Motorcycle Diaries – Part II (October 2008 – June 2013)

For months (while the weather wasn’t bad or too cold), I spent enough time doing laps through the local neighborhoods, practicing tight turns and maneuvers in empty parking lots, and riding the same long-distance loops to practically go down the same roads with my eyes closed. After all that, I was definitely feeling the urge to test my riding chops and plan some longer, destination-defined rides. I would still daydream about somehow taking a month off from work and doing a coast-to-coast ride, but the realities of not having enough PTO or a bike that could handle that kind of trip kept reminding me that I’d need to keep the journeys relatively local. Plus, as a new rider, I was still testing our skills and endurance, and reminded myself that I wasn’t nearly seasoned enough to take on such a huge challenge on two wheels by myself. Still, it was a fun fantasy to play out on Google Maps whenever work was quiet or I was enjoying a lazy weekend at home.

Lessons Learned
In the meantime, the “big loop” rides I became so familiar with provided some invaluable best practices and lessons learned as a budding rider. They included:

Check the Weather Religiously: Like many places, the joke in Virginia is if you don’t like the weather, then wait five minutes. During the warmer months (usually April to early October, but that can vary depending on Mother Nature’s mood swings), it wasn’t unusual for long stretches of blistering heat with little or no precipitation, with the occasional rain or mean thunderstorm popping up. And either out of my need to keep things as simple as possible, or due to any lingering effects from my first ride through a tornado cell, I was finding myself to be a “fair weather rider” in every sense of the term. Whether riding to work or on a weekend, I made routine visits to weather.com as often as possible to make sure I wouldn’t get caught in bad weather while out riding. I found a definite temperature range that worked best for me with riding – usually between 60 to 85 degrees. Anything cooler would make my hands freeze and legs shiver (no matter how thick my gloves were or layers I wore), and anything warmer would leave me a sweaty hot mess (even my mesh jacket).

1. Gearing Up: After more than a few rounds of trial and error, I finally built a routine “riding pack” and general assortment of gear whenever I went on a ride. Since I didn’t have any saddlebags, I relied on a backpack to carry spare clothes and gloves, glasses (if I wore my sunglasses), a baseball cap, a snack or two, and a bottle of water. My wallet and cell phone stayed in my interior jacket pockets and I kept my regular house and car keys in the backpack (I kept the motorcycle keys separate in case anything happened to them on a ride). I created some long playlists with the music on my phone since I couldn’t mess with it while riding, and used earbuds that fit inside my helmet.
2. Knowing My Gas Tank: Probably the one lesson that caught me off guard was figuring out when I was low on fuel. The riding classes pointed out the fact that most bikes came with a switch that changes your gas feed from main to reserve.¹ Not long after I bought the bike, I was out on a local ride when it began to slow down and sputter to a halt. My first reaction was my bike was breaking down, and for about a minute of sitting on the side of the road, I thought I was screwed. Then I looked at the odometer and figured out that I was through most of the gas in the tank and switched to reserve, which gave me about 20 more miles (more than enough to reach a gas station). After several rides, I developed an intuitive sense for reading the odometer to track my miles and range I had on a full tank. I pushed that a few times on rides where I knew a gas station nearby, but never to the point of running completely out of gas in the middle of nowhere.
3. Good Night’s Rest and Eat Something: As a nightowl, my habit has always been staying up late, even during the week. Where many people turn in around 9:00 or 10:00 PM, I’m still up until midnight or 1:00 AM (though I’m finding that midnight is best as the years go on). Whenever I planned on a long day or riding, I forced myself to go against habit and turn in at a decent hour to get plenty of rest. A long day of riding takes its toll (or even shorter rides if it’s really hot or chilly), and I felt the wear and tear catch up on me toward the end of a few rides. Also, as someone who doesn’t always eat breakfast, I forced myselt to go against the grain with that and be sure to eat something before a ride to keep my energy up. I tried to figure in a stop somewhere along the way for lunch, but nothing too heavy for fear of an imminent “food coma” while on the bike.
4. Watch the Drinking: At the time, my circle of friends enjoyed wandering out of the Northern Virginia area and making road trips (sometimes just for the day, others over a weekend) to try out some of Virginia’s wineries. At any given time, Virginia has around 300 open and active wineries (give or take a few), each with anywhere from a handful to well over a dozen different wines to experience. We were generally smart enough to plan road trips where one of us held back on the tasting, and since a bike required even more focus and work then a car, if I rode out to meet them at a winery, I made sure it was on a full stomach and restricted myself to only one glass of wine or just the tasting. And even then, I would usually time it so that I was sure to be past any effects long before I got back on the bike.
5. Music: I figured out several long playlists for rides since I kept my cell phone inside my jacket and ran the earbud cord up my jacket and inside my helmet. The only frustration with listening to music while riding was not being able to adjust the volume, which I kept a little higher than normal to compensate for the engine noise. This led to moments where I could barely hear anything while going over 50 MPH or getting my eardrums blasted when the bike was idling.

