Home for the Holidays, and the 10K mark

While my wife and I are effectively boycotting the holidays by heading to Vegas on Christmas morning, I felt like I should at least visit my parents for an evening before we left. Being a bit sick in the head, I took the motorcycle out there and back. I knew going into this that it would be 40-45 degrees on my ride there, and 50-55 with torrential rain and 25mph winds on the way back. But, since days off for bad weather won't be much of an option during my trip to Nova Scotia, I headed out anyway.

The trip out was pretty uneventful. I hit the road at 4pm, so most of the ride was in the dark. The first thing to start feeling a little numb was actually my head. Since I didn't have much luck keeping my first anti-fogging visor insert attached, and haven't taken the time to try again with the replacement I bought, I have to keep the visor cracked when it's damp out if I don't want a layer of fog in front of my eyes. As a result, I have to suffer through wind swirling around the top of my head. Fortunately, as evidenced by the fact that I left the house in this weather for a 4 hour ride, I'm not the brightest bulb. So there probably isn't actually enough blood flow to my head to worry too much about heat loss.

The next thing to start feeling the cold was my legs and my feet. This was the point where "I wonder if Widder makes heated pants to go with my vest?" started popping into my head. Thankfully, less than an hour later, I had reached my parent's farm, and it was time for a hot meal and gift swapping.

On Sunday, things got more interesting. The sky had already opened up, so I was thankful that I was able to pack my hard luggage inside, and then just walk it out to the bike. In addition to my Rev'it Cayenne jacket and Dakar pants, which actually did quite well at keeping me dry through light sprinkles on the trip up, I was wearing my BMW Rainlock Weather Suit. I was also wearing my Rev'it Fahrenheit Gloves (last years gauntlet model, not the current ones) and my Rev'it Atlas H2O waterproof balaclava.

The ride home started with a couple spin-outs in the mud and grass before I finally made my way to the gravel driveway. A little later, I laid the bike down at an intersection in Pamplin City. I foolishly assumed that a truck with it's right blinker on was getting ready to turn onto the road I was leaving, instead of into the gas station to my right. I started moving, and stopped about a foot later. But that one foot traveled was enough to leave me with nowhere to put my right foot. Fortunately, I know the correct way to pick up a bike. So, despite the fact that my bike was loaded up, and the slope was working against me, I had it up in a moment and was right back on the road.

The bulk of my trip was spent leaning about 10 degrees to the right just to maintain a straight line. I managed to get ahead of the heavy rain once I crossed back over I-95, but the wind never really let up the entire time. The final notable event on my ride was when I hit the 10,000 mile mark on my odometer right as I was leaving Suffolk (the "C" location on the google map).

I am happy to say that, aside from a little perspiration, I was dry as a bone once I got home. I already knew my BMW rain gear did a good job. But I was happy to finally own a pair of gloves that fared as well. The Rev'it Hydratex lining definitely did a better job than the Held Ice Breakers I had used on my trip to New Hampshire. As an added plus, the Rev'its were more comfortable and I could actually work the buttons on my gps with them. I think I'm almost done getting myself geared for cold weather riding. Once I find some way to keep my legs as warm as my torso, there shouldn't be anything left.

9000 Miles

On November 4th, I went out riding to Farmville, VA for brunch with Roger Somero and a bunch of guys he knows from the Kawasaki Concours Owners Group. It was an enjoyable ride along nothing but smaller roads, but dealing with a crowd of 9 riders was a bit much for my taste. So, when we finished eating, I split off on my own under the pretext of going to see my Mom down in Phenix while I was out there, even though I hadn't been able to get them on the phone at all.

On the ride back, I hit the 9000 mile mark as I was entering Blackstone, VA. I also discovered that taking Route 40 instead of Rt. 460 is a much more enjoyable ride back home, in large part because it bypasses I-85 and I-95.

New Hampshire and the 8k mile mark.

Friday, 10/19, was the start of my first real trip since I bought my BMW. A friend I used to game with was throwing an Octoberfest party at his place up in New Hampshire, and I thought it would be appropriate for my first big trip to be one to visit friends from my last obsession.

At 6:25am, I pulled out of my garage for what was supposed to be a single day, 680 mile trek to Center Sandwich, NH. I had over-packed a bit, but not so much that it made riding unwieldy. I had tried to cut back on what I brought. But, having never taken a trip this long, this close to winter, and having never used a lot of the gear I have on a run this long, it was hard to reduce too much without taking some risks that would make me uncomfortable. With forecasts of rain, as well as the possibility of having to deal with temperatures in the 40s, I'd rather have too much gear than too little.

The first picture was taken around 10am at a gas station in Dover, DE. At that point, the trip was still going quite well. I was making good time, and the predicted scattered showers hadn't materialized yet. Sadly, when the rain did show up around 11:30, it was a bit more than scattered showers.

