A Cross-Country Trip, Mostly Great -- CA to NOLA to DucStock to NH

[PhilB]

tl;dr version -- Wife and mechanic got the bike ready for me. Flew to SD 30Sep, picked up bike 01Oct, left Sunday 02Oct. Rode to Tucson AZ, Carlsbad NM (caverns were great), Austin TX (stayed with TCormier), NOLA (stayed with OmegaSoul498), Birmingham AL. Camped at the Barber Raceway 07Oct to 10Oct, saw the Vintage Races, DucStock, the Barber Museum (outstanding, a must-see!). Left Monday evening, rode to Mount Hope AL (stayed with Sparky/EEfz6), Weston WV (stayed with ex), broke down with clutch problem on Wed afternoon 12Oct. Took 8 hours for AAA to tow me to the nearest dealer (116 mi to Wexford PA). Took 2 days to fix bike. Long last day’s ride Saturday from Pittsburgh to Portsmouth. Sunday moved into new place, and dealt with 547 e-mails. Monday back to new job. Total distance ridden 4292 miles. Time for new front tire. No pictures.

Takehome lesson 1: Check your clutch throwout bearing occasionally, because if it freezes up, it can take a bunch of other parts with it, and cost you, say, over $900 in parts and labor to replace everything from the slave cylinder on except for the basket itself, plus $400 in lodging and food while waiting for repairs, plus over $1500 in lost income, for about $3K from an $18 part. Ouch.

Takehome lesson 2: I was right all along. I hate cameras.
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Real version for those with an adult attention span: ;D

First, I want to thank my wife, who although a bit nervous about the trip, supported me in doing it, and helped get my bike ready for it. I literally couldn’t have done it without her.

Second, thanks to my bike dealer Sonny Angel, mechanic Donny Angel, and Cycle Cat and Staintune, for all getting everything together (barely) in time for me to make the trip.

Third, thanks to all those whose hospitality I was offered during the trip.

Fourth, there are no G-ddamn pictures.
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As some of you may remember, I had a lowside crash on PCH, on the way back from the MotoGP at Laguna Seca at the end of July, and scraped off the footpegs, shift linkage, and muffler on the left side of the bike. So I took advantage of the opportunity, since I had to get new parts anyway, to make upgrades. Staintune makes good pipes, completely out of 304 stainless steel, that last forever, so I got those (to replace the original mufflers after only 18 years). And Cycle Cat is back in business, so I ordered from them a full set of rearsets, muffler hangers, passenger pegs, and shifting kit to switch to GP style shifting (something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time). In the meantime, I got a new work project in New Hampshire, and flew out there to start work. In my absence, my wife, Kristine, got the bike and all the parts as they arrived to the shop, and Donny put it all together, along with a new chain and sprockets and some small bits.

Meanwhile, I planned my route and itinerary. My wife was sort of bemused by the fact that I had lined up several places to stay with friends, with addresses and routes, but that I didn’t know any of their real names -- just MCD and SBN usernames.

I flew back to San Diego on Friday evening 30Sep, and we went to pick up the bike the next morning. A couple spins around the block to get the pegs and levers positioned right and then about 30 miles to make sure it all was working and to start to get used to the new shifting pattern, which I could already tell I was going to like better once I was fluent at it. Then home, as that was my one day to be home and spend time with wife and family and cats and so on.
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So, Sunday morning, 02Oct11, I packed and loaded up the bike, and set off, headed east. I had 5 days to get to the Barber Raceway, which gave me a pretty easy about 500 miles a day average, so that would mean I didn’t have to ride all day every day without any time to stop. However, that day I didn’t actually leave until about noon, so it was pretty much a non-stop run from there to Tucson AZ.

Starting mileage 191851. About 70 miles in, I hit a bit of rain, in Campo. Not enough to make me stop and put on my gear, but just kind of funny to get rained on for ten minutes in the CA desert at the outset of the trip. I-8 to I-10, the flat straight roads of the desert southwest -- cruising speed between 95 and 105 mph. Second gas stop, put 4.4 gallons into a 4.2-gallon tank that wasn’t completely empty. Hmmm.

(Pretend there’s a picture here of the CA desert southwest, with a caption noting that the view includes parts of Arizona and Mexico. I brought my hand-me-down digital camera with me, with the intent of trying to take at least one picture in every state I rode through.)

Rode through a large swarm of yellow butterflies, some of whose corpses remained with me for the rest of the trip.

(Pretend there’s a picture here of a whole vista of Saguaro cactuses.)

Started to adapt to the GP shift; at this point I had to pay attention to each shift to get it right, after over 18 years on this bike with a normal shifting pattern. By the end of the day, though, it was starting to feel a bit more natural.

