Category: Prep

Well, most of you have been just wondering WTH? When are you going!? Where is your team? Why did they leave without you?  Fair enough. Here’s the answer.. It’s a pithy, long and very likely boring story .. but here it is.

I thought I would leave Saturday with the other two members of team, Clarence and Cornell.  However.. *cough*

Friday was a Freakshow. If you any of you recall, that Friday we had a hostage situation at the Wells Fargo at Windy Hill Road at I-75 in Smyrna, the one next to the Chik-Fil-A.  All the roads were closed, including the entire I-75 Windy Hill Interchange.

The day before my “planned departure” on Saturday morning, I was heading up to bolt on a Garmin Nav5 cradle to the bike at BMW Ducati Husqvarna Motorcycles of Atlanta. I was also doing last minute errands, returns, last minute purchases, all along Hwy 41, north and south of the Windy Hill intersection.

By the gridlocked traffic, you would think there was a nuclear threat. So I was stuck there for a while, hours, and had to push running those errands into the evening after I met my bank and attorney to finish up some personal documents I would needed to have complete before my departure. That meeting took 2-3 hours, and was down in Midtown-Ansley. Thanks McCord and Silverio! (I use last names so they know the shout out, but the entire world will not easily recognize whom it is I am talking about, since this is a blog with a public audience.)

So, by the time I made it home to do the final load out, it was around 7:30pm. That’s when epic rainstorms deluged my neighborhood; specifically Collier Hills next to us had the warning alert. Still we received 2 inches of rain from 7:30pm to 11:00pm. I was going to lay things out in my driveway since my garage is cramped. So much for that!

Besides, the guys wanted to leave Douglasville at 5am, and my dad could not pick up the dogs the day before, and could not get to my house until 8am. One dog, Chip, has “skills”. If I am not there for the hand off, Chip will go out the back door, jump the fence, and send my dad on a tour of the neighborhood. So, yep.. I had to be there.

Besides, when I originally got the invitation to join this crew, the itinerary said July 9 (Sunday) departure. I only found out last week, they had moved it up to Saturday July 8. One day, not a big deal right? Yes it is, if it’s a holiday week, and lots of real work that needs attending to, not to mention last minute work on the bike that needed to be done. I also needed to be instructed on how to maintain and repair the bike on the side of the road.

Bike shops are usually closed on Sunday and Monday. The holiday was on Tuesday. They close early on Saturday. I was not able to drive over to Watkinsville GA (Boxerworks)  the week before thanks to work. You get the idea. Perfect storm.

And then there is this. I have never done a trip like this, not even close. I usually go ride 200-400 miles in a period of 2-3 days, and I am not camping. This is 30-40 days, camping, in remote, and likely extreme, conditions. This takes serious planning, since critical issues could and likely will arise. I need to pack a kit sufficient to break down and repair most of the bike, including the replacement parts. Oil change, tire plugs, pumps, o-rings, light bulbs, 

Here’s an idea of the gear that is on my bike: 

So packing then became an issue. By the time I actually had the bike packed, it was stacked so high, I was just NOT going to attempt to ride it down the street, much less the long way across the continent! So I spent all day Saturday sorting and packing. Sunday went the same. Finally, I had it mostly together by Sunday night. The other team ates have taken long trips on bikes. This is my first time, so I really had to learn all this rapidly.  The living room, dining room, garage and breakfast areas looked like a REI delivery truck crashed into a Parts Unlimited truck on it’s way to Cyclegear. Here is what one room looked like in the house:

So Sunday evening, I grabbed some large plastic bins.. two each for “Going”, “Maybe”, and “No Way Jose”. I opened up the cases and bags,  and began tossing gear into the appropriate bins.

I distilled the mess down from a 7 foot high unstable and dangerous mess to a relatively sleek rig that is secure, stable, balanced, and packed so that I don’t have to dig for things each and every time I need something.

After an initial test ride, I noticed that the Port side box was getting VERY hot inside, troublingly so. I noticed there was scorching. The tail pipe does not extend far enough to the rear so that the exhaust will go straight out and away from the bike. the aerodynamic with the box installed creates an eddy effect, recirculating the exhaust air a bit longer than it should be there, and create a heat problem. While I could not engineer a tail pipe extension, nor research to see if one exists, I did solve it. I used emergency blanket material with gorilla glue. This creates a radiant barrier. I also wrapped the BMW repair manual in the material and duct taped it loosely to the inside wall of the box, creating further radiant protection. Problem is mostly solved. It’s still warm, but… things are no longer in danger of actually melting.

I gotta say.. if were not for the help of certain friends, Mount, Hornbuckle, Hollidayx2, Malone, Gassman, Brun, Grant.. (last names to protect the innocent..) I think I would have just given up on pulling all this together! It was exhausting to work on all of this, while doing real day job work, and then setting up my office so I could at least be responsive and available for real day job work as needed while traveling. It was on the level of rocket science to deal with all of those logistics and possibilities.

Never mind that the week before departure, I had an HVAC go out in a property, a roof leak in another, a 1st draft of a contract to review that is very likely the largest opportunity in my life for the foreseeable future, another property to put on the market, and a lease to get closed for a warehouse tenant client. All of that came up from a week before the departure date. I was  stress monkey.

Anyhow, my roommie, was a champ putting up with me all that time, never mind the mess, but I was a #HotMess. Stressed, ornery, gruff tone of voice, forgetful, airheaded, and tired. So cuddly, right?

So, since I managed to get the bike prepped by Sunday for the most part, I decided to wake up and clean up the debris from the packing job, and leave the house in good shape for her. That took all morning on Monday. All Morning. It was a wreck, plus I still found things that could fit on the bike.. such as I was able to fit my fly rod and kit on the bike, as well as bring along an extra jacket instead of shipping it North! YES!

Everything was sorted into bins, so I could call and ask someone to ship me things, all the common areas were clear and decluttered, kitchen clean, laundry done, yes, even the garage was organized.  Mount came over at 7am to help me unload the trailed of the 1000XR and move the other bikes around in the garage so they were out of the way, and locked up 6 ways from Sunday.

So, I did not get on the road until ~1:30pm.

Serendipitously,  Malone stopped by. She has been looking after me since 1998 or so, sort of a defacto Aunt. I have not seen her in person in several weeks. Right as I was mounting the bike to leave, she pulls up! So, we snapped some photos:

We even did a Jed Clampett shot of the bike: