Buell Is Dead

A surprising announcement from Erik Buell:




I liked Buell's innovations and his motorcycles, with their extra tall seats fascinated me, rugged, tough and low maintenance, they were smart and far beyond the chrome covered toys many Americans seem to prefer. I thought of them as rider's bikes. Oh well. No government bail outs for this deserving company apparently. Socialism for the banks and free markets for everyone else as we roll, Buell-less, into the Brave New World.

Easy Rider

It's a bit over the top I think, to see Easy Rider as redefining culture, whatever that means. The film came out forty years ago and it's young actors have matured into gray and wrinkly old men and because Hollywood likes to capitalize on whatever it can, I guess this must have seemed like a good time to make us all watch this seminal film one more time while Peter Fonda:...and Dennis Hopper are still alive and coherent and able to talk about it:
Hopper is seen here wearing his absurd broad brimmed hat which mysteriously stayed glued to his head throughout this motorcycle road movie. Aside from these two there was also, briefly, a short scene featuring Phil Spector as a drug dealer in an equally absurd hat. This would be the same Spector recently convicted of murdering his wife. Talk about strange trips, man.
In a documentary about the making of the movie, that was included in the rental DVD, Fonda pointed out that Spector got the role because he already had a Rolls Royce and a bodyguard (the man in the black fez seen above) and saved them the bother of hiring extra players and props. This movie may have "changed forever the way America looks at itself" but let's not forget it was made on a shoestring budget of $360,000.

I can see why people in the industry have voted Easy Rider as one of the best movies of all time, the American Film Institute says it's number 84 on the list which suits me. I saw this movie for the first time in an English speaking theater in Rome possibly in the Fall of 1980. I was planning my epic road trip across America on a Vespa 200 and I saw the poster for the movie on the street. I wondered if I should use a Harley instead of a puny Vespa but practicality won out, as it always has in my life. An Italian had made a name for himself traveling to Japan on a Vespa and Roberto Patrignani's trip influenced me a lot more than these two drug addicts...I had a grand time, seen here in Mexico, traveling light and unencumbered by drugs, luggage or an image to keep up. I was 23 and life was a chemical-free trip: The story is simple enough. Two men, Wyatt (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper) make a cocaine trade to raise a wad of cash for a trip to visit Mardi Gras in New Orleans. That the action of the film takes just a week is often lost in discussions about the film. There is no hiding the fact that this was a western, two men riding across the deserts of Arizona, on location, and camping out enjoying the stars and philosophical discussion.It's enough to light a fire under the most sedentary among us. The thing about the movie is that it keeps moving, and though that seems like a cliché, too many films, especially road films get encumbered by too much plot. There isn't any exposition in Easy Rider, Billy always calls Fonda's character by his nickname "Captain America" and we know nothing about these guy's past, how they met or what they do for a living. The story, probably because the film went largely unscripted, is sparse and because of that it really works.There's so much trivia surrounding the legend of the making of the film and there are websites in abundance to fill in the stories that it seems rather tedious of me to repeat them here. The story is just a road trip on motorcycles meeting hippies and disaffected bourgeois and mad rednecks as they ride. Along the way they end up in jail, as seen above, where they meet George Hanson, famously played by the third actor selected for the role, another young'un unmistakable as a Southern Good Ol' Boy in Texas:Jack Nicholson's character outlines the message of the movie, the search for freedom from artificial restraints in about two lines. You either get it or you don't and the message is so simple and broad that anyone can subscribe. Of course freedom has it's limits (!) in the land of the free where conformity is an over-arching requirement:The documentary comments of Fonda and Hopper about the café scene are very funny and very poignant at the same time. They recruited locals, they say, to film this confrontation between the freedom lovers and the bourgeois conformists and they insist the emotions played out here were real and again, unscripted. Indeed the famous acid tip in the cemetery in New Orleans apparently got far more attention in the planning and execution stages of the film:I remembered this scene as dragging on and on, but when I saw it most recently, like every section of the trip I found it much shorter and sharper than it had lived on in my memory. The pacing of the film really made it work for me. Less talk, more movement.One of the few new/old facts that came out in this 40th year bonanza of attention was the role played by the African American chopper builder in Los Angeles, called Ben Hardy. I don't think he got much, if any credit at the time but today he has found his place in the lore of the movie, if a little late.It is well known today that there were two of each bike built at the time and the survivors of the movie experience all disappeared even before the movie itself was in theaters. Fonda got the heavily chopped bike as he was a more experienced rider, but nobody denies the bikes, as portrayed, were the next best thing to unrideable over any distance at all. The impossible riding position, lack of suspension, lack of luggage (!), no front brakes(!!), made them icons, not true traveling machines...In 1969, and even 1980 when I first saw the movie, Harley Davidsons, even ones straight from the factory, were neither reliable nor modern. People point out that Harleys haven't changed much over the decades but they have evolved enormously, and whether you want to ride one or not today, a modern Harley is a low maintenance tenacious marvel of ride-ability. That most owners don't chalk up the miles on their machines is their problem, not the problem of the motorcycles which use hydraulic, maintenance free tappets, maintenance free belt drive,and low horsepower, low stress motors capable of holding the speed limit for decades without stopping. If only their owners could. In those days Harelys were leaky, wheezy, inept vibrating machines surviving on cult status alone.And that's what Easy Rider expresses for all of us bourgeois freedom seeking conformists. If you are bottling up a long distance ride I suggest you get it out of your system before you are too old, too tired, too beaten down by the search for freedom. Yeah, I know it's scary, but that's the whole point isn't it?