Got into Tucson late-ish, to the Palo Verde Inn and Suites, which my wife had booked me into through Hotwire. The Hotwire shtick is interesting. It’s a way to get rooms very inexpensively, if you’re willing/able to take a crapshoot. You input your parameters, and it finds you a room, but you don’t find out exactly where it is and at what hotel until you actually book it. The hotels get to sell last-minute empty rooms, and you get cheap rooms, but the hotels don’t want people who are (or might) pay normal rates to know they are participating. This worked great in Tucson, where I wasn’t particular about location -- I got a quite nice and large room for about $45. Later, near Pittsburgh, it did not work well, as we specified that it had to be as close as possible to a certain place, and it gave me a room for $66 that was 80 miles away, which would have been a $240 taxi ride to the certain place in question. (This would have been called “foreshadowing”, except that you already read the tl;dr version and know what’s going to happen.) When we said that was unacceptable, they said “too bad, you booked it” and charged it to us anyway.

The receptionist at the Inn in Tucson recommended a cheap Mexican burrito place nearby, which turned out to be good. I happily went there, as I will miss those in New England. I had an adobada burrito (aka al pastor), which was good, although not in my favorite style. That apparently is a dish that varies widely in different parts of Mexico; I think I like the version from Michoacan the best.

Final mileage for the day: 192296 -- 445 miles done.
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Left mid-morning for Day 2 -- Monday 03Oct11

Lots more wide open desert southwest.

(Pretend there’s a picture here of the famous Bartel’s Harley Davidson dealership.)
(Pretend there’s a picture here of a really pretty blue H-D Road King inside it.)
(Pretend there’s a picture here of a very weird H-D Sportster trike in front of it.)

Bought a postcard for K, since I didn’t get one in Tucson. She wanted one from each major stop. Also got 3 orange and black dice with all the spots being H-D logos. Cute.

As I climbed into New Mexico, I discovered a heretofore unknown limitation on the Duc -- fuel delivery rate. The original fuel fitting at the tank had broken some years ago, and the part is no longer available. My mechanic had JB-Welded it then, and that held for 5 or 6 years, but it broke again last year in Cleveland. The mechanic there put in a different fitting, but I think it doesn’t flow quite as freely. Going uphill, at high altitude, at a steady 105, I got some hiccups that felt like running out of gas even though I had plenty. This worried me, so I stopped to look things over, but couldn’t see anything wrong. It started right up and ran fine after that, but after a while it did it again. This time I just backed off to about 90, and it was fine. I think that under high use like that, I was just using fuel a bit faster than the tap can supply, and when the float bowls on the carbs empty out, it starves it a bit. I don’t know if I’ll bother to try to fix that; it won’t come up very often. But it bugs me, so I might.

(Pretend there’s a picture here of a great view looking down on the NM desert valley, taken from a rest stop on the mountain.)

With the time-zone change, I didn’t get to Carlsbad in time to see any of the caverns that evening. Cheapo room in a Motel 6; ate at a buffet pizza place called the Pizza Inn. I recommend avoidance on that one. Blecch.

Got three tanks of gas that all came out to less than 40 mpg, including one that put 4.5 gallons in my 4.2-gallon tank. Methinks the Weights-and-Measures boys don’t get out here very often.

Final mileage for the day: 192815 -- 519 miles done.
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Day 3 -- Tuesday 04Oct11

Went to see the caverns in the morning. They are being very careful about people who have been in any caverns in the East, to prevent the spread of white-nose disease (a fungus that is killing a lot of bats east of the Mississippi), so I’m glad I hadn’t seen the caverns out here yet.

I had been to Carlsbad Caverns once before, in 1971 when I was 8 years old. Since then, among other things, I have gotten a degree in geology, which makes the view of the caverns quite different. It was really cool to hike through them, and observe details and really have good understanding of what I was seeing. I love that.

(Pretend there’s pictures here of the entrance, path down, and then looking up from the lowest point you could still see the sky out, about 400 feet below ground.)

It is quite a hike through the caverns, several miles and about 800 feet down at the lowest point accessible to the unguided person. The Big Room is about 1.6 miles to walk around just by itself. There are limited guided tours to deeper areas, involving actual spelunking; I may have to go again some time, reserve a week, and really go see it in depth.

Got a couple cool postcards to send to wife and to sister’s family.

Headed off for the day’s ride a little after noon. There’s a whole lot of Texas at this latitude -- it’s almost 1000 miles across there. I was headed that day for Austin, to stay with TCormier. He mentioned at one point that Texas was really 3 different states, and I could see that on this day’s trip. West Texas is the same big open desert as AZ and NM had been. Central Texas is all about agriculture -- hundreds of miles of flat farm fields and orchards. Then you get into East Texas, and all of a sudden it turns into forestland, and looks almost east-coast-ish. Not as lush and wet, and not turning fall colors yet, but clearly belonging to that half of the country.

(Pretend there’s a picture here of my bike in front of a big welded cast-iron sign saying “PECOS - Oldest Rodeo in the World”.)

