I’ve joked about arranging my touring schedule around surfing, fly-fishing, skiing…it’s partly true. With gas costing what it does and plane ticket what they do. I will ride my motorcycle to any gig I can ride it to. This one was in Colorado.
I left Fredonia, NY two weeks ago on a Monday morning after having packed, un-packed and re-packed at least two times. I don’t mind taking a lot of gear with me in a car or in the trailer, but if I’m on the bike I prefer to carry less and travel simply. So after the third re-pack I had to look at what I had on the bike and ask myself “do you really need ALL those flies? Isn’t ONE box enough? Swim trunks AND running shorts? Waders? I lightened my load by one whole-back-pack and was on the highway by noon that day (after having gotten up at 6am to start loading up the bike. I ride a Harley Road King. It’s not the biggest touring bike Harley manufactures, but it is indeed a touring bike when you want it to look like one and the temptation to pack my saddle bags beyond capacity never leaves me alone. After three hours of prioritizing what absolutely HAD to make the trip I ended up carrying:
-1 9'x8' backpacking tent
-1 Italian army issue mummy-style sleeping back
-1 foam bed-roll
-1 back-packing size single burner propane fueled lantern
-1 back-pack size single burner camp stove
-what I thought were enough tools to remedy and small bike-issues
-1 five piece Cabela’s stow-away fly rod
-ONE box of (mostly) dry-flies
-line and tippet material for fly-fishing
-NO waders for fly fishing
-NO wading boots for fly-fishing
-two small LED flashlights
-1 Leatherman Multi-tool
And the following articles of clothing
-1 leather motorcycle jacket
-1 pair of leather chaps
-leather gloves
-light cloth gloves
-1 set of heavy-duty fluorescent rain gear
-rain gloves
-rain mask, for riding in hard rain
-motorcycle boots
-running shoes
-running shorts/shirt
-2 pairs of jeans
-2 t-shirts
-4 pairs socks
-4 pairs underwear
-I set long under wear
-one long sleeved t-shirt
-camp towel
-1 collared dress shirt, just in case…..
And I left my hometown headed for Steamboat Springs without much of a plan other than knowing it was Monday and that I needed to be in Colorado by Thursday night for my first engagement. The weather when I left was pleasant: 75 degrees. Partly sunny skies. Slight wind out of the west. But of course, on the bike the weather may stay nice but you—the rider will have to endlessly adjust to stay comfortable. What feels warm weather-wise when you’re not moving can get chilly after a half-an-hour at speed. Typically the clothes you’re wearing at the break of dawn will be mostly shed by high noon (in the summer) and put on again by dusk. And if your luck is anything like mine, you will almost always ride dodging rain, meaning if you want to stay dry you will spend an annoying amount of time putting on and taking off rain gear. Once in-awhile if you’re like me you may just say to yourself “screw it, I’m not stopping, I’ll just get wet…” which is fine on short trips but almost always a bad decision on long ones, after the temperature has dropped and you are soaked with another two-hundred miles to ride to get to that hotel you booked. Having learned that lesson a time or two-- I’ve gotten in the habit of donning the rain gear at the first sight of a dark cloud. I’ve not regretted it yet.
So the rain gear came on about the time I got to the PA line (not far at all---say 35 miles) and pretty much stayed on for the next 500 miles; Coming off briefly in Ohio, hurriedly back on in Indiana, staying on after that even when it was hot and uncomfortable to wear. Hot-sweaty-and-uncomfortable is preferable to cold-clammy-and-uncomfortable ANY day.
Rain not-with-standing, the journey west began without drama. I hate drama. However, without drama I have no story, so I’ll insert some here. About the time I got to Sandusky OH, I realized I could get all the way to where my friend John Hall lives in Indiana. So at a rest stop I texted him to see if he was in town and was there any vacancy at “Hotel Hall” and John responded immediately that yes, there was and I was welcome to stay and according to the google maps app on my phone John’s hometown--Crown Pointe IN-- was only 4 hours away, so yeah John, I’ll see you around 8pm?....and sure enough the weather goes to hell and the rain gear I had just taken off comes back on and I even spend some time under an overpass waiting out some really heavy rain and the odd chance that things might get Tornadic.
http://youtu.be/h4xWUyAFh-o
But that’s not the drama I’m talking about.
