Bonneville America Forums Forums General Motorcycle Forums Rides, Rallies, & Events GA Rally 1st experience PART II man is my A$$ sore

Part II man is my a$$ sore

We depart with mixed emotions glad to be on the road finally, yet it’s early, none of us have slept, it’s pouring and it’s cold…but we’re doing this right! We all agree that if one says uncle we all say uncle…we further agree that if need be we WILL say uncle…this is for fun no need to get hurt…with that said we fire up the bikes and head out…we’re driving the unlit streets of NH in the pouring rain at 4:15 AM with 1000 miles to do in 24 hours and yet I can’t wipe the stupid grin off my face…until I do a ride sweep in my mirror and see Poppy dropping back then Lee,… I turn around…we are exactly 1.8 miles from my house and we’re already making the first unscheduled stop…WTF!!! I turn around and get to Poppy and he tells me his bike is cutting out…but it’s fine now…we ride on and within ½ a mile he drops back again…I tell him if it happens again to crack the gas cap and see if it fixes it…we stop at the gas station a few miles from my house and he reports that that did solve the problem…we fuel up, log our odometer reading location, the time, mileage, and save the receipt (a routine to be repeated at every location we fuel at) and were off again.

The darkened NH twisties have given way to a lit 3 lane slab, and the solitude of the road prior has been replaced with the early morning commuter who choose that big beautiful home in the “sticks” but still has to go to the city for work…they start early and there are plenty of them out there making their 2 plus hour commute each way, so they can have that house in the woods…that they never see because by the time they get home there to tired. They pass us by and give us looks like “it’s 5:00 and pouring and you’re out riding in the rain you poor S.O.B.s how miserable you must be” You can see the looks in their eyes as they pass and shake their heads….the truckers get it though, and we get beeps and thumbs from some as they go on their way. The grin is still there but it’s been joined by a hardened set of eyes as we fight the wind currents generated by the working stiffs as they pass us by, unaware or unconcerned that their car is kicking up a huge spray and if they had just went a little further before pulling back in front of us it might have been more pleasant. But they are driving their warm car, with wipers wiping and stereo playing on their way to work in their nice big warm offices …poor S.O.B.s

The first scheduled fuel stop is Southbury CT 168 miles south west of my house and despite the rain were really not that far off schedule, well its 7:29 we left at 4:15 that’s 3 hours and 14 min to go 168 miles…not great time (52 MPH) but not bad…then we stop…it’s a cold raw rain and I’m shaking to the bone, coffee is in order and even though we said no breakfast till AFTER CT now is as good a time as any we NEED to warm up and even maybe dry off abit…a 10 min fuel stop becomes a 40 + min recovery stop and we still have 850 more miles to go…our next stop is at 11:13 am in Scranton the rain has let up some in the last few miles and it looks like its brighter out. We are now at 319 miles out from home and about 7 hours that’s about 45 miles an hour…our time has gotten worse…but we did need that big stop to warm up…we’ll make it up next run.

The next run, Scranton to Carlisle, we make is 142 miles in 1 hour and 50 min sweet that’s up to 55 mph average, the best yet (still not good enough but much improved) and the sun is finally making enough of an effort to appear that we can shed the rain gear and reduce that drag coefficient that’s been slowin us down.
The next few stops are clear easy sailing with good time made…

Carlisle PA to Middletown VA 110 miles in 2 hours 24 min about 47 mph
Middletown VA to Natural Bridge VA 120 miles in 2 hours 32 min about 48 mph

(These speeds sound slow but you have to remember each stop is about 15 –20 min by the time we fuel three bikes, stretch our legs, rub the blood back into our back sides and use the potty, Poppy needs a smoke, we have to check in with loved ones eat a power bar….blah blah blah you get the picture)


