Just another GypsyWolf site
A big HELLO from the road! And what cool places the road took me. Some nice gentleman was willing to take a shot with me AND my bike…
At this very, very cool place… where they try and prove that one-in-a-billion odds is a pretty good chance for other life in the universe…
Then after a dark canyon run… “Why do they have the speed limit at 20? That’s stupid..” 
which reminds me, I need to sneak up for another cup before the breakfast closes…
All is good.
Belg
As I said, this leg has pictures. What I did not expect is that I would be so thoroughly wiped out afterwards to even consider dragging the camera out and downloading them.
Let me start by saying “I’m safe and sound, in a nice hotel room, after having a nice medium-long soak in a hot tub and a nice hot shower afterwards..”
Let me repeat.. I’m fine.
Now for the fun part. Bike now has a battle scar. Maybe I should rename it the BattleScar Galactica. Didn’t (I know, I know) take pictures while she was on her side, but I was too embarassed to think of the camera. I had just gotten out of New Mexico (and it’s absolute lack of cell phone coverage north of Las Cruces/west of Socorro) after having a nice fast run with seeral cars. I was tired, had pretty much only had dried fruit for lunch, and needing gas. I stopped at the first gas station I saw.. as did everyone else, apparently. I got impatient, decided to leave. First, I stalled the bike…. then got it restarted, and was heading to the curb. As I was pulling out into the street… a combination of fatigue, loose raingloves, impatience, hunger, and a fractured gutter… well, the bike didn’t go when I twisted a little, and it happend too fast to twist a lot, and when she stopped, she tipped, and all I could do was break her fall.
Fortunately, I did so without using any parts of my body… like bones… as a cushion. I love my bike, but not THAT much. A couple nice individuals helped by put the rubber back where it belonged, an I scootched on down (after thanking them profusely, of course) to the locla McD’s for a burger, a cup of coffee, some salty fries (yay, electrolytes!) and a few good shakes of “Man, you knew better, you coulda really screwed up!”
So, bike now has a scuff on the right handguard, and the highway peg got a bit out of whack, another ding on the Jesse bag, but nothing broken on it or me. Yay.
Rolling back, it was a mini-BMW convention at VLA…. met a few nice riders, it’s too bad I am so horrible with names. Good pictures taken, just can’t put forth the effort tonight.
The other motorcycle drama was a REALLY slushy clutch heading up into Cloudcroft. I stopped at 8600 feet… the crest… and started trying to figure out what went wrong. It -felt- like a bleed issue.. air in the line. After a thorough inspection, the set/adjust screw on the clutch lever had vibrated lose and therefore the clutch was never fully disengaging.
White Sands was cool, and there’s an interesting story there… I found the perfect place to pull over for a mountain picture. So I look down at the ground where I am putting the kickstand down… and there.. of all things… is a brand-new, plastic wrapped quick-release foot for a camera… I was NOT the first photographer to stop there. I laughed… smugly… and took the shot 🙂 No great shakes really, there was a lot of haze…
Cleanest bathroom I have ever seen… pump&gas in Artesia, NM.
Allright.. I’m wiped out, and heading to sleep after I find the weather report…
Belg
Bike rolled over 20k miles around Abilene, TX. Running strong, rode through a brief shower before Big Spring. Other than that, made leg 2 intact… buns sore but rideable. I think I’m getting the hang of this….
More later… next leg has pictures….
Well, leg 1 ended up being longer than I had anticipated. I didn’t calculate from work. 838 miles. Counting the drive into work last night, trip clock is at 900.5 miles. Around 500 miles, my tusch and I declared a truce. It wouldn’t hurt any worse, as long as I acknowledged it hurt. Can;t wait for that new seat. Glad I have a day off tomorrow. I’ll be good to go friday, though. It’s not painful, it’s just… uncomfortable, like your hands feel after weedeating the yard for 2 hours or using a chain saw all day.
Bike pulled nice and strong, all day long. Was supple, handled well, and I spent much of the day with the throttle lock set, feet on the bars, leaning back against the soft bags, steering with 3 fingers.
The ride itself.. well,I thought it was going to be wet… it wasn’t. It was at first, but it openned up on the 81 corridor to a glorious sun-drenched display of cloud topped beauty.
No pics… had too much ground to cover, and..well.. I was enjoying it 🙂
More later…
The day has come, The time is here,
To far-off shores I will draw near.
Throughout this many splendoured land,
I ride with twisted throttlehand.
No longer do I have to wait,
To ride around from state to state,
The bike is packed and I’ll be found
On road and highway westward bound.
