Ride Hard, Take Chances, The Body Shops Need The Work.
In the end, the weather system stalled over top, it poured rain, and Guy
called it. With a bonus. He revealed there had been a lurker on the last
jump, we built to 61, not 60.
So we we hooked up with some friends who happened to be in town for a
Senators game and went to the Salvador Dali Museum in Tampa. I've never been
a big fan, paintings of melting watches done by somebody who was obviously
on LSD aren't really for me - it brings back too many memories of high
school - but after a couple of hours wandering around and reading the
analysis of the paintings I will be studying any of his works I happen to
see in the future much more closely. I don't understand it any better but
there is a lot more stuff hidden in them than I ever would have guessed.
Afterward to kill some time we walked the red carpet outside the Hockey
Arena as we drank beer before our friends had to go in. Wandering around
before a regular season game in shorts just seemed wrong.
The next morning we all went our separate ways, some catching flights out,
some driving, Z-Team finished for this year.
I stopped at Tony Suit on the way out to get a quick repair, paying for the
work with the last of the Smirnoff Ice before heading to Deland to drop off
my Sabre II for a reline. And I got an all access tour of Performance
Designs that became one of the highlights of the trip. Gilles Dutrisac took
me through every phase of construction of a canopy from start to finish. The
constant theme was quality control and accountability. I'll bet most people
don't know that every piece of material that their canopy is made of has a
serial number on it, or that PD can trace it's history back telling you the
name of every single person that touched it, when they touched it, how long
they touched it for, what they did with it when they touched it, and who
signed off on it at each one of 7 different stages of quality control after
they were inspected by the person who actually did the work. They go so far
as to visit the manufacturing facilities of their suppliers to inspect the
way the raw materials are handled. Gilles showed me an error on a canopy
being built for him that consisted of a single tiny stitch that looked just
fine to me, even when it's sin had been explained. I tried squinting,
looking at it from different angles, and was tempted to go out to the truck
and get my reading glasses to examine it even more closely, but I doubt that
even then I would've been able to see the mistake.
When the tour was over I climbed back in the truck and headed for Tennessee
and an 11 mile long stretch of road in a place called Deals Gap, quickly
leaving behind the palm trees for pine trees. But to get there, first I had
to survive Atlanta. I rolled into Atlanta at 9:30 on Monday night hitting
traffic as heavy as the Decarie Expressway during rush hour. At one point I
was in the middle of 9 lanes of traffic all going to beat hell and everybody
seemed to know exactly where they were going except me, the guy hauling a
trailer. I felt like the hick driving his turnip truck to visit the big
city. Cars were going every which way, exiting and joining the traffic flow
from both sides 3 and 4 lanes at a time, but much more politely than they do
on the Decarie, after all everybody in this country seems to be armed. That
encourages good manners.
I finally pulled over somewhere in Georgia and fell asleep in my seat in a
corner of a 24 hour Wal Mart parking lot, surrounded by RVs that had done
the same. I was awakened a few hours later by someone tapping on my window.
It was some pimply faced kid in a Wal Mart shirt. I rolled the window down
and he said, nervously "You can't sleep here. You have to leave."
I looked around at all the RVs and asked him if he was going to wake up
somebody in all of them and tell them to leave as well. "No, just you."
"Why me?"
"Because my boss can see you."
I thought about that for a minute, then looked over my shoulder and saw the
jumpsuit I'd had repaired earlier in the day on top of the pile of crap in
the back seat. Dragging it forward I draped it over my face and said "He
can't see me anymore." as I rolled up the window. I fully expected to hear
the local cops tapping on the window next, but I guess "out of sight, out of
mind' was the order of the day. And I made a mental note to wash my
jumpsuit - it had been hot in Florida.
Taming the Dragon
Deals Gap. Tail Of The Dragon. 318 Corners in 11 miles.
I knew I was on the right track to the Dragon when I passed a church and saw
a sign. Literally. Copy attached.
