It seemed to me that it would be a good idea to learn how to mount and balance my own tires, since it looked like I would be going through tires at such a furious pace. I put out a call to a few riders I knew, seeking help with this project. Kevin Kirkendall agreed to help me. I took advantage of Dennis Kirk's "meet or beat" tire pricing deal, and had them shipped to Kevin's house outside of Cincinnati.
Kevin and I had been talking all spring about doing a Saddlesore 1000 ride. It seemed to me that this was a perfect opportunity. We could mount the tires on Saturday, and ride from his house to mine on Sunday. I looked at maps and plotted a route, and sent him a note:
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 1999 21:37:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Katherine Becker To: Kevin Kirkendall Subject: So if you're on vacation... Here's a wild plan. How about we mount up those tires on Saturday, and go for a short ride to get them scrubbed in. Then, bright and early Sunday morning, we ride from Harrison to Ypsilanti, by way of: Lexington KY Charleston WV Pittsburgh PA Buffalo NY London Ontario According to Rand McNally, that's 1050 miles. All slab. We can get to my house before dark. I have to work the next day but so what? -- Katherine Becker
Kevin liked this plan exceedingly well, his wife was cool with it, and so it was settled. I thought of nothing else all week.
I remembered the last time I visited the Kirkendall household, and how Kevin's younger daughter, Sara, had made me think of a book from my childhood, Noisy Nora. So on Thursday I stopped by the bookstore and found a copy to take with me as a present.
"Quiet," said her father. "Hush," said her mum. "Nora," said her sister, "why are you so dumb?"
I love bookstores, and it's a treat to shop for kid's books. There are so many wonderful books for children. I also bought her Tuesday, a wonderful picture book featuring frogs that spend a magical night flying around the sky on their lily pads, like little tiny UFOs.
Friday night as I was riding home from work to pick up my stuff and go to Kevin's, Cordelia (my bike) started acting up. I'd be riding along and suddenly half the power would cut out, like I'd thrown a switch. The engine would keep running, but the tonal quality would change, it would be deeper and flatter, and no amount of whacking the throttle would make the bike accelerate very much. This was not the first time this had happened. Last time was early last winter, when I was out with Erik Kauppi and we'd traded bikes. Erik had given me his spare spark plugs, we'd put them in, and it hadn't happened again. That had been at least 15,000 miles ago. Maybe the plugs were going bad again? When I got to my house, I made some calls and located some plugs at an auto parts store a few miles away. I rode over there and got two sets. The bike didn't act up on the way there. The engine was too hot for me to change the plugs, and I didn't want to be any later, so I decided to head south without changing them. If it started happening again I could always wait for the engine to cool someplace down the road and change the plugs then. It wasn't like the problem was going to strand me; it was just annoying.
It didn't happen again that evening. I arrived at the Kirkendall household at around midnight. The garage was open but the house looked dark. I pulled into the garage. If someone was awake in there, they would hear me and come out. No one came out. I didn't want to wake up the children, so I knocked softly on the door. No answer. I knocked a little louder, still no answer.
Well, Kevin had told me that if they were all in bed I should just come on in. I opened the door and peered inside. There was actually a light on, in the back. I stepped inside, and said, "Hello?" Kevin came bounding out of the lighted room, exclaiming how they hadn't heard me pull in. It seems that he and David Ryder were playing a new computer game, and it had all their attention. I went to take a look. It was a grotesquely violent game, very graphic, with plenty of profanity. I could see how it would hold their attention. It was like looking at worms.
David's girls were asleep upstairs. Kevin's family had gone to spend the weekend with his wife's mother. I brought in the books I'd gotten for Sara, and showed them to Kevin and David. They thought the frog book was like something from a really wild drug trip.
In the morning we mounted the tires, and I changed my spark plugs. David's girls played quietly and didn't pester us at all as we worked in the garage. Kevin didn't have an air compressor, just a big air tank that had to be refilled, and which didn't hold enough to seat the beads of four tires. Wyn arrived as we were getting ready to load the tires in Kevin's van to go to the gas station and seat the beads. We all piled in, and had lunch while we were out.
We returned to Kevin's and put the wheels back on my bike. The talk ran from motorcycle touring, to the planned Saddlesore, to what was best to wear for long rides. Kevin likes boxer briefs so much that he actually modeled some for us. I cheered and clapped, and Kevin retreated in embarrassment. David said if he was built like Kevin, he'd prance around in his underwear too.
