Frenchy's Rant

Mother Nature is one fickle woman. One minute her mood is all cheerful and sunny, the next it’s cantankerous, almost blatantly cranky.

The wind started picking up as we wound our way southeast down Route 180 towards New Mexico. First, the wind tried to blow me into the next lane, which was a fun adventure – for a while. However, being a bike-kite gets old pretty quick. Then, it got worse. The wind blew stronger, trying to blow my helmet and jacket off. Yeah, definitely a little less than fun now. We struggled to stay upright in the ferocious onslaught of Ma Nature.

Blow… Blow… Blow the Man Down

She still wasn’t done settling the score, so the wind speed picked up even more, trying to blow my bones right out of my skin. It was some of the hardest riding I’ve ever done.

Mother Nature wasn’t just angry with us. Dean called and reported that two hours after we left, the temperature plummeted, the skies opened up and the Motorcyclist Cafe Barn and Bunkhouse was now covered with a nice, white blanket of snow.

On second though, the wind really wasn’t so bad…

And, Momma N’s fury was short lived. I would say her mood once again swung, this time to Preoccupied, because the hurricane force winds calmed to occasionally gusty gales. Still exciting, but much less dangerous to ride in.

Another great detour presented itself, this time to the New Mexican ghost town of Mogollon.

A few miles of single track, and Dark Meat DirtLover was once again rewarded with a special treat.

No cowboy greeted us at the entrance to this ghost town this time. There was no admission fee. There was nothing much at all, except for a few… residents? Some ghost town!

There were no ghosts to be found either, so after a few half-assed photos, we kept on rolling towards Wrestlemania.

Soon after, Abi reported that his rear brake went from mostly spongy to non-existant. Yeah, I know… who uses the rear brake… but still, with the computers and linked ABS in these modern marvels, we were afraid the computer would decide it was too dangerous to ride and shut the bike down.

Decision time. We pulled into a place called ‘Gramma’s’ to get some of my favorite thinking food – apple pie.

As I was getting off Rain Cloud Follows, an elderly woman, possibly Gramma herself approached, took a look at the bright red ‘North Face’ logo on my stuff bag, and exclaimed, “North Face! You boys from Alaska or sumptin?”

“No, Ma’am, but one of these days we’re gonna ride up there.”

“Well, she said with an expressive nod, “Just go and do it. Don’t wait!”

Good advice.

Fortified with some apple pie brain fuel, our decision was made. The closest Kawasaki dealership was about a hundred miles away in Las Cruces. A hundred miles in a straight line, but rear brake or no, this trip is not about straight lines. Besides, one of the most beautiful and fun roads I have ever had the pleasure of scrubbing my tires on, NM Route 152, was just too close to pass up.

152 is such a fun, awesome, broad smiler of a road that I didn’t even take a single picture. And for me, that’s really saying something.

In solidarity with my rear brakeless brother, I didn’t touch my pedal once on the entire slalom course. Fun!

The sun did what it always does at this time of day, perfectly timed with our second intersection with a straight line interstate highway.

Mr. Erdon would be proud.

Las Cruces is one of those places, but then again, I guess every place is really one of ‘those places.’ We checked into a nondescript hotel near Las Cruces Motorsports, with a doctor’s appointment for Snowball at 10 the next morning.

Scanning the internet, we found this information on the possible cause of Snowball’s rear brake failure:

Kawasaki is recalling 2008 Concours 14 motorcycles due to a problem with the rear brakes. Road debris may get trapped between the rear brake pedal and the rear master cylinder actuating arm, preventing the pedal from fully releasing. This could cause the rear brake to overheat and may lead to rear brake lock-up or failure.

Satisfied that some gravel somewhere mucked up the stoppers of his bike, we set out to find something fun to do in Las Cruces. Margarita toasts, a little variation from the ever present Best Day Ever theme, went down far too smoothly.

By 11 AM, Richard at Las Cruces Motorsports had Snowball back in rolling condition.

And with two days (and one ride report) remaining until the dreaded Sunday crew call for the dreaded Wrestlemania setup, we were ready to roll the rest of the way to Houston.