Then I passed a gas station called "Dragon's Lair." It had 4 gas pumps with
a large storage tank behind each one. The first one was painted white and
marked "Regular Unleaded" in large letters. The next one was painted yellow
and labeled "High Test". The next, bright red and labeled "Supreme". The
last one was painted in a red yellow and black checkerboard and labeled
"Rocket Fuel". It's looking promising!
Suddenly there it was: The Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort. Ahhh. Motorcycle
Mecca. (Plus a healthy dose of smart marketing) And it's large parking lot
was practically deserted. The girl in the gift shop said in another 3 weeks
that the place would be jammed but that worked in my favor. No bikes, no
Cops. I decided to drive to the far end to have a look at it before pulling
the bike off to play.
In a bizarre note, one of only 3 bikes in the lot was exactly the same same
as Nathalie's except for the custom paint job. It was painted to look like a
Dragon.
I've driven Notch road and Mountain road in Gatineau park more times than I
can count, done the Jones Falls road at a dangerous speed, and been to
Calabogie early on a Sunday morning with the fast crowd. I've seen good bike
roads, fast bike roads, technically demanding bike roads, ones that twist
and turn like a snake and force you to a near crawl, ones with long sweeping
curves that dare you go fast, and every other type you can imagine. But I've
never driven anything like this. It had everything I've just described and
more. It started out looking like fun, but within a few hundred yards I'd
started to sweat. Then I passed the first cross.
It was a small cross, painted white with a wreath hanging from it, well off
to the side of the road. "In Loving Memory" was written on the cross piece.
It wasn't the last.
Tail of the Dragon is the right name. This thing was just one continues
series of curves and switchbacks with nonstop level changes. it was
impossible to say where one ended and another began. The posted speed limit
was 30 miles an hour with lots of signs warning you down to 20. I'd be
surprised if I averaged half the speed limit pulling that trailer. On the
hairpin turns I kept watching the rear view mirror expecting to see one or
both of the bikes snap loose and go bouncing along behind us. I kept
thinking about my brother in the wagon behind my bicycle. It was a relief to
reach the far side.
I made one round trip on the FZ, caught my breath, and then a couple more,
stopping at the Resort long enough to pick up a couple of souvenir t-shirts and have breakfast.
One for me, and one for Kevin. Everybody else who wants one will have to
make the trip and get their own. I could go on for pages about how much fun
I had on that road, but there's no way I could do it justice. I went fast
and took chances and then loaded the bike up and got the hell out of there
when the cops showed up. If you call yourself any kind of biker, it's
worth the trip, like a pilgrimage to the bridge for a skydiver.
Somewhere in Virginia I came upon some trucker humor.
Written across the back of a tractor trailer it said
"If you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you"
That was in letters about 2 inches high. The next line down was about half
an inch smaller.
"If I can't see you I don't know you're there"
The next line was smaller still.
"If I don't know you're there, I could squish you like a bug"
The last line was about half an inch tall and to read it I had to crawl so
far up that trucks ass with my truck that if that driver had farted he'd
have parted my hair.
It said: "And that would suck"
Smartass.
Home safe. Nowhere near the usual amount of nonsense, stupidity, and
craziness on this trip. Maybe I'm getting old, I do turn 50 this year. More
likely for the first time in a long time I actually took the time to slow
down and relax on a vacation. But there's always this summers road trip to
look forward to. Summerfest/Nationals/Dan and Cheryl's wedding. 3 1/2 weeks
of potential mayhem, especially the wedding in St John's.
Special thanks to Nathalie for joining me on this adventure, to Jeff for
helping me survive the 60-ways, and to Kevin for teaching me the finer
points of motorcycle trailering.
If there is anybody who would like this "Spam" as Mr. Gemmell puts it sent
to a different address, or have their name removed from future mailings,
just let me know.
Until next time...............
