bonus find of the day was an abandoned gas station, right off the interstate — a nice, big covered place where I could spread out my tools and work out of the rain!

Oddly enough, the filter was dry. I removed it anyway and stuffed it into the saddlebag, figuring the engine could breathe more freely without it, perhaps balancing out the rich mixture. I fired it up. The bike snarled like an angry tiger without the quieting filter, and I revved it a few times just to hear the sporting, wild roar. The exhaust popped and crackled like an overly lean mixture, but it still smelled like gas, like it would with an overly rich mixture — how was that combination even possible? I even peered into the airbox to see if something had gotten lodged in there, but I could see straight into both carburetors as it ran. I could even see a spark arcing through the carb for the front cylinder. Odd.

I shrugged and put the bike back together, sans filter. It was worth a try, and I set out again. The ragged sports-car like rasp was fun for a few miles, but it quickly became apparent that I really hadn't fixed anything. I could barely do the speed limit, and starting the bike required slipping the clutch like I was starting in third or fourth. I pulled in at the next rest stop and conceded defeat. Perhaps a local shop would still be open, and could help me figure this out.

Except that there weren't any local shops. I tried texting Google to find a nearby motorcycle shop; my query returned no results. I asked around if there were towns or shops nearby. Nope, 30 miles from nowhere. The rest area maps confirmed that. What now? Figuring I had friends all over, I texted Twitter and Facebook:

I'm stuck at a rest stop on I80 in PA 29 miles from the Ohio border. Text 260 249 0834 if you can help.
6:12 PM Jul 29th from txt

I sat around, waiting for a response. I put the air filter back in, just for something to do. I called Paul and Deborah and appraised them of my status. I walked among the trucks, trying to think of what I could be missing.

No solutions came. I was stuck. I was going to have to call a tow truck, or something.

My mind railed against that. All my life, I've been served well by the attitude that it will all work out somehow. Call it faith, misplaced optimism, dangerous ingenuity — whatever it is, I've almost always been able to get out of enormous scrapes without hiring expensive outside assistance.

I prowled among the canyons of idling diesels, looking for trailer space. One friendly fellow was hauling a refrigeration unit, and had plenty of space, and said he was heading for Indiana — great! — but it turns out he meant Indiana, PA. I sat there, defeated in the waning light, reflecting on the fact that I knew for a fact that there was a trailer — my own trailer! — heading exactly where I wanted to go, scarcely 50 miles away — but that there was no way I could get the bike on it.

And I prayed.

And I felt like God was telling me to give it another try. That was scary, because I knew I was a long way from anywhere right then. I got back on the bike, started it, and tried to get it to go. Stall. Try. Stall. Try. Stall. I chuckled morosely to myself that it was acting like it had all the power and torque of Strawberry, my old 250cc Honda. And it hit me: I knew how to ride a 250. A 650cc twin with only one cylinder would be a 325; pshaw, that was power to spare! Grimacing at my daring, I revved the engine high, slipped the clutch ever so slowly, and rolled back onto the highway.

Is running on faith. Gulp.
7:11 PM Jul 29th from txt

I can't say exactly why that made all the difference; perhaps it was that I'd made this very trip on a 250 all those years ago, and knew it could be done. Perhaps it was that I knew I could accept revving the engine twice as high as I normally would to get the power I needed. Perhaps it was because I knew not to expect more than the speed limit. Perhaps, like Ezekiel, the little wheel ran by faith, and the big wheel ran by the grace of God. I don't know. I plowed on.

Then the light started blinking.

Back in January of 2008, we'd had a bit of flooding around our house, which resulted in the bike tipping over into some water. The bike was mostly fine, but the tachometer got soaked and the fuel level sensor went out. I eventually got the tachometer dried out enough that I could get it to work with some gentle tapping at startup, but I didn't bother getting the fuel gauge fixed for more than a year. All the fuel level gauge really did was work a light. About 150 miles into a tank, a light would start blinking. That would mean I had a gallon left. A single gallon normally gets me 40-60 miles. If I let that go for too long and let it get down to about a third of a gallon, then the light would turn solid — the "get gas now, dummy" setting. If you reset the tripmeter every time you got gas, you could pretty safely get by without the warning light. I'd finally gotten it fixed just before the trip.

And there it was, blinking. Huh. The tripmeter scarcely had a hundred miles on it. I'd expected the efficiency to be poorer, but not that much. I got gas early, and slipped through the cloverleaves off 80 towards Akron. A text from Deborah said that the rain had finally let up.

In the middle of Akron, the light started blinking again. 80 miles on the tripmeter. I peeled an eye for the next gas station sign. Mere minutes later, the light stopped blinking and went solid. I thought about what would happen if I ran out of gas in the middle of this awful traffic, and took the next exit. It was a city — surely there would be gas stations just off the major exits...

I was wrong. I found myself in what most would consider the Bad Part of Town, without an on-ramp or a gas station anywhere in sight. I squirted up and down side roads, panic starting to set in. Finally, I got directions from a fellow who was taking out the trash, and found a small, run-down gas station a long ways down a residential street. I'm certain I saw at least one drug deal while I was filling up.

