Subject: RCR return ride notes From: Dan Brown Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 10:23:50 -0400 (EDT) Made it back yesterday... had a great time, glad to see everyone again. The campground and accomodations were excellent, even if the weather pretty well sucked. I'm all over the idea of having RCR either earlier in the year next year, or more towards the north... like Maine or something. The ride home got a slow start. Dean, Catness, Kendall, Chad and I headed out at about 10 or 10:30 after most of the people had cleared out and the campground was fairly cleaned up. The first 15 minutes of riding were close to glorious... cool morning, a few mists floating in the air, not too many cars on the road, etc. We were headed up towards the BRP on 268 or whatever it is that the 'Roost is right off of. We double-yellow passed a cage (a pickup), Dean, Kit first and then Kendall, Chad and me riding sweep. Dean Kit and Kendall made it fine. Chad went around and was poking along... I figgured he was slowing the pickup down, giving me a chance to pass before an upcoming sharp left hander. I blew around the pickup and Chad (GO-GO Gadget CBR-XX!!), made the left hander and slowed down, waiting for Chad. The Pick-um-up truck came around the corner, pulled up to me and the nice lady with a dripping accent shouts out the window, "Someone's all tore up back there!!" "Oh CRAP!!" I reply, flipping the blackbird around as fast as it could lumber with the big givi's, with images of Chad and his Interceptor "tore up" into little pieces all over the road. Came around the tight corner, and there's Chad and his bike, thankfully still quite un-tore-up, but having electrical problems. The gauges weren't following either his engine rpms or his non-existant forward speed. The bike has an electric fuel pump, and that also wasn't behaving well. I guess "tore up" is North Carolina-ese for "apparently having engine problems." Chad got the bike going for a bit, long enough for us to find the rest of the group, who'd turned around, probably also fearing the worst. We pulled into a church parking lot and Chad pulled things apart and poked at his battery for a bit. Dean came down and suggested moving across the road to a nearby service station, so, the bike went back together and we moved down there. At the filling station (which was closed), it died again and we opted to have Chad pillion on Dean's bike and pull onward towards town to get back into cell phone coverage and look for towing, uhauls, etc. On the outskirts of whatever town we were on the outskirts of, I started having my fuel light blink on, so opted to pull into a BP station and fill. The rest of the gang turned around and joined me, and we decided to partake of their payphone and the like. Making an already long story shorter, an hour and a half or so later, well after noon, after finding out that none of the local honda dealers are open, and that none of the Uhaul places are open, and finally giving up and having Dean call HRC to con them into sending a tow truck for Chads non-HRC-covered bike -- and then a couple calls more to find out an ETA, we finally had a couple guys with a flatbed show up, sans any sort of straps to tie the bike down with. We led them back to where we'd abandoned Chad's bike and helped them load it onto the flatbed, leaning it over on Chad's luggage and then chaining it down with the winch hooked to the front frame and another chain-hook between the rear wheel and the back of the flatbed. Chad went off with them, aiming to go to a "Honda guy who has a house righ' next door to his shop who might be around on a Sunday." I only hope that the ride on the truck didn't make things worse, and that Chad survived a day or two in N.C. by himself. Leaving finally, we made it as far as beautiful downtown Blowing Rock, which, while beautiful and all, is very very tourist trappy. After a good lunch which included plenty of lemonade and oggling some of the locals, we got back on the road around 1:30 or 2pm. 3 hrs, 30 miles. Dean noted he could probably have walked farther and faster. BRP was pretty nice, plenty of bugs and not too many cars, LEO's, 'bagos or bambis. We kept it under the speed limit... part of the time, and stayed on our side of the double yellow... most of the time and, by 5:30 or so, we'd made it up past "Meadows of Dan." We ate dinner at the next gas stop, near Roanoak VA and then hopped onto 81 heading north. We gassed up again, somewhere around Staunton. After having been treated to a three biker caberet line in front of me and realizing that my mind wasn't really focused on riding much anymore ("Ooo... Tree... Ooo... Cloud... Ooo... Moon... Ooo... Hmmm... Where's Dean... OHFUCKTHATSATRUCK!") I suggested heading over to the Ramada across the way. We showered and played in the pool for a bit, and upon returning from that, headed over to a local quicky mart for some munchies. My eye's were /really/ red from the chlorine in the pool and whilst aimlessly perusing the snacky-cakes, one of the other patrons was heard to mutter something like "Heh... I always used to get the munchies just like that when I was all f*cked up. " We returned to our rooms and caught note of a severe Thunderstorm heading into DC (where I was heading). I thanked my lucky stars for deciding to stop for the night. Next morning, we jumped back on 81. Dean, Catness and Kendall peeled off after a couple of exits and headed to Skyline. I kept going up to 522 or 211 (same road in places) and took that to 29 and back into Northern Virgina and home. Good ride, no misshaps. NOW... I really really really want a bike of my own. Lessons learned: - Don't attempt to keep up with Dave Lawrence when going to dinner - Avoid visiting North Carolina in July - CBR XX's have great engines but suck as far as comfortable riding. - Riding with people who have reliable bikes is nice - Riding an unreliable bike can be time consuming - Consider packing tie-down straps and finally, - Study local dialects before jumping to conclusions. -- Dan Brown brown@obscure.org