Three tanks of gas across that part of Texas. One calculated out to 45 mpg, the other two calculated to 37 -- and claimed to put 4.3 and 4.65 (a record) into my 4.2-gallon tank.

Austin is probably the biggest city in the country that is not served directly by major freeways. It has a nice character; I wish I had had more time to see more of it. With the late start and the time-zone change, I got there about 2100h, so we went to dinner right away before everything closed. Had a quite tasty Tex-Mex dinner, which then gave me terrible heartburn all night.

Had a nice time and conversation with TCormier, whose first name turned out to be Travis. Kind of a blast from the past, in that he reminds me a lot of some of my friends and I, when I was that age and in college.

Final mileage for the day: 193384 -- 569 miles done.
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Day 4 -- Wednesday 05Oct11

Travis had classes in the morning, so I got up early and left at the same time. He led me to a breakfast café, where I had a good meal and a chance to observe various hues of the local color. Some liberal/college/young types, and some church-group/evangelisty types, and others. When I was done, since I was now a ways off my printed-out Mapquest routes on my tankbag, I had to ask around as to how to get to the highway east out of town. And no one really knew. Two potential sources had no idea (the waitress, who said she didn’t drive, and the church-group people, who apparently had only ever left town once on a youth-group bus that was going in some other direction) and two more had vague ideas that were quite different from each other. That was weird. I sort of guessed at which one made more sense, and interpolated them with what I could remember of what Travis had said earlier, and managed to find my way out.

Shortly east of Austin, I saw a nice sight -- a Texas Highway Patrol helping someone change a tire. And not just watching, but actually rolling the tire around the car and lifting it onto the hub. Good to see.

Many miles of forest, then crossing into Louisiana. I’ve never seen so many bridges that long. Literally miles and miles of bridges over swamps. I had to wonder how much that must have cost, and who had paid for it.

Ate a good lunch of proper Louisiana seafood in Lake Charles.

(Pretend there are a couple scenic picture of Lake Charles here.)

The parts that aren’t swampy are definitely Kudzu Country.

(Pretend there’s a picture of kudzu overwhelming a bunch of trees here.)

Got into New Orleans about 1800h and found the house of OmegaSoul498, with whom I was staying. I got there before he got home from work, so I waited on the porch and watched the neighborhood. He told me (on the phone) that he was expecting a plumber to come, as the hot water hadn’t been working that morning, and if the plumber showed before he did, to tell him he was on his way. Which I did. Once Jondrea (which turned out to be his name) arrived, he and the plumber went to go see what was up with the hot water heater, and discovered that the problem was easily diagnosed. It was missing -- someone had broken into the shed and stolen it. So adventures ensued with the landlady (who was a very lovely young lady, very pretty, bright, and nice, and with a sweet little baby) and hardware stores, and so on. They got it installed, and we went out for burgers and drinks. I figured that I was going to like him a lot from our experience online so far on the motorcycle forums, and I was right. Jondrea is an outstandingly cool guy, and we had very good conversation through all of this.

He was literally in the process of moving in to this new place -- no furniture except for his own bed and bureau, piles of belongings in boxes, plus his GXSR and bike parts in the front room. He had initially intended to find me a room somewhere to stay for the night, given the situation, but in the end since I had my camping gear anyway, I just rolled out my sleeping bag in one of the empty rooms and slept there just fine. In light of the evening’s events, we rolled my bike up the porch stairs on loading ramps, and into the front room for the night, parked right next to his.

On this day (and from here onward) every tank of gas was correct. Funny, in the west half of the country, I got less than 40 mpg on six tanks of gas out of nine, but as soon as I crossed the Pecos I got between 44 and 48 mpg every time. Gas was less expensive (I won’t say cheap, but less expensive) down there. Regular 87 was about $3.80 in CA, but by TX it was more like $3.25 a gallon, and in LA I paid $3.01 at one point.

Final mileage for the day: 193955 -- 571 miles done.
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Day 5 -- Thursday 06Oct11

Jondrea had to leave quite early in the morning for work. He graciously left me the key, and directions to his workplace, so I could leave whenever I was ready. So I slept in a bit, then got the loading ramps down and rolled my bike down the front steps, and went for a late breakfast. I went down to the wharf market area, and had a very nice breakfast in an open patio restaurant with a jazz combo playing.

(Pretend there are several pictures here of the patio, surrounding corners, a horse-drawn carriage rolling past my parked bike.)

Everyone there loved my Dave Aldana style Vanson jacket, asked where I got it, and so on. I returned Jondrea’s key, and headed northeast about noon. More long bridges, and into kudzu country again. The bit of Mississippi I crossed looked just like Louisiana had. Then into Alabama, which was more foresty.

From here up, it was more fun to ride. Generally two lanes each way, and the road follows the terrain better, rather than the big straight freeway that just bullies its way through. I didn’t have enough time on this trip to really explore the roads and find two-lane twisties and so on -- I think you’d have to keep it down to about 300 miles a day to be able to do that well -- but I had some fun nonetheless.