These runs are un eventful and the traffic is thin it’s a beautiful stretch of slab filled with long graceful turns and scenic vistas. Were getting far enough away from home now that the cages start to give us the thumbs up as we trek away. The road unrolls before us as we hug the sides of mountains and look over valleys below…if you have to slab and put up with the big rigs and cages this is the way to go….it is stunning…truckers start recognize as we yoyo past them stop for fuel and pass them again… several take note of us and treat us well pulling hard to the right as we speed past them in the passing lane… a couple of car loads of young ‘eye-candy’ beep, wave, and give us the thumbs up…they don’t realize we’re old enough to be their dads…and I’m not going to spoil the moment for them I wave and thumbs them back…

The sun is starting to loose its strength and the clouds can seem to sense it’s weakened state…they promptly fill in and in Natural Bridge VA we re-don the rain gear…our closest star has given it a good fight but the day belongs to the clouds. We ride in and out of rain of various intensities from the light drop or two to the painful piercing showers.

By the time we reach Rural Retreat VA its 9:05 we’ve been on the road for about 16 ½ hours and we still have 230 miles to go, our overall average is up to 49 mph but still at that rate…

At Rural Retreat spirits are low…it’s dark, we’ve been riding all fkn day long and were about to pass our target time and we are not even close yet…I make the call to our Asheville contact for the IBA and tell him that we will not be in to Asheville by midnight (our designated cut off time for him to come to the hotel to witness our paperwork) he punches in our location into some mapping program, tells us where our “corner gas” stop is (in the Iron butt if you choose a non-straight thru run, you MUST stop for gas at the corners other wise they think you could cut the corner and shave miles) any way he tells us where to stop for fuel and gives us the grim news…according to his calculations it will be 1:00 or so before we see Asheville…sh!t 1:00 that still 4 more hours of ride time…81 is getting twisty and it’s dark not to mention we’re just plain tired…the 1:00 news hits us like a sledge hammer to the chest…and to top it all off the bike is getting so I no longer trust the intermittent starting…I park facing down hill now or don’t shut her down…

I do a “temperature” check of my traveling partners and were all thumbs up to proceed…you can see it in the eyes we all want to be done but no-one will say uncle…yet…

At White Pine VA, our “corner stop” (mile 940) its 12:20 it has taken 3 hours and 15 min to go 130 miles our speed is way off as the road becomes more challenging and we become more tired…the mirror checks I do for group formation info is now so often that I think I actually saw more of this stretch of road from the mirror than from looking ahead…the group is tight and show now signs of weaving or other distress…but I’m more than slightly concerned for all of us now…From White pines to Asheville is only 95 miles less than one fuel run…we’re over the hump…so I thought…

Shortly after turning off of 81 onto 40 I noticed something different…my arms seemed to be missing…by missing I mean NOT THERE!! I could clearly SEE them…but for some strange reason the perception of them through any other form was nonexistent…I took this as a bad sign and made several efforts to verify that they were infact still MY arms by cracking the throttle and feathering the clutch….yep those motor skills were still functioning, but my perception of them doing so was not…as we motored along highway 40 I saw a rest area notification and decided to pull in as soon as it appeared…I watched as someone else’s hand pushed the directional switch and came off the bar to signal a right turn…they then put their hand back on the bar and proceeded to down shift my bike for me…bringing it to a safe but speedy stop directly in-front of the services building…they then reached down and shut off my bike for me…they were obviously unaware of the starter issue I had been having, or they might have left it running…but they didn’t so I got off…the look of my companions was one of wonder and relief all at the same time…why had we stopped…and thank god we stopped. Could plainly be read in the looks on their faces…I told them of my ghost arms driving my bike for me and though tit was appropriate to pull over…this led to the inevitable discussion of “do we continue” after all we HAD come all this way and we WERE less than 100 miles from our goal…on the other hand we could die…but then we were pretty well there and one more good push and we could be done….or we could die….you would think that a decision with these two outcomes as real possibilities would be a no brainier…well that’s were you would be wrong…we had about three and ½ hours left on the clock we could haul up and nap for an hour …we could call it and find the very next hotel…or we could push on…no one wanted to call it…we opted for a refreshing face washing a smoke break and some leaping around to get the blood pumping again…and within ½ hour we were slowly making our way to Asheville….

