The Plans for The Great 2009 West Virginia Ride Unfold

The next best thing to being on a motorcycle trip is planning one. That is the premise of tonight’s essay. Naturally, it isn’t true, but it’s nice to think so and is an essential falsehood to the editorial fraud I am trying to perpetrate. If I couldn’t be out exploring new territory on my motorcycle, and I was given a choice of alternatives such as:

1) Planning a motorcycle trip with Dick Bregstein, Pete Buchheit, and Clyde Jacobs
2) Sitting on a beach in Tahiti while a naked Sandra Bullock pours me a Planters Punch
3) Being worshiped as a God/Pharaoh in ancient Egypt
4) Being tied to a tree and used as a drone by a lost tribe of Amazon women...

It is unlikely I would pick door “Number One” as my first option.

Believe me, I do not make this statement lightly. I think about riding through the morning mists, carving my way along the Pacific coast, or putting my kickstand down as the moon becomes visible through my bug-scarred windscreen about a thousand times a day. Nothing compares with the sensations that accompany these ride scenarios. I am a public relations specialist and floating a major news story used to give me an incredible high. (It is still a sense of accomplishment.) But now I do it to fund those occasions when I’m going to be on the road with my two-wheeled desperado pals for a few days.

And therein lies the rub. I try to bring a sense of unbridled enthusiasm to each ride I undertake -- only to be beaten into the pavement by my riding buddies. They certainly have their good points, but they do rise above them where I’m concerned. Here’s what I mean. Every ride that involves two or more riders on their own bikes is something of a compromise. Choosing a route can be a dicy thing if someone wants to take the most convoluted back roads while another prefers a faster way. It gets more complicated if one guy wants to stop and take pictures, while the fourth party feels compelled to pullover occasionally and provide tramp-stamped performance artists with a badly needed stimulus package (one single dollars at a time). It is automatically assumed by the majority on these rides that the routes I choose are determined by the availability of pole dancers, strip joints, or places where a less than discerning female clientel will talk to me.

As a result, my recommendations are always subject to secondary consideration, but are first to draw the most fire.

For the third year in a row, some buddies and I are taking a multi-state ride to West Virginia. One of our number proposed a scenic route that has 758 turns in just under 225 miles. Only six of them are right turns and I believe he used an Escher drawing as a map. He was good enough to type them out and send them along. They took up 6-single spaced typewritten pages. (He claimed this was the most scenic route but it would be worth your life to take your eyes off the road for an instant.) They weren’t on my screen thirty seconds when another ride participant insisted we stop for lunch at Captain Bob’s crab shack, in Railroad, Pa. (And the Maryland crab at Bob’s is worth the detour.)

All this was fine with me, but being the kind of guy I am, I wanted to work out a preliminary schedule. So I started to get into particulars, like departure and arrival times. Now granted, the trip isn’t until the end of May, about 100 days away; and perhaps these details could have waited for a later discussion. Yet I am so excited about this ride that I can’t wait. And yet, this is how one participant responded to my planning efforts.

“Fellow West Virginia Riders,

“I'm writing to tell you how thrilling it has been for me following the 116 emails among yourselves attempting to decide whether you will be stopping at Captain Bob's for lunch en route to WV. I fully expect an equal degree of excitement concerning your much anticipated correspondence in deciding what color outfits you will all be wearing on the ride.

“MotoNomad”

I’m not sure, but I think this is what editors refer to as highly corrosive sarcasm. And it got worse too.

Words commonly used to describe my riding style by the guys I hang with are “mediocre, leisurely, and somnambulistic.” This is because I take my turns with prudence and ample visual confirmation that there are no surprises ahead of me. Dick Bregstein claims he once completed the crossword puzzle in the Sunday New York Times following me through the “S” curves at Hawks Nest, New York.

Motonomad, AKA Pete Buccheit, sitting on the bike he bought with his Communion money.

He only wears this leather outfit in the house. The two Beemers are classic beauties, 

at opposite ends of the model spectrum.

(Photo by Pete Buchheit, who took 65 of them today -- Click to enlarge) 

Always concerned that I am holding my friends back, I insist that they go on ahead while I ride my own ride. They insist on it too. I have often said that there is great assurance riding with Pete Buchheit and Dick Bregstein, knowing that help is only 50 or 60 miles ahead of me. Clyde Jacobs and Matt Piechota once insisted they would ride with me in the event I needed assistance (owing to my arthritis) following a Mac-Pac breakfast. Clyde suggested a “nicer” ride back to the garage, and the two of them led me into a Chinese noodle swamp of unmarked roads -- shortly before giving me the slip. (They were waiting for me back at my house, drinking my beer, and sharing overwhelming concern with my girlfriend, when I next saw them.)

Pete standing naked in his boots, which he bought for half off at a yard sale.

(Photo by Pete Buchheit -- Click to enlarge)

Well Clyde has chosen the route for this trip and I am anticipating getting lost again, thinking of all those turns in the middle of nowhere. It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to get a compass for my bike. So I went to The Compass Store to see if they had an inexpensive, liquid-filled ball compass that would not only show me the direction in which I was going, but one that would look cool on the dash of my K75. Kasper and Richter (Germany) make one for $54.95. It would secure to the dash on the Parabellum “Scout” fairing with a suction cup, that I would have reinforced with two screws to prevent theft.

I made the mistake of sharing this idea with Pete Buchheit (Motonomad), who had an alternate suggestion.

Cool Kasper and Richter precision liquid-filled ball compass, available at The Compass store (online) 

for a slick $54.95. This was my first thought for the Parabellum fairing dash.

(Photo courtesy of Tthe Compass Store -- Click to enlarge) 

“That’ll get stolen the first time you park the bike on the street, “said Buchheit. “If I were you, I’d mount it on the front of my helmet. And whenever you want to know the direction you’re headed in, you could pull into a gas station, a bait and tackle shop, or even an antique store and ask somebody there to read the cardinal direction marking on the ball to you.”

This was more of the that highly corrosive sarcasm.

In hindsight, it did seem kind of stupid. I’ve ridden through West Virginia 6 times now and its not the kind of place where you need to chart a course to have a good time. But the best news is that my girl presented me with a slightly used Garmin Nuvi 660, so I wouldn’t get hopelessly lost. It is the same unit I gave her for Christmas in 2007. She bought a new Subaru and prefers the GPS that came with it. So she re-gifted this fine unit back to me for Valentine’s day. It isn’t waterproof, as it was designed for a car, but it has all the bells and whistles and can link to a Bluetooth unit made for my helmet, so I can hear the prompts, if I so choose.

"She loves me; she loves me not; she loves me..." My Valentine's Day gift from Leslie.

It's ready to navigate and so am I. This damn ride can't get here fast enough.

(Photo by the author -- Click to enlarge)

Whitehorse Gear (fine folks to order stuff from) had a set of Ram handlebar mounts for this unit, and they should be here in a day or two. Now I don’t care if I get lost. I spent the evening programming this Nuvi with the location of every strip joint and Go-Go bar in West Virginia.

Ride your own ride -- every time.

©Copyright Jack Riepe
AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac-Pac)
AKA Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)
AKA The Chamberlain -- PS (With A Shrug)