I’m a full-time motorcyclist.

For the first time in 26 years, I find myself not owning a four-wheeled vehicle.

Because of the economy and other uncertainties, I’ve been evaluating things recently and just came to the conclusion that I couldn’t really justify $630 per month to drive my truck 2 or 3 times a week back and forth to work (6 miles each way) and around town, so I sold it outright to the guys over at Carmax who gave me a good deal on selling it.

$421 / month payment
$110 / month insurance (because of the HEMI)
$100 / month in gas and incidentals

All this to drive what amounts to less than 200 miles per month, or $3.15 per mile.

What I don’t know is how well I’ll be able to adapt to being a full time rider. No matter how much you enjoy something, nothing takes the love out of it like having to do it all the time.

To that end, I’m looking for a cheap beater to drive around in, fetching groceries and such. Wish I had my friend Rob’s luck at finding $500 pickups that last for a few years, but then again, this all started yesterday and I’m just being impatient really. As much as I love my motorcycle, I’m finding that I don’t like being without a car to fall back on one single bit.

Wayne’s Rules of Riding 101

With the weather great outside this week, I’ve passed a few riders on the road who were obviously either newbies, or people who’ve returned to riding after several years to save gas. Thinking about Motorcycle safety, I am the first to say to anyone that motorcycling isn’t for everyone, so I thought I’d offer my “wish-they-were-patented” “Wules of Widing 101″ to no one in particular.

First things first, riding requires both respect, fear, confidence, and a little bit of talent and sheer blind luck.

Rule #1, Unless you have been blessed by St. Christopher himself, everyone goes down at some point.

Before you ever get on a bike, you need to fully understand and accept that. Because of many factors, the worst of which are other drivers, motorcycling is by far a more dangerous mode of travel than a car, or even a convertible. Riding is FAR more liberating and fun, but never forget the simple fact that you COULD die. You could also die in the shower, or fetching the mail, or wolfing a cheeseburger.

Accept rule #1, and you can move towards riding. If you can’t, forget about riding. Please.

In short: Motorcycling is not about taking risks, it’s about constantly weighing, and accepting the associated risks while working to minimize them at every single moment.

Rule #2, you are NEVER a master of a motorcycle

Evil Knievel taught us that 35% of the time he jumped. If he can’t be perfect, who can?

Rule #3, a little bit of fear is a good thing. Be respectful of what you’re doing.

When you’re climbing on a motorcycle, whether a 75cc moped, a GSXR1100, or an 1800cc GoldWing touring motorcycle, you are putting your faith in yourself that you have the ability — if not the training — to handle everything the road can throw at you.

That sometimes includes “flying” turkeys trying to get across the road quickly.

Motorcycles are not the place for you if your mind is on where you want to go rather than watching where you are (and everyone else is) going.

Too much fear on the other hand doubles your risks at any given moment. Everyone has scary moments on bikes. If you have a quick scare, pull over, figure out what happened, ask yourself if you could have done anything better, calm down and breathe, then start again.

Rule #4, confidence.

Bikes are psychic to their riders. If you look / think left, you’ll go left. If you look / think right, you’ll go right. If you think you’re going to crash, guess what? YOU will find some way to do it.

While you need to pay attention to what you’re doing, it’s not you that you need to worry about, it’s all the other idiots around you who are literally driving blind and deaf to motorcycles.

I always tell people it’s not my job to ride the bike, it’s my job to make sure all the other idiots out there see me.

Rule #5, if you’re in a hurry, don’t ride.

When you leave the house 15 minutes late for work, you’re never going to make up that 15 minutes in the 15 miles to work.

“Hurry” kills.

Either accept that you’re late, then take your time getting to work (even if that makes you 30 minutes late) or take another vehicle.

Anyway, these are my top 5 rules. I’d love to hear yours.

Spontaneous trip to Shiloh

About three weeks ago, I attended one of those management luncheons — you know the type — where one of the speakers addressing the crowd talked about the Battle of Shiloh and more importantly, how the leadership there can be directly correlated to the present and business management principles. I’m not very much into the whole pro networking really, but I found this speech fascinating.