Cold Front

It rained on and off Saturday morning, with rolling thunder for accompaniment, and scattered sunny intervals to remind us that rain doesn't persist into drizzle on a normal rainy day in the Keys.It was a weather event that marks the transition in the keys from summer to winter, from the hot and humid season to the cool and dry winter. Rainy season is in the summer, and winter rains are usually brief, well defined, and predictable because the downpour precedes the arrival of the cold front from the north. In winter the days are usually sun and warm 80 degrees/30C is warm in winter by most standards. Then before the arrival of a cold front the weather gets muggy and close and everyone walks around sweating and complaining. The winds go to the south, and then the west and then the north-west or north, clocking round till the big black clouds arrive and pound down some rain and wind and blow quickly away.
Then the winds revert to their winter norm of north east first for a few bright sparkling sunny days and then Southeast before the cycle starts again. This is the first well defined cold front of the Fall and pretty soon swimming in the ocean will be an activity reserved to polar bears from Up North as water temperatures will drop to their winter averages well below 80 degrees. A lot of people have been looking forward to this transition thanks to an unusually long hot summer with temperatures well above the norm. Me? I am glad I live someplace where I don't dread the onset of winter anymore, no more long gray drizzly days with mud and lashings of frost. Cool, dry and sparkling sun is quite bearable in the long run. The rain has caused me to reflect on a few things. We went to see Michael Moore's new film when it arrived at the Tropic Cinema Friday night, and as usual I learned a few things and had my prejudices reinforced. My wife told me over dinner about one of her kid's single mothers who lost eight hours of work at her Dion's store and is desperately looking for work to make up the difference and can't find any. Which was one of the themes of Moore's movie, the dictatorship of the workplace, where it's easy to dump workers to keep profits rising. I got out of retail when i discovered that managers are paid in proportion to the profits they make, creating a store that operates in minimal, high stress staffing levels so the boss gets a bonus from the owner. And people rag on me for working for the government.
The designation of US Highway One as an All-American Highway seems like another empty gesture, and it's got the tourism people hopping up and down as though now visitors will notice one an unusual road the Overseas Highway really is. I must say the voices I've heard from Congress demanding a public option in the health care debate seem to be pretty loud this time around so I'm hoping they aren't an empty gesture. I go back to the start of the economic crisis and continue to wonder why Congress didn't spend $12 trillion to pay off every mortgage in the country instead of spending $13 trillion to bail out the banks that are back at their shenanigans again! Especially in light of the platitudes expressed about consumers being the engine of the economy. Oh and, what happened to the notion of regulating these banksters? And I've heard that in Illinois vehicle registrations have gone up $30 a year (they doubled in Florida). Now that is something to cause any red blooded taxpayer to get mad at the government! Don't bother getting mad at the privately run banks and insurance and chemical monopolies and their taxpayer subsidies! It's easier to rag on about the President's birth certificate.

