Well, That Never Happened Before

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November 12, 2011, about a week ago, I had planned a ride up north to a road I had never been on before, NC-281.

This is the actual route:

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The weather is clear, and cool this morning -- starting out about 35 -- but it will rise to about 50 degrees later in the day up in the mountains.  I have bundled up, so I am comfortable, though.  

The point at which I will join NC-281 is west of Rosman North Carolina, and the most direct way to get there is up US-178.  I am getting more used to the turns on this road with each traverse, I find, with a little less trepidation and maybe a little more speed in places.  Still not fast by many measures, but a little faster than before.

Above Rosman, I turn left onto US-64, a heavily traveled road that I don't particularly care for because of that traffic. I pass by the turnoff to NC-215, an interesting road that leads to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and that has recently been paved.  It is smooth as silk.  I think about going that way for a few seconds. 

[No, Bucky, you have other plans right now, to see some new places.  Maybe later.] 

I go for a little more than seven miles until NC-281 branches off to the right.  There are several side roads for the first two or three miles, but then it gets more desolate as the terrain becomes more rugged. 

The road surface is disappointingly rough, and there is gravel scattered in some places.  That, coupled with my unfamiliarity with the road, make for a less-than-ideal ride.  To boot, two other riders pass me as though I am standing still.  Both of them make control of their bikes look so effortless.  They are out of sight in mere seconds.

That grinds on me, though I shouldn't let it.  On a curvy road, it only takes a short time for another rider to get out of sight, after all, even if he is only going a little faster than you are.   Yet, I long for more skill and to trust my machine, its tires, and the road more like they seem to.  It is mostly the latter -- the road -- that is the most concern.  A patch of sand or gravel could make for a loss of traction in a turn, so I am continually playing it very safe. 

I press on to my goal, the dam on Wolf Creek Lake, at Pushpin C on the map.  It turns out that this earthen dam is not very interesting.  The fall colors are all gone here.  A few truckloads of Christmas trees pass while I am stopped looking around -- the only traffic I have seen up here. 

I decide that I should turn back instead of going further on 281.  I had originally planned to head back east on Charley's Creek Road, to the north.  It looks very twisty on the map, and, with my luck today, will turn out to be a bust.

[Bad attitude coming out, there Bucky.]

I retrace my path a little ways to Wolf Mountain Road.  I make a left, toward the east, there.  It turns into Tamassee Creek Road, and, later, Joe House Road (or Tamassee Gap Road) before reaching NC-215.  The road is fairly well paved, and there are some sheer cliffs high above the road along one stretch.

At 215, I could turn left, to the north, ride only about eight and a half miles, and see if the Blue Ridge Parkway is open.  The Parkway is almost always a good ride, though it may be closed due to the weather here at the higher elevations today.  I have seen some icicles on the north-facing cuts in some places I have been today, so I decide not to go that way.

As I turn onto NC-215 south, I find that there is a glut of traffic.  Slow-moving traffic.  Nuts, another downer.  This recently surfaced road is wasted today.  I pull off three times to allow the cars to get ahead, but I catch up to them too soon. These nine miles are not much fun.  I ought to just slow down and enjoy the scenery. 


All in all, my day has not been the most inspiring.  I am bummed out by the trip thus far, in fact.  Maybe close to pouting. 

At Rosman, I retrace my route back down US-178.  The traffic has thinned out here compared to 215 for some reason.  I step up the speed a little, since I am more familiar with this road than with others I have been on today.  I feel a little better now, and there is a glimmer of hope of enjoyment for this segment of my route.  The road surface is clean, so that helps instill a bit of confidence as well. 

I am not yet in a great mood, but it is improving a little.  

Well, I get to about the same spot that photographer Patrick Welch caught me digitally back in June of 2009, rounding the S-curve here just south of Rocky Bottom.  The southern curve has a tighter radius than the northern, so your lean angle has to be greater at the same speed.

See the curves here.  The Pushpin is at the tighter of the two curves.


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A photo taken by Patrick:

That is when it happens.

