.. The title is a bit misleading.. in a way.. but then again it's not because thats what got me into the mess I rode thru today.
I'm talking about my stubborness when it comes to outdoor activities, and weather forecasts. I can't stand having my plans ruined by a unfavorable forecast... if it looks like rain and I don't go I spend the rest of the day annoyed because I didn't go... even if the bad weather does show up. In the event of the forecast being wrong... such as predicted rains, and it ends up being sunny and pretty.. Look out, because I will be pissed for hours. I can't help it. .. thats just the way it is. I learned long ago that i may as well go weather be damned because I wasn't going to be any un-happier even if I spent the entire day riding in the rain/hail/brimestone that was plainly forecast... which just happened to be the case today... I'll try to hit the hi spots for ya..
This morning I woke up, played with my baby girl while my wife got ready to go to church... walked them out to the van and put our 8 mo. old in her child seat.. kissed them both and realized that even at 10am the temperature was already in the 70's. I hadn't planned on riding, but as soon as that realization hit me it was already concreted in my mind. "I am going riding!". I told my wife I was going, got my stuff together.. and decided to check the weather on www.weather.com ... That didn't look so good. 80% chance of showers all day. I still remember thinking.. "geez, these people are stupid.. have they not looked outside?" I turned the computer off and grabbed my car keys to go get my 'busa. (I store my motorcycle at my parents because they have a huge garage, and I have a storage building built for a lawnmower) By the time I got to my 'busa the dark clouds were already present in the sky... but as I've said.. it was too late to worry about it at that point.
I got all my gear on and hit the road.. a quick look at the sky and it looked like the smartest thing to do would be to drive away from the dark clouds.. so thats what I did.
I hit one of the better routes in my area... a road that I'll have some posts about later to see if I can entice some of you to come and ride this area since I missed the busa bash... haha but thats another post.
Everything was going really good, I'd been riding about an hour with only a few sprinkles when I found the interstate that would take me to another good set of twisties.. I had just gotten comfortable cruising along behind a ford explorer at about 85mph on I81 when I started noticing that all the cars on the other side of the road had their lights on. Not just the ones with daytime running lights... ALL of them.. "Oh Crap". Looking at the horizon it was obvious that it was raining ahead.. really hazy, and REEEALLLY dark clouds. I contemplated stopping and putting my rain suit on at this point... but I dunno.... I think i was hoping that it would be a intense, but brief shower.. so I said "eff it, I'll just tuck in good and at this speed I'm not gonna get too wet anyway". I did have my leather coat on.. so all I was really worried about was my legs anyway. Then the rain started... not really bad, not really light either... but it was NOT a brief anything.. I rode thru the rain for about 20 miles and finally got to my turn off... I decided I'd had enough at this point and stopped to put the rain suit on. Got that accomplished and of course it stopped raining.. the roads were still wet though.. so no point taking it off.
I took the long way around, and actually took a few roads I didn't know giving the road I really wanted to ride time enough to dry... I figure I rode about an hour and a half with NO rain, and the roads were almost completely dry.. so I figured the worst was over, I could take the rain suit off and enjoy the rest of the day.. even if it was cloudy.
Got the suit off, and made my way back to the road I wanted to ride.. but first I needed gas,, and somethign to eat.. so I stopped at a gas station, filled up, and bought a little ham/cheese sam'ich to munch on before I hit the twisites... I kid you not.. I took one bite of the sandwich and the first raindrops fell... lightly at first.. "poop" I said.. and pushed the bike under the canopy at the gas station.. hoping it was just a random sprinkle.. it wasn't even raining hard enough to get the pavement wet again. I sat back down to finish the sandwich and wait for the little sprinkles to stop.. and before I could take another bite the real shower started... I've seen harder rains.. but this one ranks up there pretty high. It had a nice sheeting effect with some good gusts of wind thrown in for dramatic effect. That pretty much ruined the dry pavement and I wasn't gonna sit and wait for it to dry again.. so that was the end of the ride I wanted to do. I just sat back down and finished the samich and drink then started getting all the rain gear, and normal riding gear back on. The rain had kinda settled into a moderate pace at this point so I decided that was good enough and it was time to go. I went about a mile before the hard rain came back... which sucked.. but what else is there to do? ride on!