I got to the Barber Raceway area about 1830h, and then went in search of the hotel that the Ducati people had pretty much taken over. I wasn’t staying there -- I was camping at the track -- but they were registering people for DucStock there until 1900h, and were having a kickoff party at a tavern near the hotel, so I headed over. It turned out to be about 20 miles from the track, so I was glad I had decided to camp onsite instead. I got there just after 1900h, so didn’t get registered, but they did give me the wristband to get into the party, so it was good. Saw several people there I had met before at various places and events prior; it’s interesting how after a while you get to know people, even if you only see them every year or two. A couple of the people there were from DesmOhio, whom I had gotten to know last year when I was working in Cleveland, and had camped with at a couple of events while there. They always set up an area and camp together, and I had planned to join them for that here, so we all rode over back to the campsite after the party.

One of these fellows is Chris Calovini, who is the person who has purchased Cycle Cat and is bringing them back into business. Their products had always been high-quality, and will remain so; it’s good to have them back in the market. Turns out the rearsets and controls I got from him and fitted just before this trip were the first one he sold after getting the company restarted. I am impressed with the parts, and recommend them.

Hung out and conversed with this event’s DesmOhio bunch, people I’d met and people I hadn’t before. Rolled out the sleeping bag and went to sleep.

Final mileage for the day: 194451 -- 496 miles done.
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Day 6 -- Friday 07Oct11

Slept well. I generally do when camping.

I brought my bike down to the DucStock area. They had quite a few very rare and beautiful Ducatis there, as well as an area laid out for those of us who entered our own bikes in the show. I had done so -- there were rumors of awards for “road warrior” and “best patina”; I thought I had a good shot at one of those. After all, my headlight was covered with the bugs of 7 large states.

(Pretend there are pictures here of a bunch of really cool Ducatis.)

Events like this usually go Friday through Sunday. I definitely like being there on the Friday, before the main crowds arrive. As usual, I spent the day walking the whole place, getting the layout, finding where the good spots to watch the races are, seeing the displays and bike shows and auction bikes before you can’t get a good view of everything, getting a jump on the swapmeet, finding where to eat, etc. It’s also good to check out all the vendor booths, and shop while the vendors are fresh, have time to answer your questions, and aren’t burned out yet from dealing with “Joe Public”.

I bought a few t-shirts, a gift for the wife and one for the daughter, and a set of heated gloves for myself -- I suspected they may come in handy in New Hampshire.

(Pretend there are a bunch of pictures here of the auction bikes, the swapmeet, and showbikes.)

Barber is a BIG venue. The track is long, and everything is spread out along the ring road that goes around it all. They had shuttles running around the ring road, which was nice, and quite convenient if they stopped near where you wanted to go, but that wasn’t always the case.

Lots of cool bikes already showing up -- at a big vintage event like this, the coolest bikes are often brought by the attendees.

(Pretend there are a whole bunch of pictures of really cool bikes here, parked all over the place.)

I didn’t get over to the bike museum yet, or the paddocks, but got everything else covered.

Back to camp in the evening. After all that walking, I noticed that my left foot still isn’t 100% from the accident in July. It’s 95%, but at the end of this day it was visibly swollen, and clearly more sore than the right foot was.
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Day 7 -- Saturday 08Oct11

Slept well again.

Brought the bike back to the DucStock area, then started hiking towards the front of the venue, where the VJMC (vintage Japanese motorcycle club) was having a pancake breakfast, benefiting some charity or other. Lots of cool bikes parked along the ring roadway. Stopped to help one guy who was unloading from his pickup a very odd and cool homebuilt special, based on an old Moto-Guzzi engine turned sideways (so like a “normal” V-twin), with a separate transmission and chain drive.

(Pretend …)

My camera has a switch on top that changes modes from still to video, and this switch is poorly positioned and not well guarded. So, as happens once in a while, it got flipped when I took it out of its case, and I accidentally got a couple minutes of video of nothing in particular. Since it only has a 1GB card (and doesn’t take the newer big cards) I decided that was a bunch of space I couldn’t spare, and went to delete the video. Going through the menu for deleting, it had the choice of “one frame” or “all frames”. I picked “one frame” and it deleted one frame out of the video, which was not helpful. Since I had the video clip specifically selected, I then tried the other choice, thinking that since “one” deleted a small part of the video, that “all” would delete the whole video. Nope. It then deleted every damn picture from the entire trip. All of them, right back to when I picked the bike up from Sonny’s with the shiny new footpegs and mufflers. I have no idea how you would delete a single video clip; apparently there isn’t a menu choice for that. And I won’t find out either, because I curbstomped the M----rf---ing thing into shattered shards and slammed the remains into a trashcan.