Eventually, I developed a set of before, during, and after routines that became almost second nature for the longer rides I took on. Some of the more fondly remembered ones follow below.

Middleburg (February 2009)
Thanks to a few winery tours, I was pretty familiar with Middleburg, a sleepy little town in the boonies known for its antique and artisan shops and some convenient eateries for anyone passing through. A big draw among these places for riders is the Red Horse Tavern, which almost always hosted a large contingent of bikes parked out front. I rode out this way a few times to enjoy Route 50 and always loved stopping at the tavern, seeing fellow riders betraying their full badass biker regalia while talking about their kids, work, or issues with their minivans.

Charlottesville (July 2009)
One quiet mid-summer Saturday when the weather wasn’t Tenth Level of Hell hot and muggy (as the DC is known for), I geared up and decided to take a trip down memory lane.

My Dad was a military officer while I was growing up, which meant that we moved every few years. Back when I was just starting elementary school, we were relocated to Charlottesville, home to the University of Virginia.² I still have mixed feelings about living in this particular town since there are some wonderful memories from living there, but I hated living on the outskirts of town on a dirt road. It felt a bit isolating at times, but there was some adventure while there – a couple visits to Monticello, hikes in the woods, or my parents’ routine morning “cow check” in case one of the cattle from the dairy farm across the road somehow wandered into the front yard. We weren’t too far from Charlottesville Albemarle Airport (CHO), which was little more than an airstrip with a handful of support hangars (at the time, but more on that later), and the stargazing was amazing. I distinctly remember sitting out on our back porch one night and watching some spectacular meteor showers and seeing the milky way. Another time, there was an airshow in town and we watched the Blue Angels practice above the airport.³

My closest playmates were a 10-minute walk down the road, and I loved playing with them, but I still wonder if they felt the same way (in retrospect, there were times where it felt like they only played with me due to a lack of options). That and their parents once invited mine to a party, to which they left early because of certain substances being shared amongst the other guests. The other issue with visiting them is one of their next-door neighbors kept a pack of dogs that loved barking and chasing me to the point that I refused to go out there without one of my parents going with me. Truth be told, all those dogs did was bark a lot, but I remember one time being backed up against a house from all of the dogs following me.

Being in Northern Virginia, I was only a two-hour drive from Charlottesville, so I rode down there to retrace my steps around my old stomping grounds. At the time, Route 29 was going through substantial resurfacing. This meant that the route’s notoriously long stretches of nothing were punctuated by jaw-rattling periods over uneven and chopped up asphalt that I began to dread with every fiber of my being whenever I saw a road work sign. I learned very quickly to give any car in front of me a lot more space since I was pelted by loose bits of asphalt kicked up by them.

I wasn’t entirely sure of where the old house was, just that it was fairly close to the airport. Using that as my landmark, I kept an eye out for signs for the airport and finally found the street I needed to turn off of. Following the street and signs, I went around a turn and came to a sudden stop.

Expecting to see a more or less small support building and a handful of hangars, I wasn’t prepared for what the airport had grown into.

Trying to work through my memories, I explored some of the surrounding roads until I found one that looked very familiar. Soon enough, I passed by the set of houses where my friends lived and the dogs came after me – none of it looking any different, at all. I still remember the telltale turn just ahead where the road went from paved to dirt and gravel, hoping that someone might’ve bothered to pave it since then. Sadly, the road was just as dirty and dusty as my memories recalled. What struck me most was riding along the old dairy farm field on the right – same old fence and grass, but with a huge corporate research center sitting in the middle of it.