Want more? Click here!

The Motorcyclist Cafe Bunkhouse and Barn. Getting there is half the fun!

After a harrowing mini-adventure down a slick gravel road, which again, half of the group enjoyed, Dark Meat Snack and I finally arrived as guests of Dean and Pam, proud founders of the Motorcyclist Cafe Bunkhouse and Barn.

Good guests don’t show up empty handed. And while it’s debatable if our merry little band of miscreants can actually be considered ‘good’ guests, at least I didn’t show up empty handed.

Before the trip started, I made Pam and Dean an unofficial proclamation claiming them as ‘Honorary Subjects of the Kingdom of Rhode Island.’

The Bunkhouse is an amazing place. Dean, who built almost the entire thing himself, gave us the tour, filling us in on its fascinating history at the same time.

Dean and Pam – Two Fine Human Beings and Good Friends

Dean and Pam bought this land sight unseen, and have turned it from some barren wilderness into a beautiful home. The entire compound is ‘off the grid,’ completely solar powered and completely self sufficient.

We sat down to a feast of epic proportions, and as fast as the piles of food went down, the piles of bullshit grew. The four of us stayed up very late telling stories and laughing. The best part of the Bunkhouse? Without question, MZ Pam’s killer pies!!!

I know we toast the Best Day Ever all the time, but, in my long history of motorcycling around the globe, this honestly was the absolute Best Day Ever!

Dark Meat Snack and I settled into the serenity of the Bunkhouse, and quickly fell fast asleep.

Or at least he did. The chainsaw-like snoring reverberating through the Bunkhouse kept me wide awake. Earplugs didn’t help. Moving to the couch didn’t help. More beer didn’t help. I thought about putting a pillow over his head and pushing down until the snoring stopped, and was about to actually do it when, miraculously, the most annoying sound ever stopped on its own.

The next morning, before breakfast, Dean took us on a tour of the property, showing us examples of Mz Pam’s amazing stone work.

During breakfast, or I should say another fantastic spread laid on by the lovely Mz. Pam, we watched The Weather Channel. Mother Nature’s mood: Cantankerous. Reports of bad weather approaching the area gave the weather-heads fits of glee. We decided to leave before Ma Nature turned the gravel road into soup.

With some quick hugs and promises for a return, we posed for a group photo then headed back out on the road.

We made it back to the main road in hurry-up mode, wanting to stay ahead of the cold front. Happily, I switched on the iPod and settled in for a nice back road cruise through Arizona and into New Mexico.

Suddenly, I noticed something was wrong. Very wrong. The Dark Meat Snoring Wonder, normally filling my entire rear view mirror, was nowhere to be found. I pulled over and waited a few minutes for him to catch up.

Nothing.

Spider-sense tingling, I quickly turned around, fearing the worst. Dean had warned us about elk in the area, and I feared that a sneaky vegetarian elk might have sensed another vegetarian biker and jumped out in the road to greet him.

The problem wasn’t quite that bad, but it was pretty bad. Somehow, Snowball’s rear brake did its job a bit too well, locking up solid and making forward motion impossible.

Abi had already called Dean, who was on his way. Within seconds, as usually seems to happen when a motorcycle has a problem, someone pulled over to offer assistance.

The guy’s name was Bruce, a painter, musician and rider from nearby. He told us there was a Kawasaki dealership in town, and offered to unload his truck – currently full of manure – and help us take Snowball to the doctor’s office.

Dean showed up a few minutes later with some tools. He brushed everyone aside, diagnosed the problem and almost immediately fixed it.

I must confess I know more about quantum physics than I do about motorcycle mechanics. I know where the gas goes. I know how many tires there should be, and where they attach to the bike. I also know you’re supposed to change the air in the tires once a week, but I only do it about once every month. What can I say, I’m lazy. Thankfully Dean knows as much about motorcycle mechanics as he does about home building. He came out, turned a wrench, and calamity instantly changed into a comedy.

Then, being the consummate gentleman, our new friend tested Snowball by making a few WFO passes.

And with that, we hit the road for real, heading southeast towards the Enchanted Land of New Mexico.