And that’s that. No damn pictures. Ever again. The thing I have never liked about cameras is that they distance you from the event you are attending. I had spent significant attention during this trip on getting photos and documenting the journey and looking for good things to shoot and all that. And for nothing. Screw that, I’m back to just being where I am at any given moment, and paying full attention to the moment.

I’m done. [/rant]

The pancake breakfast was good.

I had bought the Saturday parade laps in my ticket package, so I walked back and got the bike and went around to the paddock area. There were a few parade lap events over the weekend; this one was through the DucStock package, so it was Ducatis only, which makes a wonderful noise. Particularly when there’s a DesmoSedici in the mix. Mmmm. I wasn’t terribly impressed with its owner; all clad in expensive designer-brand everything, and seemed like one of those spoiled rich kid types who thinks his money makes him immune to having to behave decently. I have to admit that was a pre-judgment; he hadn’t really done anything wrong while we were waiting, but I just sensed that kind of attitude about him. I love seeing and hearing that bike, though, so I was glad he was there anyway.

While awaiting our turn on the track, Barber had a mini-airshow overhead. Four WWII vintage airplanes, flying all sorts of aerobatics for quite a while, including mock strafing runs and all. I’m not sure what kind of planes they were; not frontline fighters, but rather some sort of trainer of the period, but single radial-engine monoplanes with the proper shape and noises.

Then we got out for our laps. Even though they are “parade laps” the leaders let us make a pretty decent pace around much of the track. It’s a very big track, and has a really nice mix of corners, almost as many lefts as rights, some good elevation changes, some places where you can see what’s coming up, and others where you’re coming in blind and would have to rely on guts and knowing where the track goes. I think we were supposed to get four laps, but they pulled us all in after two. It turns out that the guy on the DesmoSedici actually was just like I had sensed, and he started showing off and ignoring the rules, and they brought everyone in before he hurt someone. Harumph.

The other thing I noticed was that the GP shifting pattern felt really great on the track. I had gotten more used to it on the trip out, but still tended to move the lever in the wrong direction if I wasn’t paying attention to that. But on the track, you are paying attention to riding -- that’s what you’re doing and nothing else -- and shifting that way felt really smooth and natural in that setting.

I spent the whole afternoon walking the paddocks and looking at all the vintage racebikes and chatting with the racers. Rumor had it that this was one of the biggest vintage race events ever, and I believe it. There were a lot of great bikes there, racing in a couple dozen different race classes at least.

It’s interesting to see what people bring, and what they are interested in. There are a lot of guys who just want to have fun racing an old bike, and they have the most “practical” choices, if such a word can be used for an old racebike. Lots of old Hondas, 2-stroke Yamahas, Triumphs and BSAs -- bikes that are pretty plentiful, that you can get parts for, that won’t be beastly expensive if you drop it on the track.

But there are also scattered diehards for some specific brand or other. A couple guys here with pre-WWII Indians, a guy over there with a bunch of Can-Ams. It’s funny to think about what triggers a particular person to be a fanatic about some particular brand of bike or car or other interest. What was the experience that makes this guy love Kawasakis in particular, instead of Suzukis or Hondas? Why is that guy really crazy about BMW “worm” sidecar outfits?

Late in the afternoon, they awarded the DucStock bike show trophies, sponsored by Cycle Cat. They didn’t have one for “patina”, and the “road warrior” award went to an original and really worn looking 1960 Ducati Brio 100 scooter. I got the award for “rider of the year” for riding 2600 miles to be there. That was nice.

A few of us drove out and ate at a pretty good Mexican restaurant, and got lost coming back. I was driving, as the only one who hadn’t had too many margaritas, but I hadn’t been paying attention, as a passenger on the drive out, so I didn’t know my way back. For some reason, the GPS couldn’t get a signal, so we were navigating by a consensus of drunken people. But we made it back eventually.

Then one of the race teams, that ran several Ducatis, hosted a little wine-and-cheese party in the evening, with several racers from days past there to chat with. One of the guys in our camp had brought his dad along; he was a photographer, but hadn’t been on a motorcycle in decades, if ever. When we rode from the campsite to the paddocks for the party, I brought him over (and back) on my bike. Even though it was a short trip, he really enjoyed the ride and was effusive about it for the rest of the weekend. That’s kind of neat. He’s in his mid-‘70’s, so he’s probably not going to take up the sport at this point, but it was fun to make the introduction. He is no stranger to the fun of mechanical devices -- he is a long term car nut, specializing (speaking above of the vagaries of choices of fandom) particularly in Bricklins.
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Day 8 -- Sunday 09Oct11

I haven’t been mentioning the weather up to this point, because it had been perfect up to this point. Sunny and clear, all the way from CA to AL, and Fri and Sat at the races. So I mention it now, because it began to change at this point. Sunday wasn’t bad, but it was cloudy all day, and sprinkled a few drops now and then.

