Welcome to my triplog! I hope you will enjoy accompanying me on this journey of motorcycle and of spirit. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a musician from New York City who rides a very large bike - a 1300cc Yamaha Venture. So far I've ridden in about 20 states and 7 Canadian provinces, and I can safely say that some of the most challenging riding I've had is in my very own Manhattan, with Brooklyn a close second.
Currently, I'm writing this in my parents' house in Winston Salem, North Carolina, where I am waiting for the local Yamaha shop to receive and install a coil that somehow controls the fuel mixture and has been making the bike run like crap the past few hundred miles.
My original intention was to leave for this trip on February 1st. This was before Big Mama started acting funny, and I realized that february is not an easy time of year to sublet an apartment for 2 months. I had 5 separate people planning on coming over to see the apartment back out at the last minute, one of whom was actually on his way over when he received an offer for a much cheaper place in exchange for pet sitting. Ouch. So, for 3 full days I was all packed, ready to go, only waiting for someone to come by and rent my apartment. This is one of the most frustrating situations I could possibly imagine myself in.
Out of complete frustration, I decided I needed to leave. Right now. So I got my things together, put Django, my 5 month old terrier, in his cage on the back, and pulled off. I was too busy trying to get out of town to realize that there was about an inch of fresh snow on the ground, and about 50 feet into my multicontinental trip the rear tire slides right out from underneath me and the bike slams onto the pavement. I was fine, Django was fine, Big Mama was not. Both the crash bars got bent - the rear one into the side luggage, putting a big crack down the side, and the front went into the foot panel, pinning it into an upright position, rendering the bike unrideable. To top it off, she wouldn't even start up again.
The only time that bad situations occur on these trips is when I become destination driven and forget the reason that I ride motorcycles. It usually takes something like this to get me to slow down and stop being so damn impatient. Once I went back up to my apartment, defeated, with a very confused puppy (see pic),
and got some of my emotions out, I went back down to assess the damage more level-headedly. I figured out that I could actually bend the bars back into more or less their original positions without causing structural damage. I put the battery on charge for the night, and decided that if it starts in the morning, I'm going to North Carolina.
The next morning Big Mama started, warmed up smoothly as usual, so Django and I hopped on and took off. Crossing the George Washington Bridge was a very big deal - I hadn't ridden out of the city in a few months. The only problem on the trip down to NC was that it was cold - really, really cold. I was also concerned about the puppy, but he did just fine, and was a lot warmer than I was, wrapped up in his blanket in the crate.
Usually he sits right on the back seat, with his harness tied up to the passenger grab rails, but it was much too cold for that. Stopping every 50 to 75 miles, I made the trip in 14 hours - in a car it usually takes 9 or 10. Crossing the border into North Carolina from Virginia, I met a guy who said the temperature on his truck read 16 degrees F.
The next day, after taking Big Mama to the shop, I took my old car, my '88 Thunderbird, to Durham, where Django would be left with some very good friends -
Amber, whom I lived with in NYC for a year and a half and who rode 12,000 miles with me this summer, and her wonderful partner (and my good friend) Kate. I know they will take good care of my boy, but it was tough letting him go.
Back in Winston, I got to ride my sister's horse, and also discovered some of my dad's old photography equipment from the 70's and 80's. This got me motivated to figure out
how to use them, and gave me something to do while waiting for the bike to get done. So, in addition to taking digital pictures for this blog, I'll also hope to be shooting some "artsy" photos with the nifty Canon AE-1 and Olympus-Penn EE-2.
Thanks for sticking with me on my first blog posting (ever!), I hope this provides enough background information to get you started.
Currently, I'm writing this in my parents' house in Winston Salem, North Carolina, where I am waiting for the local Yamaha shop to receive and install a coil that somehow controls the fuel mixture and has been making the bike run like crap the past few hundred miles.
My original intention was to leave for this trip on February 1st. This was before Big Mama started acting funny, and I realized that february is not an easy time of year to sublet an apartment for 2 months. I had 5 separate people planning on coming over to see the apartment back out at the last minute, one of whom was actually on his way over when he received an offer for a much cheaper place in exchange for pet sitting. Ouch. So, for 3 full days I was all packed, ready to go, only waiting for someone to come by and rent my apartment. This is one of the most frustrating situations I could possibly imagine myself in.
Out of complete frustration, I decided I needed to leave. Right now. So I got my things together, put Django, my 5 month old terrier, in his cage on the back, and pulled off. I was too busy trying to get out of town to realize that there was about an inch of fresh snow on the ground, and about 50 feet into my multicontinental trip the rear tire slides right out from underneath me and the bike slams onto the pavement. I was fine, Django was fine, Big Mama was not. Both the crash bars got bent - the rear one into the side luggage, putting a big crack down the side, and the front went into the foot panel, pinning it into an upright position, rendering the bike unrideable. To top it off, she wouldn't even start up again.
The only time that bad situations occur on these trips is when I become destination driven and forget the reason that I ride motorcycles. It usually takes something like this to get me to slow down and stop being so damn impatient. Once I went back up to my apartment, defeated, with a very confused puppy (see pic),
and got some of my emotions out, I went back down to assess the damage more level-headedly. I figured out that I could actually bend the bars back into more or less their original positions without causing structural damage. I put the battery on charge for the night, and decided that if it starts in the morning, I'm going to North Carolina.The next morning Big Mama started, warmed up smoothly as usual, so Django and I hopped on and took off. Crossing the George Washington Bridge was a very big deal - I hadn't ridden out of the city in a few months. The only problem on the trip down to NC was that it was cold - really, really cold. I was also concerned about the puppy, but he did just fine, and was a lot warmer than I was, wrapped up in his blanket in the crate.
Usually he sits right on the back seat, with his harness tied up to the passenger grab rails, but it was much too cold for that. Stopping every 50 to 75 miles, I made the trip in 14 hours - in a car it usually takes 9 or 10. Crossing the border into North Carolina from Virginia, I met a guy who said the temperature on his truck read 16 degrees F.The next day, after taking Big Mama to the shop, I took my old car, my '88 Thunderbird, to Durham, where Django would be left with some very good friends -
Amber, whom I lived with in NYC for a year and a half and who rode 12,000 miles with me this summer, and her wonderful partner (and my good friend) Kate. I know they will take good care of my boy, but it was tough letting him go.Back in Winston, I got to ride my sister's horse, and also discovered some of my dad's old photography equipment from the 70's and 80's. This got me motivated to figure out
how to use them, and gave me something to do while waiting for the bike to get done. So, in addition to taking digital pictures for this blog, I'll also hope to be shooting some "artsy" photos with the nifty Canon AE-1 and Olympus-Penn EE-2.Thanks for sticking with me on my first blog posting (ever!), I hope this provides enough background information to get you started.
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