Good for gas again, I set out to get back onto the highway. I rode back to where I'd gotten off, but the only on-ramp I found went East, and I wanted West. I followed a sign for the West route, and found another on-ramp for the highway going East. Frustrated, I wound up back at the gas station, where the both owner and the security guard said I had the right idea about my overall route to Indiana, but neither of them could remember how to go West on that highway, even though they remembered that the entrance was in a rather different place than the eastbound on-ramp. Even a local cop directed me towards the wrong entrance. Nearly blind with frustration in the darkening twilight, I roared onto the highway going East. I found another highway, merged onto it, and took the first exit. An underpass later, I was back on the highway, headed back to where I'd come. I grinned with frustrated satisfaction as I came across what I was looking for: an exit to go WEST. Exactly what I'd wanted an hour ago!

Finally away from Akron, and back out onto the open road, I felt free to have my nervous breakdown. Deborah sympathized with me and encouraged me over the phone. I was finally nearing the last major route change — the next one would put me on 30, all the way to home. It was supper time, and I felt I could sure use the break. I found a Denny's just outside of Mansfield and collapsed into a booth to dry out, decompress, and recharge. I even started to see the humor in it all.

Is limping across Ohio on a single cylinder. 80 Miles max between gas stops. It's an adventure, right?
10:46 PM Jul 29th from txt

Still life with coffee. Can you see the condensation built up on the inside of my cell phone?

The only other motorcyclist and I recognized each other instantly upon entering. He was driving his new rig back home; apparently they manufacture these somewhere in Indiana. Maybe when my hair is gray and my balance isn't as good...

The check came, and I gathered my stuff to go pay. The hostess ran my card several times, each time with a darkening look on her face. She disappeared. A moment later, the manager came out. He tried running the card, too, without success. I offered my MK List Visa, which I knew had money on it, but that one was refused, as well. The manager left with my card. I started wondering if the next person I'd see about the matter would be a police officer. A long while later, the manager came back out, and said that everything was fine, but that he'd called, and my bank was having some trouble with their computers. I apologized for my bank, and tipped generously. I saddled up, and went across the street to fill up at the Jetson-esque gas station. My card worked just fine there. Odd.

By this point, my text messages had made it to Facebook, and I was having to stop every mile or so to answer incoming messages of help, support, and suggestions. My parents had friends in Mansfield, and I knew I wasn't too far away from my friend Nathan in Galion, even if none of them knew I was coming. It was getting late, and I bounced the idea of "calling it a night" off of Deborah. She was just about home by that point, and was not happy about the idea of waiting even longer to see me. She wanted me there. I was still at the other end of Ohio. I sighed and promised to try.

Thank God gas stations try to compete with each other. I'm not sure what compels owners to build across the street from each other, but it worked to my advantage. When one gas station would decline my card, there was usually one across the street that would take it. I was stopping as often as I could, every 50 miles or so, not knowing when the next station might be. The towns get to be few and far between once you get west of the middle of Ohio.

My luck ran out in Upper Sandusky, OH. There were two gas stations across from each other, but neither of them would accept either of my cards. I thought ruefully of the one real credit card I had, the one I'd had gotten "for emergencies," safely tucked away in my safe at home. I headed inside to see if there was something that could be done.

Not much, it turned out. One account was frozen, and the other wasn't accepting transactions. No, she couldn't force the transaction. No, she wouldn't take a check. I rifled through my wallet and pants for cash. Not even enough for a single gallon. I turned away in defeat, figuring I had to call the bank, when I heard the cashier call to me. "Where are you going?" I told her. She looked at me a bit sourly, her tired eyes appraising me. "I'm putting ten bucks on pump number four. That should get you far enough that you can call someone to come get you." I thanked her profusely. "Pay it forward, OK?"

I was rolling again.

Western Ohio is a very empty place. Western Ohio at three in the morning is an extremely empty place. I droned on, flattening myself out on the gas tank, trying to get ever last yard out of every drop of gas that I could. Streetlights came and went. I saw signs for towns, but not the towns themselves.

Blink, blink, blink. 20 miles to the next town. I might make it.

20 miles later, I came not to a town, but to a crossroads that led to a town. Blink, blink, blink. How far was the next town? Should I try and find this one, or try to find the next one? Maybe it would just be a crossroads, too. Blink, blink, blink. I turned and fired off into the dark, hoping the town wasn't far.

It was a lot farther than I'd hoped. Blink, blink, blink. I rolled up to a gas station. Closed. Blink, blink, blink. I rolled up to another gas station. Closed. I thought they invented "Pay at the Pump" for situations like this. It should be something you can leave on at night, for weary, desperate travelers. Blink, blink, solid. The fuel light burned into my consciousness like a slow flame spreading across a scrap of parchment.

