seat cushion 911 and the road to carlsbad not bike friendly

I rode my motorcyle to carlsbad carverns yesterday. This was my fast long distance trip with my honda shadow. It look me a litle over 4 hour hours to get there. Since this was my first long trip with the shadow and it was new I was a little worried so I rode a little...guarded. The honda shadow performed good considering the fact it was over 100 degrees outside, and the cost of the whole trip was only 21.00 in gas round trip:).

But there was one problem.

I found that the seat wasn't doing justice to my rear end. After the 50 miles of riding My legs started to become cold and I couldn't feel my legs. I had to pull over to bring back the feeling in my legs. Now if your back hurt then everything else started to hurt. After awhile my shoulders started to bother me.

So every 35 miles or so I had to repeat the ritual of pulling over just to feel my legs again.

To make all of this worse the route to carlsbad is not motorcycle (or car) friendly. After you leave the outer limits of el paso, there are no convinance/gas stations you can stop at until you get right before carlsbad caverns. Now there are picnic stops along the way, but all they have is protection from the sun, some seats and a grill. Sure there are one or two of those Mom and pop gas stations but they are closed at night. Now there is one and I only mean ONE offical nice rest stop, but by the time you get to it you're pratically almost at carlsbad caverns. If you go there I strongly suggest you fill up you gas tank before you leave, and make sure you have an ATM/credit/debit card that works because if you go to carlsbad caverns on a motorcyle unless you have a large fuel tank, your going to need gas to get back home. The gas station is unmanned, so you'll need your plastic if you want to get gas. If the machine can't read your card you'll might be in trouble...

I drove to carlsbad caverns in a car and I took the simple things for granted until I rode there on a motorcycle. I didn't get home until 11 at night so I had to stop at every picinc stop to get the feeling back in my legs. There's no lighting at these picnic stops so it was pitch black (the view of the stars were nice though). When I turned on my bike just to have some lighting the insects were drawn to the headlights like a swarm of bees. I suffered a onslaught of insects while riding at night. I had a mess to clean up later. I hated when one of the larger bugs would hit against my helmet or pants leg and expolde with a sickening crunch.

So I learned a lot from this expericance.

1. I going to buy a seat cushion for motorcyle seats so I won't have to suffer from those damned pressure points on long trips.

2. I going to bring a small spray bottle full with the bug cleaner soap on long trips so I can clean off my helmet.

3. Carry a high powered pocket flashlight

4. On a long distance trip I'm going to leave early, early, early.

Besides all my troubles gettting to and leave from carlsbad caverns it was worth the trip.

My next long distance trip will be the grand canyon hopefully.