And now for the story.....
PART I - Miles 0-310 (Albion MI to Clyde OH to Grove City PA)
In planning this ride, I looked at my schedule and cleared out two days. I really wanted to see some of the county (including states I’d never visited), but I knew I didn’t have much time. I love hills, so I figured I’d hit West Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Since I completed my first Saddlesore ride last summer, I felt ready to take it up a notch. By choosing a compromise route of what I thought would be more interesting Interstates (e.g., I-79/I-77 in WV/VA, I-40 in NC/TN), I knew it would cost us time, but it seemed well worth it (and it was). With help from Mapsource, Mapquest, Google Maps, and good ‘ol paper maps, the route was finalized. Steve and I contemplated squeezing in the Dragon as well, but it became clear that it would just be too much to combine with a 1500 mile ride.
MY FZ6: Until two days before the ride, my bike had no name. In fact, none of the cars/ vans/ trucks/ motorcycles/ bicycles/ lawn mowers I’ve owned have had a name. To be honest, it’s always seemed stupid to me to name a piece of machinery. It’s not that I don’t talk to the bikes/cars I’ve owned (and I have been known to coax them from time to time), but no name ever stuck. However, two days before the ride began, I woke up from a dream with a name for my bike. To spare you the details, I dreamed that I was riding the FZ6 on a dirt track somewhere (I don’t know where – and I know that makes no sense). In what seemed to be years of riding, I was somehow riding on mountain roads, dirt tracks, across streams, and even on snow-covered roads. Yeah, I know it seems stupid….but in the dream the bike had a name – the ‘Red Knot’. For those who are into birds, you’ll know that this is a species of small shorebird with a red color that’s critically endangered (likely to go extinct within the next 5 years) and it migrates from the high arctic all the way to southern South America. It’s not weird that I dreamed of a bike-like shorebird since I actually study shorebirds for a living, and I’ve been thinking a lot about Red Knots lately (especially their migration through South America, where I’ve been working a lot). Given that my FZ6 is red, it’s small, and it’s capable of riding long distances, I guess my brain confused the red bird and the red motorcycle somehow. Red Knot it is!
The 'Red Knot'. Damn that's a big windshield!
THE START (for me): Albion, Michigan. After catching about 5 hours of sleep, I woke up Friday morning at 4:30am to a chilly day. Temps were in the upper 40s. For me, that’s an ideal temperature since most of my gear is well-suited to the cold. After checking the weather forecast for the route (which turned out to me accurate overall, but completely wrong on certain sections), I tried to eat. No go – I’m a morning person, but I just can’t eat anything for the first few hours I’m awake. Besides, I was too nervous/excited to eat anyway. Steve reports that we woke up around the same time, although he got less sleep as the final prep took longer than he thought it would (I had a similar experience on my first IBA ride). He also had to ride out to meet me (50-80 miles).
After catching a shower and suiting up, I loaded the bike. One side case held stuff for the Red Knot, one had a few extra clothes for me, and the top case was stuffed with misc jackets, a bag for receipts/fuel log/witness forms, and an assortment of gloves.
As expected, my phone rang at about 6:30. It was Steve and he was getting close (10 miles away), so I hurried to meet him at a BP gas station up by the interstate (I-94). He’d already dealt with the cold for over an hour and a major detour on the way over from South Haven. Unfortunately, I must have missed him because he arrived at the station a few minutes before I did and had continued into town (to another gas station we were originally planning to meet). I waited at the BP for 10 minutes and picked up my phone. I noticed that Steve had called, and then heard a bike as he suddenly rode in from the direction of downtown. He’d figured out that I was a few minutes late and had come back to the BP station.
Steve at the start of my ride in Albion, Michigan (he'd already ridden >50 miles in the cold at this point).
Steve's bike. For some reason it attracts bugs more than the Red Knot.
After warming up and chatting for a few minutes (Steve and I had never met let alone ridden together) we filled up the bikes. Our official starting time for me was 7:01am May 15, 2009. Steve had the choice of using his receipt or starting with an earlier receipt he had closer to home (depending on the return time), but we had to be back in Albion by 7:01 pm the next day. Steve commented on how crazy it was to think we’d be standing at the same gas station 1 ½ days later having ridden a big chunk of the country. He was right!