I spent much of Sunday actually watching races. Barber doesn’t have grandstands or viewing structures around the track, just lots of grassy hillsides. Quite a few spots have good views of a decent amount of the track, maybe a third of it or so. In the paddock is the control tower, and it does have a small patio on top which has the best view, about half the track, if you don’t mind standing on concrete for as long as you watch. So it’s a good deal better place to watch a race than Indy (or Mid-Ohio, for that matter). But not as great as Laguna Seca.

The races were well organized and kept flowing. At least half of my interest in the racing (especially with vintage racing) is the sound -- hearing the bikes run. I’d been enjoying that all weekend as I moved around to various places and events. But after having walked the paddocks the day before, I had a much better idea of what bikes were out there and the differences between them, which made the races more interesting to watch. The sidecar class is always my favorite; it’s so visual and there is so much going on as they climb around and try to keep those inherently absurd machines moving fast. A remarkable number of sidecar racing outfits are father-daughter teams. How cool can you get?

In the afternoon, I went over to the Barber museum. This is a place that EVERYONE who is interested in motorcycles should visit at least once. It’s practically overwhelming. George Barber has one of the largest motorcycle collections in the world, over 1300 bikes, and more than half of them are on display at any given time. It’s extremely comprehensive in scope. I kept trying to think of bikes that he might not have, but sooner or later I ran across every one of them except a MotoGuzzi V-8 GP bike. Which is not a surprise; the few of those that exist are not for sale at any price. I won’t try to describe the museum itself; it’s just futile to try. I will mention a couple things, though. In addition to the bikes, he has one of the world’s best collections of Lotus sports and racing cars on display as well. He also has a display on John Surtees (the only man ever to win the top class GP championship in both bikes and cars), which in addition to several of his racing bikes also includes the actual Ferrari he won the 1964 F1 championship with. And the café is not to be recommended very highly. I spent about 3 hours, and got about 1/3 of the museum covered.

The camping closed out on Sunday, which is inconvenient. I like that at Laguna Seca you can camp Sunday night and ride home on Monday, instead of having to move somewhere for the one night if you don’t live close enough to go home at the end of the day. Especially since there was a (primarily) Ducati trackday planned for Monday, and so a fair number of people were going to be there the next day.

Anyhow, several of those were among the DesmOhio guys, and they had gotten a couple of hotel rooms nearby for that night, and were nice enough to let me roll the sleeping bag out in the corner of one for the night.
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Day 9 -- Monday 10Oct11

Spent the day in the Museum -- 6.5 hours; barely got all the rest of it seen.

Headed out afterwards to my scheduled stop, not too far away in Mount Hope, AL, to stay with Sparky/EEfz6 (depending on which bike list you know him from). His actual name is Dustin, and he has two delightful young children. We all went to a steakhouse for dinner, and then spent the evening chatting, along with making sure the kids did their homework, and playing with the dog.

Final mileage for the day: 194616 -- 165 miles done.
Next couple of days planned to be 700-milers to get to NH; little time to stop.
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Day 10 -- Tuesday 11Oct11

Got up way too early, as he had to get the kids up and off to school before going to work. I had a longer than average day to go, though, and it was raining, so it was good to get moving early. We had a nice breakfast at a local café. And fortunately the rain let up while we ate, so from then on up AL and into TN, it was just intermittent showers, not serious. It cleared up a little before Nashville, and was nice the rest of the day.

It’s probably some sort of cosmic crime against man and nature to travel through Nashville without stopping. But for a music fan like me, stopping even for “just a moment” would probably result in the whole schedule for the trip being defenestrated. Since I was expected at work in NH the day after next, I had to just go through and vow to visit there for real in the future.

The countryside was pretty, and in TN and KY I started to see fall colors arriving. Kentucky was pretty, and had lots of signs for interesting things to stop and see -- oddly, more than any other state I rode through. From the Corvette museum and factory, to Lincoln’s boyhood haunts, to bourbon distilleries, and so on. I’ll have to go back and see some of that stuff some time, too.

Felt like the clutch was slipping just a little bit, so I kept the speed down and babied it a little just to be sure.

Stayed at my ex’s in WV for the night, which was great. There are reasons we are not together anymore, but there are also reasons we got together in the first place and those reasons are also still valid. We have kept sight of that, so we have been able to stay good friends. We went out to dinner, and talked too late into the night.

Final mileage for the day: 195306 -- 690 miles done.
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Day 11 -- Wednesday 12Oct11

Stayed too late hanging out and talking in the morning; didn’t get rolling until 1230h. Which, given over 700 miles for the day to go, over parts of 7 states, and in wet weather, meant probably getting to NH in the wee hours of the morning. Oh well.

And then I could feel that my clutch was definitely slipping some, and there were mountains here which did not help. But there are not Duc mechanics on every corner in WV, so I had no choice but to ride carefully, keep the throttle easy, and see what happens.

