El Matador's and Desmolu's most excellent adventure. Writeup Finished!

[DesmoLu]

As all of you have noted by now, as clearly demonstrated by Matador's last post, he obviously does not exaggerate at all. Ever.

[DesmoLu]

I'm sorry everyone, was just playin'. and I'll refrain from clicking on your thread (novel) again .

See ya down the road.

NO!!! Come back!!! We didn't mean to scare you away with our bitter sarcasm. Besides, I thought we all liked that characteristic in one another?

[Bun-bun]

 

I've been having a less than stellar week (and it's only Tuesday! ), and this thread has saved my mood. Keep it going!

[DucMouse the Mighty]

NO!!! Come back!!! We didn't mean to scare you away with our bitter sarcasm. Besides, I thought we all liked that characteristic in one another?

 

when we leaves the cave he tends to stir the pot 

[DoubleEagle]

Reminds me vaguely of Cetme's adventures .

Dolph       

[DesmoLu]

(Please note, He-Man didn't actually "explode" all over the floor, rather, he just unpacked an infinite backpack in his characteristic frenzy that later resulted in the question we heard so many times during our trip "Guys, where's my wallet?")

I don't remember things quite like my Matador.
For one, we didn't go right to sleep upon arriving in DC. That would have been the responsible thing to do. After all, we only planned on riding all of the Big Ass Russian-equivalent of a state of Virginia the next day so that He-Man and Russian could do the Dragon and make it back to NYC for work on time. Instead, Yuu made the mistake of informing our companions that a 7/11 is open down the street. Naturally, they made off in search of the types of foods that only such metabolically gifted creatures as this giant russian and asian of infinite energy can afford.

Yuu, Matador, Yuu's awesome dog and I are sitting on the couch chatting when they return with two oozing hot dogs, complete with REAL cheese substitute, a pack of taquitos that had been fried in the used up oil no longer suitable for fast food chains and god knows what else. Then, only THEN could we call it a night.

Matador and I had it easy that night as we were segregated from He-Man by a door and an entire flight of stairs. You will see why this is important later.
The night is glorious. The bed is comfy, the dog is cute, the silence is as golden as duck tape is silver. When I awake, the brand new Arai that I ordered to replace my crashed one has arrived from Fedex!!! (I'd been wearing Matador's old powderpuff Shark that was way too big for me). Even better, the house is empty when I go upstairs. Only the Russian remains.
"Where is everyone?" I ask?
"They are working on bikes," he answers, "but I have Honda so I have nothing to work on."

Soon we head out for breakfast/lunch in Yuu's restaurant filled neighborhood. Before we can say "lets look at the menu" Russian says "We eat here" and promptly walks in to get us a table. The restaurant is filled with so many $14 scrambled eggs, civil rights movement era poetry and liberal propaganda that I fear for all of our safety - surely Matador is going to make some offensive comment that will get our expensive eggs poisoned! Alas, we survive the meal with only a battle to the death over precious few sweet potato fries.

Bellies full, suspensions adjusted, we bid farewell to our most gracious host and set off for Skyline Drive. Twisties, oh twisties at last!

[DesmoLu]

Now, in every story there comes a point where we introduce the ill-fated twist and the plot thickens. Here, about half an hour outside DC, we introduce our plot twist: He-Man has been leaking oil since we left New York!! Dun, dun, duuuuuunnnn!!! 

We don't let it stand in the way of our twisties. Even before we reach Skyline, our route transforms from suburban slab into tangling mountain passes. As soon as the road tightens, the Russian's throttle opens. His CBR is tearing through decreasing radius turns with the same fearless, unstoppable fervor with which communism swept across eastern Europe. we manage to keep up even though we are riding two-up. however, my toe slider must be sacrificed. The Exxon Valdez trails behind us.

This is just on our way to put gas! When we double back on the pass to actually enter Skyline (it is a national park with an entrance fee) we notice something missing. Yes, it is Exxon Valdez aka He-Man that just blew past the entrance. The Russian sets out to retrieve him. We wait anxiously for ~10 minutes, dreading passing each group of Harleys that we watch enter the park. Worried, Matador sets out in the opposite direction to make sure He-Man's oil leak did not go catastrophic. Seconds later, Russian and He-Man return from the other direction. Failure to coordinate.

By the time we enter Skyline for 105 miles of glorious mountain switchbacks, it is nearly sunset.

Skyline Drive twisties:


The map doesn't do it justice because you can't see all of the elevation changes. The road is so beautiful and fun I had previously insisted doing it in a mini-van with a mattress tied to the roof during my move from NYC to TX a couple years ago. I loved it then and I loved it so much more again.

