First 10000 miles
I have just returned from a solo motorcycle trip to VA. The point of the trip was mostly to visit Mel and have some fun with her down in her neck of the woods, but we got in some fun twisty road riding through VA, WV, and MD as well. Much fun was had.
I'm really glad that I bit the bullet just under 2 years ago and took the motorcycle class. I now have over 7100 miles on the ninja, and that combined with the sportster mileage puts me just over 10000 motorcycle miles under my belt. I wish I'd taken the class much sooner - heck I am not sure I ever would have purchased a car if I had. I'm amazed how much more practical some hard case luggage makes the bike. Just the topcase alone makes things like shopping on the bike much more viable, plus daily stuff is more pleasant as you can leave all your gear on your motorcycle safely locked up while you do whatever it is you were setting out to do off of the bike.
Anyway, back to the trip.
I am not sure if I have acquired some "northern reserve" after living in Boston for so long or what - but I could not get over how outgoing people were in VA. It went beyond ridiculous. The typical comment from women (and a few guys..) we encountered was either "I've always wanted to do that" "You girls are my heroes!" or "Isn't that scary??" Mel and I made some honest attempts at spreading the motorcycle love there, and encouraging people to give it a shot. On the flip side...I'm really lucky I was so shocked by the comments from men that most of the time all I could do was stare incredulously or ask if people were serious. I can't even tell you how many people asked us things like "did you girls ride those all by yourselves?" or other comments along those lines.
To give an idea of how invasive it was at times - when I first arrived in Winchester VA, Mel and I had agreed to meet up at a Waffle House right off the highway so she could lead me back to her place. There was a bit of delay in Mel arriving there, so I had about 20 minutes to myself before she got there. I decided that would be a good time to take care of the chain on my bike and straighten out my top case while I was waiting for her. In that span of 20 minutes, I had no less than 5 different men approach me - all with various comments about being alone by myself, that's a big bike, and my favorite "Wow you can handle all that bike by yourself?" No, dumbass, I just rode 544 miles completely out of control the whole way. Heh. I realize that they were either just trying to start up a conversation or otherwise didn't really mean harm by it, so I wasn't rude. But all I could think when they were asking me this stuff was - Seriously!?!
Mind you, while they were asking these questions I was actively checking out/lubing my chain, my tires, my exhaust, etc. My favorite was when the guy who told me he was a motorcycle expert and told me all about his chopped up harley asked me what I was doing to my chain. For those of you who have never lubed a motorcycle chain - it's much like applying WD-40 to a squeaky door, only it's a chain on a motorcycle and I had to roll my bike back and forth to get the whole thing (no center stand). Point and spray. WTF did he think I was doing?
Anyway..rant about that over.
The trip itself was awesome. I went a little crazy towards the end of the trip down. I hadn't figured out a good way to wear my earphones, so I didn't have music, just earplugs and muffled wind noise. I resorted to playing road games with unsuspecting car drivers, and alternated between singing to myself/talking to myself. Yeah..I have issues. Coming back up with music was much better.
The whole time it was very very hot - when I arrived down there it was around 90 degrees with around 80% humidity. It felt like we were swimming, but it's amazing how nice mesh gear is. I think I would have been a lot hotter if I hadn't been wearing gear, because I would have been in direct sunlight (hello lobster-colored Michele!), and I doubt that I would have been able to sweat enough to have the wind make a difference. At one point I poured a bottle of water over myself for our 20 mile ride back to Mel's house, and was completely dry by the time we got there.
For my ride back up I went and got myself some Under Armour heatgear pants and shirt. What a difference that stuff made! I would go on and on about how awesome the stuff is, but I don't want to bore anyone with the gross details.
Anyway, some trip stats:
mileage total: 1457
day total: 5
Superslab miles: 1088
best mpg: 64
worst mpg: 48
times lost: 1
average temperature: 95f
Route map:
Click to see my highway route.
In other news, I turn 29 soon. Weird!
I'm really glad that I bit the bullet just under 2 years ago and took the motorcycle class. I now have over 7100 miles on the ninja, and that combined with the sportster mileage puts me just over 10000 motorcycle miles under my belt. I wish I'd taken the class much sooner - heck I am not sure I ever would have purchased a car if I had. I'm amazed how much more practical some hard case luggage makes the bike. Just the topcase alone makes things like shopping on the bike much more viable, plus daily stuff is more pleasant as you can leave all your gear on your motorcycle safely locked up while you do whatever it is you were setting out to do off of the bike.
Anyway, back to the trip.
I am not sure if I have acquired some "northern reserve" after living in Boston for so long or what - but I could not get over how outgoing people were in VA. It went beyond ridiculous. The typical comment from women (and a few guys..) we encountered was either "I've always wanted to do that" "You girls are my heroes!" or "Isn't that scary??" Mel and I made some honest attempts at spreading the motorcycle love there, and encouraging people to give it a shot. On the flip side...I'm really lucky I was so shocked by the comments from men that most of the time all I could do was stare incredulously or ask if people were serious. I can't even tell you how many people asked us things like "did you girls ride those all by yourselves?" or other comments along those lines.
To give an idea of how invasive it was at times - when I first arrived in Winchester VA, Mel and I had agreed to meet up at a Waffle House right off the highway so she could lead me back to her place. There was a bit of delay in Mel arriving there, so I had about 20 minutes to myself before she got there. I decided that would be a good time to take care of the chain on my bike and straighten out my top case while I was waiting for her. In that span of 20 minutes, I had no less than 5 different men approach me - all with various comments about being alone by myself, that's a big bike, and my favorite "Wow you can handle all that bike by yourself?" No, dumbass, I just rode 544 miles completely out of control the whole way. Heh. I realize that they were either just trying to start up a conversation or otherwise didn't really mean harm by it, so I wasn't rude. But all I could think when they were asking me this stuff was - Seriously!?!
Mind you, while they were asking these questions I was actively checking out/lubing my chain, my tires, my exhaust, etc. My favorite was when the guy who told me he was a motorcycle expert and told me all about his chopped up harley asked me what I was doing to my chain. For those of you who have never lubed a motorcycle chain - it's much like applying WD-40 to a squeaky door, only it's a chain on a motorcycle and I had to roll my bike back and forth to get the whole thing (no center stand). Point and spray. WTF did he think I was doing?
Anyway..rant about that over.
The trip itself was awesome. I went a little crazy towards the end of the trip down. I hadn't figured out a good way to wear my earphones, so I didn't have music, just earplugs and muffled wind noise. I resorted to playing road games with unsuspecting car drivers, and alternated between singing to myself/talking to myself. Yeah..I have issues. Coming back up with music was much better.
The whole time it was very very hot - when I arrived down there it was around 90 degrees with around 80% humidity. It felt like we were swimming, but it's amazing how nice mesh gear is. I think I would have been a lot hotter if I hadn't been wearing gear, because I would have been in direct sunlight (hello lobster-colored Michele!), and I doubt that I would have been able to sweat enough to have the wind make a difference. At one point I poured a bottle of water over myself for our 20 mile ride back to Mel's house, and was completely dry by the time we got there.
For my ride back up I went and got myself some Under Armour heatgear pants and shirt. What a difference that stuff made! I would go on and on about how awesome the stuff is, but I don't want to bore anyone with the gross details.
Anyway, some trip stats:
mileage total: 1457
day total: 5
Superslab miles: 1088
best mpg: 64
worst mpg: 48
times lost: 1
average temperature: 95f
Route map:
Click to see my highway route.
In other news, I turn 29 soon. Weird!