To that end, last Sunday afternoon I ended up at lunch with a friend, who asked “what are you going to do with the rest of your day?”. After a bit of thought, I said “50/50 shot. If the camera is on the Goldwing, I’m going to ride to Shiloh. If not, I’ll go home and go back to sleep.”

2.5 hours later (4pm), I pulled in to the Shiloh National Battleground Park lot, camera loaded and ready to stretch my legs.

Now at 4pm, with another 2.5 hour ride ahead of me, I’m battling the clock for daylight. I’m also — for some incomprehensible reason — battling the park’s trinket shop which doesn’t fathom the need to carry AA batteries for when tourist’s cameras run dry.

As such, I was only able to spend time walking the National Cemetary at Shiloh (which is impressive) and taking about 50 or so pics before the camera died. I didn’t get to tour the battleground itself, but plan to go back with multiple sets of batteries and a full day to walk around.

I did however get to tour the museum on the grounds with all the civil war artifacts. While that’s always neat stuff to see, I walked away thinking only two things:

1) Every piece of clothing I saw leads me to believe that I — at 6′4″ and 320# would have been an absolute giant to these people.

2) Based on the photos on the wall, Kevin Kline did a FANTASTIC job impersonating Grant in that Wild Wild West “reimagining”. Looks EXACTLY like Grant in the movie…

So. Another 2.5 hours later, and I’m at the house, ready, or I should say “ok with” the concept of Monday. Weird thing is, and as a rider, I don’t object, the Garmin GPS took me in 100% completely different directions coming and going, meaning I saw 2x as much on the ride as I would have normally.

All this has to do me, because it’s been raining ever since, and will probably continue to do so until this upcoming Friday (the 8th)

Getting older, getting colder…

Boy, I don’t know what it is about growing old that sucks, but getting cold natured has to be one of them…

Three years ago, you would have found me playing ball outside with the family in January during 32 degree weather in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, feeling perfectly comfortable.

This year though, it’s 45 degrees outside and I find myself in a jacket, sweater and thermals.  Seems no matter how high the thermostat is set, I’m always cold in the house, and it sucks.

Last year when I got my wing, I rode a documentable 300 days of the year (1/10/08 to 1/10/09), stopping only for driving rain and below freezing temps — for fear of black ice.

This year in the first two and a half months, I’ve been able to pull the bike out of the garage about 6 times and get to where I want to go comfortably albeit my hands were frozen by the time I got there.

I know. I know.  Just “bundle up” or “just go spend $2000 on electric clothes” or “man up” or whatever, but it’s not that simple.  Spending great deals of money right now so that I can ride isn’t quite as easy in this economy as it was.  Well, yeah, I guess I could just put it all on a credit card and be miserable, but isn’t that what got us here in the first place?

For the record before the next sentence, “PMS” in the motorcycling community stands for “Prevented from Motorcycling Syndrome”.

This is where age meets PMS.  I’m there.  Impatiently waiting for the Global Weirding to stop and the weather to get warmer.

Motorcycling in a sleet storm….

With all the recent travel going on (and more to come) and the weather pitching in to help, I haven’t had a chance to ride much in the last month or so.

Yesterday, checking the weather channel and my iPhone apps about 7:30 am, all seemed to agree that it was 36 degrees, and the rain was clearing off by the 48 degree afternoon. To that end, and having ridden in colder climates (work is only 6 miles), I bundled up in my US Military thermals and headed off to work…

Little did I know how much the Weather Channel sucks…

Got to work, all is toasty, even at 36 degrees. Parked the bike, and resumed my day. Three hours later, lunch time, I head out for a bite, only to realize that North Alabama was in the midst of what we would consider a major sleet storm and that the predicted 48 degrees was NEVER going to happen.

To that end, I don my gear and head — carefully — back to the house. Windshield down, visor up, being pelted in the face with sleet every inch of the way. Hands frozen, legs soaking wet, and I’m sure there’s a cold or flu bug in there somewhere.

That being said, the resulting adrenaline rush from that 6 mile ride was actually really, really cool. Not something I’d want to reproduce every day, but exciting. This morning of course, as temps had dipped overnight, I drove the truck into work, sliding on ice at pretty much every intersection. Not nearly as much fun as riding.