I'm not sure how I wound up at the police station garage, but the officer there was clearly not used to people walking in on him. His eyes burned into me as he held his paperwork in his surgical-gloved hands. His demeanor made it clear that I was not his problem, but he at least pointed me to an all-night gas station not more than a mile away, but only once I told him that I'd already tried the town's other two stations. I'm not sure who was more creeped-out by whom.

I almost cried with relief to see that it was a Marathon station. I knew I could get gas there. My card had worked at every one I'd tried. Marathon earned my loyalty that morning.

I never thought I'd be so glad to see this sign!

I scarcely recognized Fort Wayne without all the traffic. I was less than hour from home, but my consciousness was fading fast. I waggled my head, sang songs to myself in my helmet (very loud, repetitive ones, I'm afraid), did deep knee bends... but it was no good. I found another Marathon station and invested in one of those awful energy drinks, and, for reasons I cannot now explain, an old army ammo can. Something about it being waterproof.

The Red Bull was already fading when I finally pulled into the carport at home. I grabbed my bags off the bike and stumbled into the house shedding helmet, boots, and clothes. With my last shred of consciousness, I pulled out my cell phone, and texted five characters:

Home!
5:45 AM Jul 30th from txt

* * *

Several days later, I'd woken up and recovered enough to start thinking about the motorcycle again.

After a few hours of dorking around, checking for cracks in wiring insulation and the like, I walked over to a computer, and typed in "rain SV650." Behold. Entire on-line forums, discussing my exact make and model of motorcycle, who had also lost a cylinder in heavy rain, and what to do about it.

Pyramid Plastics out of the UK makes this nifty "Fenda Extenda." This will be one of my winter projects.

It turns out that the SV has a relatively short front fender. In a normal rainy ride, this isn't a problem; in a several-hour downpour, the shortened front fender allows enough water to spray up, force its way through the radiator, past two sets of seals, and fill up the spark plug well on the front cylinder, shorting out the spark. They realize that even this is possible, so they include a small drain hole to make sure it doesn't do this. It was crusted over with road grime. I took a small straw and poked at the drain hole, which emptied a surprising amount of fluid onto the carpet in my shed.

I fired it up. It ran.

New Hampshire, how do I love thee? (AKA Vacation, Part 3)

New Hampshire, how do I love thee? Let me count thy roads.

Preferably, of course, by riding all of them.

There's something special about the roads out here, a smooth conservation of energy that takes you from place to place in all kinds of directions, with minimal input on the bars or throttle. It twists and turns, rises and falls, but never so fast that you're caught off-guard by it; a quiet sense of getting there by going nowhere in particular.

What strange sort of animal is this?

The road that Deborah's parents live on has a few quirks to it, as well. Namely, it passes back and forth repeatedly between four different towns. The only problem with that is that each town has assigned it's own house numbering system, and they don't necessarily line up. At all. As I was rolling in the last few miles, I kept thinking I was getting closer to my goal (617) but then the numbers would jump from the 400s to the 80s, and then into the 50s, and back to the 400s for a while, then back to the 50s and 60s... I ended up finding the house by remembering the distinctive shape of the tree out front, and that there was a radio antenna just over the next hill!

The League of Sane People Against Interstates (AKA Vacation, Part 2)

I don't remember all the details of day 2 of my travels to New Hampshire, but apparently some part of it — or even most of it — was horrific enough for me to tweet (that means "post to my Twitter account," which one can do from most cell phones) that "I never want to drive on another interstate highway as long as I live." Aside from the stress of having to ride hard among the truckers and their fierce turbulence, the defining moment was a multi-mile traffic jam where four lanes constricted down to one to allow for roadwork.

Now, to people in cars, this is merely an annoyance. To someone on a motorcycle, it's oh, so much more than that. I had inched forward in traffic so many times that my clutch hand was getting cramped. It was a hot summer evening, and was wearing my full gear, sitting on top of a toasting engine, breathing the exhaust of a thousand idling cars. I didn't know whether I was going to pass out, or throw up.

At that point, I justified something that is legal in California: lane splitting. If you can prove what state I was in, I'll pay the fine — it should be legal everywhere, in my opinion. Of course, in doing so, I figured out pretty quickly why it's not: grumpy drivers, particularly the guy that opened his car door in front of me and spat on the ground. I don't think it was a coincidence that he did it in front of me, even though I was going all of 5 miles per hour. But the moving air did do what I needed it to, and I tucked back into the non-moving traffic until I couldn't stand it again. An hour later, at a rest stop, I was an utter wreck, both physically and mentally. Too many people, driving too-big vehicles, in too big a hurry.

By the time Paul and Deborah caught up to me, I was ready to go on (being able to see the Milky Way from where I sat helped — I hadn't thought I would be able to see it from that part of the country, but there it was) but still with little love for the route and road we were taking. At that point, Deborah got out the maps, and plotted me a new route altogether. It was lovely, and I was utterly alone on it.

So, who's with me? The League of Sane People Against Interstates? Is "sane" redundant? Do we need a better acronym? Chime in on the comments.

