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| Manride Part 4 |
| Tue Jun 1 09:49:21 2010 PST, by Testcase |
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GO TIME
Thursday morning was deceptively good. I woke up, got out of bed, and checked all the forecasts. I paid particular attention to the scrolling weather radar. There was a hole in the storm system that was off-centered over the valley and it seemed that there was only light rain happening. I was ecstatic. I hurriedly called Kevin and, much to his surprise, gave him the GO. Manride was on. I was ready to jump on the bike and get, but he wasn't. His packing wasn't complete and he was having a rough morning, I think. After the previous night's call, he seemed decided that the Manride was all but canceled. Far from the enthused response I was expecting, the conversation went something like this:
"Kevin, the weather looks OK. I can get out of here."
"You're calling too early," replied Kevin. I was calling about an hour ahead of the time we scheduled the previous night for our go/no-go call. He may have still been in bed.
"I was checking the weather. It's good. I thought I'd call now. We're on, man."
On?"
"Yeah, Manride is a go. You ready?"
"Um. No. I need to pack. You sure we're going?"
"Yeah, we're going."
"Oh..." His tone was the tone of a person who had other plans. It occurred to me that maybe I had prepared Kevin for a cancellation a little too well. I was pretty glum the night before and was pretty sure in my own mind that it wasn't going to happen. All week long I had had people picking at me to cancel the ride for various reasons and it probably came through in last night's discussion. I did a quick pep-talk for both of us and set a kickstand-up time for about 10 to 11, thinking that would give him plenty of time to get ready to go while letting me have an opportunity to cross a couple of last things off the prep list.
Mainly, I was thinking of getting a new multi-tool and an adapter to allow my mini air-compressor to run from the powerlet socket I had installed on the cruiser previously. The compressor had only come with SAE and cigarette lighter connectors. I had removed the SAE connection on the M50 when I had installed the powerlet socket, intending to use that for all my power needs. The powerlet was similar to the cigarette socket in design but thinner in diameter. Normally, I might not have worried too much about it, but my previous cruise from Salt Lake City to San Diego had seen me stranded roadside along Interstate 15 with a flat tire and a three hour wait for a tow truck (so much for speedy roadside assistance). With similar mileage along even more isolated roads, I didn't want to take a chance on not being prepared for another flat. I'm not the most mechanically apt person with a motorcycle, but I can handle a flat.
About 9:30, I was watching TV and still goofing off when I happened to glance out one of the windows.
It was snowing.
Hard.
Not being able to see hard. My first reaction was shock. I rushed to the window and watched with a sinking feeling. I noticed, though, that while it was snowing really hard and yard was slowing turning white that none of the stuff was sticking to the asphalt. Driveway, street, and sidewalk were all clear. Wet, but clear. I made an instant decision without hesitation. I knew from looking at the weather map that this storm was pretty localized. Plus, living where we were on the east side closer to the mountains, it was always worse for us. If I could get clear of my side of valley, I'd be out the snow and maybe in rain. Get clear of the whole valley and I'd be out of the wet stuff altogether. I rushed to the garage and hurriedly donned my gear. Fortunately, I had already put on the thermals and underlayers I was planning for the cold ride so all I had left was my outer pants and jackets. I stuff the last remaining odds and ends into the tank bag and fired the M50 up. I imagined that if any of my neighbors were watching, they probably thought they were seeing an insane person pull out of his garage on a laden motorcycle into a snowstorm. I took it in feet. Make it down the driveway and see. Make it into the street and see. Make it down the block and see.
Other then the snow sticking to my visor and making it so that I had to continually wipe it clean, it wasn't very much different then riding in rain. A quick wipe to clear the mirrors and I set off. I was still half intending to stop and try and do those last minute errands, but as I headed west out of my neighborhood, the snow wasn't letting up. It still wasn't sticking to the ground at all, but it just kept coming down. I had to ride with my left hand always wiping the visor of my helmet. I could see the snow building up on my arms. It wasn't until the freeway that it seemed to be more rain then snow falling. I almost fell over trying to get on the freeway when I became momentarily fixated on the curb of the on-ramp as I was trying to feather the clutch and throttle as the snow built up on the visor and my field of view got obscured. Once I got the nose pointed in the right direction, I opened the throttle wiped the helmet and climbed the relatively short on-ramp from snow to rain.
