My Bike Is a Torture Rack

My family had a reunion right off of Lake Nacadoches in E. Texas. One of my distant cousins lives there and hosts the party every year or so. I haven’t been to one since prior to Katrina mostly due to my work schedule not allowing me to go. I was actually going to make the one that coincided with Katrina, but you can guess the rest.

My great aunts are all getting up there in age. They have a myriad of problems. One can’t hear. One can’t see. One is having short term memory loss. Another can’t get around too well. But they are all pushing 90 and have had a pretty good life so I certainly don’t hold any of that against them. I got to see some people I hadn’t seen in several years so that was pretty nice, too.

Several members of my family live in or near Houston. Most of them had their houses wiped out and it was touching to hear their stories and how they are handling it.

I took the bike to save gas. I average about 43mpg when I slab it down the highways like that. Compare that to the 12 or 13mpg my truck gets and it’s a quick economic decision. Besides the weather is ½ way decent right now especially in the mornings. It’s even cooler out of the Metroplex so it was fairly nice to get on the bike and ride.

But I still have a sports bike. It still has low clip-ons, raised foot pegs, etc. It gets uncomfortable after a while. My round-trip total was 457 miles and you can figure I was on the bike about four hours straight each day (Sat. and Sun.).

Today I can really feel it in my traps. They are going to be sore for a day or two. Even my butt is a little saddle sore from droning for so long. Surpassingly, the twisties wear you out in a completely different way. You have to use your muscles differently as well as rapidly altering your position on the bike. It doesn’t give you much of an opportunity to get sore in any one spot.

And, as luck would have it, our reunion coincided with some Harley event just outside of Chireno that I believe is called the Wild Hog, or Hog Wild rally. Something like that. I never saw the huge throngs of bikes that others saw, but I passed a good many Harleys on the highway. Some of them even gave the friendly biker wave, but most of them were too goddamned stuck-up even for that (me being on a sport-bike and all).

And as I was trying to make my way back….it happened. It’s the number one reason I hate riding with or around cruisers. I was clipping along around 75mph (speed limit was 70) came over a hill, around a bend and all of a sudden I am in traffic…. In the middle of freaking nowhere on a Sunday morning (before Church lets out). Can you guess? That’s right…a whole stream of bikes going under the speed limit. They didn’t leave a trail of motorcycle parts, oil, grease and beer cans…. Well, they might have done that. Harley’s are known to throw parts going down the road – another reason not to get to close to the back of ‘em. But what they did leave was a wake of pissed off cagers (cars) about a ½ of a mile long.

It’s hard enough to pass on the country roads in a car. You just don’t have much time before you are back in a no-passing lane. But when there are 30 bikes to get around you simply can’t do it.

Theoretically, it should be easy for me. I worked my way around all the cagers stuck behind the bikes and then hit the pack. If the speed limit was 70, they were doing 50 – 55 mph. When it dropped to 50 I thought “well at least we are already going 50” and they would slow down to 30mph. Are you fucking kidding me????

Most bikers have the common courtesy to scoot over to the right-hand side of the lane and let a fellow biker go by. But not these folks. I kept waiting for a nice up-hill climb that opened up to two lanes to let the slower traffic get to the right so that others can get by, but it never happened. Mile after mile goes by and I’m thinking soon…soon…soon…I can get by these assholes. But no, it doesn’t happen. But finally…a passing lane. Not a big one, but I downshifted hit the gas and blew by about 10 or 15 of ‘em before I had to scoot back into the pack. I am sure they were not very happy about that as I split ‘em. Another passing lane and I went back to the oncoming lane and got by the rest of them. I think the leader was flipping me off. Fuck him.

They faded from my review mirrors as I got back up to the speed limit (and maybe a little extra). I just shook my head. I don’t get it. Why ride a bike and be such a nuisance to everyone like that?
For some reason, I was reminded of a conversation I had with Jenny not too long ago. I was telling her I hated pot-luck lunches because people always bring stuff I hate – beans, potatoes salad, cole slaw, some pasta-something dish and everything is slathered in mayonnaise. To me, riding a Harley is like that. You are one of the people that goes to the pot luck all the time. Your dish is just like every other dish and they all get by, but none of them really stand out. Your bike is the mayonaise. As Jenny said “enjoy your mayonnaise.”