I think Wyn started to get a little impatient as we endlessly tweaked and fiddled with the bikes. She wanted to go riding. Finally we got on the road. A few miles from Kevin's house, my bike started acting up again. Argh! I signaled the guys to pull over, and we discussed the problem. We decided to keep going, but if it got any worse I would wave Wyn ahead, and she'd pass me and let the others know I was in trouble. We got on the freeway and crossed the corner of Indiana into Kentucky. My bike rode all right for a few miles, but on the bridge it started bucking a little. I managed to nurse it through its little seizure, and we left the freeway. A few miles later it started doing it again, and this time it didn't pass quickly; it went on and on. We came to a steep hill and I could not maintain speed. I waved Wyn ahead. She passed me, and started chasing Kevin and David. I limped over the crest of the hill, and watched as she rode and waved and rode and waved, and they didn't stop. On the downhill I was able to maintain speed and even accelerate a bit, so I kept them in sight for a long time.
Finally they stopped at a small roadside store. We decided that Kevin would ride my bike and see what he thought. We all waited as he roared up and down the road on my bike. Of course, it didn't do it. Gotta love the way inanimate objects can make you feel like a complete fool sometimes.
We set out again and rode some nice twisties. The sky started to get dark, and the wind picked up. Very ominous looking. It started raining, and Kevin led us back to the little store. By the time we got there, it was absolutely pouring down rain, and the wind was blowing tree branches down onto the roads in front of us. We parked the bikes and dashed inside. We watched from the store windows as the rain came down in sheets. After a half hour or so, the rain slowed to a sprinkling, and the wind died down. We had decided to go back to Kevin's house. David and Wyn needed to get going, and Kevin and I were going to do some troubleshooting on my bike. After a mile or so of avoiding downed branches and riding through puddles, we rode onto dry pavement. If we'd known, we could have quickly gotten to a place where it wasn't raining, instead of waiting the storm out at the store. It hadn't rained at Kevin's house, either.
Kevin and I went through my bike looking for problem electrical connections. We found one ground wire that was heavily corroded, and which might only be making an intermittent connection. We cleaned it up, and hoped we'd found the problem. We went out on a short test ride, and visited the local fire station to make sure they would be there to sign our witness forms in the morning. No problem; they would be awake and washing trucks at 6am.
Morning came too soon. The guys at the fire station thought we were pretty weird, but they signed the forms. I convinced Kevin that we should stop for breakfast before we got the gas, since the gas receipt times would be our official start time. We hit the local McDonalds for breakfast burritos. The only other people in there were some golfers. I can't imagine getting up that early for golf, but then, I can't imagine what people see in that sport anyways. To each their own.
We got gas. We paid at the pump, and Kevin's pump failed to spit out a receipt. He had to go in and persuade the cashier to give him one.
What can you say about a thousand mile day? You just keep riding, and riding. The chance encounters I enjoy writing about, are sorely limited in their number and duration.
We rode across the corner of Indiana, down into Kentucky. I-75 to Lexington, and just east of Lexington we stopped for our next gas receipt. There were some other bikers getting gas at the same place. One of them was all dressed in Harley logo gear, but he was riding a BMW. We thought this was pretty funny.
Back onto the slab, east to the West Virginia border. The expressway got twistier as we approached the border; it was a lot of fun to ride. We got stuck in traffic just after crossing into West Virginia; there had been an accident. But we weren't stopped for long, it just took a little while for everyone to merge down to one lane of traffic. The accident was taking up both lanes and the police were diverting the traffic onto the shoulder.
Outside of Charleston, Kevin led me off the freeway and we rode for several miles on surface streets. I wondered what on earth he was doing, did he not like the gas choices we saw close to the freeway? Later he said he'd seen a sign saying that all traffic should exit the freeway for a construction detour, but it probably hadn't been necessary because no one else exited the freeway. I hadn't even noticed this sign. We stopped for lunch and gas, and went northeast on I-79. This was another curvaceous freeway, very nice.
About an hour after lunch I started getting sleepy. On hot days, eating tends to do this to me. Since I've been riding the motorcycle, I've taken to stopping when it happens. A ten minute doze in a rest area usually perks me right back up, and it's dangerous to ride when sleepy. I accelerated and took over the lead, and led us off the freeway at the next exit. We were in a small mountain town, and I looked around for a good spot to stop, out of the sun. There appeared to be some businesses about a block to the right, so I led us that way in hopes of a shady parking lot. No luck, the parking areas were baking in the direct sun. I kept going. The road narrowed, and ran along next to a creek. I realized we were out of town, so I started looking for a place to turn around. Just then we came to an abandoned bridge. There was just enough room for two motorcycles to park, between the road and the barricades that had been put up to keep people from driving onto the bridge. There was plenty of shade. We stopped.
I let Kevin know what was up, and found a shady spot to sit for my catnap. He waited patiently. Soon I was good to go again. Kevin liked this spot, and wondered if I had been there before, to know of this great place to stop? I told him no, we just got lucky. This place had one other distinguishing feature. The bugs were really, really loud. We had to raise our voices to be heard!