Heading Out for Adventure (AKA Vacation, Part 1)

I did end up taking Route 6, as planned. Mostly. I probably should have taken it more than I did. And for all my high-tech, eye-in-the-sky planning, I've learned a few things:

1. There's no replacement for having a real map; and
2. There's no replacement for actually knowing where you're going.

How did I learn these things? Ah... well, read on.

I'm a stop-and-smell-the-roses kind of guy when I'm on a motorcycle (or, more accurately, photograph the roses...) and a great lover of little side-trips. One I hadn't planned on was the Mid-America Windmill Museum in Kendallville, IN. It's one of those things where you see the sign, and say, "A What Museum? I have to see this." So see it I did, although I limited myself to a 10-minute stroll among a surprising variety of wind-powered machinery.

This is a Robertson post windmill, so named because the whole thing rotates on a post to take advantage of the prevailing winds. If the winds change, go out, raise the stairs, and use the telephone-pole-like arm to turn the entire building, grinding stones and all. This is claimed to be a replica of the first windmill built in America.

Back on 6, I motored on at a lively pace between small towns, and a more prudent one in them. Some people don't like going through small towns on trips — I don't mind. It breaks up the monotony, and makes gas & Gatorade stops pretty easy. And besides, you get to see neat little bits like windmill museums, or the sign for Christs's Church in Butler, IN, where skateboarders are welcome. Hey, that's my kind of church! For all the potential deviations, though, I had planned my ride, and I was sticking to the plan. For every town where Rt. 6 didn't pass straight through, I had a printed detail map, so I knew exactly what to expect.

That didn't help me much when I got to Bowling Green, OH, where I was to meet an old college friend for lunch, and realized that I hadn't written down their house number! My printout had a picture of what Google Street View thought their house looked like, and I was going house-by-house, comparing the picture to the house. Close, but no banana! Fortunately, my friends saw me and hailed me wildly, which I missed because I still had my earplugs in, but the folks having a yard sale across the street noticed and pointed them out to me.

I had to laugh when they got out the fixings for lunch: turkey and salami sandwiches with provolone and mustard on Oatnut bread. In other words, the exact combination that I had in my saddlebags for my supper! It's a good combination, though, so I didn't mind one bit.

Happy and full, I hit the road again, and turned up my tunes. The iPod Deborah gave me for my birthday was just made for trips like this, and I'd found some combination earplugs/headphones that did a nice job of cutting out the wind roar and delivering my hand-picked-for-this-trip playlist. Music is a wonderful thing to make the miles go away. I'd started the day out under brooding, gray skies to Stryper's Abyss, but by Ohio, I was into the U2 and Vigilantes of Love, and riding away from the storm that never dripped on me even once.

Marblehead was my only major side-trip, one that I'd left the option of cutting out if the weather had been bad. I came across the Marblehead lighthouse while I was researching routes, and figured I had to go see it, if only to tease my friend Nathan, who says there's really no scenery in northern Ohio. Nope, no scenery here!

Pennsylvania welcomed me, which was nice. Ohio hadn't bothered. This was the only place where I started regretting my decision to take 6; roads that had been posted for 55 or 60 mph in Indiana and Ohio were marked for 30 in Pennsylvania. Fortunately, that didn't last more than 40 miles, but the reduced pace was enough to drive me crazy. It didn't help that it was getting on towards evening by now, when I'd planned to complete the entire day's leg by daylight.

Someone got very creative with the fence for the highway department in Franklin (?), PA. This mural stretched for about 200 feet, and is made up entirely of reflective road signs of every type.

I wanted to stop and patronize this roadside ice-cream stand, if only for having the best name I've ever seen. But darkness was falling, and I made do with just a picture...

I still had most of a state to go, and I was starting to wish I hadn't taken all those long stops. I pushed, promising myself some of those sandwiches once it got dark.

One of the pieces of equipment I bought specifically with this trip in mind was a new jacket. A good riding jacket can be a lifesaver, but black leather in summer often prompts riders to choose between comfort and safety. This, on the other hand, was a ventilated mesh — tough fibers that would hold together for protection, but enough of an open weave that wind just passes right through. Truly delightful in hot weather. The irony, then, was that I hadn't experienced any hot weather all day. By the time I ran out of daylight high in the Alleghenies, I was shivering uncontrollably.

At that point, the angels showed up.

Now, I don't know what your mysterious helpers look like, but mine come with cigars and piercings, and and totally understand the allure of a good backroad. After outlining a route that would shave more than an hour off the rest of my trip, I received a warning I'd never gotten before: "Well, take it easy, and watch out for deer. And bears." Bears? Hmm. So in addition to everything else, look for black things in the dark...

One of the landmarks on my new route was this "big-ass refinery" which was to show up on my left, couldn't miss it. They weren't kidding. You'd never know it from the surrounding countryside that this was here — but I came around a curve, and there it was, the size of a whole city, with as many lights and people.

