Friday night I had some errands to run, and I got home around 10pm. With the sun down, it had cooled nicely, and I felt energized and ready for my weekend. I almost struck out for the Dragon, right then and there. But I knew I'd just get sleepy, along about 3am, and it's such a nuisance finding someplace to stay at that point. So I logged on to check my email, that always slows me down. Sure enough, within a half-hour I was settled in for the night. I sent the tale of my intermittent power loss problem to the SabMag list, and by the time I went to bed several solutions had already been proposed, including the one that solved the problem. Those folks are amazing!
Saturday morning it was already hot when I woke up, and Lake Michigan's not that far away, so I puttered around instead of getting moving. I packed my stuff very carefully, and took far more than I would need.
I wandered out to the garage, which, in the morning, was still a little cooler than the outside, since I hadn't opened the door and the sun wasn't shining on it yet. I was tired of how heavy my tank bag had gotten, so I wrapped some of the tools very carefully in old socks and ziploc bags, and moved them to the cavity between the seat and the brake light. Even though it wasn't as hot in the garage as it was outside, it was still plenty hot. The garage door was closed, very private, so I started taking my clothes off. I checked my tire pressures, topped off the coolant, cleaned the bugs off the lights, etc. I decided to do the Michael Walt peg mod. I still haven't tracked down that oil leak, and the area around the left footpeg was filthy. I took the left footpeg off, disassembled it, and started cleaning the parts.
I was in the closed garage, in my underwear, my hands completely black with oil, when my doorbell rang. Argh!!!! I hollered to whoever it was to wait. I grabbed a paper towel on my way through the kitchen , and wiped off the worst of the black grime from my hands, so I wouldn't mess up my bathrobe. I got to the door just as the callers were walking away, and they came back. It was a mother and son. The Ypsilanti Orchestra was having a bottle drive fundraiser, and did I have any bottles they could have? Did I ever! They had to go get their car and come back. They must have thought I was nuts, but they got eight or ten bucks worth of returnable bottles out of the deal, so they were polite. I'm sure the wild-eyed woman in the bathrobe with the oil-blackened hands got a mention around their dinner table that night. The funny thing is, I wasn't expecting anyone, and it never occurred to me to simply not answer the door. Social conditioning or something, I guess.
I finally got the footpegs put back together and the stuff loaded on the bike. By this time it was past noon, and I still hadn't bothered to eat anything. I didn't feel like cooking (when do I ever feel like cooking?) and there wasn't anything ready to eat at my house. I decided to stop somewhere along the road for food. I was trying to decide where, when my bike started acting up again. I exited the freeway on the west side of Ann Arbor, and went straight to Erik's shop.
Erik and Dave were both there, doing whatever it is that they do that actually pays the rent. But they were both happy to stop doing that and wrench on my bike with me. Erik switched the wires to the spark boxes.
Dave and I had lunch at a nearby restaurant. While we were eating, a spectacular storm front moved through, with high winds, rain, and lots of lightning. When we came out after eating, the temperature had dropped considerably, and it was almost tolerable outside. It was still raining, but I was happy to have the opportunity to try out my 'stitch in the rain.
I rode west wondering if the problem would occur again. Ten miles outside of town, it did! Whee! The tach needle dropped to zero, as predicted. I also noticed that the engine note sounded different then before. With the spark boxes the other way, the growl note dropped out leaving only the whine note, and with them this way, the whine note dropped leaving only the growl. Like chords on the piano.
Back I went to Erik's shop. We determined that the bad box was the larger one, the one with the rev limiter in it. Dave offered up the matching box from his V65 Magna, Bigger Hammer. We switched them, putting the unit from my bike into Dave's as a check, to see if we could move the problem. Sure enough, I had no trouble for the rest of the weekend, and I have since learned that Dave had my symptoms on Bigger Hammer when he went riding on Sunday.
By the time I left Erik's shop for the second time, the rain had stopped, and while it was still overcast, the roads were already half dry. I left the freeway in Chelsea and rode northwest on the twisty road to Waterloo. Northwest of Waterloo, the land flattens again, and the roads straighten out. I picked my way north, then west. At one point I came over a rise in the road, and there, waiting to turn onto my road, was a LEO... Hello Mr. Ossifer, don't worry, I'm a sweet innocent biker lass, no need to pay any attention to me... Darn! He turned in behind me, and sat on my tail for the next couple of miles. I very carefully kept my speed in check. I came over a rise in the road to an intersection that had a new stop sign! That stop sign hadn't been there last time I was out there, and I almost blew through it. If I hadn't been planning to turn there I might have been in trouble, but as it was, I managed to stop quite gracefully. I suspect that was the trap; I was supposed to blow that stop sign, and then he'd give me the ticket. He turned around almost immediately and went back the way we'd come.