That lasted about ten minutes then the rain slowed back down to the moderate that I'd pulled out in. No big deal. I started noticing that there was quite a bit of tree limbs, leaves, and general trash strewn about the road... The farther i went,, the bigger the limbs got...until at one point I narrowly dodged a limb probably 4 inches thick laying in the road... little twigs, and sticks were everywhere.. you couldnt' even try to dodge the little stuff anymore.. It was everywhere.. just look for the big stuff. No easy task thru a fogged up, visor... I'm sure you all know what i'm talking about.
I popped around the curve and there was a tree... not a piece of a tree.. not a big limb of a tree.. I mean the whole tree laying diagonally in the road.. stretched down the road about 50 feet, and covering about 98% of the paved surface. Slowing down I noticed that I could probably sneak around the cornor of the road and get past it... assuming I get to close and scratch the side on the limbs it looked like a great plan...
The closer I got the less I liked the plan until finally I just stopped in the road, got off the bike and went to look... I stepped around the the tree and realized that even if I got around the first one I wasn't going anywhere without first doing the "helicopter" mod... Huge trees, too many to count were spread all over the road for a good 60-70 yards... it's about now that I really started looking, and my brain started working... it hit me that most of the other trees were about 8-10 feet back from the road... yet most of these trees were IN the road... Looking at where they came from they were broken off probably 20 feet high. ... and in some cases literally uprooted and moved to the road.. I mean literally the root ball was in the road of a tree probably 4 feet around! All you could see was this tangled mess of branches... like laying on your back in a forest looking up.. only I was standing up, and everything was sideways across the road.
Some dudes showed up in a ford truck and after we'd looked at the trees a little he looked at my bike and recognized it as "that bike thats the fastest one out of the box ever!" haha.. that dude knew everything about my hayabusa... except the name... I don't think he even knew who made it... only that it was a gsx1300.. haha..
We decided it might be time to leave when another tree fell.. it was about 30 yards down the road from us... but close enough for us to get the hint ya know.
In the end I just turned around and went the long way home.. in the rain.. no excitment really.. other than the stupid rain never stopped.
I'm still wondering what would have happened if I hadn't stopped for the gas/food... not so much worrying about the trees falling on me... but just the fact that the wind was blowing hard enough to do that... or I'm assuming the wind did that... if it knocked over tree's... i wonder how far it would have blown me, and my little piddly 500 pound bike?
I think this is probably my longest post.. haha if you read the whole thing.. congratulations!
I'm talking about my stubborness when it comes to outdoor activities, and weather forecasts. I can't stand having my plans ruined by a unfavorable forecast... if it looks like rain and I don't go I spend the rest of the day annoyed because I didn't go... even if the bad weather does show up. In the event of the forecast being wrong... such as predicted rains, and it ends up being sunny and pretty.. Look out, because I will be pissed for hours. I can't help it. .. thats just the way it is. I learned long ago that i may as well go weather be damned because I wasn't going to be any un-happier even if I spent the entire day riding in the rain/hail/brimestone that was plainly forecast... which just happened to be the case today... I'll try to hit the hi spots for ya..
This morning I woke up, played with my baby girl while my wife got ready to go to church... walked them out to the van and put our 8 mo. old in her child seat.. kissed them both and realized that even at 10am the temperature was already in the 70's. I hadn't planned on riding, but as soon as that realization hit me it was already concreted in my mind. "I am going riding!". I told my wife I was going, got my stuff together.. and decided to check the weather on www.weather.com ... That didn't look so good. 80% chance of showers all day. I still remember thinking.. "geez, these people are stupid.. have they not looked outside?" I turned the computer off and grabbed my car keys to go get my 'busa. (I store my motorcycle at my parents because they have a huge garage, and I have a storage building built for a lawnmower) By the time I got to my 'busa the dark clouds were already present in the sky... but as I've said.. it was too late to worry about it at that point.
I got all my gear on and hit the road.. a quick look at the sky and it looked like the smartest thing to do would be to drive away from the dark clouds.. so thats what I did.
I hit one of the better routes in my area... a road that I'll have some posts about later to see if I can entice some of you to come and ride this area since I missed the busa bash... haha but thats another post.