I am doing just fine, and I'm pretty much in comfortable control.  [That's nice.]  It almost feels as though I have found a "groove" on this turn, as I am not tensed up as much as I have been in the past. 

At the tightest spot of the curve, I feel a scraping.  Whoa!  What's that?   I am still in control, not crashing, as far as I can tell.  [That is a good thing, generally speaking.] 

It dawns on me that the toe of my boot has touched the pavement! 

That has never happened before. 

A quick post-toe-touch analysis of the moment reveals that I have the arch of my boot, rather than my toe, on the peg.  It is more comfortable for my long legs that way, and even though I know putting your toes on the pegs in preparation for a turn provides more clearance, I had never had to put that into practice.  My boot is tight against the stay, so I don't think it is pointed outward very much. I have my foot positioned with the toe pointing downward somewhat, so the ground clearance is less than it would otherwise have been.

The evidence:

Let's check that.  A closeup, taken from another 2009 picture in that curve, shows me with my other boots on.  I had the ball of my foot on the peg instead of my arch then.

Looks like a few inches between the toe and the road, I'd judge.  I was probably not going as fast back then as I am today, so the lean angle was less. 

This time, the toe of my boot is positioned closer to the ground, so that is probably the reason for the scrape.  The peg feeler didn't touch, by the way. 

Once I realize that I am OK, not crashing, and that nothing has come loose from the bike, I feel a rush of  -- what?  Pride?  Accomplishment?  Amusement?  Elation?  An I-gotta-tell-all-the-guys moment? 

I don't know exactly what the feeling is, but it is a good feeling.  

I feel my mood change almost instantly for the better.  Maybe it isn't a wasted day after all.


I must note that I did not panic when the grinding began, or thereafter.  I didn't chop the throttle.  In fact, it felt like just another sensory input.

Amazing. 

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At a time I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, on a less-than-great ride, something new and interesting happened.  Maybe it wasn't such a bad day out after all.

I'll have to make it a point to ride with my boots further back on the pegs when I am riding faster from now on. 

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First rides ...and a mishap

Once I had the motorcycle home, I began looking it over. The fine, shiny plastic cowlings gleamed in the light, and it seemed prudent to buy a set of frame sliders in case I tipped it over. I did not want to cut the cowlings as some sliders require, so I settled on a set of Kawasaki OEM sliders. I bought them from Blue Ridge Performance [BRP], their having the best price. Gary, the owner is a bit of a character, but he has good prices on 650R parts and accessories. Once the sliders arrived, I installed them over the next couple of evenings.

I also thought it prudent to get some body armor to wear when riding. The SquidBusters Forum had advertisements for the VelocityGear Juggernaut armored shirt. It consists of a back protector, chest protector, shoulder, elbow, and forearm CE-approved armor. The back protector can be zipped off to be used separately. It was priced attractively, and there was a discount if you were a forum member. I placed the order.

...and I bought a new silver helmet, a Scorpion EXO-700.

Oh. I should tell you that for some reason, while I was waiting for the MSF Basic class weekend to roll around, I decided to grow a beard and mustache. Actually a goatee and mustache. I had not had facial hair for around thirty years, so this was out of the ordinary. Maybe I was announcing the new me -- macho, motorcycle rider, hairy faced, young (second childhood?). Who knows. Actually, that is about the time I started using the nickname Bucky, too.

The first time out riding on my own, I was very shaky. I wobbled around turns, had to remind myself to look where I wanted to go, and generally had a time of it thinking about all the things that must happen to control and maneuver a motorcycle. There was not yet any sign of muscle memory helping me coordinate everything that had to happen. At any rate, the first few rides were taxing, and unnerving, with only a little of the enjoyment and exhilaration I longed to feel. I found that running along a straight road at 45 miles an hour was scary to me.

Slowly I gained some confidence, and began to have moments of enjoyment when riding. I ventured out on the roads near our house over several days, occasionally going further away.

I learned about target fixation next. It was a hard and expensive lesson. I was on a slightly curvy road, thought I could not make a turn, looked hard at the edge of the road, and went off within an inch of where I was looking. The ditch was shallow, but my nearly-new bike was in several pieces. Some of the shiny cowlings were scarred up, and the windshield, the seat, and a few other miscellaneous things were all separate from the carcass.