Whether or not I was distracted by the large building, it was at this moment that my bike slid out, sending me tumbling onto the ground. Fortunately, the road’s condition forced me to go maybe 10 MPH, so the “crash” wasn’t very serious or dramatic, but for a second I wondered if I was stranded in the middle of nowhere Charlottesville. On top of that, I happened to wipe out right in front of the old house we used to live in. I checked the bike and stood it up.

For the whole time I owned the bike, I struggled to figure out a decent nickname for it, but nothing really seemed to stick or feel right. Feeling secure over the fact that nothing was leaking or splattered all over the dirt road, I checked the rest of the bike only to find one side of the gas tank took a hit, but fortunately nothing more serious than an eyesore. It was that moment that I nicknamed it the “Dented Red Devil.” My only concern was the bike wouldn’t start, a sure sign that the engine flooded, and it needed a few minutes to drain.

I moved my bike to the side of the road and looked at the old homestead.

Again, a few decades had passed since I last saw the place, and it experienced some changes. It used to be a dark grey instead of beige, the addition on the right past the chimney and the front porch weren’t there when we lived in it, and I remember the undergrowth and foliage lining the road being heavier – nearly blocking any view of the road.

My sense of nostalgia and curiosity satisfied, as well as my concerns about the bike once it started up again, I carefully road back to the paved part of the road and tried following my nose a bit. I remembered the one street that eventually led to Chris Green Lake, the local watering hole we frequented in the summer, and its long hill that made for great sledding (though I remember it being steeper when I was younger). I also took a moment to look up my old elementary school on my cell phone and figured out where it was a little further down Route 29. I don’t have a lot of memories about Hollymead Elementary School, but I did my share of stomping in and out into that very same parking lot to jump on a bus.

By the time I did a lap around the lake, it was getting into mid-afternoon, and I didn’t want to race sundown or fight my own exhaustion, so I trekked back up the on-and-off again patches of roadwork of Route 29 toward home.

Skyline Drive and Harrisonburg Group Rides (July and October 2010)
As I developed my riding skills, I joined a few motorcycle groups on Meetup, wanting to try the group riding experience.

Up until this point, all of my rides were solo, but I canvassed friends who rode for their points of view or experiences with group rides. Their opinions ranged from “meh” to “NO WAY IN HELL WILL I EVER GROUP RIDE AGAIN!” In terms of the former, the mindset seemed a mix of frustration with following a set of rules (some generally used and accepted, others specific to the group) and a lack of spontaneity with deviating from the original planned route. As for the latter, I discovered that attitude stemmed from riders with little tolerance for others or a natural aversion to following arbitrary rules. Either way, both ends of that philosophical spectrum left me with a not-so-great impression of group riding.
Nevertheless, one of my core beliefs is not to judge something until you’ve tried it, so I opted with trying few group rides.

My first group experience was a warm July ride out to Skyline Drive, a curvy stretch of road in Shenandoah National Park that runs from near Front Royal and all the way down to Rockfish Gap . For this particular ride, we were only riding about half of the drive, rallying at the Manassas Cracker Barrel off of Route 234 near I-66 . I met one or two of the riders from other Meetup events, but otherwise didn’t know a soul. But we’re talking about a group of suburbanites, most dressed in their “don’t care what happens to them” jeans and t-shirts; however, one of the few women riders showed up in a black leather vest and bedazzled tank top that unashamedly read:

We took a leisurely ride north on Route 234 to Route 29, then road that south until it changed to Route 15, following that until hopping on west bound Route 211 until it intersected with the Skyline Drive just east of Luray.

The Cracker Barrel rally point – I’m on the left on the Dented Red Devil in jeans and black jacket.

Probably the first frustration I found with the ride was getting everyone geared up, on their bikes, and into formation to head out. The two most important parts of a riding group are the front and back, where the lead rider is directing the entire group and someone at the end is watching for issues and keeping an eye on the traffic behind us. Newbies and less experienced riders typically made up the bulk of the group in the middle. Riding meant maintaining a safe distance with the rider in front of you while trying not to veer toward the one on the side. As every rider has their own style, that meant constantly slowing down or speeding up depending on what they were doing. My understanding from my previous riding classes was to stay in formation until stopping to get off the bikes. But in practice, riders switched positions or wandered over into the passing lane, leaving a hole in the formation that became tricky to maintain when encountering traffic or other road issues that forced them to move back into their spot – especially if their hole tightened up due to the riders in front and behind them.

