Driving The Speed Limit

So, the question for me is whether Puerto Ricans, taken as a whole, are imbeciles or mathematical geniuses, and the line between madness and greatness is a fine one. Here's the thing: get into a rental car at the airport and the whole experience is pure US. The rental agent is spiffy in her uniform, even at 3:30 am, cheerful and efficient. The car looks like a US rental, steering wheel on the proper side, speedometer in miles per hour, and the vehicle comes dent and scratch free.

On the road, signage is all American, yellow center lines and white speed limit signs in miles per hour (millas por hora, I suppose), and then you notice the mile markers- in kilometers! What the hell? Distances are in metric? Then, eventually you go to fill up and it just gets worse. The first weird thing you'll notice is that the octane rating sticker is cross hatched with a blade to make it impossible to remove so the operator can't sell you regular for premium. Like any other state Puerto Rico's office of weights and measures certify that the pumps spew gas at the indicated rate, but the pumps are calibrated in liters- actually in litres. The average price for regular was about the same as the mainland, around 75 cents ( which at 4 litres to the US gallon equals a tad under $3.00).

I'm fussy about these kinds of things and my mind is reeling. I'm measuring speed in mph, distances in kilometers and measuring my gas in liters while cars are rated at mpg. Its a system of such mind boggling complexity one can only assume that Puerto Rican drivers are geniuses at mental arithmetic, all of them, or more likely they just don't much care. This alone would make me crazy were I to live on the island. A solid decade of prosperity has changed a lot of things on the island and driving habits are among them. There are malls, sprouting to service new housing developments and traffic signals everywhere to slow traffic to a crawl. Certainly the population has increased to about 4 million and the island is still only 100 miles long (160 kilometers I suppose) and half as wide making it the highest density neighborhood in the Caribbean. However Puerto Ricans seemed more friendly and relaxed than I remembered them. Perhaps it was the time of year, which was the end of hurricane season yet not quite crazy tourist time so people were less stressed.

Most chose not to run traffic lights and very few passed on the shoulder when we were driving the expressway (autopista). Most surprising of all was the way everyone obeyed the speed limit, which was ridiculously slow, 55 or 60 mph.Motorcyclists, almost all of whom rode Suzuki Hayabusas ("the fastest production motorcycle in the world"- possibly) helped to make me feel a little less lonely at the front of the pack of slow moving cars. I developed a theory that people drove slowly because they liked to make the island feel bigger. After all one could drive from Fajardo clear across to Mayaguez on more-or-less four lane expressways in three hours, easily. On a Hayabusa in two, and at either end there is nothing but open ocean.

This was also I am proud to announce one motoring trip where I never got pulled over. This summer I was nabbed in Croatia doing 74 in a 50 (kph) and only avoided a fine by the skin of my teeth. I also got pulled over for doing 50 in a 30 (mph) on Grand Cayman and got off with a warning. However my pride at not getting stopped is tempered somewhat by the odd nature of Puerto Rican policing which for reasons known only to themselves requires police cars to drive around in the hours of darkness with their blue lights flashing. This makes concealment difficult, to say the least. And the hordes of early morning drunk drivers take full advantage. That was exciting driving.

I loved the winding twisty roads, the sort of terrain one doesn't see anywhere in Florida, least of all the Keys, and the mountains of Puerto Rico deserve an entry of their own, their beauty is staggering, but for some reason Puerto Rico has more vegetation over their roads than any place else I've driven and it makes the most mundane road delightful.The towns we passed through on the secondary roads exuded a European air that gave the drive an exotic flavor. Churches faced on squares that centered the communities in defiance of the US habit of creating urban agglomerations that are centered on sprawl. The homes were modest for the most part, but I was surprised by the civic spirit that got the Christmas decorations in place so early in the "season" as it were. Yacubo at dawn on Saturday was cheerful with festive lights twinkling overhead.