Everything was going really good, I'd been riding about an hour with only a few sprinkles when I found the interstate that would take me to another good set of twisties.. I had just gotten comfortable cruising along behind a ford explorer at about 85mph on I81 when I started noticing that all the cars on the other side of the road had their lights on. Not just the ones with daytime running lights... ALL of them.. "Oh Crap". Looking at the horizon it was obvious that it was raining ahead.. really hazy, and REEEALLLY dark clouds. I contemplated stopping and putting my rain suit on at this point... but I dunno.... I think i was hoping that it would be a intense, but brief shower.. so I said "eff it, I'll just tuck in good and at this speed I'm not gonna get too wet anyway". I did have my leather coat on.. so all I was really worried about was my legs anyway. Then the rain started... not really bad, not really light either... but it was NOT a brief anything.. I rode thru the rain for about 20 miles and finally got to my turn off... I decided I'd had enough at this point and stopped to put the rain suit on. Got that accomplished and of course it stopped raining.. the roads were still wet though.. so no point taking it off.
I took the long way around, and actually took a few roads I didn't know giving the road I really wanted to ride time enough to dry... I figure I rode about an hour and a half with NO rain, and the roads were almost completely dry.. so I figured the worst was over, I could take the rain suit off and enjoy the rest of the day.. even if it was cloudy.
Got the suit off, and made my way back to the road I wanted to ride.. but first I needed gas,, and somethign to eat.. so I stopped at a gas station, filled up, and bought a little ham/cheese sam'ich to munch on before I hit the twisites... I kid you not.. I took one bite of the sandwich and the first raindrops fell... lightly at first.. "poop" I said.. and pushed the bike under the canopy at the gas station.. hoping it was just a random sprinkle.. it wasn't even raining hard enough to get the pavement wet again. I sat back down to finish the sandwich and wait for the little sprinkles to stop.. and before I could take another bite the real shower started... I've seen harder rains.. but this one ranks up there pretty high. It had a nice sheeting effect with some good gusts of wind thrown in for dramatic effect. That pretty much ruined the dry pavement and I wasn't gonna sit and wait for it to dry again.. so that was the end of the ride I wanted to do. I just sat back down and finished the samich and drink then started getting all the rain gear, and normal riding gear back on. The rain had kinda settled into a moderate pace at this point so I decided that was good enough and it was time to go. I went about a mile before the hard rain came back... which sucked.. but what else is there to do? ride on!
That lasted about ten minutes then the rain slowed back down to the moderate that I'd pulled out in. No big deal. I started noticing that there was quite a bit of tree limbs, leaves, and general trash strewn about the road... The farther i went,, the bigger the limbs got...until at one point I narrowly dodged a limb probably 4 inches thick laying in the road... little twigs, and sticks were everywhere.. you couldnt' even try to dodge the little stuff anymore.. It was everywhere.. just look for the big stuff. No easy task thru a fogged up, visor... I'm sure you all know what i'm talking about.
I popped around the curve and there was a tree... not a piece of a tree.. not a big limb of a tree.. I mean the whole tree laying diagonally in the road.. stretched down the road about 50 feet, and covering about 98% of the paved surface. Slowing down I noticed that I could probably sneak around the cornor of the road and get past it... assuming I get to close and scratch the side on the limbs it looked like a great plan...
The closer I got the less I liked the plan until finally I just stopped in the road, got off the bike and went to look... I stepped around the the tree and realized that even if I got around the first one I wasn't going anywhere without first doing the "helicopter" mod... Huge trees, too many to count were spread all over the road for a good 60-70 yards... it's about now that I really started looking, and my brain started working... it hit me that most of the other trees were about 8-10 feet back from the road... yet most of these trees were IN the road... Looking at where they came from they were broken off probably 20 feet high. ... and in some cases literally uprooted and moved to the road.. I mean literally the root ball was in the road of a tree probably 4 feet around! All you could see was this tangled mess of branches... like laying on your back in a forest looking up.. only I was standing up, and everything was sideways across the road.
Some dudes showed up in a ford truck and after we'd looked at the trees a little he looked at my bike and recognized it as "that bike thats the fastest one out of the box ever!" haha.. that dude knew everything about my hayabusa... except the name... I don't think he even knew who made it... only that it was a gsx1300.. haha..
We decided it might be time to leave when another tree fell.. it was about 30 yards down the road from us... but close enough for us to get the hint ya know.
In the end I just turned around and went the long way home.. in the rain.. no excitment really.. other than the stupid rain never stopped.
I'm still wondering what would have happened if I hadn't stopped for the gas/food... not so much worrying about the trees falling on me... but just the fact that the wind was blowing hard enough to do that... or I'm assuming the wind did that... if it knocked over tree's... i wonder how far it would have blown me, and my little piddly 500 pound bike?
I think this is probably my longest post.. haha if you read the whole thing.. congratulations!