The good news with the ride is we kept a normal speed, making it easier for me since I didn’t like going ridiculously fast. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and traffic was light, so once we reached Route 211, it felt like the whole road was ours. Once we hopped onto Skyline Drive, I discovered a whole new experience in riding up mountains and along curving roads. I’m not too proud to admit that I was fairly intimidated by some of the turns where we were slowing down and leaning enough that I worried I’d fall over. However, we took a few breaks at the scenic overlooks, which made the ride worth it.

That following October, I tried another group ride that aimed at doing a long loop from Northern Virginia down to Fredericksburg, and then over to Harrisonburg. Many of us opted for staying relatively local, so those of us who didn’t want to go out to western and central Virginia peeled off at Fredericksburg to head home. Since this ride was later in the year, the big take away from it was the versatility you needed with your clothes. Since we were only a week or two from Halloween, rallying first thing in the morning meant a heavier jacket, warmer gloves, and an extra layer or two of shirts on. As we stopped for breaks, we went through the process of shedding layers and opening up our jacket vents as temperatures warmed up.

This particular ride took us south down Route 1 which was fairly open for a Saturday morning until we were in the Fredericksburg area, spending most of the time in stop-and-go traffic. Because of less open road time, there was much less opportunity for the hotdog riders to break formation. However, it was getting on to after lunchtime once we hit a good point for a break and a quick bite to eat.

At that stage, the group broke down – a core group was going to trudge on and ride out to Harrisonburg and stay overnight for the ride back. A smaller group splintered off to go riding in whatever direction they felt like. The rest of us opted for splitting up and setting off toward home.

Although I only tried it a few times, I came to truly loathe riding on an interstate. I didn’t trust the car drivers in the DC area for two reasons – 1) they weren’t always aware of me near them at high speeds (as motorcycles are smaller visual targets to spot), and 2) many drivers in the DC area can be…well, assholes, cutting people off or doing other mainly illegal maneuvers that scared the Hell out of even in the relative protection of my own car. Also, as I was never a “speed demon” and was still a rookie bike rider, I found traveling over 70 or 75 MPH to be nerve wracking at the best of times. That being the case, I chose to ride Route 1 north to Route 17 and take that up to Route 28. It meant winding through Manassas and its sphere of traffic headaches, but it was a more comfortable ride that barely went over 70 MPH and was the most direct route toward northern Fairfax County and home.

Went to See a Man About a (Steel) Horse…in New Jersey
At some point in my riding days, a friend decided he wanted to invested in his bike and asked me to join him with picking it up.

I was excited at this prospect because he was a potential riding partner (as opposed to group rides that I learned to not enjoy), and he was going for a Triumph Speedmaster, a bike that I coveted as a possible next bike.

Unlike my bike buying adventure, he opted for going through the Craigslist ads to find a used bike, and this one happened to be in New Jersey, a stone’s throw from the Jersey Shore, now infamous thanks to MTV.

Since the trip was about four hours one way, we needed to hit the road fairly early in the morning. Although I was usually allergic to being up before sunrise, the adventure of the day made it worth my while to be up and over at his place. Since we were on the road early and on a weekend morning, traffic was almost non-existent and we made amazing time getting north of DC and Baltimore.

And that’s when the plan hit a major snag – he forgot the money for the bike.

For a good 10 minutes, we debated what to do – turn back and return to Northern Virginia and the bank, and if we did that, attempt to hit the road again? Calculating that turning around, going back, then starting off again would have us returning home sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning, he tried for a wonderful Plan B – calling the bank. Fortunately, the bank had a branch office in the Towson area, so we took a brief detour to head over, got his wad of cash, and back on the road with a minimum of fuss.

Having done enough road trips up and down I-95 to visit relatives north of the Mason-Dixon Line, eventually hopping on the Jersey Turnpike was like revisiting an old friend. However, some setting on the GPS insisted that even though the place we were headed to was almost to New York City, it kept telling us to get off at every exit. A map check confirmed to us that there was some time before getting off the turnpike, so we trudged on, ignoring the GPS’ recalculating notifications until we found the right exit.