Even in broad daylight the village of Palmer, the gateway to El Yunque, is a profusion of green, some of it out of control in this overly fertilized island.Motorcycling certainly looked appealing, despite the abundance of holes, countersunk manhole covers and sudden, poorly marked road works. The twists and turns, spectacular views and abundance of destinations made Puerto Rico look like Bonneville country to this Triumph rider. I did actually spot three Vespas (Puerto Rico Vespistas I have no doubt- I am a fan of their occasional website entries) among the multitude of Chinese scooters on the roads and I have been pondering the feasibility of a road trip to Puerto Rico on my own wheels even though Harleys are for rent in San Juan. Air freight to PR anyone? Not all Puerto Rican riders looked self assured though and I always cringe when I see scooter riders in Key West pulling this stunt: Hitting your foot on the ground as you roll along is an excellent way to walk with a limp for the rest of your life. At least he was complying with the new Puerto Rico motorcycling rules (since suspended temporarily) requiring all riders to wear protective clothing with additional dorky reflective vests at night. The Puerto Rican Legislature has now decided to hear from actual motorcycle riders about the best way to reduce roadway casualties. Education would be my bet.

Driving a car was fun but riding a motorcycle... I was almost glad to get home and prep the Bonneville to resume commuting.

Oil Coral and Sewage

San Francisco Bay is still smeared with more than 40,000 gallons of ships fuel that spilled from the China Overseas Shipping Corporation ship Busan, which hit a bridge piling and split open one of its fuel tanks. I listened on NPR to frantic volunteers trying to help clean up some of the 58,000 gallons that escaped the ship's side a few days ago, and one of the bright sparks suggested something needs to be done to prevent a re-occurrence.

The last such San Francisco Bay accident occurred in 1988, an incident I can't even recall to be honest, and considering the amount of ship's traffic in the Bay its amazing this doesn't happen more often. In the 21st century I find it weird that Chevron has a massive refining plant in urban Richmond, what was once wild East Bay boondocks. The potential for catastrophe is ever present, and the fact that ships aren't crashing all the time is a testament to human ingenuity.

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Just last week federal officials at Fort Jefferson National Park were trying to figure out how much damage a Bahamian freighter had done to the corals after it chose to anchor illegally in the National Park. It struck me as odd, because a century ago that was precisely the Dry Tortugas' purpose- a safe haven in heavy weather for passing ships. The Fort overlooks a deep basin of water, more than 50 feet deep surrounded by islets and reefs. Nowadays the idea is to allow natural growth to flourish in the old shipping haven, and anchoring is not allowed to wreck the coral growth. Interestingly the Park has also become a marine nursery, a place where fish species are allowed to grow and multiply allowing them to be reintroduced to waters where they have been fished to extinction. The federally funded Park 70 miles west of Key West is a national resource though not directly a commercial one.

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The recent report stating unequivocally that human sewage is killing the coral reef in the Keys has prompted more discussion about the federal mandate (unfunded so far) to have the Keys completely sewered by 2010. Everyone knows that's not going to happen on schedule, and switching homeowners from cesspits (that filter nothing in the limestone rock they are built in) to proper sewage treatment is going to cost about $10,000 per household, so thats another source of concern. The hope is that the feds will cough up some cash, but other perhaps more resilient locals argue that we don't deserve federal funds because its our shit, as they so eloquently put it. However it is everyone's reef, and I'd be as sorry to see it destroyed, as I am to see the beaches of San Francisco Bay getting covered in oil. I'm glad my federal dollars are helping with that clean up.

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One nation, all clean and tidy.