Well, at least I don't have to hock my testicles to buy heating oil this winter.

Bad Boy Burrito

I have lamented previously the absence of California-Mexican food in Key West, and my wife and I tend to have rather tedious conversations from time to time, as old married couples do, about what we miss from our previous life in Santa Cruz, California."Taqueria Vallarta!" she shouts, as predictable as the sunrise in the east. Burritos were a staple of my impecunious youth in California, a flour wrap for gringos containing all the important food groups, beans, rice, lettuce and meat, sour cream and some form of tingling spice. A burrito is comfort food for my wife and I, a memory of our youth. So when Bad Boy Burrito opened it's hole-in-the-wall operation on Simonton Street I needed to go check it out.
It is a totally tubular operation (man), a narrow cave, which is apparently all the space you need to create a burrito. I should point out burritos are a totally gringo invention. If you dare go south of the border to the land that reputedly brought us swine flu, street food consists only of tacos, corn meal discs laid flat and covered with the ingredients selected. The notion that one might take a huge flap of flour tortilla and roll everything inside is purely North American, and what a beautiful invention it is! In Ciudad Juarez where they were invented, apparently, they were just single ingredient tacos rolled up for convenience. To have a babe serving behind the counter is just an added convenience, as it were and it was kind of her to smile for the camera after she got tired of making goofy poses.Bad Boy Burrito to me is an interesting mix of California style in presentation, and Key West Cuban ingredients rather than what one expects in a California burrito. The use of basmati rice is interesting, especially combined with black beans in the classic Cuban moros y cristianos, and because burritos can be anything you want them to be, I'm not saying this is in any way wrong or unappealing. It was entirely new and delicious in a familiar wrap.
Alongside the burritos you get smoothies and salads on offer and everything looks magnificent. Even the art:Everything is made to order as it has to be when you are encouraged to mix and match whatever you want, and hands were flying to fill the order of a Buell rider I met outside the restaurant:
Steve wanted shrimp but the young owner came up and said he didn't yet have any shrimp fresh today, he only had left overs from yesterday and he "wasn't going to put them in a burrito today." Which was a principled stand that impressed me. I ordered with confidence.
The only seating arrangements in Bad Boy Burrito are these stools which overlook the street and First State Bank across the way. Motorcycle parking is out front as there is a conveniently painted yellow curb so one could eat a fresh burrito, read the paper while perched on a stool while still keeping an eye out for passing parking control officers. Multi-tasking at it's most useful.

I secured two steak and sour cream burritos at eight dollars apiece and lofted them back to the dispatch center at the police department. It was my day off but Rachel and I had some catching up to do and we dispatched our food at her work station. Noel, seen in the background fiddling with something, said he wasn't hungry: his loss. This is not a burrito of fond memory that my Radio Station Manager used to bring back from Tacos Moreno when I worked at KUSP-FM in Santa Cruz.

Lance Linares loved those things, al pastor (shepherd's style), dripping grease from the barbecued meat, much more in the Northern Mexican single ingredient style writ large. We the radio staff sat around in silence dripping oil from our chins, imprinting greasy fingerprints on the radio equipment. These burritos are pure 21st century, fresh, bright and perfectly suited to my middle aged revolutionary self. A side of crisp salsa was lurking in the bottom of the bag so I ate it as a relish on it's own, it was too good to pass up:
Our meal totaled out at $16, cash only and I can't wait to get back and try something else. I hope Bad Boy Burrito survives to become a Key West gold plated standard. They have suddenly and single handedly raised the quality of life in a town that still needs a true California-Mexican restaurant. Bad Boy Burrito at 1220 Simonton Street isn't that, but is something all it's own and quite delightful.

