SO AFTER this long silence, and after despairing, in my previous post, of getting anywhere at all this summer, I did get on the road for a few weeks and put a few thousand miles in the mirrors. The mirrors of both motorcycles and the camper van. It didn’t give me much insight into whether I still have the chops to range afar for two or three months at a time, but it scratched the itch for now.
You may recall that Bob, my friend from British Columbia, rode out here in June, back when I had a cough I couldn’t shake for probably eight or ten weeks. Kind of embarrassing to have to excuse myself time and again, go out on the back porch and double over for a few minutes, hardly able to get a breath. I have no idea what that was all about. RSV? Chest x-ray was negative. A mystery.
Here’s the loop Bob rode out and back. I lost track of the daily pin drops when he was in Colorado, still 1,600 miles out from home. You can picture the ones from there on up to his starting point in BC.
Speaking of the west (and how I miss it), Robyn, our friend from Montana, sent these pics of a storm over Two Dot Butte, as seen from the Lode Ranch in Wheatland County.
We’re so looking forward to Robyn’s visit. Around the end of next month. she and her friend, Lyn, a retired teacher, will fly into DC, spend some time there, hop the train to New York, tour around there a bit, then it’s on up to Little Rhody where they’ll spend a week with us.
Two weeks ago, my friend Will from Pennsylvania appeared at our door on his dual sport. We saddled up and rode north to Vermont, a little north of where Jenna and Jonny are building their ski getaway. The garage and the apartment above are finished, the kids will likely break ground on the house in the new year. They just had the water well drilled.
There are thousands of miles of dirt road in Vermont, I’ve only just begun to explore them.
This was my first real chance to try out the new suspension on the 650 piglet (“new,” I installed it probably four years ago, the bike sat through the pandemic and beyond.) It really proved out. I found it very forgiving of operator error.
On a badly rutted class-4 road, no maintenance whatsoever, nothing but two deep wheel tracks through the woods, I stayed with the bike through three potential upsets that would have easily sent me off into the weeds with the old suspension. My fault. I had too much speed, one too many gears, a poor sight line, went into a hard turn I didn’t know was there and just about lost it. Slid off the middle hump into that deep left-wheel track, bounced out of it and into the right track, immediately bounced back into the left and somehow rode it out and regained control with my right boot planted on the ground through what was left of the turn. Really surprised myself on that. Score one for those pricey Cogent Suspension bits! Worth every penny.
On that final slide I did get whacked in the back of my right calf by the hard pannier on that side. Not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to remind me to always reverse the boxes on dirt, which I had neglected to do. I had set up my pannier mounts for that very purpose, offsetting the mounts to one side so I could move the panniers forward or back depending on the surface, asphalt or dirt.
On dirt, if you switch the left box to the right and the right to the left, it gives you another six inches of leg room for safety’s sake. If you were to really catch your boot heel on the ground sliding around in the dirt, a hard pannier can hit you hard enough to snap your leg. I’m going to be paying more attention to that next time.
So after negotiating some challenging dirt and rocks without dumping the bike—I dropped it on asphalt.
I called it operator error (just about every mishap in motorcycling is), but then the next day I found out it probably wasn’t. It was likely my clutch not liking synthetic oil.
I had done an oil change before we left Rhode Island, used synthetic for the first time (first time for the piglet).
This photo is deceptive, doesn’t really show how much higher the one road is from the other. Anyway, on this uncommon sort of turn, a hard-right uphill switchback, I bang down into first so as not to bog it, ease out the clutch at an extreme lean angle and BLANGO! Had just enough time to get my leg out from under it and shoulder-roll into the ditch.
Will, who was in the lead at that time, had taken the turn a lot wider than I had. A better line for sure. He parked his bike, came running down the hill and said, man, you’re going to be hurting tomorrow. But I had not a scratch, not a bruise, felt perfectly fine that evening and the next day. (Ask any motorcyclist how much fun it is to get crashed up and not be hurt—Exhilarating!)
Getting a fire going at Coolidge State Park, Vermont…
Thought I was in first gear but wasn’t, you’ve guessed that by now. Let out the clutch while leaned over on a hard uphill switchback, find yourself not in first or second but in neutral… oops… you’re going wheels-up pretty quick.
How on earth do you miss first gear, dumb ass?
Well… the next day I missed first gear six or seven times. My mishap the day before had been just the start of this emerging problem. I found I couldn’t reliably downshift into first while running and couldn’t find neutral while sitting still. Had to start turning off the bike in gear.
The Valvoline synthetic I had used must contain friction modifier a wet clutch doesn’t like. I’ll drain the oil this coming week and switch to a Castrol product formulated for motorcycle clutches that live in the engine case.
Long story short, Will and I rode back to Rhode Island, spent a day here, rode out to the Hudson Valley for a couple of days, then Pam and I split for Pennsylvania to see friends there, some where they live and some from Kansas who’d had occasion to be in Pittsburgh last week. We spent a little time at Gettysburg and the Flight 93 National Memorial.
Will see if I can scribble up something about that this evening. Out for now.
Tony DePaul, September 21, 2024, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
