Well if you read my trip to Mentone article then you know that I was not going to pair up with any white cars on the way home. Instead I found a nice big pickup truck with a huge Harley Davidson sticker in the back window to run with. That guy really looked out for me and we spent about two hours together. He cleared traffic and waved me along to follow. So I did just that.

My Harley Davidson Truck Friend

Now the total trip home from Mentone was just about 11 hours long and that’s just about enough riding for me today. Well, not quite true, I did take four Advil and I could do another hour or so if I had to but that’s a brave thing to say as I’m laying in my own bed writing this.

While I was snugly tucked up into DeSoto state park in Mentone, Alabama I was in a bit of a news vacuum but I figured out the storm that hit Texas must have done a lot of damage judging by the waves of utility trucks I saw going south this morning. It looked like a few trucks were on their way from a number of electric companies. I tried to take a picture of a line of utility trucks but I hit a hell of a joint in the road right before it was time to press the button and you got the picture below instead. Notice how distorted it is and that will tell you how ’special’ that road patch was. The road was actually level.

KerThunk

The highlight of the morning was ‘the screw’. I’ve always been curious how do those screws that wind up in tires, end up on the highway. Today I left on in the middle of the interstate.

Let’s see if I can paint the right picture for you in words. Just as I spotted the screw on the right hand side of the windshield was loose, I reached for it and at the very same time if fell out just an inch in front of my reaching hand. I didn’t even slow down for it. What was I going to do, get down and look for it on the highway?

Missing Screw

Someone once told me that the definition of an idiotsecond was the amount of time it took your car door to close as you caught a glimpse of the keys in the ignition. Well the screw was a bit of the same thing. Look, the screws loose, damn. I better twist it back in, plunk. Damn!

I thought I’d just lower the screen and that would keep the windshield stable for the rest of the trip but after I just passed my third exit I noticed that the windshield was now separating from the bracket on the right side. Of course that revelation came as I has just passed the exit. Damn again.

I backed off on the speed and hoped for the next exit to be close. Hoping apparently does not make it so but the exit finally arrived. Luckily I found one of those nice clean gas station-McDonald’s combos so I guess I did get the lucky exit after all.

While I had my trusty phillips head screwdriver under the seat, but I was now sans one screw. Luckily I noticed that Suzuki, in their infinite wisdom, and cost saving efforts, had used the same screw in a lot of places, so I stole one out of the dash and used it to secure the windshield.

Of course, the only reason my trusty phillips head screwdriver was under the seat to begin with was to make sure that I check those windshield screws from time to time. Damn again. The good news is that the fix worked and now all I have to do is go get a replacement for the one I robbed out of the dash.

Overdrive

On the way home I had an opportunity to use the apparently lesser known overdrive in the Suzuki Burgman. Tony at the rally had shared with us his use of the overdrive on his 650. “Overdrive?”

Sure enough I followed Tony’s instructions and engaged the overdrive which drops your RPMs by 200-300 when you are at cruising speed. This also added about 4 extra miles per gallon for me on the way back.

So here is what Tony said to do to easily engage the overdrive.

1. Get up to cruising speed, around 70 mph, and then press the transmission into manual.
2. You should be in 5th gear.
3. Press the UP button one more time and you’ll see the OD gear light up above 5th.

His instructions worked like a charm and did in fact lower the RPMs at cruise. When I came to some steep inclines or needed a boost of speed I just dropped it back into automatic and off I went.

Simple Is Better

Simplistic Tools in Action

Here is my cup holder in action on the way home, and as I said, it never falls off from there. You can also see my very functional and inexpensive universal tool docking station, otherwise know as a big piece of Velcro. Whatever I want to have in front of me I just stick there. If I don’t need it, I put it away. Sometimes it is the GPS that sits horizontal but most of the time the iPhone occupies the right hand side with my headset plugged in listening to tunes. Everything is right within reach and easy to put on and take off in flight.

The End of the Line

Chattanoga, Knoxville, Asheville, Statesville, Hickory, Greensboro, and Durham all flew by on the way home. But what made the trip fun was a guy on a BMW that paired up with me for an hour and we rode in formation and then latter I went to pass a group of six guys on Harley’s but got boxed in behind them so I just fell in formation. If they had a gesture or signal for “Infidel in our midst” I’m sure they would have flashed it. Harley-Harley-Harley-Harley-Harley-Harley-Burgman. At the earliest possible option I flashed them the peace sign and took off, jetting by them. It was funny to see them all close ranks when I pulled up behind them. I just wanted to scream to them not to worry, I wasn’t going to be riding that slow for very long.

And then, in a flash of nearly eleven hours on the Burgman flying NE, I was back in Raleigh, bike parked, boots off, Advil consumed and honestly, ready to do it all again tomorrow.

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