—–
Or, the theme song for today’s departure ride… which I am absolutely convinced should have been not about corvettes… though classic vettes rock, he says takin a ride on, not a drive in..:
—–
Drive it on up and let’s cruise a while
Leave ’em very far behind
You can hedge your bet on a clean corvette
To get you there right on time
Now if you’re ready to dive into overdrive
Baby the green lights are on
It’s like you’re runnin away on some high octane
Every time she reached the boulevard
Won’t you take a ride, ride, ride
On heavy metal
It’s the only way that you can travel
Down that road
Satisfied, fied, fied
On heavy metal
Baby won’t you ride
Ride it until it explodes
Heavy Metal
My oh my how this lady can fly
Once she starts rollin’ to leave you
You know you just can’t lose the way she moves
You wait for her to finally release you
It’s not a big surprise to feel your temperature rise
You’ve gotta get your redline fever
‘Cause there is just on cure that they know for sure
You just become a heavy metal believer
Won’t you take a ride, ride, ride
On heavy metal
It’s the only way that you can travel
Down that road
Satisfied, fied, fied
On heavy metal
Baby won’t you ride
Ride it until it explodes
Heavy Metal
You know, sometimes things just seem to work out perfectly. And sometimes, things really do.
It’s 36 hours now until I leave…. well, in 36 hours, I’ll be having breakfast and leaving 30 minutes later. I spent this afternoon packing the bike. I had a lot of the pre-packing done yesterday… getting things out of hard containers and dumping them in baggies. I hd weights on everything but the two main side bags which have the bulk of my riding and cooking gear and food.
After I got them packed, I pulled them out and weighed them. Here’s a happy little sketch I made of the weights and locations of the bags… damn, I’m gonna break my arm patting myself on the back… 1/2 pound difference right and left.
I couldn’t have planned it better… that’s all eyeballed… I wieghed it on the scale AFTER I packed them! :=)
Guess that means I’m READY!
Best,
Mark
And I’m currently watching news reports a little more closely… a LOT more closely… Glad I elected not to go through Kansas for starters. Mile-wide tornados? Odessa just got pummeled on Wednesday with upwards of 4 feet of flooding… according to Krys, in about 45 minutes., and softball sized hail being reported in parts. Here’s for hoping I don’t have to ride through anything like THAT. I don’t think my headlight protector would stand up to hitting ice-softballs at 80mph.
So pre-trip jitters are starting… “What am I riding into?” Well, it’s going to be an adventure no matter which way it goes 🙂
I think I’ll figure in mornings for music, afternoons for weather radio reports. At least till I get through the plains. Mountain weather is unpredictable, sure… but it doesn’t have time to get REALLY horrible! It may be boring and repetitive, but it could very well save my life, my bike, or my wallet. Thankfully, I had the foresight to purchase a little am/fm/wr from radio shack…
Well as of tonight, I’ll be absolutely 100% ready. The highway pegs work exactly how I wanted them to, I’ve got all my toiletries and foodstuffs received, purchased, and ready to be packed. The bike has been serviced, has new tires, is running at 110% of BMW perfection, and is chomping at the bit to get going. She knows. I can tell.
The only thing that remains… a few color-coded keychains to identify one bag from another for convenience, and about 10 more caribiners to make the packing job easier. I was thinking about picking up 4 of the dual caribiner strap thingies from REI, but they are 10-12$ each and climbing grade… I can snap 3-4 caribiners together at $1/ea for what I need and save myself 30$…
Truly, whoever invented the caribiner deserves every dollar they ever made for the invention.
4 days, 12 hours… getting closer. A LOT closer.
Here’s a nice little play picture of the bike taken up at Kirsten’s:
Too bad there’s no real solid way to attach it! Ah, well…. maybe I’ll find a more solid one on the road somewhere.
Cheers!
Belg
Well, in addition to all of my flight arrangements, emails, phone calls and 12 hour days at work, I managed to get 4-5 more prints up on TerraWolf and get a pretty good stab at a major site makeover. Feel free to peruse the new look of the site at http://www.terrawolf.com
There’s still quite a bit to do there, and quite a bit of html to write into it, but the hard part, basically, is done. Now it’s just the -tedious- part… writing help&information documents. Somewhere in the middle of this, I’ll of course be doing the fun part.. preparing and posting awesome photos of… well, everything.
Regards,
Belg
Soooo last night, after some gyrations between myself, Garmin, and my desktop, I told Misty about the trip. All my routes, waypoints, and maps have been finalized, downloaded to the unit and posted up online on the routes page. Huzzah!
Everything I needed except the highway pegs have been recieved. Huzzah!
Tire decision has been made, and I’ll have a set of Annakee’s put on Wednesday. Huzzah!
Had an interesting reflection on the way to work that was partially related to a conversation I had with someone earlier… but this trip was planned, conceived, and thrown together as a single man, and it feels strange doing it as a not-quite-single-man-anymore man. Born of an idea to just -ride- it remains just that… but.. well. Just finding myself wishing I had more room on the back, and someone else had time. Probably for the best though, there’s going to be some LONG days on the back. On the plus side, I think the Gypsy will be as addicted to riding as I am, all the signs are there… so it looks promising for future two-bike trips 🙂 She’s just gotta learn how to ride….
All that said, I’m beyond ready to go… nervousness has been replaced by excitement… and the rush of realising that a few months worth of prep is about to be synthesized into a wonderfully fun summer. Assuming my tusch holds up, of course, but looks like it won’t be a problem, if it is, it will go away after I get to Bill Mayer Saddles in Ojai.
Best regards….
Belg