Interstate 40 runs East and west from Charleston SC to somewhere off my map west of Tulsa OK … but the stretch I want to tell you about is a much shorter section…it runs from interstate 81 35 miles north east of Knoxville TN for about 55 miles south east to Asheville NC…if you pick up a map you can see it quite clearly a little innocuous blue line with a red outline….what this little bit of Rand McNally artwork doesn’t say is that that stretch runs thru a mountain gap…oh it shows the mountains just fine with barely a crook in the line….yeah right…this…this….road…is the Dragon for 18 wheelers…it’s got more twists than an Agatha Christy novel…it winds up down around THRU the mountains and once you cross out of TN it does all of this with out the benefit of reflective markers OR decent paint stripes…Apparently NC has slashed the state budjet and are saving millions by not repainting the roads for an extra special long time…and street lights…HA!! Forget about it….

The trucks KNOW this route most have made it many times they have no issues with racing thru here at 60 plus MPH and the “crotch rocket” truckers think that’s slow….these guys have hit the stop watch and are racing to the other side…and the last one there gets to pay for the truck stop cuties for the rest…here we are desperately trying not to out drive our lights…ok let me rephrase that here I am trying desperately not to out drive MY lights…the guys behind me can follow my groove…right until I bounce off the retaining wall…OH I’M AWAKE NOW BOYS…NO PROBLEMS…we race down the Mountain at the break neck speed of 45 mph and I’m thinking were going WAY to fast…the truckers are passing as the bow wake from them pushes me along no issues here... all the while deer Xing signs warn me of my impending doom as Bambi decides to give me a kiss before I go to bed…two “thru mountain” tunnels (my pipes sound kick a$$ by the way in those tunnels) and around the next corner is a mid pass rest stop…..pheeeewwww!!!!! we pull in I shake out my pant leg and we all look like we just saw a ghost…are eyes are WIDE open now…we unanimously decide that the rest of the trip there will be no issues staying awake and we saddle up for the last push. We descend the remaining portion of Deals Gap II and start to look for our exit…of course it on the far side of Asheville better know as East Asheville…but we get there eventually and “punch the clock” at 2:20 Thursday AM…21 hours and 40 min after we left my house in NH…we’ve done it!!! There is barely any acknowledgement of our feat as we check into the motel…we park our bikes on the side walk (its looking like rain again) and go to our respective rooms with little or no conversation…after all what needs to be said…we know what we’ve done…we still have a couple hundred miles to go in the morning…and this time I don’t think any of us will lie awake in bed counting sheep…..

Wow. You missed your calling brother. Great story!!

I'm ready for part 3

thats because you think you're in part three...and well...you might be...

Honestly Rob submit this to a periodical. I'm not just kissing up cause you built my bike. But this is good. I have some friends in magazines, unfortunately not the right ones. If you want to get published in a hunting or insurance mag I can help. But rider mag etc, ****** even Torque. This is good.

Very good stuff Rob..

its not really a story unless I'm in it.

Awesome account! It's like reading a story about climbing Everest. I have to ask myself, "Why are they doing this?". Thanks for sharing it.

Congradulations!!!
As a veteran of two such trips I feel ya. Only my ghosts weren't my arms they were the hills of SC that I thought were melting.

Rob, lovin' your story.

Man, having traveled those roads for years as a member of a road crew I can see every part of his trip just by closing my eyes. Great writing, I was riding with y'all along the Pigeon River...it's spectacular in the daylight.

Really good stuff Rob. Really good. Loving it.

Hey Boy! I gotta say that you's pretty good at spinnin' stories with all them there big words!

(NICE JOB!...I'm hooked now, Bro...Bring on Part III)

Boy this is surreal, I'm waiting for the next part and I lived through it.

The only thing I can add is about 11:00 PM I lost all track of time and evrything from there forward was a blur.

I keep telling Rob and Lee I would love to ride that gap during the day it must be stunning. What little I did see of it at night was beautiful.

Wow Rob , That was a great desciption/story of your journey. Sounds like you guys pushed through some dangerous times in reference to lack of sleep and exhaustion.
Looking forward to part III

I love it. Great story teller man.