I called my wife from my cell phone with the news. She became...er...somewhat excited. So there I was, having flown off a nearly new motorcycle that is laying in pieces along a considerable stretch of road, asking my wife to be calm. I talked her down. A little while later, she drove to the site and stayed there with the bike while I went to borrow the neighbor's trailer to bring the whole mess home. She diligently piled all the loose pieces up so it would be less work once I arrived with the trailer. Two of our neighbors, Wes and Randy, were very helpful and sympathetic. Thank you, kind sirs. Once home and with the carcass unloaded into the garage, Randy gently asked me if I thought I would fix it and ride again, or whether that was the end. He philosophically and quietly stated that he had seen it done both ways. ...and he left it at that. At that point, I closed the garage door and went to bed.
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I have dwelled on the injuries to the bike, but not the injuries to me. I must tell you that I was almost unscathed. Here is why. I vowed from the start to wear all of my protective gear whenever riding, no matter how short a distance. You remember the photo of me on the Honda Nighthawk at the MSF Basic class wearing a leather suit, boots, gloves, and helmet? That was the start of wearing all the gear, all the time [ATGATT].

When I took my tumble, I was wearing all this gear:

1. Fieldsheer two-piece leather suit
2. VeocityGear Juggernaut armored shirt
3. Joe Rocket Sonic boots
4. ICON TiMax long gloves
5. Scorpion EXO-700 helmet

I suffered aches and pains for a few weeks afterward. Over-the-counter painkillers made it tolerable. Without the gear, I could have been much more seriously injured. My strong advice: NEVER, EVER ride in anything but full gear. Anyway, I think it looks cool. I can ride up with a bunch of others, and not until I remove my helmet do the bystanders realize that I am middle-aged. That makes me feel pretty good.

I already hear your excuses:

1. It is too hot.
2. I don't like to be all bundled up.
3. I like to feel the wind in my hair.
4. It is too expensive.
5. Nobody else wears it.

Answers:

1. Wait until you feel the burning when they take skin grafts from your back/chest/head/thigh.
2. Wait until they start to pick the gravel out of your hide.
3. You might not have a skull, let alone hair, if you fall on your head...or you might be a vegetable.
4. How much does one emergency room visit cost? And the lost wages away from the job?
5. Everybody who is serious and practical wears the gear.

Look at these, if you can bear to do so, to see the effects of a tumble from a motorcycle:

• Brittany Morrow
• Seven Things That Will Happen in a Motorcycle Crash

So, I learned that target fixation works perfectly. The experts are correct: Your bike will go where you look!

It took me quite a while to get over the psychological trauma of my tumble. I had lost quite a bit of confidence in myself. I could not bear to tell my coworkers what had happened. Once I got over the initial despair, I started to determine how to make the bike rideable again. It turned out that it was good therapy to find parts and figure out how to put them together into a real motorcycle. A local shop, Baker's Cycle Werx, helped with some work I could not manage on my own.

Well, enough about my accident. Suffice it to say that two months and many dollars later the bike was back in one piece and almost as good as new.

I started riding to work as much as I could. There was almost nobody there who could believe that I had actually bought a motorcycle, let alone a sporty one. Even now, when I ride in, some of my work associates comment to me about my "Power Ranger" appearance as I come into the plant.

I met a grandmother at the post office last Saturday in fact, who said her four-year-old grandson riding with her in the car had spotted me riding up, and told her that I looked like a Transformer. I went over to talk with him for a few minutes about how he might be able to get a motorcycle one day but, as I knocked on my helmet, that he had to be careful with it so he didn't get hurt. Maybe the seed is planted.

I started riding further and further away from home, and I have visited some of the many sites within about 100 miles. I'll report on them in upcoming postings.

Meanwhile, here is what I usually look like when I ride, though usually without the saddle and tail bags.

Note that I am wearing ATGATT and that you can see the frame sliders.

...all color coordinated, to boot!

Pretty snazzy, don't you think?