I rolled into Coudersport (which I pronounced incorrectly; I pronounce unfamiliar words it as if they were German — i.e., Coo-der-shport; Deborah does this too, but tries it in Spanish. The correct, but terribly plain pronunciation is "Cowder's Port.") around midnight, the last town before my departure onto Rt. 44, and set up a mobile command center in the town's central gas station while I sucked down a large coffee and took care of various bits of business while I thawed.

Mind if I stand around for half an hour? No? How about camp out under the hot-air hand-dryers in the men's room? I was frozen, but finally had the bright idea to don my rain gear over my regular clothes for the rest of the trip. It helped quite a bit.

Paul, Deborah, and the kids were nearly at the hotel; I had more than a hundred miles to go. The map suggested that I could cut off 30 miles by taking this little squiggly road... I took it. That decision launched me into "unintended adventure" mode. 44 may have been more direct, but it was at the expense of having any straight stretches, level road, side markings, lights, and anything beyond minimal signage. A regular roller-coaster of a road, in the dark. With fog. I was forcibly reminded of my 2005 trip to Deal's gap, where my last stretch was the infamous Dragon itself, at 1 a.m., on a fully loaded bike. It was later than that now... why did I always leave the most interesting roads for last?

I was in utter blackness whenever I pulled over to answer or make a call. The little LED flashlight I normally keep in my pocket got plenty of use as I tried to read my maps and give directions...

In the midst of all this, I was getting increasingly desperate calls from Deborah, who could not find the hotel. I talked her through it again and again, but to no avail — turns out those very careful directions were also very wrong; the exit wasn't even off the correct highway.

Come on, guys. I don't do detours at three in the morning.

A good seven or eight hours after I'd planned on arriving at the hotel, I was done with the roller-coaster (I averaged 60 mpg down the mountain...) and was hitting detours, conferring with construction workers for directions. Deborah and Paul had finally found the hotel, and had called in the directions to me in the brief moments when I had cell phone coverage. My room number arrived as a very brief text. By 4:30, as it was starting to get light, I finally stumbled into the hotel, and slept like the dead.

A good vacation involves plenty of adventure, right?

Get Your Kicks on Route 6

I've pretty much decided on Route 6 for the majority of my solo ride towards New Hampshire. While doing research on which roads I'd like to take, I came across this snippet on Wikipedia:

Since it was pieced together from other routes, US 6 does not serve a major transcontinental corridor, as other highways like U.S. Route 40 do. George R. Stewart, author of U.S. 40: Cross Section of the United States of America, initially considered US 6, but realized that "Route 6 runs uncertainly from nowhere to nowhere, scarcely to be followed from one end to the other, except by some devoted eccentric." In the famous "beat" novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac, protagonist Sal Paradise actually considers hitchhiking on US 6 to Nevada, but is told by a driver that "there's no traffic passes through 6" and that he'd be better off going via Pittsburgh (the Pennsylvania Turnpike). (Emphasis mine.)

If that doesn't describe a great motorcycle road, I don't know what does. I've ridden portions of 6 in both Indiana and Pennsylvania, and I surely now fall into that category of "devoted eccentric."

They're catching on...

People are starting to catch on to something I've known for years now: motorcycles get about twice the gas mileage of cars.

I'm seeing a lot more small bikes on the road, Honda Rebels especially, their 234cc engines buzzing cheerily down the road. (The Nighthawk I used to have, with the same engine, regularly got more than 80 mpg.) People have stopped asking if I can do wheelies, and have started asking what kind of mileage I get on That Thing. TIME magazine suggested motorcycles as an alternate form of driving vacation.

Even one of the banks here is using it to fish for loans: "Gas prices too high? Talk to us about a motorcycle loan!" (This is shrewd on many levels — motorcycles loans command much higher interest rates than just about any other loan type, and they're giving every guy out there an excuse to tell his wife, "Yeah, but it's for the gas mileage, dear!").

It's hard to argue with the cost of the vehicle. People are on triage waiting lists to buy a Prius at upwards of $20k. A very nice used motorcycle can be had for... $2k. If you're going to spend money to save money, why not spend less to begin with?

* * *

I stopped at the gas station last night to top off my tank, as I no longer have a reliable gas gauge other than my odometer. 137.1 miles since last fillup; 2.77 gallons. $10.65.

You math majors have already figured it out: Even with my upright, aerodynamic-as-a-brick-flying-sideways position... 49.49 mpg.

Ever wonder why motorcyclists are usually grinning?

Now you know one more reason!

If She Washes Your Bike, Marry Her

Wash my bike? Pshaw. I have a team of cute girls in pink swimsuits to do that for me!

The average age of these hotties is 18.

There's a saying among motorcyclists: "If she washes your bike, marry her." Deborah trains Fiona in the proper technique...

Injustice Vanquished! (Well, OK, they still have to vote on it.)

If you're not a motorcyclist, you probably wouldn't know that Indiana started a spinal cord and brain injury fund. An admirable thing, yes. Or, maybe you knew about it, but didn't know a source of it's funding: A $10 fee added to the registration of every motorcycle. Without giving the public time to comment on it. And without charging any other type of vehicle a similar fee.