Enchanted Island

A weekend in Puerto Rico- que rico! It wasn't so flavorful the last time I was there, fully 14 years ago, a stop over on our honey moon (spent sailing the Grenadines- She has put up with a lot). Naturally because I don't do beach vacations we rented a car and I started driving the hell out of the little island as soon as we landed on Saturday at 4am, Atlantic Time at La Mercedita Airport at Ponce ( pro: Pon-say, not "ponse" as English speakers tend to; in British English that would be suggestive). It was pitch black and my wife and I were tired, not nearly as worn out as the third member of our little troop, a colleague half our age and twice as exhausted, who had never been outside the USA. I know Puerto Rico, la colonia, is part of the US, but it isn't in any cultural terms other than shopping and currency. It was a fine place to step outside oneself, even if only for a short weekend.

In the viewing tower in the Caribbean National Forest.

It was a hallucinogenic drive after arrivng so suddenly from the order and banality of urban South Florida to find ourselves darting through villages, under spreading canopies of imposing trees, dodging drunk drivers, getting lost in picturesque towns with Spanish Colonial plazas and helpful islanders who took pity and kept re-directing our Toyota full of gringos, Spanish speaking its true, but unable to decipher the multiplicity of vague roadsigns.

We found a hotel overlooking the Caribbean, facing east down a slope of green to a deep dark sea below, the island of Vieques on the horizon and we fell asleep Saturday morning. We awoke four hours later, to a world neither my wife nor I remembered, 15 years of prosperity have created a new more self confident, Free Associated State, with cleaner streets, better roads and happier people, it seemed. Our young colleague spent the 48 hours struggling to absorb a culture that she had never even come close to encountering, never having been further from Florida than the venerable state of Oklahoma, which though a fine place in many respects is poor preparation indeed for Puerto Rico, the enchanted island.

The whole weekend was a series of wild trips, El Yunque, San Juan the capital, seen at night, la Ruta Panoramica across the mountains and roast suckling pig eaten under the pines of the highlands, in Cayey, where else? A series of wild postcards, plopped into two very full days living, and a sudden undramatic flight back to Fort Lauderdale before dawn Monday morning with reinsertion into our daily, sub tropical lives. From 90 degrees to 70 degrees in two lofty hours. Here's Cabo Rojo at the southwestern tip of the Island at sunset, as mosquitoes descended in hordes to ravage us. Quick! A Medalla Light for him and a Rum Punch for her to revive their bloodless bodies! You don't see cliffs like these in the Florida Keys.

One excellent feature of my eccentric job is long alternating weekends, one of work followed by one of freedom. This trip was an experiment to see if two red eyes connected by unplanned travel might work. It did, and I have tons of stories and pictures for my diary. Que sabroso!

Paved Road Ends

I rode to the paved end of Blimp Road on Cudjoe Key last weekend and arrived to find the ramp occupied by a bronzed man in a Speedo lounging in a recliner next to his pickup and camper, while his retriever was rooting through the mangroves, all tail, tongue, and bright shiny eyes. I stood at the ramp, in the shadow of the Air Force Blimp overhead, and looked out across the frothing waves kicked up by the continuing northeast winds. There was a small sailboat anchored to one side, bobbing on its mooring, no dinghy in sight so presumably it was just parked there for the summer by an absentee owner.

The spirit of exploration has come upon me in a bad way now that the refreshing breezes have blown away the heat and stultifying humidity, so this is the time of year a middle aged man's fancy turns to thoughts of riding. Now is the time to gird one's loins and find quiet places to roam away from the pervasive presence of the early snowbirds. I found the road to El Dorado in the mangroves of Sugarloaf Key, and I was quite surprised to find it too.

Usually the smoothly paved suburban roadways off Highway One end in a big yellow diamond and an impenetrable thicket of thorns, palmettos and mangroves. On this occasion I stumbled across the words enamoured of "dual sport" riders, pavement ends...and even though it didn't end completely it did deteriorate a great deal after I passed the last house. I bounced about a quarter of a mile and found an enormous series of pot holes, deep, filled with clay and water and lined by thorns and shrubs. It was an obstacle I could barely pass on foot, never mind on my motorcycle. I tiptoed through the mud, leaping in a most undignified manner from rock to stone as they showed above the water line. Around the corner the road stretched away to the horizon. I had to get down there, come what may.