Their menu is on-line for all to see:
http://www.badboyburrito.com/

They have a moped and will deliver.

Saddlesore 1000

"Have you ever heard of the Iron Butt Association?" I asked the young lady at the other end of the phone conversation. Really, you'd think they could come up with a different name, especially for times like these, awkward conversations with total strangers. There was a pause, "Er, no," she said cautiously, ready I'm sure to hear something really gross from this nearly 52 year old filthy old man.

"They are a group of people who formed a club for other people who like to ride ridiculously uncomfortable motorcycles absurdly long distances in laughably short amounts of time," I said, "and I want to join." I must be mad was the recurring thought running through my head, as I tried to convince the nice young operator of my Shell Mastercard that there was a reason for me running up the spine of Florida in the middle of the night buying absurdly small quantities of gasoline. We talked for a while and she allowed me to get my gas (with my five percent Shell card discount), once again. And those precious effing receipts. "You be very careful" she told the dirty old man, sounding like she was warning gramps about the dangers of self propelled lawn mowers. "Iron Butt indeed! What was your wife thinking when she let you go?" Well, she's the one who insists we buy Shell gas to get our five percent discount, was what I wanted to say, which is why I am here calling you. Instead of riding. You've just got to keep riding to fulfill the immutable mandate of the Iron Butt. Yeehaw Junction just after sunrise got a photograph only. An enormous breakfast lies less than half a mile away with endless coffee. What do I do? Pee in the bushes and Keep Riding.
The Iron Butt Association is very strict I am told. So my wife, the ex-lawyer got me a manila folder and an envelope and paper clips and a pen and I laid it out in my top case, on top of my backpack. This was the bureaucratic heart of the operation. While I steered up in front, the office in the back of the motorcycle laid down like this, just waiting for the next opportunity for me to get to a gas station where I needed confirmation of my presence.And then, WITHOUT FAIL, I would slip my gas receipt into the envelope and write down what I was doing. For someone like me who is rather lackadaisical with the paperwork of his life, this was sheer hell:Friday night I worked as usual, came home and slept soundly till 1pm. The afternoon dragged on as we watched a video and pottered around as we would normally do. I felt like the condemned man watching the clock ticking inexorably towards "the time." I checked the Highway Patrol website for accidents blocking my intended route: nothing. The weather forecast was perfect, a dome of high pressure over Florida is keeping rain away and temperatures a little higher than normal. Frost around Gainesville was highly unlikely. Bugger!


"I feel like I'm standing on the dock in San Diego," I told my wife and her lips smiled while her eyes got her Public Defender glint of determination no matter the odds. It happened that we were in San Diego in 1998 ready with dogs and boat to cast off down the inhospitable Baja California coast with the Baja Haha Rally and I got seriously cold feet. It seemed like madness, we had money, a place to live, a delightful fall climate- why go? My wife prised my fingers off the dock and we had a great two year sail. I was not getting out of the Iron Butt Saddlesore. That much was clear.I felt sorry for the Bonneville just thinking about what we were going to do together. I should point out that my Iron Butt mechanical preparations consisted of cleaning the chain in my usual way with kerosene and a stiff brush and checking the tire pressures. Oh and worrying that there wasn't enough tread on the rear tire to get me through this without a flat. In which case I would try that stupid can of repair goop I carry then retire defeated and call Triple A. I didn't have to be anywhere till Tuesday morning when the actual Public Defender has subpoenaed me for questioning about something about which I know nothing. (When will they learn dispatchers aren't cops? Grrr). I was figuring that with a mechanical failure I could still be back in Key West by 10am Tuesday if all else failed. I got on the bike and started riding. Without the rider the Triumph looks entirely capable of doing the thing on it's own: I had thought of starting the ride more sensibly at the Hampton Inn in Homestead, at the foot of Florida's Turnpike, which would have meant a two night stay and a day by the pool for my long suffering wife. Instead I started from home, less expensively, figuring Saturday evening the tourists would have arrived and the drunks would be starting their nightly binge. Of course I met eight of the slowest drivers in Christendom in the least passable parts of the Highway and my average for the first 100 miles was something absurd like 23 miles per hour. Oh well I thought, that was predictable and now for the Turnpike, 310 miles of open road, 70mph speed limits largely ignored and a reliable chain of 24 hour gas stations to carry me swiftly to Ocala...Which was not at all how things started out. When finally I got on the Turnpike at dusk all I could see was a long, long line of red tail lights. Oh dear, I said to myself this won't do, perhaps I should break the law. Well honestly what else could I do? Give up? Instead I started lane splitting and immediately remembered why I never much liked it even in California where it's legal. Cutting between cars is easy in countries like Italy where it's expected, but in a place like Florida where road rage is taught in Elementary School as a God Given Right and guns are handed out with less controversy than condoms, cutting between cars is a noxious activity. I got my just desserts when I arrived at the Snapper Creek service station (Mile 19) and found a humongous line at the men's loo. I was bursting and that's why this picture is so crappy (pardon the pun):I filled up with gas and remembered to file the cursed receipt. I was so nervous about standing around I forgot to drink water or to wash the windshield and I got back into the traffic flow. The little white box in the windshield of the bike (the picture doesn't enlarge for whatever reason) is the transponder for the Sunpass system which I took out of the Nissan and was a total lifesaver at the myriad toll booths. I don't understand why everyone doesn't have one of these boxes, you can buy them for free for $5 with five dollars worth of tolls already in them. You need a credit card with $25 worth of charges loaded up and they recharge it for you automatically as needed. Welcome to the cash free world of the Florida Turnpike.This was it pretty much, all the gas stations on the Turnpike, roughly every 50 miles, are run by Shell which works for me. They are right there, next to the left lane, and they are guaranteed to be open with food and clean restrooms. For this kind of non-sightseeing traveling the Turnpike is God's Gift to the Iron Butter. Oh and those effing receipts come out crisp and clean and easy to read. With my name on them to boot.The iron Butt people say not to waste time in gas stations because you do better with "quality time" somewhere else. and they may be right but gas stations worked for me. There is unfortunately a severe shortage of places to sit at the Turnpike Service areas so next time (!) I will bother to bring my own cumbersome folding chair. One of those models with folding footrests.Around one am I stopped in the bizarrely named Okahumpka Service Area (Mile 299 of the Turnpike, 400 miles from home) for a not so delicious sandwich and a banana, poor substitutes for one of my wife's delicious dinners. I avoided caffeine until I could stand it no