Taking on the Dragon

Sorry for the delay in posting/podcasting guys. Belated tax season, and work’s been picking up, but I wanted to take a moment to share the last bit of fun I had (Labor Day). For about the second time in 10 years, I actually found myself with a 3-day weekend. All weekend I sat around going “I should go ride the Dragon”.

That Sunday, I met up with a friend for lunch and whined at him about my indecision. His response was simply “you should have gone…”. So…. with implicit permission in hand, I found myself leaving Huntsville at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon and riding all the way to Robbinsville, NC to visit the trails up there. Got there at 7:30pm, got the last room at the local Microtel, and rested.

The next day (Monday), got up and rode the “Tail of the Dragon” which, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, is an 11 mile stretch of US 129 which goes between Tennessee and North Carolina. What’s so frickin special about that? Well… hmmm.. in that 11 miles, there are 318 curves. Some of them so tight that you feel as though you could literally kiss your own butt going around them.

In short, motorcyclist paradise.

Wayne gets shot by killboy on his way through the Dragon

Lessons learned, riding in the rain…

Ok, so today (Sunday), the weather channel said there was a chance of rain 50% or so, but no one ever listens, including me… It had sprinkled a bit here and there off and on all day, but no big deal. Already having standing plans to go to my dad’s, he says “take your time, don’t get in a hurry“.. By about 2pm, looked like it had cleared off and everything was beautiful again..

Decided to jet over to Dad’s in Guntersville which is about 45 miles southeast of Huntsville. No problem. Like I said, clear skies..

YEAH, RIGHT….

About 15 miles into my ride, I began to notice the skies getting all murky again. Not a good thing, and yeah, at this time, a sane person would have just turned around and gone home, but looking back, the weather behind me had turned just as bad, so I figured “hell, I’m half way here, let me just thread the needle and I’ll be there, just in time to avoid anything bad..

Exactly 3 minutes later, with no anticipatory sprinkles, the bottom fell out and all hell broke loose. So here I am, dressed in my ATGATT best, boots, gloves, mesh riding jacket, and my Scorpion half helmet and I find myself literally unable to see through the windshield, the visor on the helmet, AND/OR my glasses. 65… 55… emergency flashers on, looking desperately for a place to park… 45… 40… 35… 30… No where in sight to hide.

Open road as far as I could see — which at this time, consisted of about 100 feet in any given direction while squinting really hard. Didn’t want to pull off on the shoulder, even with the flashers because of fear of getting run over in damned near zero vis.. 25… 20…

Fine, screw it, I remembered, then made a dash for a public boat ramp area with a lot of trees, hoping to ride it out. Sat there, trees of no use whatsoever, but I’m already screwed and the weather is only getting worse. Wind is literally too high now to ride in, even on a bright sunny day, so there I am, water drenched, miserable, and strangely laughing about the loud claps of thunder around me.

{bleep} the bike, I side-stand it and make a run for some unfinished condos. People who’re there in the finished condos and obviously home won’t even answer the door, so fine, I just stand there for about 15 minutes, getting more wet and miserable with each passing moment.

The very moment it appears to let up for 20 seconds, even the slightest, I figured, if I’m going to die, I’m going to die on the road, so I’m back on the road at 30mph, flashers flashing, my boots literally filled to bloating, unable to soak up any more water, nowhere else to go..

10 more miles up the road, I guess I caught up with the storm, because I was “back in the soup” again, and unable to see. This time however, I ran across a gas station which — thankfully — had abundant overhang on their “carport”, so I hang there for another 20 minutes.

Storm appears to be letting up again, so I get some of those towels which always seem to be present at gas stations, wipe off my visor and glasses, and off I go again. Southward bound.. 30mph… Fighting wind the farther I get, but the rain isn’t that bad any more.

Then comes the fun part… I finally — after about 2 hours into my 45 minute ride — get to the Lake Guntersville Bridge — about a half mile long, arched, two-lane bridge spanning Guntersville’s pride and joy of a lake.

As soon as I clear the cover of the tree-lined highway, you might have thought I had driven into a wind tunnel. 20mph, flashers flashing, windshield flexing, rain drops hitting my face like little razor blades going 90mph, and my fat ass hydroplaning across the bridge on a 900 pound motorcycle. White knuckling and psychically willing the bike to stay true and “rubber-side-down”… No where else to go remember?