Taxation without representation isn't popular with anyone, but pissing off a stateful of motorcyclists strikes me as a a less than clever thing to do. So it's with some satisfaction that I learned, this morning, that a new bill, HB 1318, eliminating the $10 charge and replacing it with a $0.50 charge for all vehicle registrations, passed the House with a 91-5 vote. That strikes me as something I can support.

Isn't motorcycling dangerous enough already?

The motorcycle was starting to get very tricky to start — either I got it on the first or second try, or the battery would go dead, and I'd have to hook up a trickle charger. Finally, the day came when the thing went dead, even with the charger hooked up. Time for a new battery.

It was hardly surprising; this was a 2001 motorcycle, with the original battery (and, I occasionally joke, the original oil) and batteries rarely last longer than five years or so.

So, I started calling around to see who had the size I needed. I was in for several surprises. For one thing, motorcycle batteries — despite being about an eighth the size of a car battery — cost the same as a car battery. I can fit this thing on my hand, and it was still $62. And yes, that's the cheapest price I was quoted.

The scale there is in inches.

The next surprise I got was that the battery I got was a kit. You had the box with the lead over here, six bottles of acid, a top, and some instructions which mostly consisted of warnings. Gulp.

Fortunately, it seemed to be a fairly well-thought-out system: The bottles had foil tops, and the holes in the battery were sharp, which let you invert the bottles and push them down onto the battery, which would drain them into the individual cells. I still dressed for the worst.

I've gotten acid burns before; I wasn't eager to repeat the experience. I sealed the top VERY tightly.

Part of what I found vaguely amusing (and a little unsettling) were the warnings on the battery. For starters: DO NOT TIP. Uh, hello? This is for a motorcycle. We steer by tipping. We park using a kickstand. The battery installs in the bike at a 45° angle. How am I supposed to avoid tipping...?

The warnings about explosions were no less comforting. This is, possibly, because the battery is installed under the seat...

Despite all that, the thing works fine, and the bike fires right up. Next time, though, I might look into installing a kickstarter, instead!

Drawing to a Close

I've been working on this thing for months. A year, almost. It's almost done. Just a few hours left, filling in the background with blueprint-style drawings of various parts, and then I can reclaim nearly half of the back room in my shed. I'll definitely have to get it photographed by a professional before I send it out to the couple that commissioned it. I don't know whether I'm excited to have it be done, or if I'm going to miss having it around to work on...

Can I ride, Daddy?

While Deborah, Paul, and Aiden were off planting flowers at Paul's house, Fiona and I sat outside enjoying the warm sunshine together. Fiona pointed and said, "Let's go for a ride on your motorcycle, Daddy!" I've been longing for the day when I can once again ride with someone, so I didn't immediately say no — instead, I plopped Fiona onto the seat to see if she was big enough yet. (Indiana law doesn't specify an age; the requirement is that the passenger should be able to touch the footpegs.) Not quite yet, but sometime, sometime soon. Maybe another year or two...

Not quite big enough yet.
She can touch the pegs if she sits in the driver's seat — but then, where would I sit?

I could drive, yes? Please, Daddy?

Well, no, you can't ride if you're going to do stunts...

Sit her on a motorcycle and she looks at herself in the mirrors. She is such a girl. A boy would probably have knocked the bike over pretending to steer.

A grand canvas

Since October, I've been working, an hour here, a half hour there, on a canvas out in the shed. By chance, I happened across a post on CycleForums from a couple out in Washington that wanted a charcoal-on-canvas drawing of motorcycle parts to hang over their mantel. A few emails later, I had the job. It's not a small piece, and neither charcoal nor canvas are forgiving of mistakes, but I'm having a good deal of fun with it.

The working environment — the shed was the only place I could fit a canvas this big. Back when it was real cold out, It took over an hour of running the heater full-blast to get things up above freezing. The brown bottle contains Skullsplitter, which I highly recommend, if you're the sort that takes such recommendations.

Progress to date. For those of you completely unfamiliar with motorcycle parts, that's a rear shock overlaid with a brake rotor. More parts will be appearing in the days to come.

Urbana

Every few years, I hear about this enormous Christian conference in Urbana, Illinois. Thousands upon thousands of people attend. And whenever I ride south on Rt. 13, I can't help thinking, What if they got their states mixed up? What if, instead of Urbana, IL, they go to Urbana, IN?

I rode through Urbana a few weeks ago, on my way down to pick up Deborah's sewing machine. Out here, they'd call Urbana a blink'n'missit; out East, it would be a poke'n'plumb — poke your nose in, and you're plumb through. It's a rural farming community, with a short row of houses, a gas station, and... Pam's Cafe.

I've always admired the paint on this place. If they'd pained it a solid white, I probably wouldn't have given it a second look.

