Back in the house. I just blasted south...mostly took the direct route home. I have to work Tuesday ya see...
The direct route...pushing hard...1275 miles, Inzane to my door. A most interesting run...
Wearing the t-shirt from the F6 rider store...it was extremely appropriate. "Valkyrie Motorcycles--I ride too hard, too fast, and too far to ride anything else."
Thunderstorms and heat warnings...seriously...BOTH...for the entire route! I remember flipping off the weather channel Sunday morning and saying, "AAAH come-on...choose one or the other! You can't have both!"
For a change...they were right and I was wrong.
The very intense thunderstorm due south of Chicago was most refreshing...I thought I was going to drown. It was so cold and raining so hard that it was like jumping into cold water...I caught my breath and it was several moments before I could breathe again. I saw several bikes pulled off under bridges...some of them were valks (Hi Y'all!). Me? I just "gave a rebel yell" and kept on running. It was short-lived at least. The Chicago traffic just made it more interesting.
Saw several Valks along the way...some coming from Inzane I rode with a while...had to bail on them eventually as those I-states hold a wee bit more pusholine than I do...that and it was time for ice-cream.
I shut her down someplace in
Minnesota ur...Missouri...give me a break...I've been inhaling gasoline and sun-screen all day
) after a near-deer-strike (anybody know why we tend to call these "near-misses"?...I mean, isn't a near miss, a hit?)
Enough for one day...I found me a cheap hotel.
A $5.50 frozen margarita in a Mexican resturaunt where $4.50 buys the entire (most excellent) chicken-soft-taco platter took away the pains and the heat of the day. Great choice if I may say so. It was at least 32 ounces. Yum. Yes, I walked from the hotel...and sort of floated back.
That 32oz frozen concoction was the large. The "Grande Margarita" was $60 and I skipped that one as "Margarita" was apparently the name of the hooker that would come to the room.
I'm still kind-of wondering what that charge would look like on my credit card bill.
The heat, flying trailer parts, exploding semi-tires, crashing mini-vans, and a malfunctioning gas pump added exciting moments to an interstate run.
The pump? Yeah, filled up. "Click". "Pop". My tank needed about 5 gallons. At the nozzle "cut-off" it broke near the line and 11.3 gallons flowed all over me, the bike, and the parking lot before I could get off the bike and find the emergency cut-off button (behind the ice machine, just in case you ever need it).
But hey! The gas was cold...a relief from the heat...and my bike is cleaner! The arriving "winky light topped" professionals were a bit irritated that I had pushed my bike out of the very large pool of fuel and me and the bike were just "hanging", far out of the way (and away from the two first-responders that were SMOKING) to dry off.
Well, heck, what did they expect? I wasn't gonna start it in that puddle...and I wasn't gonna leave it whilst they shook their heads and got all dissapointed that the haz-mat team wouldn't be available for 45 minutes (it evaporated in about 20 minutes). Is it just me or are our professionals getting sillier every year?
It's GASOLINE. Avoid fire till it's gone. Or put it in a tank, light the engine, and run hard. Pretty simple.
When I was reasonably certian that I wouldn't explode I left.
Errant cage drivers and flying traffic barricades topped the other exciting moments and made this a most dangerous run. Not sure where that last orange stick-cone thing came from...exactly. Maybe they had an air-traffic corridor blocked for some reason.
Today my bullfrog sun-sceen...NOW (unfortunately) in a convenient pressurized aerosol spray instead of the old pump kind...exploded in the heat...it was in my tank bag. Pretty impressive really. I inhaled a lungful or two...my eyes still hurt...my helmet padding is melting and the inks are fading/running in my atlas maps (we put this crap on our skin?). My camera will never be the same. The mp3 player still works though! The tank bag itself seems to be fading into a parallel universe or something.
I wonder if this stuff kills vampires?
Anyway...a most dangerous run.
I think I need a tire and a fork seal or two...maybe another windshield...a blinker...perhaps a new tank-bag...but really, it could all wait...I'm ready to go again. I think I need the practice.
How about you?
