From: Michael Weaver Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles Subject: Ride 'n Feed/RCR trip report (long) Date: 13 Jul 1994 18:52:38 GMT RCRIII Trip Report This is a stream of thought trip report spanning the dates of June 29 through July 10. The report is completely from memory and may contain blatant falsehoods. Corrections from mentioned parties will be rejected out of hand. Read on if you are woman (man) enough! The players: Mike "Let's take the slab and just GET there!" Weaver Liz "Well either the seat is breaking in or my butt is" Weaver Alan "Boing! Boing!" Fleming Mike "Could we do 75? At 90 my gas milage sucks" Mitten Dave "You're right. I don't like to be behind people" Lawrence Tom "I found a better hotel" Gent Jim "I'm going to Santa Fe!" Bessette The Bikes: The Weavers 1993 Yamaha GTS1000 PD :-) Alan Fleming 1986 Suzuki GSXR1100 Mike Mitten 198? Suzuki GS850 Dave Lawrence 199? Honda CBR1000F Tom Gent 198? Kawasaki ZX-10 Jim Bessette 19?? BMW R100GS-PD The Story: The day dawned bright and early on Wednesday, June 29. I went to work. After work, I rushed home and Liz and I packed the GTS for our trip. We were feeling a bit rushed as we were running late. Oh well. Our respective employers had been flaky with our pay checks this month, so our cash reserves were a bit on the low side when we left. My parents were gracious enough to spot us some cash for the trip. Anyway, we packed up the bike and prepared to leave. We were to meet Alan, Mike, and Tom at the Waffle House of Doom (tm) at 7:00pm. Atlanta is about an hour's ride from here (Athens) depending on your speed and the traffic situation. As we prepared to begin the ride, the sky opened up in a torrential downpour. Sigh. We rode to Atlanta in the rain. We arrived at my parent's house at around 6:50pm and dried off. The rain had stopped by this point, so we packed Liz's rain gear (I wear a 'stitch). After making the obligatory greetings, the money changed hands and we were on the road again, destination: WHOD(tm). No more rain, BDC's, but no more rain. We arrived at the WHOD(tm) at 7:15 or so. Tom had not arrived yet, and Chris Taylor (Purple BMW) had showed up to wish us well. Liz and I had some coffee and waited with the others. We insulted each others bikes in the regular ritual of SERiders greeting (South Eastern Riders). Tom rolled in not too long after. I was floored at the sight that greeted me. Tom had lived up to his promise and mounted highway pegs to the ZX-10! I found myself looking for mounting points on the GTS at several points along the trip. We waited for him to eat, gassed up, and rolled out to Alabama. I discovered that it is a real pain in the ass to adjust the rear preload on the GTS. I was trying to stiffen it up a bit to get some more ground clearance. With all the stuff we brought, and my wife on the back, the GTS was riding a bit low. I'd like to have some words with the Yamaha engineers. We arrived in Huntsville, Alabama without incident. Amy Spiker graciously offered her house to us on short notice (Thanks Amy!). She even woke up at the obscene hour that we arrived at to let us in! After unpacking and making some gratuitous jokes, we crashed for the night. The next morning dawned bright and sunny. We loaded up and headed out, destination: Kansas City. We headed out early, gassed up, breakfasted, and rolled on to Kansas City. Northern Alabama is ok, Tennessee wasn't bad. Arkansas sucked. The roads were crappy, there was a lot of construction (MUD FROM HELL!) and Alan and I almost got flattened by BDC's more times than I care to count. We hit an awful rain squall in Arkansas as well, fortunately it was very short. We were all treated to the sight of Alan struggling into his rain suit (Hi Alan!). Most of Missouri was in the dark (as far as I can remember) and I don't remember much of the daytime stuff either. Oh well. I discovered that my dealer had misadjusted the headlight on my bike, I was signaling aircraft. I tried to adjust it. This proved to be a work in progress. I tweaked that damn light nearly every day, and it is still not right! We were supposed to meet Dave Lawrence at a restaurant in Kansas City, then stay the night with Mike Mitten's sister (I cannot remember her name). We were running quite a bit later than expected. This is partly due to a miscalculation of the milage from Huntsville to KC. We thought it was around 550 miles, it turned out to be around 700 miles. We rolled into KC late, around midnight I think. We checked the restaurant, no Dave. We then headed to Mike's sister's house. Dave was there, fast asleep. As with all the places we stayed, Mike's sister was an amazing host. I have never been treated so well by hosts than on this trip. Simply amazing. We arose early, gassed, ate and hit the road, destination: Golden, Colorado. There was one minor mishap of Dave dropping his bike at the gas station. Oops. It happens. We then began the long process of navigating through Kansas. We were in a strong cross wind the whole way, I have never turned so much and gone straight in my life. All things considered, Kansas was not as bad as I thought. There were some nicely banked turns every now and then on the local state roads. There were some cool little towns as