When we arrive in Roanoke we are satiated, exhausted and starving - all of those same post-twisties or post-sex sensations. An enormous man at a gas station recommends an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet place down the street that is "the best in town." For some reason, we trust him. Perhaps our senses are dulled. Regardless, we avoid the sketchy sushi, have our fill of fried MSG and take the next logical step - buy copious amounts of beer. The Russian balances our case of beer perfectly on his lap for the ride home. It is almost as if he has done this before?

Tonight we decide it is worth it to "invest" in a "luxury" hotel room like the Days Inn so that we can get the bikes into the room for the night and work on He-Man's leak. Something tells me Days Inn does not want us back:





The rest of the night unfolds as could only be expected - 3 guys, 3 bikes and a case of beer in one small hotel room....





I crawl into bed and attempt to sleep, the sweet smell of man sweat, carby bike and spilled beer lulling me away into sweet dreams. But He-Man will not let it be so....

[He Man]

But He-Man will not let it be so....

insomnia!

[Slide Panda]

  Your audience is waiting...

[mookieo2]

Funny SH$T guys. I can`t wait for more.

 

[He Man]

heres a teaser pic.


also this is me right before i get a side choke on El Matador....of course me being a lofty 150lbs, he body picked me up and body slammed me a  

The Russian, as you all know this myterious character.... is actually a friend of mine from school. Yahuen, hes actually from Belarus. Heres a pic that I know El Matador will be drooling over later tonight (sorry Desmolu, there was a reason why he wanted to switch


Sidenote: That is a 1990 Honda F2i with 44k miles.

[El Matador]

Alright, I guess it's time for me to post.

So He-man was jumping up and down with an amount of energy usually only reserved for five year old children that have been given massive amounts of speed and coke. He had a little flashlight toy that he was using to draw penises on the ceiling. Being almost 3 AM and having drunk a case of beer, none of us was in the mood for putting up with this.

We asked him politely to stop but his only answer was "giggle, giggle". Drastic measures had to be taken. Desmolu went over their bed and beat He man with a pillow until he surrendered his toy. Peace at last, or so we thought. Even then, the annoyance persisted. Having battled with insomnia all my life I understood where he was coming from, but he was taking it too far. Something had to be done for our collective sanity.

I did the only thing I could do. In the time he took to breathe in between a fit of giggles I said (and this is a direct quote, I shit you not):

"Kui, if you don't cut it out, the oil leakage from your bike will be the least of your problems, it will be the anal leakage from the violent rape that will concern you."

After that, not a single word was spoken and we all drifted into peaceful sleep. Well I did at least. I have the nagging suspicion that He-man stayed awake with a knife by his pillow in case I decided to make true on my threat.

The morning came too soon. We woke up tired and red eyed, but ready to ride. As soon as we stepped outside though, we saw trouble. Trouble came in the form of rain clouds. Anyone here ever watch The Perfect Storm? Remember the scene when the boat is first going into the storm and everyone in the ship is watching apprehensively? that's exactly what the sky looked like.

At this point BIG ASS RUSSIAN decides that he wants to turn back. We try to convince him otherwise, but once a russian has made up his mind, there is no un-making it. Seriously, look at how long communism dragged out.

It was with very, very heavy hearts that we parted that morning. I don't think that I have ever had such a good time riding with other people, with maybe the exception of Swampduc, Slag and Kingbaby. They are part of the very few people that are crazy enough to attempt to do this trip with us, and the rest of the trip wasn't the same without them. I am tempted to ride back up there just so I can hang out with those guys again. Seriously, if anyone is ever in the NYC area, hit them up. You will laugh harder than you have in a very, very long time. It's funny how riding together can create a bond between people that barely know each other that is as strong as a friendship of many years. If any of those guys were to ask me for help at any given moment I would drop whatever it was and fly across the country to do anything they needed.

Ok, enough with the sentimental BS. back to riding.

When we got back on the road, we felt a little down. It was a mix of leaving our friends and the fact that it was raining hard enough to consider pulling over for safety kind of put a damper on our moods. But soon enough we hit the blue ridge parkway. And that changes EVERYTHING. If anyone here hasn't ridden the BRP in it's entirety, stop whatever you're doing and start planning NOW.

Let me explain. 600 miles of twisties. Yes you read that right. 600. Miles. Yes. It is hard to believe but it is true. And I'm not talking nice little lazy sweepers either, 600 miles of bonafide, hardcore, awesome twisties. It was glorious. It was more than glorious, it was Epic. It was mile after mile after mile of climbing mountains and coming back down. Some of the most spectacular views I have ever seen. And it was dry 

Somewhere in between the scenery and the awesome curves I seem to forget that I'm riding a monster. And monsters only have a very limited fuel capacity. About 130 miles to be exact, which brings us to the only drawback of the BRP, It has no gas stations. Yeah, that sucks. So at about 130 miles into it, the gaslight comes on. I pull over and ask Lucrece if she has seen a gas station. She has not. We pull out the map and find out there are no gas stations on the BRP. Oh, and the next town is 40 miles away. SHIT.