longer around 10 am the next day when I was jolted back to life for the last two hundred miles. I snacked on cold water, crackers and granola bars and drank a few vitamin powders thoughtfully provided by she-who-must-be-obeyed ("I don't mind if you fall off, but if you get sick it will be your own fault" or looks to that effect). I could have used a large bowl of pasta washed down by a couple of glasses of red wine followed by a deep soft mattress surrounded by air conditioning.The great benefit of crossing Florida in the middle of the night is that the unwashed masses are mostly busy snoring. There are no lines, no crowds, nobody around checking up on you which would be useful later when I just had to get some sleep. Motorcycles were almost non existent at that hour as the ass-less-chap-brigade are busy snoring away the night in their suburban fastness, ready to awake refreshed in the morning to terrorize the popular imagination. Meanwhile I had finished with the gruesome roadworks around Orlando which were full of mismatching surfaces and lane shifts and barricades all taken at 70 miles per hour (112km/h) while trying not to think what would happen to my body if I fell off here as I had in Big Coppitt last June.I cannot imagine the tedium of spending all night sitting in your car being "security" for rest areas. They had some unpleasantness in rest areas in North Florida a decade ago and to prevent more murders they instituted police patrols. I've never had a problem in all my travels with being attacked or anything. I don't carry a gun because in my mind, two badly trained amateurs re-hashing the OK Corral gunfight is probably a lot worse for all concerned than handing over your wallet, calling your wife for cash, and getting on with the rest of your life. All good things come to an end, as do a few of the unpleasant ones as well. Lake City loomed in the distance after I covered a hundred miles of Interstate 75 which joins with the end of the Turnpike just south of Ocala. According to Google maps I was 508 miles from home. Good enough for me and it had better be good enough for the paper pushers at IBA. I was cold and grumpy at this point. North Florida didn't disappoint with hills and dips into which some filthy minded person had dumped tons of cold damp fog. I do not like fog and I was getting more of it than I needed or cared for thank you. This picture shows, rather inadequately the yellow halo around the huge street lights that illuminate the off ramps on I-75. Trust me, it was cold damp fog:The Shell station that I scoped out on Google Street View was closed so I went to the nearest alternative, an Exxon. The East Indian attendant came out of his booth to watch me fill up, fill in the tedious log and wash the wind shield and on and on. "Ah, so you are photographing yourself are you?" he asked, making me feel like some actor in a post modern script less play with an audience of one. "And vhat kind of camera is it you are using?" He put me off my stroke so I cut off my own head and such were my feelings at the time I wanted to do the same to him. I was wearing the bulkiest clothes I owned and I was cold, Lake City exit was miserable and the gas station needed a good clean up. I felt like I was back in India like when I was a child, an object of curiosity to be observed and picked apart, after all we are rich and they are poor. He stood in his tweed jacket, his hands tucked behind his back, his skin as wrinkled as parchment and watched me, silently. "Lake City is boring at this hour eh? " I said trying to find something to break the silence. I imagined he might have been a professional man in Uttar Pradesh and I wondered what twist of fate brought him here. He nodded, which in India means "No" but looking around at the cool dark emptiness I had to believe he meant "Yes" as he must have become Westernized by now, I figured. I bought a bottle of water, poured the Emergencee vitamin powder into it and sucked on the bottle morosely, wondering when my wanderlust would please abate. And now I have to ride 505 miles home down the same damned roads.As I was leaving I spotted a police car parked in the shadows. I rolled over, took off my helmet and gloves and holding my hands well visible walked up to the startled Deputy Joyner, one of Columbia County's finest. I had to start the conversation with the by-now well used formula of asking people if they know about Iron Butts, which of course they don't. Honestly, it makes you sound depraved at 3:30 in the morning. He graciously signed my log and promised to drop by to exchange patches if he ever showed up in Key West (note to self: carry patches on next Iron Butt), though after this encounter I doubt Key West and it's iron butts will figure high on his family's list of desirable vacation destinations. Having confused two upright citizens of Lake City, Florida, I made like a leaf and blew.