I went back there yesterday, this time armed with a pair of garden clippers, what my step father in England used to call secateurs and with them I stood in the sun and clipped, and clipped, and clipped trying to make a pathway round the holes in the road. I'm pretty sure I'd have made it through the puddles directly easily enough on the Bonneville but I really didn't feel like smearing it in gray clay, one month and 2,000 miles into my ownership. So I ended up doing what any good owner would do, I suppose. I put the machine in gear and walked it round the pothole, of course I slipped and put one foot under water and the other into a nice cool puddle of clay. But the motorcycle was past. So far so good.
I had no idea what was to come, and my paranoia meter was ready to go into overdrive, dope fiends growing their crops, Serbian wackos lining the road, a memory of my drive to Pale recorded elsewhere in this diary, or even just pissed off neighbors wondering what this goofball was doing riding a perfectly decent road bike in this lost place.

None of the above transpired, but the road surface did manage to deteriorate turning to gravel and dried mud with the occasional mesa of raised asphalt rising out of the dirt like a toadstool, remnants of the day when this was actually a valued state road.

It was a glorious day, crisp and sunny, with a deep blue sky overhead, marked only by Fat Albert the blimp still protecting us from Cuban smugglers and illegal immigrants and who knows what else.

The white dot in the sky was a reminder, in this place of silence that I was not really alone. Even though I had managed to forget my cell phone at home, and was thus unable to summon assistance if needed. I was a long way away from anywhere because traffic on Highway One was inaudible, and the speedometer was showing almost two miles from the end of the pavement when I saw a couple of large rocks blocking the road up ahead. "Aha," I thought to myself, this is where I get to go where pick ups, whose tracks marked the mud, could not go. As it turned out I couldn't go either but I had been looking forward to arriving at the south shore of Sugarloaf Key, and not having to retrace my own tracks.

Not even my Bonneville could cross the gap created by the absent bridge, and the tide was swirling quite impressively between the cuts that were all that was left of the state road bridge.

This was clearly a place where young people come to do what young people do when they drive out to be alone. And of course the trash fairy had come by to sprinkle his particular brand of fairy dust in the wilderness.I did actually meet a young man bouncing down the road in a big 4x4 pickup. It was his first time because he asked, rather anxiously how much further. I reassured him there was a turn out just a quarter mile ahead. I kept going, wondering how I was going to get around the thorn bushes and big puddles as this time I'd be on the right side of the motorcycle if I walked it past and that is an awkward side to hold the machine up.

As it was I got the secateurs out a second time and clipped back just a few more strands of the abundant thorns and I rode by like the best dual sport riders among us. Well, sort of; at least I made it without toppling into the muck alongside.

Wasn't I the happy explorer, not quite a rival to Hernan De Soto, grinning hugely after finding something approaching the fountain of youth. Oh yes, I felt very young again, proudly licking my wounds inflicted by the unforgiving thorns, and aching damp toes encased in a mixture of mud and wattle inside my old explorers' sneakers. The Triumph purred homewards, at home on the blacktop maintained properly by the State of Florida when it's as important as the Overseas Highway.

I look forward to discovering few more roadway gems forgotten by the overburdened state- long may the Feds waste my money on Fat Albert instead.

Habemus Papam!

The white smoke this morning came in the form of a headline splashed across the top of the Citizen newspaper:

And that means Jimmy Weekly, Democrat, a long time commission member and three time mayor ran a terrible campaign, took lots of money from the wrong people and couldn't get past the fact that in his time he hired and backed the most oily, corrupt city manager that could ever be inflicted on a city. And the voters, 7,117 of the 13,000 eligible to vote in the city (I'm not one of them), declined to forget his abysmal record to avoid inflicting a buffoon on themselves again.