After filling up, the clock was running. Time to hit the road! The sun was coming up and it was getting a bit warmer. I had the grips turned on for the first hour or so, but the conditions were near perfect. Other than some morning traffic heading into Ann Arbor, it was an easy ride. We both took a few pics as we were riding along and the miles breezed by.
Merging on the I-94E ramp at the start of the ride.
After taking I-94 from Albion to Ann Arbor, we cut south on US-23 (another 4-lane highway that connects to I-80 among other things). Near Toledo, my GPS told me to take a highway I wasn’t familiar with, but I decided to trust the technology. We got onto I-80, picked up our toll cards, and rode on a bit further. At the appointed stop (150 miles - ~9:15am) we pulled into a service plaza (one that doesn’t require you to exit the toll highway – I’d plotted out all of our stops on the GPS at 140-170 mile intervals). It was a pretty quick stop – we filled up, got valid receipts, chatted for 5-10 minutes while pulling off a layer of clothing, and headed out again. We were VERY fortunate that ALL of the receipts on the trip were accurate with date/time – a MUCH better experience than I had on my last IBA ride. The reality of the trip hadn’t sunken-in for me yet and I think it was just starting to dawn on Steve that this was going to be a pretty extreme ride.
Merging onto our second road - US23 South toward Ohio.
Entering Ohio!
The next part of the ride along I-80 was pretty boring. Flat and straight, but traffic was light. As before, the miles were dropping away quickly. By about the 200 mile point I was getting sore. Every 30-40 miles, I would shift my feet to the highway pegs I’d installed and Steve would stand up for a minute. It seemed like out bikes were equally comfortable (or perhaps equally uncomfortable is a more accurate way to put it). I wondered what was going through Steve’s head. For me, I was pretty confident from having done another ride – I had a sense I could do it.
Steve in his ‘comfort position’ When you add it up, he probably spent at least an hour or two riding like this. Motorists gawked at him regularly!
Steve cruises on I-80 through Ohio.
Steve meets truck.
Our second stop was scheduled to be at a toll booth on I-80 (I think near where it enters Pennsylvania – I’ve got the receipt somewhere). As we approached the tool booth, I started to contemplate finding money to pay for it……and OUCH! OUCH! I rode into a swarm of BEES! Most sacrificed themselves on my windshield, but a couple managed to find their way into my jacket and stung me twice – one on the neck and another on my chest. I was pretty freaked out and thought about pulling over, but the toll booth was only 2 miles away, so I kept going. At the booth, I first had to fight just to keep the bike up. What kind of car/truck leaks out that SLUDGE on the ground anyway? (for those who don’t know – the ground at toll booth exits is VERY slick as thousands of cars idle there and drip all sorts of crap on the ground. The ground was covered in the slickest stuff I’ve ever experienced (at least an inch thick!) While trying to warn Steve about how slippery it was / finding money / shaking bees out of my jacket – he interpreted my waving as a sign to pull up. I was worried he would slip on the sludge, since it was just to the open side of me, so I waved him off frantically.
After wrestling with the money and tool booth receipt, we both got going again and continued on I-80 for a while. We entered Pennsylvania and eventually hit I-79 (turning from east to south). Shortly afterwards, we stopped at a gas station on I-79 (Grove City as I recall). Although we weren’t on empty yet, we needed to stop to prove we’d gone all the way over to I-79 before turning south on our route because we needed the extra mileage of taking I-80 to I-79 to complete our 1500 mile plan.
Once we stopped, I noticed it was getting hot. We shed another layer of clothing, I put on my mesh jacket and vented gloves, and we ate a bit at the bikes (I snacked on banana chips and Camelbak water from my tank bag – earlier attempts to eat while riding ended in complete failure!) The mileage at this second gas stop was ~310 total and it was close to noon. So far, we’d only stopped for tolls and gas.
Pic of the bikes at a gas station in Grove City, PA.