Shitmake the beast with two backsmake the beast with two backsshitgawdamnmake the beast with two backsmothermake the beast with two backsmake the beast with two backsingmake the beast with two backss.

Yeah, I just quoted Boondock Saints.

Well, we'll go as far as we can. We happened to be at the top of a mountain at the moment, So I get the bright idea that the best way to conserve fuel is to put the damned thing in neutral and coast. Well, coast we did. To conserve momentum I kept braking to a minimum, we were hitting 60 miles an hour at some points. We would put the bike in gear to go upwards, and as soon as we hit downhill we would coast again. Somehow, we managed to make the 40 miles. We got 180 miles out of an S2R1000 tank while 2up. That must be some kind of record.

The rest of the ride continued much like the ride before we started running out of gas, epic views and epic twisties. We stopped to snap some pics and relieve the bladders:









And then we rode on. And on. And on. Turn after turn after turn after turn. I truly cannot express how awesome it was. We rode only twisties for 13 hours that day. It was some of the best riding I have ever had.

Finally, we arrived at Asheville where we would meet Journeyman for dinner. He turned out to be as awesome as his posts led us to think. He showed up on a painfully beautiful yellow 900SS. It has to be one of the cleanest examples I have ever seen. At this point, you can probably infer that we were pretty damned hungry. We had survived the day by eating poptarts that we stole from the continental breakfast in the morning, but by the time it was 10 Pm we were starving. JM came to the rescue and took us to a place called Cheddar's where we quickly devoured our food and flirted with the waitress.

I wish we had been better guests but we were so tired we must have been some pretty boring dinner dates. Nevertheless we had a great time in Asheville and if any of you is ever in town you should buy JM a beer purely on account of his sheer awesomeness.

After dinner, JM had to go back home to tend to his sick wife, but pointed us in the general direction of a motel, in which we promptly fell into a coma. Not before the bike was tucked in besides us though. 

[El Matador]

Oh yeah, I forgot to say, as we were coming into Asheville, we saw a freaking BEAR cross the road. Screw deer, Bears are not something you want to hit. If they survive, they make the beast with two backs you up and eat you.

[DesmoLu]

Key items left out of previous post:

1) Immediately after Matador threatens He-Man with anal leakage, the Russian emerges from bed and puts on jeans. Seriously. There is no sleeping in boxers when anal leakage is a threat. The Russian tosses and turns in the bed. "I don't know which side to turn my back to," he says in fear.

2) The next morning when our companions ABANDON (just teasing guys) us, I am charged with quickly packing our tail bags to be shipped by He-Man in the nearest city to Slag's place in FT Worth. I am so busy trying to stuff our tiny camel back with everything we need for the next few days, this mainly consisting of all of the pop-tarts and bananas we took from the free continental breakfast (budget has been reached and we don't plan on staying at a breakfast serving hotel again - we need to live off of this shit) that I completely forget that the freezer bag of new duc documents containing our Bill of Sale is tucked under a bundle of moist Matador jeans and other foul smelling things. This will come into play later.

3) I sincerely second all of Matador's rave reviews of the BRP. Genuinely awesome. Not only the twisties, but the beautiful views (see the pics). That being said, at only one particularly scenic overlook did Matador stop. I was astonished when he pulled over. Was he ACTUALLY stopping to admire the view? Take a picture? Enjoy a romantic moment now that we were alone for the first time in a week? No. It can't be! Oh yes, it can't. Before I can begin to take my helmet off and prepare for a possible kiss, he is standing with his back to me, leaning into the side of the cliff. Apparently he needed the bathroom. Well, obviously. What other reason would someone possibly pull over?

4) Coasting down the mountain to conserve gas gave us both a memorable glimpse into the lives of cruisers. Unable to rely on the throttle for proper handling, we had to take those corners with minimum lean. It was so upright, so much slower than it should have been and yet, still remarkably faster than any of the cruisers we'd seen.

5) The last stretch of the BRP before you come into Asheville, NC is mostly a bridge built into the side of the mountain, connecting the different mountain passes. IT IS INCREDIBLE:

[KnightofNi]

the BRP is awesome. we rode down it in may to get to the dragon.

lynn cove viaduct (pic above) is really pretty. if you get the chance to stop there do it. there are a few trails that leave fromt he parking lot too. the NC section is much better than the VA section too