And we rolled just in the nick of time, because Mother Nature’s mood changed from cantankerous to downright cranky in almost an instant.

More? Click here!

The next morning dawned. Cold, clear, and… cold. Really cold.

I’ve learned the best, most logical thing to do when the morning dawns clear and cold is run back to the safety of the covers, which I gladly did. Ambitious schedule or not, freezing to death is not exactly the way I want to go out. (For those that are interested, I want to go out in a huge, exploding, flaming ball of fire, on live TV, taking several thousand startled people along with me… ) It was already obvious the second evolving theme of this ride would be Mother Nature and her fickle mood swings.

After the greenhouse gasses we released the day before worked their magic for a while, the planet returned to a nearly suitable temperature, and Dark Meat and I decided it was safe to venture out.

First stop? Breakfast.

Two years ago, Dark Meat Snack, Sleeping Beauty and I rode to the Grand Canyon on many of these same roads. We stumbled upon the Kofa Cafe out there in the middle of somewhere, and had such a memorable breakfast that I needed to return.

The locals seem to have been coming to the Kofa Cafe for years. Conversation stops when newcomers walk in, but once you get the hairy eyeball for a few minutes, you are accepted into the family. It’s a great place.

And they have a huge map of the US on the wall. Before we left, I checked to see if the pin I stuck in my hometown last time was still there. It wasn’t. Some scumbag removed it, so I stuck fifteen pins into my little slice of the Kingdom of Rhode Island, and tried to put a RI flag sticker up too, but I got caught.

Not sure if we’ll be invited back to the family next time, but breakfast was still good.

We raced up the barren expanse of Route 60, stopping briefly outside the little town of Hope.

Beyond Hope – Propor Grammer Opshonal

Vulture City is a ghost town located a few miles off Route 60. The legend has it that the mining town got its name from a vulture that was shot by a drunken cowboy landed on a gold nugget. Since there aren’t many lighthouses in the middle of Arizona, Dark Meat and I decided to pay the ghost town a visit.

The road into Vulture is a tangled mess of curves, and nearly deserted too. To me there’s no greater feeling than finding one of these state maintained racetracks.

The last mile to Vulture City was a fun little off-road dirt adventure for half our group, and not so much fun for Abi.

He hates dirt. This dirt hatred is good foreshadowing for the end of our day, but that’s getting ahead of the story.

The caretaker at Vulture City was a character straight out of a Louis L’Amour novel. Big cowboy hat, six shooter holstered at his side, he cut an impressive figure. His first question was, “How’d you boys hear about Vulture City? From one of those websites that said it’s $5 to come in? Well, It ain’t. It’s $10.”

Err.. OK. Considering we’d already risked life and limb riding that dirt road to get there, and considering he was armed and we were not, we paid the increased admission and set off to explore the ghost town.

Along a trail, Dark Meat Snack made a startling discovery. There’s still gold in them thar hills!

If I had a six-shooter, I could have easily renamed the town Dark Meat Snack City. Pity.

Determined to get my full $10 out of Vulture City, I took a quick dip in the conveniently provided hot tub.

$10 And No Hot Water?

When Abi and I originally decided on this trip, I posted our plan on a few motorcycling forums, asking if anyone felt like taking in a few smelly strays for the night. A few people bravely responded – not surprisingly all from Motorcyclist Cafe. Dean from the Motorcyclist Cafe Bunkhouse and Barn graciously offered me and Abi a place to sleep, so we aimed our bikes north, following a route kindly provided by Motorcyclist Cafe member ‘Jamming,’ towards the comfort and shelter of a stranger.

The route ‘Jamming’ provided was tremendous. I couldn’t help the wide smile on my face as I tried to coax a little more lean angle out of Rain Cloud Follows, rolling through the gravity defying corners of the excellent Route 89.

After lunch, I called Dean to let him know how far out we were. He told me to hurry, because Mz Pam was about to start cooking dinner, a huge meal of barbecued ribs. I hated to do it, but I had to break the news that while I am a HUGE fan of barbecue, with the thick middle to prove it, Dark Meat Snack is vegetarian. Somewhat disappointed sounding, Dean replied, “He is? Well… shit. I don’t have much food for one of.. them. I might have some cereal or something. I guess he can have that and watch us eat. Tell that boy he needs to eat meat like normal people.”