well. We had several DoD Nominal blasts down the LONG straights. At some point in time, Alan's shock reservoir broke both the zip ties securing it to the frame rail. The reservoir then fell into the drive chain which chewed a hole in it. The nitrogen (or whatever) and oil in the reservoir spewed all over the place. This left Alan with no compression or rebound damping. Boing Boing. Toward the latter part of the day, we ended up racing two storms, one on either side of us. Very exciting. After one gas stop, we decided to bail on the state road and take the slab to get the heck out of dodge. There was a sharp right-hander that went down the entrance ramp to the interstate that we took pretty fast. Mike was in front of me, I was playing clean-up. He took the turn a little too fast and ended up in the grass. It was a basic run-wide-fall-down-no- big-deal kind of thing. A short tumble, a bike on it's side, and a broken fairing later, we were back on the road. No damage to Mike, not much to his bike. Ah, another lesson in motorcycle physics. Let us not forget them. We headed into Denver. With some excitement, we crossed the Colorado border. We stopped at a gas station-emporium and grabbed some chow. At this point, it was getting dark. Dave left us here and went to the home of a friend's sisters to stay the night. We pushed on for Golden and the Chief Hosa campground where we were to meet Jim. We got turned around and managed to loose Mike and Tom (I was no longer in the back). Alan and I got some gas and found the campground. Upon arriving at the campground, we looked for Jim and couldn't find him. We waited for about 30 min, then Tom and Mike showed up. After some discussion, we decided to stay there for the night. The owners/managers were not awake and couldn't (we thought) be awoken. We just claimed a camp site and paid in the morning. The next morning, we settled our bill and we were told of a "tall fellow who was waiting for some folks" camping across the road. We didn't realize the night before that there was even a place to camp across the road, or else we might have found Jim. I went across the road and after about 10 min of DP riding on the GTS, determined that Jim had left. This was confirmed by another manager. We packed up and headed off to the coffee house that was to be the meeting for the Ride and Feed. After a bit of wandering in Boulder (wonderful town, I must go back), we found the meeting place and proceeded to coffee and bagel up for the ride. We met many a denizen there, my feeble memory boggles as to whom. We met Jim there as well. Laszlo headed up the ride, resplendent on a blue Hawk and a BMW System 2 helmet. The helmet is notable due to it's wonderful plumage. Laz had glued some feathers to the back, very nice. After a gas stop, we headed for the mountains. I'll leave the road details to others who have a better memory for such a thing. I will say that they were beautiful. I was in the groove for the ride. The GTS was handling flawlessly, even with all the gear still on it. I was treated to the sight of a nice Ducati in my mirrors for a bit of the ride (Hi Ed!). Some rider received a good riding certificate from the local constabulary at a small town during the ride. I don't remember the details. A group of riders split off to return to Laz's house to begin preparations for the Feed portion of the Ride and Feed. I decided to continue the ride. At one point in the ride, Jim's bike broke. Not bad, just a broken throttle return spring on one carb. Gooz went and got him a new spring at a NAPA auto parts store, which Jim customized to fit. No sweat. On the ride back up to where Jim was, I almost managed to get the coveted Dickweed award by clipping the front of Hesh's bike with my wife's foot, almost knocking it over. Oops. Good thing it didn't fall, eh? After some more riding, and indescribably scenery, we headed back to Laz's. I can say from experience that Laz's driveway is tough, but the GTS-PD has handled worse! Ha HA! I laugh at the driveway from hell! (Watch, I'll bust bigtime on it next time I go). Ed caused quite a ruckus when he put his Ducati into a ditch. Thankfully, he didn't drop it and several concerned motorcyclists were able to help him get it out. Feeding commenced. There were many denizens in attendance. I cannot remember all the folks that I met. I do remember: Brucer, Hesh, Dave Tharp, Jeff Deeney, Chuck Rogers, Laz, and some others. It was nice to be able to put a face to the net.personalities. There was much good conversation and socializing. Decent beer. Plenty of BRAATS (that is a long, nasal a, BTW) and some tasty salmon steaks. MMmmm. Laz has a truly cool house. A view to kill for, big hot tub (although not really big enough for Jim's legs), Sega game system with Road Rash II (cool game, played it quite a bit), and excellent music. I had a great time. I socialized, ate, drank beer, played Road Rash II, drank more beer, ate some more, socialized some more, and ended up the day soaking away the aches and pains of the ride out here in the hot tub, watching the lightning out over Denver. Laz and Mikii put Liz and I up in a spare bedroom. The others that were hosted crashed at various points around the living room. Mike fell asleep before the rest of