What happened is that I got about 100 miles and it gave out in Maryland. Harumph. So I left it on the highway shoulder there, and started walking back to the last exit, about ½ mile away. I did have my cellphone, and AAA coverage, but I didn’t know where I was well enough to tell the towing service where to find me, and had no idea where I needed to get towed to. Plus I figured that if it took the tow a while to get there, it would better to wait inside a building, instead of by the highway in the rain.

Final mileage for the day: 195408 -- 102 miles done.

Not far along, a car stops; a fellow rider offering help. He gave me a lift to the exit there, where there was a gas station/mini-mart/sandwich shop, and used his phone-gizmo-thingie to search for the closest Ducati dealer. Search: WV no results found. MD at the other end of the state by the coast. Turned out the closest was European Motorcycles of Pittsburgh, 116 miles away. I have towing coverage for 100 miles, so it’d cost me a little, but not too bad.

It was about 1430h. The helpful man went on his way, and I went inside, ordered lunch, and got on the phone. The dealer said they had someone there until about 1900h, so if I got the tow reasonably quickly, I might be able to get it there before closing.

So next call AAA. The card has two numbers, one for within CA, and the other if I’m traveling outside CA. So I call that one, but turns out to go to CA anyway, and they have to transfer me somewhere else. Which they did -- to a place on the wrong end of WV that was not of any help. So I try again, and they transfer me to the right place, and I tell then where I am and where I need to go, and they say they’ll send a truck.

Next, call the jobsite and tell my nice new boss that I’m not going to be there the next day. Then the wife to let her know what’s happening, and see if she can find me an overnight near the dealership in question. This was where Hotwire failed to be useful, booking me into a place 80 miles from the dealer, which would not work. So she did the old-fashioned search, and found an Econolodge 5 miles from it; that’ll work. I notice at this point that my phone battery is low. And my phone charger was in my luggage, back on the bike half a mile away. Great.

I get off the phone with my wife, and see that I have a voicemail. It’s AAA saying that there’s no truck available to take me to Pittsburgh, so they are sending one to take me to Morgantown WV -- which is 25 miles in the wrong direction and there is no one there that will have any parts to fix my bike. So I call them back and say no, I do not want a truck that will take me somewhere useless. Find me a truck that will take me where I need to go, even if it takes a while. They say OK they will do that. I tell them to have that truck pick me up first at the gas station, and then we’ll go get the bike. They call back in a bit and say the truck will be there in half an hour.

45 minutes later, a tow truck pulls into the station, with my bike already on it. Not what I asked them to do, but OK, I climb in. And he gets on the highway going south. “This isn’t the way to Pittsburgh”. “Pittsburgh? I was sent to take you to Morgantown.” “Fuck.” He says this is the only flatbed that was available, and it’s not going to Pittsburgh, and there’s a Honda dealer there that they think can work on Ducatis. I could see that the truck is pretty dilapidated, and sounds like its own clutch wasn’t too long for this world, so that was where we were going now. The driver is a nice young man, and really sorry about the situation, and really did want to be helpful, and it’s not really his fault that he was sent out with instructions to do the wrong thing. But damn, this is not helping much.

We get to the Honda dealer in Morgantown, and while he unloads the bike, I go in to the service department, and get laughed at. The manager says they don’t even think about working on “off-brands” until the slow season. Basically, I could leave it and they’d look at it some time in December.

So I go out and tell the driver that this is completely unsuitable, and I still need a tow to Pittsburgh, which is now 140 miles away. It’s now 1730h, so I’m not going to get to the dealership in Pittsburgh before they close, but I still need to get there tonight so they can work on it first thing and I can try to only miss one day of work. Plus if I don’t get there, then I have to find a place to stay in Morgantown, and I have already booked the room at the Econolodge, and it would be really annoying to wind up paying for three different motel rooms for one night.

He gets on the phone, and does make a good effort, and finally tells me that the good flatbed is on a call now, but will come get me next, and should be there in 45 minutes. He leaves the motorcycle loading dolly and the toolbox with all the tiedowns with my bike there, which does make me feel better that they really will send the other truck, and off he goes. The Honda dealer is open until 1900h, so that gives me some leeway if the truck takes longer than expected. So I hang out and read magazines and chat with the salesguys, etc.

Until they close at 1900h, and my truck isn’t there yet. Since it was raining again, they were nice enough to unlock a pickup so I could sit in a dry place while I continued to wait. My phone is almost dead; I know it doesn’t have enough electrons to go through the inevitable “please holds” that calling AAA again would entail, so I give my wife a call and ask her to see if she can find out what the hell is going on. She used to be an executive assistant, so she knows how to find things out and get things done and kick a few asses that need kicking. She calls back in a bit and tells me that AAA was very apologetic and they know they screwed this up, and yes there is a truck on the way. Which pulls up right then, so I thank her and get off the phone so we can get rolling again. It is now 2000h. This driver was also very nice, and his wife was along for the ride as well for some reason. We loaded up and headed out (finally) north. Dropped the bike on the dealership porch, he gave me a lift to the Econolodge, and they did not charge me any money, so that was something.