After dealing with some truly shitty weather I get to Crown Pointe a little after 10pm. Tired, Wired, and very hungry. There’s an awesome bar/restaurant on the square in Crown Pointe (I’d been there before) that serves up a great Mexican buffet and I told John I’d just meet him there rather than try to find my way to his house. So I get off the I-80 and find my way to town and to the restaurant and John is there in two-minutes and I’ve just pulled off all my hot-uncomfortable- but-keeping- me-DRY rain gear and dug out my phone from my saddle bags and John is like “the bar is closed, why don’t you follow me to the house, park your bike and we’ll come back and grab a beer somewhere else”
Sounds good.
I don’t like to make people wait. My gear is in a state of serious disarray on top of the bike so I just start stuffing leathers and rain gear and phone back into whatever pocket is closest and I guess I shoved my phone into the tool back mounted on my windshield and forgot to latch the bag SHUT….
It was dark. It was late. I was tired.
Following John back to his house (three blocks away) I’m turning the corner onto his (side) street. And I feel something hit me in the shin….
FUCK.
I knew right away it was my phone. I pulled over, turned off the bike, grabbed a flash light and started praying to St Anthony. Out onto the street steps one of the neighbors:
“You lose something?”
“My phone.”
“Oh, that sucks,” he says, pulling out a flashlight.
“Where you coming from?”
“Upstate NY.”
“Long way from home.”:
“Without a phone.”
And I’m on the verge of freak-out doing my best to maintain and keep the faith. St Anthony has NEVER failed me and if you want stories, I got ‘em but still. I AM a long way from home and last time I made the trip west I lost this very same phone for a day and it was more than a minor inconvenience. I use the thing as a GPS, I do business on it, I let my loved ones know I’m alive with it….
John Hall comes circling back in his car. I give him the 411. He starts calling my phone. Another neighbor, also with a flashlight, asks what we’re looking for and can he help? And so in the dark there’s me and these two other dudes scanning the street for my phone and within five minutes the first neighbor to help me comes running over from around the corner:
“I’ve got it!!”
I wanna hug the guy.
“Thank you SO much. What’s yer name?
“Brian.”
“Brian, thank you for restoring my faith in people…”
Brian explains that some other guy, driving around the corner, stopped when he saw my phone lighting up in the grass (as John was calling me) and saw the flashlights and stopped and grabbed it out of the ditch asking ”You guys lose something?”
Yeah, for about a minute.
Thanks John, for the place to crash, for the Pizza, for the bacon and eggs.
Thanks Brian.
And thanks again, St Anthony.
I’ve joked about arranging my touring schedule around surfing, fly-fishing, skiing…it’s partly true. With gas costing what it does and plane ticket what they do. I will ride my motorcycle to any gig I can ride it to. This one was in Colorado.
I left Fredonia, NY two weeks ago on a Monday morning after having packed, un-packed and re-packed at least two times. I don’t mind taking a lot of gear with me in a car or in the trailer, but if I’m on the bike I prefer to carry less and travel simply. So after the third re-pack I had to look at what I had on the bike and ask myself “do you really need ALL those flies? Isn’t ONE box enough? Swim trunks AND running shorts? Waders? I lightened my load by one whole-back-pack and was on the highway by noon that day (after having gotten up at 6am to start loading up the bike. I ride a Harley Road King. It’s not the biggest touring bike Harley manufactures, but it is indeed a touring bike when you want it to look like one and the temptation to pack my saddle bags beyond capacity never leaves me alone. After three hours of prioritizing what absolutely HAD to make the trip I ended up carrying:
-1 9'x8' backpacking tent
-1 Italian army issue mummy-style sleeping back
-1 foam bed-roll
-1 back-packing size single burner propane fueled lantern
-1 back-pack size single burner camp stove
-what I thought were enough tools to remedy and small bike-issues
-1 five piece Cabela’s stow-away fly rod
-ONE box of (mostly) dry-flies
-line and tippet material for fly-fishing
-NO waders for fly fishing
-NO wading boots for fly-fishing
-two small LED flashlights
-1 Leatherman Multi-tool
And the following articles of clothing
-1 leather motorcycle jacket
-1 pair of leather chaps
-leather gloves
-light cloth gloves
-1 set of heavy-duty fluorescent rain gear
-rain gloves
-rain mask, for riding in hard rain
-motorcycle boots
-running shoes
-running shorts/shirt
-2 pairs of jeans
-2 t-shirts
-4 pairs socks
-4 pairs underwear
-I set long under wear
-one long sleeved t-shirt
-camp towel
-1 collared dress shirt, just in case…..