us, so Laz decided that he was waking up looking at the Love Ewe. Very funny stuff. The next day, most of us slept in and missed the ride up some mountain, I can't remember which one. Tom was a little disappointed in missing that ride, but I was glad for the extra rest. Laz and Mikii fed us breakfast and we wiled away the day talking and watching the director's cut of Aliens on the laser disk player. Very cool. I cannot thank Laz and Mikii enough for hosting us. The hospitality was amazing. That evening, after a long and drawn-out discussion of the route for Monday, Alan went off to have dinner with his Aunt. The rest of us, myself, Liz, Mike, and Tom, went to Kevin's (sorry, no last name) for more braaats and potato salad. More socializing commenced. Two events of note: 1) The arrival of a beautiful BMW R- bike (I feel terrible for forgetting the age and type) and 2) The almost goof of a fellow on an EX500. He almost dumped his bike into Ed Guzman's K-bike perhaps causing a big chain reaction. Bad Fu. The horrible event was averted by Ed bravely sticking his body between the falling bike and his bike. Good job Ed! We then went over to Ed's house to rest for the night. Ed graciously put us up for the evening. He even allowed Liz and I to sleep in his bed! What a guy! He provided Chain Wax (tm) and Pledge(tm) for bike maintenance. There was even espresso in the morning! Wow. Ed ushered us to the McDonalds for breakfast. He bid us farewell after breakfast and we proceeded on our way. We met up with Dave at the pre-determined intersection and off we went, destination: Albuquerque(sp). We had an entertaining ride down the Rockies. Beautiful scenery as far as the eye can see. Wonderful. I really must do this again! We stopped for lunch at a roadside diner just outside of New Mexico. Cute waitresses, bad service. It took forever for our food to come. Anyway, another discussion began over our route. Dave and Alan wanted to take one scenic highway with some possible twisties, Jim wanted to take another scenic highway and visit Santa Fe. Opinions were quite strongly held. Jim went toward Santa Fe. We took the other route. We found some wonderful twisties and breath taking vistas. I think that this was the best on-the-road day that we had. We rolled into Albuquerque before dark! We were staying at a friend of Mike's place, a fellow by the name of Dan Small. As has been par for this trip, Dan's hospitality was unbelievable. Jim rolled up not 10 min after we arrived at Dan's. We all got a bit of amusement to find out that he had not gone to Santa Fe after all. Shrug. We all went to dinner at a near-by restaurant where Mike, Alan, Dave, and myself saw an attractive waitress. She wasn't there, but we had some of the best food of the trip there. And pie. Gobs of pie. Mmmm. After that, we went back to Dan's place. The other's shot off some fireworks as Tom and I installed a space Vista Cruise on the GTS. After that, Mike and I did some needed repairs on the GS850. Bedtime followed soon afterwards. Dan prepared us a hearty breakfast of eggs, coffee, and bacon. Way to go Dan! Jim wanted to go visit his in-laws in Texarcana, so he hopped on the slab to jam the 700+ miles over to there. We took a more meandering course to arrive at Wichita Falls. We went all over the place. Texas sucks, IMHO. No offense to Texans, but I did not enjoy the state very much. We did find a few twisties, but it was mostly hot and flat. Ugh. Today marked a beginning of trouble for the GTS. The oil light came on while riding. When checked, the bike had plenty of oil and seemed to have oil pressure, so we pushed on. That evening, when we stopped for gas, I topped off the low oil and forgot about it. After a failed attempt to get the Denney's waitress to put us up for the night, we rode up to Lake Arrowhead to camp. We found a camp space and set up camp. A strange huffing and squeaking noise permeated the camp. Liz and I set off for the bathhouse and on noise quest. It turned out to be a donkey pump. You know, one of those classic oil type pumps. The pump itself was doing the squeaking, and it was driven by this cool little single cylinder engine that fired every so often, causing the huffing sound. The sight of the pump, backlight by the sky and with the blowing wind, was quite cool. Very cool. We retired for the night. Not more than 15 min or so after I fell asleep, I was awoken by Liz and a truck horn. I stuck my head outside the tent. The ranger was out there in his truck. He told us that we were under a severe thunderstorm warning with winds around 80 mph. He advised us to seek shelter in the bathhouse if the storm should hit our area. I thanked him and tried to awaken the others. No luck. These guys sleep heavily. It started to rain and blow real hard. Liz went out and managed to awaken the others with the exception of Dave. Fortunately, the storm never got bad enough to seek shelter. We arose late and had brunch at a Dairy Queen. Mmm, not. We gassed up and departed, destination: Natchez, Miss. Texas DOT uses some sort of gravel that eats up tires. I was glad to leave it behind. We had an entertaining time on a pea-gravel and oil paved road. Ugh. I don't like Texas very much. We met up with Jim in Texarcana, mostly by