I was on my way. Things went largely as I hoped. It was rain as I headed north through the valley and when I turned west onto the 80, the rain thinned out and I could see blue sky poking through holes in the clouds. I got a brief pelting of hail as I ran along the edge of the Great Salt Lake, but as I continued onto through the salt flats, things got considerably drier. And windier. Way windier. And all of it going the wrong direction. I had to push the bike hard to keep my speed up and it felt like I was going much faster then I really was due to the windspeed. I hunkered down behind the windshield and powered on. On both sides, as I passed the western outskirts of Tooele and Granite, the land gave way to the flat and featureless salt flats. I had about 90 miles till I hit the Nevada border and the Wendover, where I would have to do my first fuel stop. I was glad that I had topped off the M50 from a tank at home, negating the need for having to stop in the storm and gas up on the way out.
As I came over a rise and hit a particularly strong gust of wind, I suffered the trip's first casualty. I had tucked my sunglasses into my tank bag on the way out. It wasn't bright enough to wear them and I was in too much of a hurry to pack the glasses away properly. I watched helplessly as the wind causally lifted the glassed from where they were, floated them across my field of view, and out past my shoulder. I immediately slowed and pulled over. Traffic was really light along the 80 and I thought I had a chance tor retrieve the sunglasses without too much trouble. Swinging off the cruiser, I was a little surprised (and amused) to find that there was about a 1/4 layer of ice built up on my legs from the knees down and on my arms from the elbows up. I was relieved to find my outer gear doing the job of keeping the cold and wet reasonably away from me. I walked back about an eighth of a mile to where I thought they might be just in time to watch an 18-wheeler roll over them and send flying in pieces. I strolled into the road and retrieved the shattered frames. Since I had walked all the way back for them, I thought it'd be a shame to leave them there so they came back with me. I stuffed them back into the same spot on the tank bag and got bag on the road.
I pulled in a short time later at a rest stop. Utah does rest stops right, even the ones out in the middle of the sticks. I went inside where the heater was pushing out lots of hot air and got warmed up a bit. I thought this would be a good time to take a break and try out the penny stove in the wild to heat up some water to make some tea. I immediately realized that despite having made the stove a month or so before and cooking with it a number of times that I had neglected to make the accompanying wind screen for it. I'd always cooked it with it in the garage so wind had never been an issue. However, out on that blustery day perched on a hilltop rest-stop, it was. The picnic table and its accompanying one wall was situated exactly wrong to stop any wind whatsoever and, in fact, I think it was actually funneling it. I set up my food bag and body to try and shield the stove as much as possible, but it took twice as much fuel as normal to get a hot cup of water. I cheaped out on the cup and it was just a simple piece of aluminum. I had taken some effort to insulate the handle because it transferred all the heat of the contents very efficiently into my fingers. If I had just been making something quick, like cocoa, where its heat, dump, stir, and drink then it would have been ok. However, making tea required letting it steep. And in the 3 or 4 minutes that took, the wind had sapped almost all the heat out of the water. I ended up quickly drinking a lukewarm cup of tea while checking text messages on my phone and ipod. Kevin hadn't left yet, and I was a bit relieved at that. One of my bigger worries was that since Kevin was going to have reasonably good weather for his solo leg that he was going to beat me to Ely by a good deal and be left stuck sitting around waiting on me. With him apparently going kickstand-up later then me, then I figured it would put us closer together.
Sitting at that first rest stop and sipping my cup of tea, I felt really good. I was on the road. For real. I had four days of riding before me and no idea what was going to be happening next. It was a great feeling. The weather was sunny. Behind me, back towards Salt Lake, I could see the storm clouds and rain falling on the valley. Seeing rain fall from far away, it looks likes the clouds are stretching down towards the ground. Ahead of me to the west, the skies were clear and blue. I sipped my tea and sat there just feeling good. For the months we'd been planning Manride, this was one of the moments I had kept dreaming of. As I packed up and bundled back into my gear, an old man who parked next to the motorcycle asked if I was feeling cold out on the road. I told him the wind was strong, but I wasn't feeling cold at all.
After all, I had just come riding out of a snowstorm.
To be continued... |
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