The hulking McPherson was"almost" speechless according to the paper when it was announced he's doubled his lead this time by winning with 56 spare votes. Yet it is well known that the mayor is in a permanent state of speechlessness, he is so inarticulate he'd be better off speaking publicly in pig Latin in Pidgin English. Furthermore his "good friend" the county Mayor came out of the shadows to greet his winning mayoral mate. The county Mayor is an uneducated neo-Fascist with about as much grasp of democratic lawmaking as a toad might have. Plus he supports a goat for county Adminstrator, a man with a record of shadowy dealings in his last job "up North" who has shown he can't administer a sock drawer without causing controversy division and massive budget deficits. What a crowd!

Arrgh! Fidel is right when he mocks our democracy and points out that elections are hopeless when the quality of candidates is so horribly low you'd rather vote for the man in the moon than either of these bozos. Oh well, I have a beard already, perhaps I'd better take up smoking cigars.

On a happier note hurricane season is over, I accidentally dipped a toe in the canal and the water is freezing, which is not surprising as a proper cold front has been basting the keys with north to northeast winds, bringing daytime highs down around 80 under crisp sunny skies and night time lows are below 75, all accompanied by fresh cooling winds. Its utterly delightful.

As long as you forget the politics.

Triumph Bonneville Review

I read something disturbing on the Triumphrat forum, a discussion of an ignition coil pick up that supposedly goes sour periodically, leading to difficult starts, stalling and eventually motor death and a trip to the dealer. Some suffer from it, others don't and those that do claim there is no known permanent cure. I found the discussion depressing, not least because owners of earlier Bonnevilles say the marque is going to seed. The moody authors make various arguments against Triumph's future including the fact that Bonnevilles are assembled in Thailand (engines still built at Hinckley, though), year '08 models are equipped with electronic fuel injection and carry plastic badges glued onto the new larger fuel tanks (built to accommodate the fuel injection pump). I've stopped reading the misery of how Triumphs are deteriorating to keep market share.

Personally I'm glad I'm riding the carburetted, air cooled 865cc Bonneville. I like the old fashioned relative simplicity of the vertical twin, and all too often EFI produces surging where the fuel injection system isn't as smooth as the older, less fuel efficient carburettors, which produce more pollution (marginally) and are thus less able to pass more stringent European "Euro 4" standards. The only issues I've had with the Vespa GTS have to do with the electronic black boxes that have been replaced under warranty. Fewer boxes on the Bonneville make this owner happy.

The Bonneville has turned out to be an excellent motorcycle, as most modern machines are. I like that it looks like a real motorcycle, that it looks the part as well as running superbly. It starts easily, assuming I remember to turn on the fuel and pull out the choke when the engine is cold. It rumbles along comfortably at 40mph in fifth gear and pulls cleanly all the way to the top, which I've tested to 95mph indicated, so far.

In commute mode I have saddlebags for my waterproofs and odds and ends, a top case for my man purse, a helmet lock on the rack, fork gaiters to protect the fork seals and sliders, a Parabellum sport shield, a Loobman to oil the chain, and a loving wife who indulges my pleasure on two wheels.

Nowadays I find my commute on Highway One has speeded up from my days of scootering...I've shaved my ride to Stock Island, 25 miles away, to 25 minutes instead of the usual 30. Passing cars on the highway is much simpler than it was with the Vespa, all I have to do is wait for the dotted yellow lines and then I wind the throttle open, no gear shifting, and I'm past.

The new windshield means I feel no air pressure on me at 70 or 75 mph which is a comfortable cruising speed on the open road. I know now that this size of engine, at 66 hp, is barely stressed running at speeds that put the Vespa 250, at 22hp, at the top end of it's scale, and it makes for a smooth, controlled ride.There is something fulfilling about the Trumpet, with its old fashioned style updated by the easy steering, the sure footed turns, smooth acceleration, absence of vibration, total lack of fuss. Its the Bonneville as it always should have been.