Five miles later, I pull into dad’s house to find him laughing hysterically as I pull the bike into the garage, a steady stream of water seeping out of my $200 Joe Rocket Jacket, wringing water out of my gloves, and literally pouring about 2 quarts of water out of my boots. One dead garage remote, one dead Garmin GPS.

Four and a half minutes later, it stopped raining and the sun came out. I {bleep} you not…

These are the moments that when life flashes by, I hope to remember for three reasons.

1) To remember how alive I felt
2) To remember my love of riding
3) To remember what a total dumbass I really am sometimes.

.. and oh yeah,

4) remember when Grandma always told you to listen to your parents for once in your life…? This would have been one of those moments.

Stay safe, stay dry, and have fun.

Gas prices, do the math…

I have two vehicles, a 2005 Dodge RAM pickup and a Honda Goldwing 1800 motorcycle.  I got bored this evening and decided to run some numbers to see just how much the price of gas is fscking up my life.  I think it was rather eye-opening, so you might consider doing the same.

The Dodge gets 14.5 mpg rather steadily according to the “divide gas used to fill tank by miles driven” method.  This seems irrespective of city or highway, but face it, who the hell can afford to drive a Dodge Hemi Truck long distances unless they have to, right?

The Honda Goldwing gets between 38 and 42 mpg depending on how I ride, so let’s just call it 40 for the sake of argument.  Let’s also presume (because it’s a pretty real number) that I — like most people — currently end up driving 15,000 miles per year between work, family visits, grocery runs, and whathaveyou.

So.  Just to depress myself, here’s what I came up with:

Dodge Truck == 14.5 mpg
Honda Goldwing 1800 == 40 mpg

@ $4.00 per gallon, assuming 15000 miles per year
————————————————-
Dodge : $4137.93 /yr == 344.83 per month
Honda : $1500.00 /yr == 125.00 per month

$219.83 savings per month at $4.00 per gallon

@ $5.00 per gallon, assuming 15000 miles per year
————————————————-
Dodge : $5172.41 /yr == $431.03 per month
Honda : $1875.00 /yr == $156.25 per month

$274.78 savings per month at $5.00 per gallon

@10.00 per gallon, assuming 15000 miles per year
————————————————
Dodge : $10,344.83 /yr == $863.07 per month
Honda : $3750 / yr == $312.50 per month

$550.57 savings per month at $10.00 per gallon

Meanwhile, I would *LOVE* to sell my truck and buy a Honda Accord or Civic for the mileage and insurance.  The trouble is, no one is going by book value any more and dealers are saying “we can’t give you more than $10,500, because that’s what we can get one at auction for“.  Bullshit, but who am I are to argue.

Trouble is, I still owe approximately $17.5k on the loan of the truck, which until gas prices quadrupled, was still worth every penny.  Especially considering it’s a “collector’s special edition” (It’s a Dodge Daytona edition RAM).  I’m thinking of selling it to a private buyer if I can find one, and to get as close as I can to payoff, even if I have to take out a loan for the rest.

If I can get $15,000 for it and have to take out a $2500 loan, that’s only a year to pay it off at $200 per month savings for riding the bike, and then I could find myself a 4-year-old Accord and come out much, much better.

Is that logical?

Beersheba Springs, TN ride, Hwy 56

Saturday.  Got up.  Rolled out of bed, met dad in Scottsboro, Alabama for a long 7 hour jaunt through Tennessee. Lots of fun, tight twisty-turnys for curves. I’d be absolutely amazed if the roads on TN-56 through Beersheeba Springs did not rival the best of the twisties from the “Tail of the Dragon”.

here’s the map link. You tell me. I took the chrome off of one of my footboards, and there was LOTS of tossing left to right.

No pictures, sorry. This was a “ride ride”, not a “tour ride”.

Natchez Trace ride

On the 10th of May, dad and I took off to ride a small part of the Natchez Trace from Tennessee back through Alabama and on to Tupelo, MS. I didn’t get off as many pictures as I’d like, but here they are