This place has always intrigued me as I've ridden past it, partly because of the paint, and partly because of the fact that I had never seen it open. This day, however, open it was. So I parked amidst the dozen or so heavy-duty pickups, and poked my head in.

"WELL, YOU LOOK COMFORTABLE." The two waitresses — one of whom I suspected to be Pam herself — were on break, smoke curling up from their mirrored cigarettes. Comfortable? I had to laugh in spite of myself — I'd obviously been riding in the rain, every inch of my riding gear dripping. "I'm OK," I chuckled, "at least I'm dressed for it." "WHAT CAN WE GETCHA?" I wanted to get something — breakfast sounded good — but I hadn't seen any credit card stickers on anything, and I knew I didn't have the cash, but I asked anyway. Pam's raspy, pack-a-day, small-cap voice took on a hounded note. "NO HON, NOT YET, WE'RE GETTIN' IN ONE OF THEM MACHINES NEXT WEEK. YOU CAN GO TO ONE OF THEM MACHINES UP AT THE MINI-MART, OR WE CAN TAKE CHECKS. WE'RE OPEN UNTIL TWO." I needed to get down to Marion before the sewing machine shop closed anyway, so I said I'd be back.

Open until two, I mused. No wonder it was never open when I went past. As I motored on, I realized that I actually had my checkbook inside my coat pocket. D'oh!

An hour and a half later, sewing machine retrieved and firmly strapped to by passenger seat, I was back, and hungry for lunch.

Fortunately, Deborah has a nice, small sewing machine, and the gals at the shop down in Marion gave me a few bags to wrap the case in. The top bag hides the heavy-duty tie-downs that are actually holding the case to the bike.

I hadn't relized it on my first glance, but Pam's Cafe was... a farmer hangout. The scenes on the outside walls hadn't tipped me off. The John Deere wall plaques, toy tractors, and the seed-company mug did, though. A group of farmers sat in the other room, swapping stories. "He took his Case out into the fields last week, rutted 'em up something bad." I and my city-boy self felt like we'd stepped into an alternate universe. "Say, how do you get yer innernet service? I've got a satellite hookup, but I've been thinkin; one of them DSL lines might be better, can you get that through the REMC?" My alternate universe took an odd twist. I started to gather that things worked a whole different way out here. Phone companies I'd never heard of. Prices for corn and soybeans checked every morning. Satellites and GPS. No one mentioned the rain. Clearly, my view of farmers needed an update.

It was fascinating to just sit and listen to the world go by here. These guys seemed like they hd all the time in the world. It was like I was transported into an episode of Prarie Home Companion.

There were customer photos all over the walls. Well, all over the walls that didn't have farming motifs all over them.

Lunch arrived. My waitress had said the tenderloin sandwich was pretty good, so I got that — although it took me a minute to realize that it was, indeed, a sandwich — the breaded meat hid both halves of the bun and hung over the edge of the plate. It wasn't until I'd eaten a four inches of it that I discovered the lettuce.

Yum.

After my second cup of hot chocolate, it was getting on towards 2:00, and things were shutting down. I discovered my check underneath my plate, and went to pay. I resisted the temptation to play with the toy tractors on the counter while my waitress added up the bill. I left that afternoon, my hunger sated, and my mind satisfied that I'd finally gotten to experience this place after riding past it so many times.

I'd probably have to buy a new motorcycle...

Next time I say, "I can't imagine how it would take longer than 15 minutes..." kindly and gently remind me that I have very little imagination.

My motorcycle came with two keys. One normal key, one wallet key. The wallet key has since wandered away, and my attempts to get a new spare cut haven't been encouraging. I've been to every hardware store in town, and no one has a blank that matches. So finally, while I was out at the dealership on Saturday to pick up my new mirror, I asked them for some blanks. They looked a little nervous, but found me some Suzuki-stamped blanks that looked about right. I was delighted, even at $5 apiece.

After I got home and finished insalling my other purchases, I told Deborah I was going to pop over to the hardware store and get the spares made. "How long will that take?" she asked. "I can't imagine how it would take longer than 15 minutes..." ...oh, how wrong I was.

I handed over the key and the blanks, and the guy got this very serious look on his face. (I still wonder what it is they're looking at...) He said he'd give it a try, and spent an inordinate amount of time fiddling with the machine to make sure it was set up right. After 20 minutes and several dry runs, I finally heard the whine of metal being cut. "Did you ride this here?" I did, and we walked out to the parking lot to try it out. No go. We wnt back inside for more fiddling on a different machine. When we returned to the parking lot, the key opened the gas cap, but wouldn't work in the ignition. Back and forth we went, trying this, trying that, even trying out one of his own blanks that he thought might work. Finally, after more than an hour, he apologized that he couldn't get it to work. "No charge."

So now I have a spare key fo the gas cap. I don't know what I'm going to do if I lose the other one...

Monomoto

Leave it to the Italians to make something inherently dangerous, and make it look cool.

From everything I've found on the web, this is a real machine. Of course, and it killed it's owner the first time out, while he was waving to a pretty girl. Ghastly accidents aside, I'm rather impressed that he was able to ride it at all, let alone confident enough on it to be both a) riding it in the mountains, and b) able to take at least one hand off the bars.

