How a motorcycle changed my life

[RedSox FZ1]

just in case...

[fizzyrider]

[G_man]

Good story—looking forward to the next chapter.

Thanks for sharing.

[gixxerjasen]

Originally Posted by phibene

You must've been Motor-T. Only guys I know with that many miles that aren't commercial truck drivers are military transport guys.

If so, I'm part of the family. Thanks for your service in spite of the separation.

Phillip

<----3533

[Deacon51]

Sub'ed.
I love this type of write ups on ADV Rider.
Some day I hope to have my own.

[Nitty]

[T_T]

Good lawd eets hawt out there!
My nutz were feeling a bit like Crimmas! "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire", yeah that type of Crimmas.

104 according to the banks.
Had one interview and while I was in that, a message was left for me to call for a follow up interview. Went well. I may have a choice this time.

Back to the tale of idiocracy.

I had been in Texas for about a month to 6 weeks. Time to go.

At this point my only destination was to make it to Montana By July 18th (2010).
I have been in every state but Oregon, Washington, The Dakotas, and Montana.
Were are on our way to remedy that issue.

I think I was sitting on 2 months on the road and 5 out of work.
Life was somewhat interesting at this point. I had almost relieved myself of the fear of losing it and was pretty comfie with being one broke SOB.

Steve was a hell of a host, and became a damned good friend at this point.
Not to mention I met even more cool people from ADV. Life was pretty good.

My plan was to take off from DFW, to ABQ, then Vegas (HA HA!) and then who the hell knows, but the 5 states were the agenda along with as many ADVers I could meet.

I left a bit late (around 1100) that morning, headed to Roswell in search of Alieums. Through back roads and and the likes I crossed over to NM. I was pretty tired as I slept very lightly the previous night. Anticipation I guess, along with fear.
It is a bit before dark, and it took my 6 or so hours to get out of Texas.

I see a rest area at the line and a sign that stated no long term camping.
HA! I only need 12 hours here.

Keep in mind that I have only had bikes with knobbies for the last 8 or so years, so a certain mentality was there pertaining to dirt.....

Yup, you guessed it!
LMFAO



Tourrance Tires are not all that good in the mud.

Never occured to me to dodge the mud hole until I had to pick up that loaded sucker! I pushed it 10 feet trying to upright it. Butt to seat, back to the bike, does not work too well this way. Finally had to unload it and stand her back up.

Snikker


Worked over by this....sad aint it.


Got to Roswell.


I was bummned, no Aliens.

next stop was an Inmates 100 miles south of ABQ then to ABQ.

[T_T]

Originally Posted by phibene

You must've been Motor-T. Only guys I know with that many miles that aren't commercial truck drivers are military transport guys.

If so, I'm part of the family. Thanks for your service in spite of the separation.

Phillip

I was a driver for many of those years. From 1989 to 1999 then from 2001 to 2009. Took a few years off, school and before I gradi-me-ated, I was offered the lead web developer for a major firm in Dallas.

Thank you for YOUR service, sir

[T_T]

For the life of me I cannot remember the guys real name....thats just wrong.
I do know his screen name...which is just as good as far as I am concerned.



Most know my screen name only, and can tell you my life history.

Anyways, I meet him and hanf out for about an hour. I decided at the last minute to stop in and see him. Matter of fact, when I saw the name of the town I was in, I jumped online and started bumming is number form the inmates.

A short time later he rings and we meet up.

Hung out in the A/C for a while and told lies.

Time to go. I made plans to be in ABQ that evening and I had 100 miles to go.
It was mid afternoon and I wante to be there before dark.

Remember I just said Tourrances do not work too well in mud, well they dont work too well in soft, semi-deep desert sand either,



a good rider knows how to do a graceful dismount.

Acutally, they do OK, as long as you do not think you are on knobbies.
At this point, I will not forget what I am riding. LOL

[T_T]

found more pix just before I crashed in his yard.

This is the only one I am going to post

[T_T]

Believe it or not, there are ZERO pix from my two days in ABQ. Sorry.

I was going to meet Dean, he was the sales mgr for the local BMW dealer.
He has turned out to be a damned good dude and is now the GM of Lone Star BMW. So just tell him I sent you and he will make sure you are a happy camper.

I think it was July 2nd and I was off to Vegas to meet another inmate and follow on some leads for work.

I think it was Friday and the guy I was meeting there was off for the weekend, which is a rare thing. Kirk was the first person from ADV I had given my number too and the first one I ever heard a voice. Yeah, I know, weird, but, it is what it is.

I goofed off too late in ABQ and had a helluva ride to make it there Sat. morning.
Kirk had a cool little ride for the day. Since he hardly gets to take off for the day (Family and work-a-holic), I had to meet the time frame. No problem, I can always jump on I-40 if I wanted/needed to. Well.......I had too. It sucks, but here we are.

I hammered across I-40 out of ABQ.

Now I had 400 damned miles of this slab to go, just to get to another boring 4 lane to Vegas.

about 300 miles later I see a Harley on the side of the road.
I pull in to see of they need anything, or need me to go for help/water.etc..



Rear wheel bearing was about to blow, he did not really know what was wrong. I crawled down and noticed it. He acalls HD road service or AAA or whatever it was. So I waited with them for the hook to show up.

They had left Ft. Worth @ 0300 and were at this point....not too damned shabby.
Took a few pix.




Now I was REALLY behind schedule.....I hate schedules, but for Kirk, I was gonna make it.

..............................

[okaugust]

Nice suitcase on the Harley. And I thought I carried a lot of stuff on the bike.

[T_T]

It is getting late, VERY late.

I think I was in Flagstaff at dark-damn-o-clock, and freezing my butt off. IIRC, it was 45 or so....yeah....I had to slip on the rain gear to keep somewhat warm(er).

I make it to Kingman, Az around 0200 EST...I was beat.....but I was WARM!

No time for the tent, so I just roll the mat out and snooze at the closed big rig wash.
Slept like crap. Up at the crack of dawn, and off I go. I needed to be in Vegas ASAP.

[MotorPsycho]

I'm in.

[Freezin]

Me too

[PFG]

In.

[railing]

Sub'd

[G_man]

Cool stuff but must ask about this killer pic? (great action shot btw)

WTF were you doing so that the camera was right there?


Were you practicing your Kenny Roberts moves? hehehehe

Great story so far.

[fz1grl]

Me too

[Scotty]

Hey TT you need to tell the Unimog travel story.That was an awesome thread on ADV Rider.