I stopped for gas in downtown Olivet, Michigan. I felt like an alien there, in my 'stitch, my purple helmet and my iridescent face shield. Like a spy, incognito. I should mention that Olivet is my childhood home; I lived there until I was sixteen years old, and I spent many summer evenings wandering this very neighborhood, wishing for something to do. I wondered what the people I had known in high school would think if they saw me putting gas in a motorcycle? I noticed an old man pumping gas at the next pump staring at me, but I didn't know him. I examined every face that went by, but I didn't recognize anyone, and if anyone recognized me they kept it to themselves.
I took Old 27 south from Olivet, and turned onto Garfield Lake Road. This is a nice twisty road, with forest on either side. Beautiful... I slammed on the brakes as a deer appeared on the shoulder of the road. He changed his mind, and didn't cross. He was huge! The hunter that gets him this fall will fill his freezer to overflowing. I continued down the road at a more sober pace.
I crossed I-69 and kept going, off into areas I'd never been, north, west, west, north, west. Suddenly the road started to look very familiar, and I realized I'd been here before. There was a grocery store, just over the rise, on the left, right? I went over the hill, and sure enough, there it was. I realized I'd once stayed in this town while on a bicycle tour, Pedal Across Lower Michigan, a.k.a. PALM.
I rode on. Around dusk, I arrived in Alaska. What fun! I decided I just had to call someone, so I could say, "Well, I couldn't decide where to go this weekend, so I ended up in Alaska." I stopped by the side of the road, took off my helmet, and pulled out my cell phone. Gadget Dan was expecting a call from me that evening. I dug out his home phone number and dialed. I got a mechanized voice saying they were testing the lines, and that I should try my call again later. Rats! I put the phone away, put my helmet back on, and rode out of Alaska, Michigan.
Soon it was dark. I needed to figure out where I would sleep that evening. I also needed to get dinner. I stopped and got some food, and called Dan again, this time on his cell phone. He answered, and I managed to persuade him it would be a good idea if I pitched my tent in his yard. He gave me directions, and I got there about an hour later.
The next morning, I was late to wake up, and slow to tear down the tent and pack up. We rolled out of his place in time to beat the post-church rush into Taco Bell, where we consumed an early lunch. We talked about our favorite crusades. He's in the NRA. I won't have guns in my house. I was wearing my Take Back The Night T-shirt. He didn't know what Take Back The Night was. For some reason he thought I was a vegetarian, but I'm not. Assumptions are funny.
I told Dan that I didn't want him crashing, and he said he would avoid it if at all possible. We set out and rode some of the twistiest roads he knew. Every couple of miles, there would be a bend in the road. Pretty depressing. But the scenery was nice, and I knew the lake was waiting.
At one point, Dan turned into a subdivision. WTF? This subdivision had huge, mansion-like houses, sprinkled along the lake shore. I kept expecting the police to come and chase us out of there; these lifestyles of the rich and famous types wouldn't like biker scum in their neighborhood, after all. He stopped, and pointed out a house. He said that house had been for sale, and he thought he should buy it, it would be perfect for an SME. Darn! It had already been sold!
We stopped at a beach north of Muskegon. It was crowded, but the water was very nice. After splashing a bit, we walked back to the bikes. I suggested we look for some ice cream, and he led the way to a Dog-n-Suds, a nifty old-fashioned place with those electronic gizmos so people can order from their cars and be waited on in their cars. Dan said that sometimes the waitresses even wear roller skates, but they weren't doing it that day.
We traded bikes, and continued north along the shore. There wasn't a road that had lake views along this stretch of shoreline. Instead, we meandered inland, and then back to the lake, and then inland again. We actually spent more time riding the shores of small inland lakes. At one point we rode next to an inland lake, down a stretch of road that was eerily familiar. I remembered the bends in the road, and what was around each curve, but I can't remember when I was there before. Probably a bicycle tour; other than bicycle tours I've never spent much time in that area.
This was my second ride on a Kawi Concours. The first was a couple months before I got my Sabre, in fact it was only a month after I got my cycle endorsement, last August. At that time, the Concours (which belonged to my friend David Gibbs) felt very large, very top-heavy, and very scary. After all the miles on my Sabre, Dan's Concours felt much less intimidating. It handled fairly well, except for the fact that his front brakes were still kind of scary. They pulsed rapidly when applied. I rode very cautiously. Dan was up ahead, and he appeared to be enjoying my Sabre. He was weaving back and forth on it, testing the sides of the tires. He was fairly polite about it, though, and didn't push it far enough for me to get nervous. I was happy to trade back.