chance. He figured that we would be coming into town on a particular road and waited for us at a gas station overlooking it. Imagine our surprise to find Jim waiting, gear on, on our route. He was about to leave. We then pushed on to Natchez. Louisiana wasn't too bad, but the roads weren't in very good shape. The humidity was getting back to what I expected. We crossed the mississippi in the dark and found ourselves in Natchez. Some consultation and wandering later, we found the state park and crashed for the night. And promptly got eaten up by some sort of insect live. Mike and Liz, perhaps some of the others, were covered with itching welts the next morning. I didn't have any, but I tried to keep this fact hidden. The next morning, we went for breakfast. Alan and I missed the turn to the Hardee's and turned in a little later. I rode across the grass and tried to jump the curb. I promptly got stuck. So much for the GTS-PD. Jim lifted my bike out for me and we grabbed some grub. After that we went to a motorcycle shop and got some more Chain Wax. Spooge of the gods, that stuff is. Got gas and hit the road, Destination: Unknown. We headed up the Natchez Trace. Apparently it was recommended as a good road. By whom, I don't know. Like the Blue ridge Parkway, the Natchez Trace is a federal park patrolled actively. Speed limit of 50. Turns that could have been made at 100. Sigh. This road sucked. Everyone was so bored. Jim took off his gloves and helmet while riding for a bit of squidliness. He quickly put them back on, though. We finally stopped for gas after what seemed like forever. We found some food and chowed down. Jim decided to bug out on one road, we decided to bail on the parkway on another, then hit the slab to go to Chattanooga. Once in Alabama, we hit some bad weather. Real bad. Lots 'o rain. I almost became a hood ornament on some car after an ill advised pass of a semi. Sigh. Real bad Karma. It was decided to get a hotel room for the night instead of camping. During the rush to try and find a hotel that wasn't full, we managed to loose Tom. We all felt real guilty about that, and Alan and Mike went to look for him. They couldn't find him. Turns out that he found a better hotel for cheaper than ours. Oh, well. The next morning, we left late. We headed out of Chattanooga. Decided to give Deal's gap a miss and push on for the RCR. After a bit of riding through some lovely country (good to be back in the south again!) we stopped at the BIG-hair Exxon. This place is excellent for spotting the wily southern Big-Hair. Very cool. We pushed on and got on the Blue Ridge parkway. Very foggy and wet, in places. The Blue Ridge both sucked and was cool, depending on your altitude and side of the mountain. After a bit of riding on the parkway, we got some gas. Dave, Mike, and I were quite tired so we decided to get some dinner and take the faster interstate and state roads to High Country Cycle Camp. Alan decided to push on the parkway. We had a lovely dinner and pushed on. My oil light started giving me fits. Finally at a gas/bathroom break I figured out what the problem was. The oil level sensor is a little excitable. Even though the oil was within spec according to the sight glass, the oil was too low according to the sensor. I topped the oil off and had no more light problems. We pushed on. And got nailed by a LONG detour. That, coupled with a few wrong turns, saw us arriving at HCCC late into the night. We were met by friends with beer. Ahh. This must be the RCR. After a bit of socializing and beer, we hit the sack. The next day dawned bright and hot. By the time I blearley poked my head out of the cabin that Liz and I shared, the group ride was just leaving. Oh well. Liz and I shuffled down to the camp and were social. I adjusted my chain as did several others. Dave, Liz, and I went to get some food at a near by town. After that, we, among several others, hit the swimming hole. Cold, very cold. While riding up there, we saw a Celica that had run off the road. Oops. Oh well! After a refreshing dip, we heading back down for dinner. The group riders were not back yet, so beer drinking and lie telling ensued. Right after we got back, a cloud burst opened up. Serious rain. The creek turned into a torrent. Folks had their tents almost washed away. The group riders trickled in during and after the rain. Serious socializing commenced. Like the Ride and Feed, I don't completely remember all that went on, as I was drinking and such, but I do know that I had a great time. You have all heard the crash reports and such, so I will gloss over all that stuff. The next day, Liz and I decided to head on back, after breakfast. We were planning to stay until Monday and head back then, but it only takes a few hours to get back home from there, so we went for it. Got home with no problems and took a congratulatory picture. Ahhh. Home at last! I'm glad you sat through all this mess. I hope that it was entertaining. Later, -- ________________________________________________________________________________ Michael Weaver | If it harms none, do what you will. weaver@moe.coe.uga.edu |____________________________________________________ DoD#0529 AMA#675149 KotGB | 82 Vision | 90 Suzuki VX800 | 93 Yamaha GTS1000A