Finally arriving at the seller’s car shop, I fell in love with the fact that he was a 100%, Grade A salt-of-the-Earth New Jersey native – honesty like a brick and every other word was “fuck.” Now, when I say that, I don’t mean the single-syllable, familiar swear word you hear in R rated movies. Oh no, this was a whole other breed of entymology where “fuck” was the two syllable word “fwa – awck,” not to mention it’s related variations – “fwu – awcking” and “fwu – awckers.” The entire time my friend spend chatting with the seller, both before and after the test ride, I was having a Hell of a time trying to keep a straight face and not laughing. I loved the seller and made sure to tell him as much so he didn’t punch me.

Up in Smoke
The last 18 months of owning my bike were a bit frustrating given how much I enjoyed riding.
I switched jobs, and the work was much more demanding and time consuming, so I missed far more weekends to go riding than I was happy with. However, I was still toying with investing in my next bike – something with more muscle and capable of longer, possibly overnight, rides. At the same time, the bike’s battery was dying, no matter how long I trickle-charged it, so I felt it was time to sell the bike, which would be the down payment on a new one.

However, the universe had other ideas.

I wasn’t home when it happened – I think I was out on a hike or winery hopping with some friends. When I got home late on that early summer Saturday afternoon, I was greeted with a shock to my system.

The complex I lived in used to let motorcycle owners park their bikes in the regular packing lot spaces with the cars, and some of us with bikes would often share a space since there was room for two or three in each one. But complaints from the other condo owners about the lack of available spaces led to setting up a dedicated motorcycle parking area off to the side of the parking lot, which was much more convenient compared to when the parking lot was particularly full.

Anyhow…

As I arrived home at the tail end of the afternoon, I saw the still smoldering pile of motorcycles in various states of charred and ruin, some still standing, but most collapsed on the ground, including my wonderful Dented Red Devil.

A few of the neighbors, including one or two bike owners, were inspecting the carnage, and I managed to find one of them who witnessed the whole thing. It turns out one rider went out for a long ride that morning, arriving home mid-afternoon. Since the bikes had to sit outside, almost all of us used tarps made especially for covering bikes and protecting them from the elements, and were supposed to be fire retardant…but strictly speaking, not FIRE PROOF. Apparently, this rider got home and instead of giving the bike time to cool down, and they threw the tarp over their bike while it was still hot. Within minutes, the tarp caught fire and it quickly spread to the other bikes that were all parked close to each other. I was told that by the time the fire department arrived, the fire was big enough and mature enough that they let it burn itself out due to all of the gasoline fueling the flames.

Despite the fact that I was toying with selling the bike, I was heartbroken to lose my ride. Worse, without knowing for certain which rider made the boneheaded decision that led to the fire, I either would need to file a claim through my own insurance or write it all off as a loss. A week later, I noticed a tow truck show up and was beginning to haul away the bike that started it all. Running over to grab his attention, he passed along their insurance information and I called the company to file a claim. After a few days of on and off calls to give my side of the story, the insurance payment they offered was a fraction of what the bike was worth, so I opted to eat the cost of the loss and had what was left of my bike hauled away by a junk service and document everything to square everything with my insurance and the Virginia DMV.

Epilogue
As work and other commitments took more priority, my time and interest in getting a new bike steadily waned. A year later I was in a very serious relationship with someone who was happy I no longer rode, and a year and a half after that I was a father and all that comes with the role.
Every now and then, I find myself looking at bikes and dealer websites, wondering if I’d ever go for another bike. In truth, I probably won’t, but I wouldn’t say it’s a definite decision.

1 Since my motorcycle was a “starter bike” with almost no bells and whistles, it not having a fuel indicator may just be a matter of that particular design. I noticed other bikes in its class also didn’t have indicators, whereas bigger bikes and even some sport bikes equipped with them. Not having paid much attention since then, I don’t know if this has changed much.
2 It isn’t without a certain sense of personal irony that I eventually went to UVA’s rival Virginia Tech for college.
3 Sadly, it rained the day we went, so there was a brief demonstration of a harrier jet and not much else for the airshow. If I remember correctly, we lived close enough that we walked to the airport – I recall it raining all the way back to the house.