We stopped for dinner at the large lad's (i.e. Big Boy). Why do so many people eat there? I will never figure it out. The food was terrible, as usual. After dinner, we decided we'd better head back. We looked at Dan's gazetteer. It showed a lot of twisty looking roads inland, through the national forest, winding along a river in the direction we needed to travel. The gazetteer doesn't tell which roads are gravel, but we figured we could handle a little gravel if we had to. We set out.
Dan needed to fuel up. We figured we'd find a gas station on the way out of town. But we didn't. The inhabited areas ended, and we turned around to go back and find a gas station. Bonus, the road out of Manistee was about as twisty as Michigan roads come, and we got to ride it three times. Then we dove off into the Manistee National Forest.
Old Stronach Road was beautiful, winding through the trees and brush. Unfortunately it turned to gravel, and not only that, we discovered that the gazetteer didn't accurately reflect the roads we were finding (or not finding as the case may be). This was not exactly a hardpacked gravel road either. In Michigan, we have two kinds of soil. Clay, and sand. This area was definitely on the sandy side, and while the road had obviously seen plenty of road graders, it hadn't actually had much gravel put in. It was pretty soft. We rode on into the gathering dusk, alone except for the deer. Deer were everywhere. I didn't really mind; it was like a wild adventure. I had all my camping gear, I had my cell phone, if we became hopelessly lost and it got dark, we could pitch the tent, and I'd just call in to my office and plead personal emergency. I laughed wildly inside my helmet.
We stopped several times to confer, as we got farther and farther into the dirt-road world. We could go back the way we came, but surely we could find a way out up ahead. We pressed on. Dan showed off his dirt road riding skills by spinning his rear wheel and skidding around. If I hadn't been giving him plenty of space, I would have had a sand shower. But there was no way I'd follow that closely on this surface! It got darker. We decided we'd take the next paved road, regardless of which direction it led. We came to a cross road, and we hoped it would be paved. It wasn't, at not only that, it was closed! Big orange barricades, and no road at all on the other side of them. We kept going. Finally, after about an hour on the dirt, we found a paved road heading north. We turned and followed it. About a mile later, we saw the sign, "Pavement Ends." Oh no! Fortunately for us, just before the pavement ended, a paved road turned off to the east. Yay! This road led to a larger road, and then one that was larger still, and we got back on the state highways just as it got dark.
We stopped at a gas station near Dublin, Michigan. Cool, what a far reaching weekend. First I visited Alaska, and now I was in Dublin! I called home to let Michael know where I was and when to expect me. He's been to Dublin many times, because his family has a place up there, so he knows how long it takes to get home from there. He said he wouldn't wait up.
Dan and I rode south on M37 to Baldwin, where we parted ways. I went east on US10, and he went south on M37 to his house. It started to get cold, so I stopped under a streetlight at the outskirts of Baldwin, to close the vents in my 'stitch and change to my other gloves. I saw many, many deer along US10. It was very scary, so when I got the chance to get on the slab, US131, I jumped at it. It's a slightly longer route home than taking US10 all the way to Clare and then I-75 south, but it seemed much safer.
Like always, about an hour after midnight I started to get sleepy. Time to pull over for a spell. I took the ramp into a rest area just north of Grand Rapids. The rest area was well lit and well populated.
I pulled up next to two bikes. As I was pulling into the lot, I thought they were Hondas, but when I got closer I realized they were Harleys. When I got closer still, they resolved back into Hondas. I cast a sharp eye over them to figure out the cause of the momentary Harley illusion. Neither bike was a cruiser, and my brain probably registered that fact and ruled out Harleys without ever really consciously noting it. From halfway across the lot, the noticeable characteristics were the flags and trinkets attached all over the bikes, which strongly suggested Harleys. When I pulled up next to them, I could actually observe their makes and models. One was an elderly Goldwing, and the other had the distinctive upward and outward pointing heads of a CX. The flags and trinkets could only disguise these bikes in the middle distance.
The riders were standing nearby and they immediately came flocking over to me. There were three of them, and they were Bikers! All three wore black leather vests and little beanie helmets. None of the three had room on their vest for any more little trinkets, or room on their helmets for any more stickers. I'd guess they were in their forties. They started talking before I even had my helmet off. Mainly, the CX rider talked and the others nodded and smiled.
I could see his mouth moving. "... isn't it hot in that suit?"
"It's cooler than my leathers, but it's sure hot out tonight, isn't
it?"