At our next gas stop, in Morgantown, West Virginia, I learned from the cashier that the noisy bugs were not a usual feature. The seventeen year cicadas had hatched out, and they were everywhere. Kevin complained of having been hit by several of them while we rode, and there were dead ones all over the place at the gas station. I hadn't yet hit one at that point, but a half hour later one of them slammed into my leg so hard that it bruised me right through my chaps. And my windshield was a mess. The cicadas were very evident as we made our way north into Pennsylvania. Both of us learned to dodge them as they flew around us like levitating rocks.
At our next gas stop, in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, there were no cicadas. But it was my turn to get a pump that wouldn't print a receipt. The cashier didn't have the foggiest idea how to make me a receipt, and began going into a full fledged panic attack when I asked for one. He became almost incoherent, refused to give his name or sign anything, and started begging me not to report him to his manager. Sheesh! I wasn't trying to give him a hard time, I just wanted a receipt. It seemed that this guy just couldn't handle it, so I bought some pop, chips, and candy, and got him to give me a receipt for that. Kevin and I stopped on the edge of town for another rest.
We had left the hills behind, and were well into the flatlands that surround Lake Erie. Boring and flat. We turned east onto I-90, and stopped to take a ticket at the entrance to the New York Thruway.
We stopped for gas in Buffalo, just before crossing the Peace Bridge. Some women asked me for directions to the Rainbow Bridge. They were well and truly lost; the Rainbow Bridge is at Niagara Falls! I told them I wasn't local so they should take this with a grain of salt, but if I were them I'd go 'round by way of the Canada side, because it would be easier to navigate and they could stay on the freeway longer. Go over the Peace Bridge, take the QEW to Niagara Falls and follow the signs.
The plan was that I'd take the lead in Ontario since I've been there before. I coached Kevin on what he should say to the border guards, that he should put away his radar detector, that he should tell the guard he's going to Michigan, etc. Not that we had anything to hide, but I knew we needed to give matching answers or they'd want to question us further. We went over the bridge and crossed the border without incident. I paid the toll for both of us, and chortled to myself about how Kevin would just be fuming back there, unable to resist letting me do something nice for him.
The traffic on the QEW was just wild! Cars everywhere, swarming at a high rate of speed. We fought the traffic north and west through St Catharines, along the Lake Ontario shoreline, through the freeway spaghetti at Hamilton and onto the 403, where we ran into construction. They were painting the bridges. It was very exciting. It got dark as we finally left the high traffic areas behind. I led us off the freeway at Brantford, in search of a what the Canadians call a "washroom". We were both starting to get tired as we pulled into a little convenience store. The clerk gave us the key to the washroom, and we each had a turn in there. Kevin decided he'd like to get some caffeine, and went back into the store. He came out with a Mountain Dew.
I laughed and said, "You know, Canadian Mountain Dew doesn't have any
caffeine."
Kevin stared at me. "You're kidding me, right?"
"Nope."
"Wow, you're funny. You've almost got me believing you and I know you're
pulling my leg."
"Read the label!"
Kevin squinted at the label. "Hey! There's no caffeine!"
"Sorry, I shoulda warned you before you bought it. Can I buy you
something else?"
Kevin can't stand to let people buy things for him. To back up his
refusal he took a No-Doze with his Mountain Dew.
We rode west and the 403 ended at the 401. From the 401, we passed a huge building fire. The flames climbed high into the night sky, and it was surrounded by fire trucks. Traffic was stopping out on the freeway, as people gawked at the fire. We managed to get through without an accident, even though the other drivers were all very distracted.
We got gas in Ingersoll; this would be enough gas to take us all the way to my house. Just outside of Windsor, it started to rain. Kevin had on his 'stitch; I knew he didn't need to stop and put on rain gear, and I decided not to bother since we were so close. If I got soaked, so be it; I could change clothes in a half-hour when we got to my house. The 401 ended and we rode along the familiar shopping strip that leads to the Ambassador Bridge, in light rain, just me and Kevin and the NAFTA trucks at this hour of the night. At the bridge, Kevin poured on some speed and got in front of me, and paid both our tolls. I knew he'd have to do that; he was probably seething all the way across Ontario over the fact I'd beaten him to the last bridge toll.
The rain stopped, and we rode out of Detroit, following I-94 west to Ypsilanti. We arrived at my house sometime well after midnight, and filled up at the Total station on the corner to get our final gas receipt. Indicated distance for the trip was 1080 miles.
I told Kevin I had to work in the morning, but that he should sleep himself out. I said if he was still around at lunchtime, he should come to my office and I'd take him out for sushi. I think this scared him; he left when I did the next morning. We said our good-byes and he rode back to Ohio, and away from the threat of raw fish, just as fast as he could go.