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The initial plan for my first big ride of the season was much more ambitious. I was intending to start off by riding straight to Jefferson City, MO; then to Nashville, TN; Frankfort, KY; Columbus, OH; then back through Indianapolis, IN. The initial plan was 1500 miles or so in 5 days. Unfortunately, I came down with a bout of my recurring diverticulitis the Sunday before my planned departure, which cut my trip short by one day.
I just want to preface the rest of this story with a little warning to consumers: You get what you pay for! A decent set of motorcycle luggage will easily set you back $150, most of the time more. I found a set on Ebay for $70 delivered! As a representative of an online retailer, I really should have known what I was in for.
When I received the luggage a week before my trip, I was initially very impressed with the size of the main bag, not to mention the multiple straps and pockets! The main bag was HUGE, and I wasn't even sure that I would be able to fill it up for this trip. I did fill it up Thursday night, with intentions to leave at 9am Friday morning. Everything was going as scheduled, when I decided to lift the bag by one of the 2 main support straps. RRRIIIPPP!!! Off came the strap! My mind started racing...what am I going to do?? I grabbed a stapler, and attempted to staple the hell out of the ripped strap. I lifted the bag and POP POP POP POP! all of the staples came right out. That's when the realization set in that I was going to have to sit down and sew this strap back onto the bag. I inspected the stitching on the other main strap, and realized that there was a single row of stitching! I took that hour and quadrupled stitched these straps, as I realized it was much better for me that this happened BEFORE I got on the road, since this disaster would have had much worse consequences had it happened at 70 MPH on my way through Indiana.
I finally got on the road just after 10 am. I jumped on 90, took it to 290, and bypassed Chicago traffic by taking 294 towards 80. About 45 miles into my trip, just north of Markham, IL, 294 narrowed from 3 lanes to 2. As traffic was coming to a grinding halt, I put my foot on my rear brake, and when I pushed down, there was nothing! Now, I don't mean that there was no pressure in the brake system, I mean the brake pedal wasn't there!!! I quickly pulled off to the left between the 55 gallon drum markers, and proceeded to inspect the dilemma. I wasn't pulled over for more than a minute, and as I took off my helmet, I realized a Saturn had pulled off with me and was backing up! Out of the driver's side door popped a young man, no older than 20 years old. "Need a hand?"
I have to admit that when I first pulled off, I looked at the issue and briefly thought "Fuck it. This simply wasn't meant to be. First the diverticulitis, then the strap. Now this?" Well it actually wasn't too bad. The weekend before the trip I installed a set of forward controls, which moved my regular foot position forward about 14 inches from the stock mid controls. When I installed the pin that holds the brake pedal to the push rod, I used a zig zag style of cotter pin, instead of an actual cotter pin. The zig zag style pin simply rattled out of the clevis pin, and I'm assuming the clevis pin stayed in for a few miles before finally rattling out of the brake pedal. Luckily the brake pedal was still attached; it had simply folded back onto my front exhaust pipe. Though Kyle had popped his trunk, which was full of tools, he didn't have any bolts that would fit the void of the clevis pin. After thanking him profusely for pulling over, we had a quick conversation about riding. He was fixing up an old Iron Head Sportster with his dad, who had handed it down to Kyle when he purchased himself a new Softtail a few years back. "I'll always stop for fellow riders!" I shook his hand and thanked him again. "The Markham exit is literally a mile away, and I know there's an AutoZone not much farther off of the exit." I thanked Kyle AGAIN, telling him how much I appreciated him stopping, let alone giving me a couple of zip ties to tie up the pedal for my short jaunt to the next exit. "Not a problem at all brother!" As I was strapping my helmet back on, I hear him one more time: "OH, have a great trip, and RIDE SAFE!" He was right. The Markham exit was literally a couple minutes away, and AutoZone a quarter mile or so off of the exit. After 30 minutes of wrenching, I was on my way to my first stop: Indianapolis.....REDUX!
My first Capitol trip was July 2009, shortly after purchasing Maxine, my 2001 Sportster 883. This trip was to Indianapolis from Chicago, which you can certainly read about on this blog (it was my first post). However, what I didn't realize on the first trip was that I was in the BACK of the Capitol the whole time! Since I was heading to Louisville via 65, which runs right through Indy, I figured I was lucky enough to get a redo!
The trip to Indy was a good 3-4 hours. I'll tell you this much: I do not know if a less experienced rider would have made it as far as I did. 65 was LITTERED with debris. I don't know where the hell it all came from, but every 5 miles or so I would come across pieces of wood that were clearly full of nails. By keeping a good distance between me and the car(s) in front of me, I was able to maneuver quickly enough around the apparent booby traps. Another issue was the abundance of road gators (semi retreads) EVERYWHERE. I guess the good thing in all of this was my need to stay very alert the whole ride, which made the time fly by a bit faster than normal.
About an hour or so north of Indy I started noticing how gray the skies were south of the city. Luckily, I also noticed that the wind was blowing east, carrying these storms with it. The funniest part was as I approached the downtown area, the skies cleared up! I was surrounded in sunlight! Then it happened: I got rained on in BROAD DAYLIGHT! That's right! I was surrounded in blue skies except for directly above... a small gray cloud that emptied itself onto me for a good 5 minutes. I exited to downtown shortly after, and was able to actually find the FRONT of the Capitol.
I set up my trusty tripod, and started snapping pics. The sun was in the sky directly above the Capitol, so things weren't working so great. As I was making adjustments, a tour guide on his smoke break asked me if I needed some help. He admired the tripod, and my attempts to snap some pics with my auto timer. When I told him that my life goal was to visit every state Capitol on my bike, he was more than impressed! He took the camera from me, and I almost felt like I was in a real photo shoot: "Good, ok, now turn back towards me. PERFECT. Ok, let's get a few more (get's down on one knee) Oh Man, this one is gonna look great!" And I do believe he did a good job, even with the sun to my back:
I continued on my way, and as I made my way further south on 65, the skies just completely cleared up. I made it into Louisville just around 7pm, checked into the hotel, and went next door to the Olive Garden for a few 20 oz Blue Moons and some shitty "Italian" food. Hey, I had $15 worth of gift certificates in my pocket for Darden Restaurants, and Olive Garden just happened to be RIGHT THERE!
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