Oh, those long dark miles, hum-de-dum, the Bonneville rolling along impeccably, just like we were on a high speed commute to somewhere important. Funnily enough I didn't get bored on this trip, perhaps it was the need to accomplish a goal, or it was the time distance calculations, or perhaps it is the night habits I have fallen into working night shift at the police station, but I found the ride quite enjoyable. Perhaps too, the goal of completing the ride liberated me from other considerations. I wasn't sight seeing, I wasn't here to take photographs (early on in the ride I put the camera in its case in my backpack and locked it in the top case). Photos were bonus but they weren't the motivation. I was just here to ride the motorcycle and that was in some sense liberating.

Let's face it, Florida roads aren't what a lot of motorcyclists crave, but as freeways go, the toll booth littered Turnpike is pretty good. When the sun came up I started to feel tired because I am usually falling asleep at that hour. I had napped under some bushes for half an hour back at Turkey Lake Service Area, but it wasn't enough, I was nodding off again. So I stopped near an embankment where the shoulder was wider and I stepped outside the guardrail. The bank was steep and when I laid down, fully dressed, I was about vertical. Such was my exhaustion I kicked my heels into the grass and dirt and pressed my shoulders into the ground. I set the alarm on my cell phone for twenty minutes and faded to black.

A passing truck woke me up 15 minutes later and I lay there looking at the blue sky thinking "This is absurd, I am lying here like a survivor on the slopes of Everest and I am feeling refreshed. What's happening to me?" Was I enjoying the sleep deprivation experiment? I had watched Martin Breashear's documentary of the deadly 1996 expedition to Mount Everest, Storm Over Everest, and thinking about Buck Weather's travails put mine in perspective.

I was stopping too often at this stage, though this was only the second time I stopped for pictures (the other was for the attempt to illustrate the fog) but I am fond of Yeehaw Junction as I used to stop there all the time when I was riding across Florida to escape Tampa on the weekends. By now it was daylight and people started to appear on "my" Turnpike, flooding the road and parking lots and when I stopped for coffee at a gruesome service area I managed to get yelled at by a diminutive mother of one who was standing in line with her daughter. She was a young black woman with her head in braids standing next to one who I ASSumed was her younger sister and I thought they were together with the regular sized black woman ordering at the counter. I didn't half get grief from her when I suggested she move up the line. I perhaps should have yelled back or wrung her neck or something but all I could think was, in 200 miles I get my life back, while you've got to get on with yours until you drop dead. I just hope she was older than she looked, but she looked 15 with a five year old in tow, and I hope for the kid's sake she finds better ways to relieve her stress. Remind me again, why do people have kids? Or more to the point why do people ride 1013 miles in 20 hours and 51 minutes?I wasn't sure how I felt about the experience when I got home. Relieved yes and in surprisingly good physical shape. My right hand could have used a throttle lock for sure and it was cramping a bit, but for the rest I was fine. My wife took me to her personal trainer last week and she showed me some stretches I could use while stopped. I actually adapted them for use while i was riding and they worked wonders. I highly recommend getting a pro to teach you how to stretch and getting limber enough to do them (while stationary is the sensible way of course). I was sleepy that's for sure and I wanted something decent to eat and a glass of wine to go with it. First we went for a swim then I got steak and mashed cauliflower (like potatoes with no calories to speak of) and some cabernet franc to finish me off.Inside that gear is one very sweaty tired human being. The Bonneville looked ready to do it all over again except for the rear tire which is pretty much finished:

People always like to know how one prepares for these trips and I did very little as outlined above. I wanted to do the ride from my home and back with the motorcycle that is my daily rider. I used the Loobman chain oiler of course and the chain still seems fine after more than 32,000 miles of service. I carried a thermos flask of water for emergencies (if I got a flat and had to sit by the road in Florida's heat) and some crackers and granola bars, along with the few tools I carry anyway in the left saddle bag. In the other saddle bag I added a blanket and my winter gloves (which I never sued as it happens) to the waterproofs that live in this bag. I had my Florida map along with me but I never needed to consult it as I knew the route backward. For a first shot the Turnpike was an excellent basis for a Saddlesore ride. Certainly riding 1,000 miles in one direction would have made the second half more interesting but for my first time out I was pleased with the timing of the ride and selection of the route. Riding at night is a lot easier for me and I did it without harnessing portions of the solar system to my bike to make the world a brighter place...I understand the need for documentation which doesn't make me feel any less ridiculous when I am at a gas station filling in a pilot's log in front of God and Everybody. I hope it satisfies the compulsives at IBA and if it doesn't I shall have a good story to tell at their expense.

What I really want to next is to ride up to the middle of nowhere and wait for the sun to rise. In my urgent need to complete 1,000 miles I missed some truly astonishing pictures of fog lying across the Florida fields in amazing whorls and loops and the sunrise was as always, quite excellent over land as over water in this astonishing state that is Florida. I recommend seeing it at your pace and if that happens to be an average 42.7 miles per hour over 24 hours you can consider you butt to be made of iron.