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Long Distance Reporter |
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Rollin' eZine Volume 1, Number 11 March 2001 =============
Special for Rollin' readers
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Those Spots by Bruce 'B2' Barge Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I can hear y'all now, "He's supposed to be some kinda Long Distance Rider, we wanna hear about some serious mile munching, what's with this be-bop around town crap?!" Well you see, I've got me these little problems. (Please quit shaking your heads up and down) I've got these here "spots" on my brain. I can't seem to get rid of them and I'm not sure I would if I could. Just like the LDR virus I'm infected with, if I can't rid myself of these "spots" I might's well just give them to you. I've had these on my mind since before I started "writing" for Rollin' and I've been looking for the chance to put them down on paper. So kick back, pop yourself a cold one and let me rub these "spots" all over you. Maybe you'll get some of your own. Oh and by the way, if you were getting ready to eat, I think I'd be holding off a bit on that if I was you. Spot #1 - Expect the Unexpected! I've got (strike got, insert "had") a pretty nice commute each day, it's got a nice tempo to it. On the way in the morning, it helps "spool me up" for the day, arriving at work ready to "hit the halls running". On the way home, it gently kneads out the knots of stress that inevitably swell up during the day. The first part of the ride in the morning takes me down about 1 mile of pine and oak lined 2-lane, right into a deliciously banked 90 degree hairpin. Before I get to the corner, I can scope for oncoming, perpendicular traffic through the trees before deciding how much to "Swantz it" through the turn. After the hairpin, it's about another mile through some gentle esses before I reach the major intersection of Sarno Rd. and John Rodes Blvd. and the turn onto I-95 for the "traffic slasher" part of my ride. It was about a year ago, when the 750 Katana was my daily ride, that something happened on the first part of this commute that I'll never forget. The emergence of the first one of "those spots". As I sedately made my way through the esses approaching a big trailer park on John Rodes Blvd., the smile that is constantly under my helmet cheek pads quickly faded. I felt like I was riding into a cold, dark, gray funk, so thick I could almost taste it. I felt a gloomy dreariness sweep over me, a depression even darker than the one I normally live in. What was more unsettling was I wasn't sure I knew the reason why this was happening. (Actually, I knew exactly why, maybe I was trying to repress it.) Glancing up about 100 yards out and over to the shoulder, what I saw made me cringe. The sod was all torn up and turned over in an area about 6' long by 4' wide. Suddenly, the slow motion footage from the local evening news the night before started flooding over me. I thought about it and almost pulled over, and should have, as it was gonna get a lot worse before it got any better. In this trailer park I was passing lived a fellow rider, a retired gentleman in his 50's. Every morning, he'd fire up his mid-eighties Goldwing 1200 and ride the 1/2 mile to the 7-11 at the intersection of Sarno and John Rodes for his morning coffee and paper. Even if he dawdled, chatting with the clerks that knew him from his daily visits, he'd still be all safe and sound, back reading his paper before the morning commuter traffic would start to thicken. Butt not yesterday morning. Yesterday, his short little putt for coffee would turn into a never-ending nightmare for him, those that knew him and some of us who didn't. While he was inside the store that morning, events were transpiring barely 5 miles south of him that would make that mornings ride like no other before. About 5 miles further down John Rodes Blvd., 2 subhuman miscreants were committing some minor misdemeanor allegedly having something to do with a domestic dispute, at one of the local hotels. Unfortunately, they had picked the local valley of the shadow of law enforcement death in which to commit their little misdeed. Their misadventure soon caught the attention of both the West Melbourne constabulary, along with that of the Brevard County Sheriff's department and a high-speed pursuit ensued, heading northbound on John Rodes. The intersection of John Rodes and Sarno has a slight rise to it, most "normal" drivers tend to take it at around 25-35 mph. These two misdemeanor boys, however, were not your normal drivers. They were on a mission, a mission to get away from "the man". They didn't even come close. The LEO's clocked them at 100 mph when they hit that small rise in the intersection, sending them and their sedan airborne. They came down on the other side in a shower of sparks and immediately slammed into our Goldwing rider. His bike exploded into a fusillade of flying parts, the major remaining chunk traveling over 100 ft down the road and off onto the shoulder. It had been what had caused the torn up sodden area I'd seen earlier. Our Goldwing rider was pronounced dead at the scene. I began to play the news segment from the night before over in my head as I pulled to a stop behind a row of cars at the light. Waves of all kinds of emotion began to spill over me. "Man oh Man oh Man, why didn't he check his mirrors just once?!", I hollered to myself. (In retrospect, that probably wouldn't have done him much good as there are deep ditches on either side of the road. Nothing other that a full 90 degree turn would have gotten him out of the way and that itself would have still hurt pretty bad.) Stopped, waiting for the light, I began to glance around, trying to place things I'd seen on the news video. I noticed a few white chalk boxes in the roadway. I looked around some more, then I looked down. The hair stood straight up on the back of my neck (a prerequisite for one of "those spots"). Oh Dear God! The Katana was sitting right in the middle of the biggest chalk box. Both of my feet were standing right in the middle of what had been a 6' diameter puddle of some liquid. Instinctively, I pulled them both up then just as instinctively put them back down again. I even did a kinda little left-right-left before finally just giving up and putting both feet back down. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was standing on exactly the spot where that rider had taken his last breaths on earth less than 24 hrs before. (PS. Whoever took the guy's little white cross away, but it back NOW, dammit!) I think about this each and every time I ride past there, past "these spots" that should be a lesson learned to each of us. This one spot has seared the lesson of "Expect the Unexpected" into my brain, I hope it helps do the same to you too. Spots
#2 and 3 - Expect the Expected! After passing the "Goldwing spot" on my commute, it's a right turn onto Sarno Rd then a quick left onto I-95 South for about 8 miles. Now, you that know me know I enjoy my little morning sashay with the semis. Invariably, I'll get stuck behind one of them or worse yet, boxed in by two or three. (Car Carriers are the Anti-Christ.) It never takes more than a couple minutes of this up close and personal truck action before Pauline Ralston comes to my mind, and her having been taken down by a thrown up truck gator during the '99 Team Strange Buttlite rally. I never stick around long behind those semis after catching myself at this "one spot". Relatively speaking, during this first part of the commute, I can kinda kick back, set the bike on autopilot, flick my official Larry Buck throttle lock on and enjoy the scenery. Once I exit I-95 at Cracker box Palace Blvd. (Palm Bay Rd.), it's time to get bright eyed and bushy tailed for the last 5 miles of my ride. Things you can't possibly imagine happen every morning on this road. (For some reason though, it's not near as bad coming home in the evening <?>) On Crackerbox Palace Blvd., I've seen cars immediately blast across 2 lanes of 55 mph bumper to bumper traffic to make it over to the far turn lane. (I scored my first "kill", in my '76 Torino Elite Battlestar when this little Toyota tried exactly the same trick, right in front of me on this very road. The Toyota was totaled and was leaking gas, the Battlestar drove to Kentucky the next weekend.) I've passed guys shaving with foam and a razor on this road on the way to work and others eating a bowl of cereal while they were driving. Most mornings I just sit back, riding in my slot position, and laugh my butt off at what looks like the USAF Thunderbirds practicing just in front of me. If I recall the number correctly, according to the Hurt Report, 68% of the car/motorcycle accidents occur when the cage turns left into the path of the bike. (I think it would behoove every rider to identify each one of these left turn situations as they ride and shift into a mental "Defcon 5" upon noticing them.) This 5 miles of Palm Bay Rd is just one full alert threat condition after another, the proverbial accident or 3 or 4 just waiting to happen. Again, most of the stunt driving appears in the morning on this road. Maybe by 5PM everyone's job has just sucked all the desire for fight and conflict out of them. There are several "traffic design flaws" that exacerbate the propensity for a "traffic slashin' thang" (you race your race, I'll race mine) to occur here. One of these "flaws" is "spot #3". There is one exclusive ingress/egress point to a major apartment complex that just spits cars right out into the middle of two fast moving lanes of traffic about 150' prior to a large intersection. Those poor souls leaving the complex that want to get to that left turn lane are in a world of hurt. It's nothing butt a Kamikaze mission to cross both lanes of moving traffic to get there without getting nailed, yet I've seen it happen on more than one occasion. If it sounds nuts, just wait until it happens right in front of you. There was one afternoon I was real glad to have missed it by a few minutes. Heading homeward westbound, I started to get an X-band radar alert indicative of the local Palm Bay PD units, and I started glancing around for the offending "blue meanie" just as the traffic in both lanes slowed to a crawl. Just up ahead, 2 PBPD units came into view along with a Paramedics van. Behind all this was a minivan that had attempted the before mentioned suicide squeeze play. They didn't make it, and now it's stopped dead in the middle of 2 empty blocked off lanes of traffic. As I pass and glance around the side of the minivan, I can see it's toast. There's a nasty 6' impact crater just behind the drivers door. Then I notice that the two "empty" lanes aren't exactly empty, in the middle of one is what looks like the form of a human body covered with a yellow plastic sheet, a crimson pool is puddling it's way out from under one end of the plastic. A little further up, lying on the manicured lawn entrance to the complex is big chunk of metal that ever so slightly resembled what used to be a motorcycle. Even after a 20-30 second analyzing stare, to this day, I have not the slightest clue what