Cute little bugger, though, isn't it?

Declaration of War

We, the citizens of Patience Corners have come to the end of our patience. The conditions of transport through the region of Carport have become intolerable, and the destruction of Right Side Mirror on the morning of February 28, 2007 has escalated the conflict beyond the pale of diplomacy.

Know hereby by these notices that ANDY KERR, as a representative of the citizens of Patience Corners, has declared an open state of war upon the region of CARPORT.

Grievances

• The accumulation of Water, and their by-products of Mud, and Ice;
  
• The Dirtiness of Dirt;
  
• The assault on stability, including loss of footing;
  
• The loss of small parts, nuts, and screws;
  
• The inability to be shoveled or cleared of snow, ice, and dirt;
  
• The inability to use standard vehicle-repair tools, such as jacks, swingarm stands, and creepers;
  
• The inability to properly support sidestand-stabilized vehicles (e.g., motorcycles), resulting in their downfall and damage, including, but not limited to, mirrors, brake and clutch levers, and bodywork.

Resolution

We do not seek reparations or damages. Rather, it is our express desire that the entire area of Carport be buried under concrete to a depth of not less than six inches.

Unless these above-mentioned grievances are addressed, we the people of Patience Corners, will come against Carport with mechanical, biological, and chemical weapons (namely hand tools, muscle, and concrete) and may acquire weapons of mass cement-mixing or hire mercenaries to aid in this conflict.

We will bury you.

Signed,

Andy Kerr
Minister of Finance

Andy Kerr
Minister of Transportation

Andy Kerr
Director of Home & Land Security

Andy Kerr
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Temporary Insanity

I'm building a case for temporary insanity. I might need to use it someday.

The last few days have been wickedly, bitterly cold, and, with my thermometer telling me it's -19°F (I've since learned to account for the 20° error) I figured it was time to make an attempt on my old record. What old record? Well, the one that had me doing 50 miles at 5°F. On a motorcycle.

Last time I tried this, I had to stop every ten minutes and warm up my hands on the muffler. My legs were frozen, and I shivered uncontrollably for more than two hours when I got home. This time, things went much better — despite the colder temperatures and 40 mph winds — largely due, I think, to some insulated bib overalls I found on clearance last spring for $6. Oh, what a difference! My legs weren't cold at all, and my body didn't feel like it had to shut down blood flow to other necessary bits, like my fingers. I was able to do about 26 miles at a time without stopping, and with one less layer on my top half, to boot. Speaking of boots, that's the part I need to upgrade next — for some reason, my heels were frozen solid, painfully so. Why not my toes? No idea. Maybe it's the steel toe, keeping them warm, or, at least, out of the wind blast.

Those boots were my lifeline for reading the road, though. Whenever I came to a section of road that looked different, I'd slow down, and drag a toe to see how the traction was. It worked very well, but I was still fooled once — a section of what I thought was dry, salt-white pavement turned out to be just plain snow on the road, and there was a very long, nervous moment as I felt both tires sliding and shunting back and forth as I offered up a two-word prayer ("Oh, Lord...") and rode it out to drier ground. Amazing how the cold was suddenly absent from my mind!

At any rate... my new record? 52 miles at a nice round 0°F.

Oh, that's cold

The bright side of riding a motorcycle in winter: you never have to scrape ice off the windshield. The downside? Sometimes you have to scrape the seat...

A Tour of the Cockpit

One of the things I remember as a kid was occasionally getting to tour the cockpit of whatever aircraft we were travelling on at that time. (Can't do that these days. Sigh.) So we'll have to investigate the cockpits of other vehicles. So we can't tour a 747—how about an SV650?

Here's my daily flyer:

Terribly Tired

What do you think---can get a few hundred more miles out of it? Aren't those shiny metal bits what they call "wear bars," and you're supposed to replace the tire when you can see them...?

I'm kidding. I'm way overdue for a new tire here. Those are the steel belts poking through. The new tire arrived today, after I scoured the internet to find a price that didn't make me wince. ($113. *Wince.* If you find a better price on a Metzeler Z6 rear, let me know.)

On the bright side, I've already saved money—the same tire at the local shop is $150 and they want $30 to put it on—and that's if you bring in the wheel on it's own. Instead, I'm going to visit my co-worker, Mike, and have him help me put the new tire on. Rather than pay the shop when his motorcycle tires wore out, he instead invested several hundred in his own tire-changing station. The way we figured it, between the cheaper prices on the internet and avoiding the shop's fee, the rig will pay for itself after three tires.

You'd try to get the most out of your tires, too!

Of course, I might have to wait until Mike gets his own motorcycle back together. Poor Mike---I used to think he was a pessimist, but then I started realizing that everything does happen to him. Not only did he get a flat tire, but he tore up his big toe getting his bike into the truck. Heavy bikes, kickstands, and sandals don't mix!