The woman asked, "Is it a snowmobile suit?"
"No, it's an Aerostitch. It's a special suit for riding a motorcycle.
See, it has armor in case I crash."
"Where did you get it?"
"From a company in Duluth, called Riderwearhouse."
"Wow. Where are you coming from?"
"Manistee."
The CX rider nodded sagely, and said "I knew I saw you before. Did you
stop at a gas station?"
"Um, yeah." (No, I ride all day without buying gas. Doh!)
"Like up north of here someplace?"
"Yes."
He turned to the other two. "See! I saw her before!"
The other guy said, "I saw her too, but not at a gas station." He turned
to me. "Did you stop on the side of the road?" (This guy had all the
signs of a closed head injury.)
"Um, yeah." (Several times.)
"I knew it. I saw you then!"
The CX rider wouldn't be outdone. "I saw her first." (Hmm, two closed
head injuries?)
This was getting a little too bizarre. I turned the conversation. "So,
where did you ride this weekend?"
"We went all the way up to the Bridge!"
(OK, keep moving them away from where they saw me before...) "Wow, that's
a long way. Where do you live?"
"Grand Rapids. You?"
"Ypsilanti."
"Are you going all the way home tonight?"
"Yes, I have to work in the morning." He looked startled.
"So, did you go to the Blessing of the Bikes?"
"I went to one in New York State."
"How many bikes were there?"
"Oh, a couple hundred."
"We get ten or twenty thousand at the Blessing here. Why'd you go to a
Blessing in New York?"
"It was completely random. I was out there for something else, and while
getting gas I met some Harley riders who told me it was happening, and I
said, 'Sounds fun, I'm there!' I just happened to be in the right place
at the right time."
He nodded approvingly. "You should go to Sturgis. Have you ever been
there?"
"No." (Not sure if he meant THE Sturgis, or Sturgis Michigan, where they
hold a big bike blessing every spring, but I haven't been to either
one.)
"Well, go to Sturgis, it's great, you'll love it! Bikes everywhere!"
"Is that a CX500?"
"A CX650. It's really fast!" He told me a tale of how he had to work an
hour later than the others once. He stopped at every rest area to look
for them, riding through the rest areas at 60mph, and he didn't see them,
didn't see them, and then he finally caught up with them. As he told the
story, he seemed to be having trouble with his left arm; he had to use his
whole body to pick up his left hand and get it into his pocket. Finally
he reached down with his right hand, picked up his left hand, and put it
into the pocket of his vest.
I told him he was lucky not to have gotten a ticket.
"Yeah, I was going really fast for a long time, and they were going fast
too, that's why it took me so long to catch up with them!"
"What are all those things on your vest?"
"Artwork. These vests are personal works of art."
"They look fun."
"Uh huh. This pin is for our club. Do you ride with a club?"
"I usually ride alone, but I'm in a Sabre and Magna club on the internet.
Sometimes I ride with them."
"What kind of club is that?" (The guy was obviously struggling to wrap
his mind around the concept. I was supposed to give him some cutesy club
name, and I'd messed up.)
"It's a club for Sabre and Magna riders. See, my bikes is a Sabre."
He squinted at my bike, and read, "V65. Is it a fast bike?"
"Fast enough for me."
"What does your club do?"
"Oh, we talk about our bikes on the internet, and every now and then we
get together and ride. Those guys are hooligans!"
Big grin. "Of course they're hooligans. They're Bikers! Bikers are
always hooligans." (I must have said the right thing.)
They started putting their helmets on. "We have to get going. Keep the
shiny side up!"
"You too! Have a nice ride."
I watched them pull away, their flags flying behind them. The woman riding pillion on the Goldwing waved as they pulled out of the parking lot. I was suddenly seized by a mischievous urge. I put my earplugs back in, pulled my helmet back on, put my gloves on, and set out in hot pursuit. I roared out of the rest area at a high rate of speed. They'd gotten a bit of a head start, and we weren't very far outside of their destination, Grand Rapids.
I overtook them about five miles down the road. They were riding side by side (gak!) in the right hand lane, flags waving behind, at a nice steady 65mph pace. I know, because I pulled up next to them in the left lane, and paced them for a few seconds until they looked over towards me. I waved, and then I twisted the throttle and accelerated away from them like they were standing still. I never saw them again.
The rest of my trip home was uneventful. I stopped about an hour away from my house, and had a fifteen minute nap at the iron butt motel, didn't even get off the bike. I got home around 3am. Not a bad little weekend trip. It was fun to see Gadget Dan, and it had been a while since I visited Lake Michigan. I look forward to going out there again sometime in the fall.