kind of bike it had been. Suffice it to say, another rider, and another bike would never again feel the wind. As I passed through all this gore, a large flashing neon sign appeared in front of my eyes, screaming "That Cudda Been You Bubba!", and again, the hair just stood up on my neck. We as riders, absolutely must expect both the expected and the unexpected, they really are out to get us you know. Just as expressed in one of the J. R. Ringer books of the 70's (Coincidently, Looking out for Number One) "Expect the Worst Butt be Prepared for the best." Ladies and Gentlemen, if your bike's horn sounds like a roadrunner with an electric voice box, PLEASE spend the $50 and have a real damn set of horns installed. I myself am particularly fond of the paint peeling aural capacity of a set of dual FIAMM's, while the Barfrocket is blessed with a sufficiently obnoxious stock horn, both my Suzuki's have FIAMM's on them and they have saved my butt on more than one occasion. I have a tactical horn strategy. If I have assessed you as an immediate intercept threat and your front wheel so much as even twitches, you'll get a nice friendly, quick, beep, beep, beep "hey you! look at this motorcycle over here!" greeting. Let your front wheel travel 45 degrees and you'll quickly be rewarded with a totally locked on full aural preemptive strike. You think you might be a little wary of blasting some driver with your horns? Well, I'll take a "gee my finger slipped" shrug over modeling the latest fashions in toe tags any day. In over 150K miles, I've only had one cage driver look me dead in the eyes and still pull right out on me. (Yes, I stopped in time, butt close enough to reach across the bars and slap her upside her hollow head had I not resisted the temptation.) Another defensive riding tactic that has also served me well is to use a car beside me as a "blocker" when traversing any major multi-laned metro intersection. That oncoming blind driver and his seeing eye dog may not see my bike, butt they usually will see the car beside me. Spots
#4 and 5 - All Creatures Great or Small Over on the Long Distance Riders and Concours Owners Group e-mail lists, anecdotal stories abound regarding incidents between riders and larger wildlife such as Bambi, the rest of her 4 legged vermin family (Thanks Dale) and even their larger cousins. the elk and moose. Rarely in these confrontations does a rider come out unscathed, much less the victor. Luckily, in Florida, most of the areas with deer populations have fencing beside the roads to help corral the hoofed menaces, and luckily, we are severely lacking in the moose and elk departments. Sometimes though, the or small creatures can bite you as a rider, just as quickly as the other creatures great can. Several years ago, in my more stupid days, I was playing a game of "you can't catch me sucka" with my buddy Jim Heflin, (who had his girlfriend on the back of his Suzuki 1100). We were out on Valkaria Rd., one of the local favorites for when you need to air things out a bit. We were airing thangs out quite a bit, and as I passed into the realm of triple digits, (And Jimbobski was disappearing into the sunset), I barely noticed the hefty turkey buzzard sitting off to the side of the road. I had a few more important things to be paying attention to at the moment. I damn sure didn't expect him to pull off a suicide mission on me. (Silly me, thinking a bird that waits until it's dinner is maggotfied to eat would make sense.) Well, it did take flight and impacted my left mirror, shattering it into dime sized pieces. It then impacted the side of my helmet, leaving a hand full of feathers in the hinge before slamming into my shoulder, leaving a cantaloupe sized black bruise. We never did find hide nor hair of Mr. Buzzard. I have thought several times since, of the difference in results that would have occurred had the strike occurred about 18" over, right between my eyes. It is very possible that I might have been knocked off the bike. Near that series of twisties at the beginning of my commute, butt heading the other direction, is a real nice double apex turn. I love it. It's still two laned, so there's not much room for error should you go in too hot or miscalculate your turn(s). One thing I never thought would happen there did one day when a 3 lb. or so kitty cat decided to fly across the road and take on me and the Katana (which was at a pretty hefty lean angle at the time). Little Mr. Nine Lives hit me in the one spot I wished he hadn't, the leading edge of the front tire. Instantly, the Katana went into to a vicious tank slapper that followed me all the way through the turn before it subsided. This was probably the closest I've come so far to being taken down by an animal. As I've also seen another rider miss this turn and eat an oncoming car in the opposite lane, this turn too has well earned its recognition as one of "those spots". It'll be no time at all before most riders are brushing the rust off their riding skills and taking back to the road for the first time in several months. Hopefully I have reminded you of some of "those spots" of your own and maybe even some you had never thought of before. If the hair stands up on the back of your neck remembering or thinking about them now, hopefully for your sake it'll do the same when you get back on the road. A Final Transmission To translate from Sgt. Phil Esterhaus of "Hill Street Blues" to Southernese, Y'all, be careful out there now. (Thanks COG3K for the help) No more black tape this year, ok? B2 [heavy] is full stop |
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