And I left my hometown headed for Steamboat Springs without much of a plan other than knowing it was Monday and that I needed to be in Colorado by Thursday night for my first engagement. The weather when I left was pleasant: 75 degrees. Partly sunny skies. Slight wind out of the west. But of course, on the bike the weather may stay nice but you—the rider will have to endlessly adjust to stay comfortable. What feels warm weather-wise when you’re not moving can get chilly after a half-an-hour at speed. Typically the clothes you’re wearing at the break of dawn will be mostly shed by high noon (in the summer) and put on again by dusk. And if your luck is anything like mine, you will almost always ride dodging rain, meaning if you want to stay dry you will spend an annoying amount of time putting on and taking off rain gear. Once in-awhile if you’re like me you may just say to yourself “screw it, I’m not stopping, I’ll just get wet…” which is fine on short trips but almost always a bad decision on long ones, after the temperature has dropped and you are soaked with another two-hundred miles to ride to get to that hotel you booked. Having learned that lesson a time or two-- I’ve gotten in the habit of donning the rain gear at the first sight of a dark cloud. I’ve not regretted it yet.
So the rain gear came on about the time I got to the PA line (not far at all---say 35 miles) and pretty much stayed on for the next 500 miles; Coming off briefly in Ohio, hurriedly back on in Indiana, staying on after that even when it was hot and uncomfortable to wear. Hot-sweaty-and-uncomfortable is preferable to cold-clammy-and-uncomfortable ANY day.
Rain not-with-standing, the journey west began without drama. I hate drama. However, without drama I have no story, so I’ll insert some here. About the time I got to Sandusky OH, I realized I could get all the way to where my friend John Hall lives in Indiana. So at a rest stop I texted him to see if he was in town and was there any vacancy at “Hotel Hall” and John responded immediately that yes, there was and I was welcome to stay and according to the google maps app on my phone John’s hometown--Crown Pointe IN-- was only 4 hours away, so yeah John, I’ll see you around 8pm?....and sure enough the weather goes to hell and the rain gear I had just taken off comes back on and I even spend some time under an overpass waiting out some really heavy rain and the odd chance that things might get Tornadic.
http://youtu.be/h4xWUyAFh-o
But that’s not the drama I’m talking about.
After dealing with some truly shitty weather I get to Crown Pointe a little after 10pm. Tired, Wired, and very hungry. There’s an awesome bar/restaurant on the square in Crown Pointe (I’d been there before) that serves up a great Mexican buffet and I told John I’d just meet him there rather than try to find my way to his house. So I get off the I-80 and find my way to town and to the restaurant and John is there in two-minutes and I’ve just pulled off all my hot-uncomfortable- but-keeping- me-DRY rain gear and dug out my phone from my saddle bags and John is like “the bar is closed, why don’t you follow me to the house, park your bike and we’ll come back and grab a beer somewhere else”
Sounds good.
I don’t like to make people wait. My gear is in a state of serious disarray on top of the bike so I just start stuffing leathers and rain gear and phone back into whatever pocket is closest and I guess I shoved my phone into the tool back mounted on my windshield and forgot to latch the bag SHUT….
It was dark. It was late. I was tired.
Following John back to his house (three blocks away) I’m turning the corner onto his (side) street. And I feel something hit me in the shin….
FUCK.
I knew right away it was my phone. I pulled over, turned off the bike, grabbed a flash light and started praying to St Anthony. Out onto the street steps one of the neighbors:
“You lose something?”
“My phone.”
“Oh, that sucks,” he says, pulling out a flashlight.
“Where you coming from?”
“Upstate NY.”
“Long way from home.”:
“Without a phone.”
And I’m on the verge of freak-out doing my best to maintain and keep the faith. St Anthony has NEVER failed me and if you want stories, I got ‘em but still. I AM a long way from home and last time I made the trip west I lost this very same phone for a day and it was more than a minor inconvenience. I use the thing as a GPS, I do business on it, I let my loved ones know I’m alive with it….
John Hall comes circling back in his car. I give him the 411. He starts calling my phone. Another neighbor, also with a flashlight, asks what we’re looking for and can he help? And so in the dark there’s me and these two other dudes scanning the street for my phone and within five minutes the first neighbor to help me comes running over from around the corner:
“I’ve got it!!”
I wanna hug the guy.
“Thank you SO much. What’s yer name?
“Brian.”
“Brian, thank you for restoring my faith in people…”
Brian explains that some other guy, driving around the corner, stopped when he saw my phone lighting up in the grass (as John was calling me) and saw the flashlights and stopped and grabbed it out of the ditch asking ”You guys lose something?”
Yeah, for about a minute.
Thanks John, for the place to crash, for the Pizza, for the bacon and eggs.
Thanks Brian.
And thanks again, St Anthony.
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