New Jersey was when the fun started in full force. First the downpours came. Then I discovered that the "waterproof liner" in my pricey Rev'it brand gear wasn't all it was cracked up to be. By the time I had reached a rest area, and was able to put on some proper rain gear over top of my Rev'it stuff, it was too late. I was already wet enough to make the rest of the trip less than pleasant. My next joyful experience was hitting the G.W. Bridge into NYC around 2pm.

From there, it pretty much consistently went downhill. Apparently, traffic is always bad around there, despite was a co-worker who grew up there tried to claim a week prior to this. But the torrential rain that was sweeping the northeast that day had created almost total gridlock.The true suffering hit when I crossed over into Connecticut. I-95 basically stopped at that point. Over an hour, I covered about 14 miles. I thought that getting away from the coast might help, but Rt 15 and I-84 both ended up being just as gridlocked as I-95.

By 5pm, I had spent nearly 3 hours barely moving, and I was stuck in horrible downpours for most of it. I even got ankle deep at one point on Rt. 7 (that's ankle deep while riding...not standing), while heading towards I-84. I was damp, miserable, and cold.....and then I saw a Chili's. An hour, and two bowls of hot chili later, I was good to go again. Danbury to Hartford was another 2 hours of 25-30 mph on average. Fortunately, things started to pick up at that point. The roads had cleared and, despite the continuing rain and the darkness, I started making good time. Unfortunately, the damage was already done. My Garmin indicated that I wouldn't reach Jeff's place until around midnight, if I didn't stop anymore, which was unlikely. In addition, I had already hydroplaned twice and my legs had started getting cold. It was time for a hotel, and Andover had plenty of them.

Day 2
Saturday morning was everything I had hoped the previous day would be: pleasant temperatures and clear, sunny skies. The fall leaves were peaking in that region, and I got to enjoy every second of it. After about an hour on the interstate, and another hour of winding, tree covered roads, I was at Jeff's place. Seeing the 400 foot gravel/rock ascent that is his driveway made me very happy that I had gotten there in the day time.

Once I got there, it wasn't long until I had changed, and the eating and drinking commenced.


Day 3
I had intended to take a few hours riding some more of the beautiful New Hampshire and end up hanging out in Boston with a friend at the end of the day, with Monday being the real ride back. So I left Jeff's at noon, and spent 3 hours exploring some of the twisties in the area. At 3pm, I was at the Mass state line, and got the voicemail from my friend letting me know he had spaced and went golfing for the day. Given the choice between trying to find a way to kill time for three or more hours, only to have to sack out two hours later, or just seeing how far I could get before I was too tired, I chose the latter.

Long story short, I hit the 8k mark near the I-93/I-495 interchange, and I pulled into my garage at around 3:30am. With sunset being so early, but still having moderate traffic, I was able to do 15-20 mph over the speed limit all the way to Wilmington without any real fear of a speed trap. Once I hit Rt.13, I had to do the speed limit again. But I was almost home at that point.

Outer Banks and 7k miles

October 13th was the day of the Adventure BMW open house, which I followed with a ride down to the Outer Banks with David, one of the guys I met from the local BMW club. The plan was to head to Duck to figure out where Baldy's is located, a burger dive where my step-nephew works. Then we headed south to a little shy of Jockey's Ridge before doubling back for home. I'd have liked to have made it farther south, but my wife had made dinner plans with another couple for that evening.

The one notable thing from the trip is that I hit the 7000 mile mark within about 100 feet of the stop light in front of my old neighborhood in Moyock, NC.

6000 Miles

Well, I was a little lax. I was very diligent about noting where I was when I hit the 4000 and 5000 mile marks on my bike. All I know about the 6000 mile mark is that it happened on my trip to Morton's BMW in Fredericksburg, VA. Based on the number of miles on my odometer right now, I was probably along I95 North between Richmond and Fredericksburg, most likely right around Kings Dominion.

I know I'll hit the 7000 mile mark during my trip to New Hampshire, so I hope I'll remember to hit the Waypoint button on my Garmin when it happens.

Milestones

When I bought my motorcycle in the end of July, it had about 3400 miles on it. Since then, I decided that I'd try to keep track of where I was every time I hit an even thousand on the odometer. I'd really like to manage some photos each time I do that. But I've had to accept that doing that probably won't usually be very feasible.

I hit the 4000 mile mark just outside of Little Plymouth, Virginia while cruising along route 14. Having been down it now, I'm not surprised that it's on the list of scenic roads in Virginia. Interestingly enough, I hit the 5000 mile mark at my driveway. Granted, I cheated a little by doing an extra lap around the neighborhood to pull that off....but I'm cheesy that way, so I'm counting it.