Ultimately, yes they did get me taken care of, and yes I’d have been a lot worse off if I hadn’t had the service. But 2240h. Over 8 hours to get the tow done. That’s imperfect.
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Day 12 -- Thursday 13Oct11

Taxi over to European Motorcycles pretty soon after they open; they’ve already got the bike up on the stand and working on it. The clutch plates are pretty fried, the throwout bearing is completely frozen (the most likely root cause), and the bushing at the end of the pushrod shaft is bored out by the pushrod spinning (which it’s not supposed to do; that’s what the throwout bearing is for). I sit/wander around for a couple hours, reading magazines and looking at bikes. They get it buttoned up before noon -- cool, maybe I’ll only miss the one day of work. I pay the bill, get on it and head up the road. The clutch is transmitting power just fine, but it isn’t *dis*engaging very well. So I wrestle it back to the shop. Oops, wrong clutch pack -- there are two that are almost, but not quite identical. They pop in the right one, and off I go again. About half a mile away, the slave cylinder blows its seal out completely. I wrestle it back again, with no ability to disengage the clutch at all -- a task complicated by the fact that the road there is under heavy construction, with blocked off lanes and flagmen and all that.

They do not have a slave cylinder rebuild kit in stock. We brainstorm for a while about solutions. There’s one from another model that can be fitted, that is a better unit, but unfortunately it’s larger in diameter, and isn’t compatible with my shiny new GP-pattern shifting linkage. They call around and find what they need for the stock unit at another PA dealership, and they can overnight the parts. But that’s that for today. I noticed they had a copy of Proficient Motorcycling on sale, and that’s a classic that I’ve been meaning to get for a long time, so I bought that so I had something to read until I was on the road again.

The service manager gave me a lift back to the motel. Call the boss again. The Econolodge is adequate. The restaurant next to it isn’t bad, and stays open until 2300h, so I can eat late as I prefer. Settle in and wait.
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Day 13 -- Friday 14Oct11

Parts didn’t come in the morning shipment; they’ll be in at 1600h. Another night at the Econolodge. Doing laundry, as I didn’t bring enough clothes for the extra days. Reading Proficient Motorcycling. Trying to find a decent radio station. Not even trying to find something worthwhile on TV.
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Day 14 -- Saturday 15Oct11

Fixed!!!! In addition to the slave cylinder seal, the clutch pushrod had been worn about in inch shorter than originally supplied, so in all they had to replace pretty much the whole actuation mechanism. It’s a wonder that it was working at all before; it was messed up. The mechanic took it for a good vigorous test ride to be sure. He noted that he was impressed that the engine pulls hard and doesn’t feel worn or tired, and that the suspension is firm and working well. No surprise in the rear, with the new Ohlins there, but the forks are the originals (other than fork seal replacements) and are unmodified other than that I run a slightly thicker fork oil than original.

I pack up and head off, getting on the road about 1100h. It’s raining, pretty cold, and very windy, with gusts at 40mph+. Since I have Sunday in reserve, I decide that I won’t force it; I’ll ride all the way if I feel OK, but if it’s too late or too dangerous before I get there, I’ll stop somewhere.

Fortunately it was only miserable for the first couple of hours. I stopped for a while at the first gas stop to add another layer of clothing, get a big cup of hot coffee, etc. By the time I left, the weather had cleared some, and from there on it wasn’t so bad. Rain was intermittent and never heavy, and it was chilly but not really cold. Still windy, though, the whole way back.

I felt fine, though, so I just powered it all the way back -- PA, NY, CT, MA, and NH. Got to Portsmouth about 2300h.

Final mileage for the day: 196143 -- 735 miles done for the day -- 4292 miles done for the trip.
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Sunday 16Oct11

Moving day. I had left my stuff in the garage at the new place, but hadn’t moved in yet. So I set up my living space, then dove into the 547 e-mails that had piled up during the previous two weeks.
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Monday 17Oct11

Back to work. Everything is OK; boss understands how things happen, I still have the job. That’s good.

[tcormier]

Started reading. Bookmarked at Barber. Can't wait to resume in the morning! Great write up Phil! It was great meeting you, and sorry you had a hard time leaving Austin, the roads can be difficult (as you recall, I got lost myself trying to find the Hula Hut lol)!

[Builtgypsy]

What a hell of a trip. Glad to hear there was a whole lot more good than bad in it.

Wish I would have known about the Barber museum when I spent a long weekend in Huntsville a few years ago. Looks absolutely amazing:
Barber : Home

[acalliste]

The Barber Museum is amazing. Lauren and I spent a few hours wandering around in there and I still want to go back and look more.

Phil, epic story, thanks for sharing! I really like Jondrea too (from what I know if him online), glad you got to meet him.