Floribama Riders

Great weekend.... perhaps the most intense racing I have ever experienced. We sat through Ike as it rolled through and dumped several inches of rain with sustained winds of 70 mph. Not gusts, but flat out wind of 70. And they RACED in that. Holy cow. David Crandall and I had seats against the mesh fencing at the top of our section, completely exposed to the elements. Wet, wind whipped, and completely soaked, we enjoyed every minute of the action.

My (not so) funny story........

      It's Sunday night and I leave on Wednesday. I have been busy getting my bike prepped for the MotoGP trip where I'm moto-camping. The bike is a BMW K1200RS which is cumbersome (at best) to work on. After going two weeks without riding it, my garage looks like a BMW parts bin. I finally get everything sorted out and I'm ready to do a shake down ride. It's about 8:00 pm and I've got it loaded down with my camping gear and some extra weight in the Givi trunk to simulate clothing and shoes. The main reason for the ride is to adjust the headlights which just got new high output lamps and PIAA foglights that are also new. Also new tires will be scrubbed in. I know its dark not the best time for this but its better than leaving for the trip on new rubber. Also I've mounted a radar detector with helmet speakers.

     Enough of the background.

I left Birmingham for Goodland, Kansas on June 11 with a plan to ride my motorcycle 1005 miles of dirt roads through western Kansas and Nebraska, through Colorado and back to Goodland. Technically is just a Saddle Sore – but more affectionately called a Dusty Butt. Only a handful of people have completed this ride. This area of the planet is a special place where wide open spaces and lots of dirt roads come together. There are very few places where such a ride could take place.

The alarm is blaring into my ear and I jump up out of the bed, land on a hair beret, curse, stumble, and finally find the right combination of buttons and violence to silence the racket.  I haven't had much sleep, having paid for the kitchen pass with a long, long night of watching period chick flicks - I now know way more than I ever wanted too about the machinations of females in pursuit of royalty and the associated rewards.

Tired or not I am stoked to be up and finally on the way to the ride I've been looking forward to for several weeks - really since the last time Moby led a ride through the Talledega National Forest with Gadget, Stan and myself in tow.  The riding is incredible with little traffic and a great mix of easy gravel roads, harder gravel roads, and some technical rocky hills.

Full speed, full lean the front tire finds a patch of loose gravel and starts to slide - without slowing at all, disaster is averted with a slight change of body position and a quick input to the bars.  I yell to the rider - "Slow down and look where you want to go" but she doesn't listen.  She just keeps pedaling as fast as she can - tiny legs pumping up and down in a blur while still looking just ahead.

Morgan - the youngest of those that call me Daddy - is fearless, unfazed, and hard headed.  She loves to go fast and has always been fascinated by motorcycles and the sketchy looking men that ride them.  I found out today that her favorite part of riding is to go through the turns fast and leaned over. 

I just bought her a new bike for her eighth birthday - the old one having shrunk in the wash or something and I think she has already used every bit of the tire on her purple Hannah Montana two wheeler.

I started to tell her how she could get air on the sidewalk cutout but Selena scowled with the promise of a chilly holiday weekend if I continued - that discussion will have to wait.

First-time racer's view of Road Atlanta

With all great tragedies, you have to let the emotional healing process complete before the story-telling can begin. I don't go to a therapist, and I have not self-medicated with alcohol lately, so I prescribed a few evenings of crying into my pillow. It's been four nights, and I think I'm about ready.

Under cloudy skies and the weather man's threat of gloom and thunderstorms, Selena and I set out for Mt. Cheeha aboard the borrowed Sprint Executive.  The idea behind this little trip was to get Selena used to a longer day on the road and to exercise BD's Triumph a bit.

The clouds shaded us throughout most of the trip but the threatened thunder storms never materialized.  I had planned on stopping at around 50 miles or so to make sure all was good, but our first stop was actually Ashland which was about 90 miles I think.  We stopped for gas and a pee break before getting into the twisties of 49 and 281.  By this time the stretch to the bars was taking its toll on me and my upper back was on fire but the twists and turns on the way up to Cheeha let me move around a bit more and the pain subsided some.

We get up the usual time for another fine breakfast, on our last day of riding. We said goodbye to the GeGe and the rest of the support crew of RawHyde, and head up through a pass into the mountains, called the Goler Wash.

The pass is unique, with towering rock walls on either side, and a steady small stream of water coming down the pass. It is incredibly beautiful, and I wish, again, for a high quality still camera that would attach to my helmet, and that would take a picture every time I say "WOW", "DAMN", or 'SH*T". We stop along the way to look at a recently abandoned gold mine that played a small part in a fairly famous American incident, to be explained later.

I'm not much for borrowing bikes.  I'm not even much for swapping rides during an outing.  Not because I don't like variety - I do - but because I would hate to wad up somebody else's bike and perhaps risk a friendship over it.  I mean sure you can take care of the financial aspects but what about the possible bad reaction, recriminations, and judgement?  Words can cut deep and last a long time so if I'm going to ride your bike, I have to trust you a lot.  I have to trust that people mean more to you than things and that your reaction to a wadded bike is going to reflect that - not that I plan to wad your bike of course.

Having said all that, when BD offered the use of his Triumph Sprint for the Brides Ride I felt comfortable in accepting the offer.  It turned out that we couldn't make the ride but I still wanted to try the bike both solo and two-up as I've never had a real sport tourer and Selena would like to ride something more comfortable.

Trust me, there is bike stuff in here, but, her view on our trip to the 101st running of the Isle is worth the read.  Enjoy...

Per Bekay Calhoun: