My never-ending American trip

[BlackAndBlue]

I set out from VA on Saturday on the fz6 with a buddy on his fz6. We have been through Tennessee, had a GREAT time in Arkansas (route 341 and others around that area), and am now waking up in Houston and about to head out to Pensacola. It's been a little too fast paced of a trip but fun nonetheless. Butt hurts obviously, but other than that the body is good. After Pensacola it's Georgia to try out the "Georgia dragon" and then back home.pics to follow when I get back on a real computer!

 

[motojoe122]

Thanks for sharing your trip. We're looking forward to pics!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Cloggy]

Sounds like a great trip, have fun, looking forward to the pics :thumbup:

 

[BlackAndBlue]

Just a teaser! Pensacola is great.

 

[BlackAndBlue]

And the bugs in Louisiana are out of control. And the 75 mph speed limits on roads with non-restricted access are scary

 

[FinalImpact]

View attachment 65314
Just a teaser! Pensacola is great.

Bikes are pointed NORTH! That's a good sign your headed in the right direction! Blah

 

[BlackAndBlue]

Made it back safe! Almost 3400 miles in 6 days. I'll do a good post later in the week with good pictures and stories. Had a great time though. I was lucky to have someone to go with to increase the safety and split costs.

 

[BlackAndBlue]

So, the trip was great. I for one enjoy traveling on a motorcycle even if most of it is on an interstate, which about 65% of this trip was. I identified a lot of things I need to change about my gear/riding system, and how to plan trips, which is nice. I definitely need to get some cooler gear. Between my unventilated boots, Shoei Qwest, which has one intake vent and that is all, my leather jacket (which is good as far as leather jackets go but still hot) and regular jeans, I was not so comfortable in Texas. Despite being a big advocate of full gear while riding, I ended up strapping my jacket on to the top of my pack on the back to let the sweat dry during some of the hottest legs. Ventilated and protected pants and a better flowing helmet would keep me a lot happier on summer time trips, especially down south. Also, securing a back-pack to the back seat of the motorcycle with para-chord does work, and it's kind of cool in a utilitarian kind of way, but I hope to avoid ever doing that again. Not only does it take a significant amount of time before and after each day of the trip, but if you slack off a bit the bag will move, slack line can drop down into dangerous areas, and the bags contents are pretty much inaccessible while secured. There will be saddlebags in my future.

Anyway, the story: (pics to follow in subsequent posts)
Day one was just a straight shot down the interstate out to Jackson Tn. It was about a 13 hour trip for us. From past experiences, I know that i CAN ride even longer and still ride the next day, but at this point, I'm ready to say that about 500 miles in 10 hours is as much as I want to plan to ride for any travel oriented trip such as this. This was our longest day. Not much to mention. Jackson is not such a hot city. Could have planned it a little differently and stayed in Nashville. Oh well.

Day two was one of the best days of my life. We went through Missouri a bit and crossed the Mississippi and got on Rt 412 in Arkansas. Missouri was cool because there were hardly any other cars on the road. The roads were all long and straight but their quality was good and the scenery was good. It was a really neat experience. I've never crossed the Mississippi before so doing that was cool just for the fact of seeing the famous river. Route 412 was pretty cool, and toward the end of our leg on it it got even more fun, winding fairly tight through some hills. It had the fantastic feature of being generally a two lane road but with passing lanes built in at very appropriate intervals. We never got stuck behind a slow vehicle for very long. We stopped in Mountain Home to get gas and take a break before following the planned route of taking a detour that went out across the Bull Shoals dam. I've never been across a dam before so I thought that would be cool. Then a local saw our VA plates and came up to tell us about "Push Mounain". After a quick youtube of that, we were there within about 15 minutes. That was the best road I have ever been on by far. I've never been on "the dragon" but this looks better. I have never had so much fun on two wheels. I pushed it a little harder than I should have considering I was about 1000 miles from home but oh well. My front brakes seemed to be getting hot to the point of fading just a tad so I was really using the rear brake a lot which I don't do often. I started off just staying in third gear but by the end of it I was down to second and back up to third in every turn. Here's a video of someone riding that road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ5dXa_oPNA

We decided not to give it a second and third run because I was worried we'd get over confident considering how exited we were at the end. We met up with 4 older gentlemen at the end where we were taking pictures with whom we tagged along with through some other fun roads that had fantastic elevation changes. We talked with them for a while and went a separate way toward Hot Springs down yet even more fantastic driving roads. These were extremely windy for very long distances but there were lots of houses and traffic. Still very fun. The 2 or 3 hours of interstate after that to get to the hotel was brutal but we made it. There was a good bar right next door too so we went over there for a couple beers and good dinner. Fantastic day.

Hot springs to Houston was cool mostly because it was my first time in Texas and that was just exiting. I enjoy seeing how different other parts of the country are. We looked up riding roads in the area and found FM 3090 and tried that out. It was okay. lots of traffic, blind turns, and not so smooth. Still plenty fun. There was a sign at the beginning of the road that said "6 killed since 2009 in motorcycle related accidents" or something to that effect. The message was to "look twice, save a life", so aimed more at cars I suppose. I've just never seen anything like that so that was interesting.Texas highways are very different from any other I have seen. Limited access interestate highways are few and far between. for the most part they just have normal highways with 75 mph speed limits. People pull out of their driveways into 80+ mph traffic... That was strange. The highest speed limit I know of in Virginia is 70. They have a lot of good safey features though, like rumble strips EVERYWHERE, among other things. Houston was a nightmare. Deciding to go in to the city to stay was a mistake. We should have stayed far on the outskirts. We would have saved a lot of time and frustration of navigating such a busy city. I couldn't ever look down at the map because I had to watch traffic. We got turned around at least 3 times trying to find our way. Same story on the way out. On top of that it was labor day so it was hard to find somewhere to eat. Oh well. I have now been there!

Houston to Pensacola was not much to speak of. We took I-10 most of the way. It was cool to see all the bayous and swamps. The bugs were terrible though. Huge black flies covered everything. I litterally HAD to stop to clean my visor off because they covered it. There were so many smashed bugs that I could smell them. We took a detour to go down Route 31 I believe, which ran down along side a bayou. That was pretty cool. Didn't see any alligators though! We got a fantastic seafood lunch with crawfish and everything else just before getting back on the interstate. The meal and the whole restaurant were just excellent. It was called "Crazy Bout Crawfish Cajun Cafe". Highly recommended.

Had a great time in Pensacola. This was a layover day. We met an old friend from high school (the guy I was riding with and I are friends from high school, so we all knew each other) and had several good meals. The beach was amazing. The water was perfectly blue and the sand was white. no trash or even rocks. very picturesque. In the same way I have always wondered what it would be like to do various deviant acts that I'll never do, I have always wondered what it would be like to ride a motorcycle with no helmet or gear. So the 20 minute trip out to the beach was as such! shorts, t-shirt, sunglasses, and flipflops. for the most parts I felt like an idiot and yes I felt naked, but now I have that crossed off the list and feel no need to do it again.

We took a straight shot up to Athens GA to stay with family of mine and then a straight shot back from there. We considered detouring to ride the "Georgia Dragon" but we just didn't really have it in us at that point. We were both ready to get home.

Every state we went through had the "move over law". I was happy to see that as a supporter of law enforcement.

Both FZ6's did great. not a miss! They do get a little rough after prolonged times at 80-90 mph i noticed, when it is hot out. Not sure if that's an engine thing or what. Nothing worth concern though. I was trying out Ballistol as a chain lube on the trip and I'm sold. It stays on well and lubricates, and picks up NO dirt whatsoever. I'm pretty sure I won't use anything else again. I applied about 7 or 8 times throughout the 3400 miles and probably could have done it half as much. I still have not required a chain adjustment in the 7000 miles for which I have owned my FZ6. I'm also quite sure that I need to go naked and stiffen the fork springs at least a little. Also, my next brake pads will be of a more performance oriented sort. Just before I left I put Amsoil in the bike. This is the first time I have ever used that and I am sold on that as well. I have been using T6 and the shifting was significantly improved. The engine ran quieter and seemed to rev slightly faster. it's $36 for 3 quarts but considering it's fine to run for 6k or more miles, I'll be making that investment every year in addition to a good high quality oil filter from now on in any motorcycle that I own. I was also impressed that as the last drops were falling from the bottle to the funnel, they shot down the funnel like bullets rather than dissipated and ran down. I found that telling of the lubricative properties. I got 46-48 mpg pretty consistently. When gas was cheap I got premium. Regular when not.

In conclusion, 10 hours tops in the saddle per day for trips that are for the purpose of being fun. We had no time to stop and look at the good sights or take that impulsive detour when there's a sign for something good. We had a place to be each night and not much time to spare! Also, if you are not satisfied with your gear at home, it gets amplified on a long trip. At the very least I will have a helmet with ventilation the next time I go on a trip. The Qwest is good overall just as you'd expect but seriously, one intake vent on top, and the mouth vent, neither of which do much. I tried on my friends Shark Race-R Pro and couldn't believe the wind blowing through that thing. I was happy to have found someone to go with for the safety aspect. If anything does happen it is very good to have someone else with you. On the other hand, no two people are going to agree COMPLETELY about how to handle the trip, so you have to make sacrifices for that. I think i'll try to go on trips with two people when possible in the future. it also splits hotel room costs.

That's about all. I'll post some pics with captions now.

 

[BlackAndBlue]

The seafood lunch

 

[BlackAndBlue]

At the end of push mountain. Sorry these are all sideways for whatever reason



The map of push mountain




There are more pictures but I don't have them. The guy I rode with brought a real camera so I have to run over there and get them another day