I knew right then that Dean and I would get along just fine.

On the way to the Motorcyclist Cafe Bunkhouse and Barn, Abi and I made one last, quick detour to see Montezuma’s Castle National Monument.

After staring at the ancient cliff dwelling for a few minutes, Abi turned to me and shared another of his invaluable Nuggets of Knowledge, saying, “Dude, it’s not even a castle, it’s just a fucking condo stuck in a cliff. I get it. Let’s go.”

I hate to say it, but I had to agree with this Nugget. And, dinner was calling. We made short work of the road between us and the Bunkhouse. I stopped to call Dean for final directions, and he said he’d meet us on his ATV and lead us the rest of the way.

We rode to the meeting point, and saw a few flashes from ATV headlights. Seeing our approach, Dean swung his four wheeler around and took off like a banshee!

Who Is This Madman?

At one point I looked at the FJR speedometer, and I swear we were doing close to 70 MPH! It was all I could do to keep up with this guy, but as fast as he was, there was no way he was going to give us the slip. We’d come a fairly long way to see the mythical Motorcyclist Cafe Bunkhouse and Barn.

And man, was the trip worth it!

The next installment of this epic odyssey can be found here.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, or at least that’s what Mr. Erdon taught us in eighth grade geometry class. What Mr. Erdon failed to tell us is that the straightest line, while fastest, is usually the least interesting path. It took me a lot of motorcycling trial and error to figure this important fact out.

By way of a little background, my steadfast riding buddy Abi, better known as Dark Meat Snack and I have worked as audio engineers for World Wrestling Entertainment for most of the past decade. Every single week of the year finds us traveling somewhere on the planet, bringing all the glorious sounds of Sports Entertainment – the grunts, groans, chair shots and screams – to our mass of wrestling fans.

An unintended benefit of all this travel is, if the show is within a reasonable distance, Dark Meat Snack and I can commute to work on Rain Cloud Follows and Snowball, our trusty, well traveled motorcycles.

Wrestlemania is World Wrestling Entertainment’s Super Bowl. The show, attended by a crowd of over 70,000 fans, and watched by millions on Pay Per View is the culmination of a year’s worth of story lines. This year’s extravaganza, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the show that started it all is being held at the Reliant Stadium in Houston.

As soon as Houston was announced as the home of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Wrestlemania, the wheels of my little mental Habitrail started spinning. In a straight line, Houston is only fifteen-hundred or so miles from my adopted home in California. A few months ago, Dark Meat Snack and I sat down in a dark bar somewhere, and over a few frothy pints of Guinness, plotted out our latest scheme.

The Road To Wrestlemania Map-kin.

With hard-won straight-line-is-boring knowledge in mind during the ‘Road to Wrestlemania Map-kin Route Planning Phase‘ we improvised an interesting route from California to Houston that avoided straight lines like I avoid proctologist visits.

Coming up with some mildly creative travel options to leave the show the week before our little trip, we realized we could easily get on the road on Tuesday afternoon, giving us almost six days to ride the Road to Wrestlemania. With that, and a huge bar tab, the plan was nearly complete.

My beautiful girlfriend Fiona, a.k.a Sleeping Beauty decided to sit this leg of the trip out. We’re pretty sure she contracted the dreaded Black Death strain of the bubonic plague during our recent ride to Death Valley.

She decided instead of riding in the chilly spring air again, the best remedy for her cold would be to fly to her sister’s house in sunny San Antonio, where we would meet her on the way to Houston.

And with that final piece of the puzzle in place, everything was set. Time took on that slow, slippery quality it always does when something great and fun is right around the corner. Finally, The ‘Big Day’ arrived, though Delta Airlines did their best to ruin it. After a nice, lengthy, not-at-all-frustrating runway delay, the Airbus flight computer got over its case of the hiccups, and by two PM, Dark Meat Snack and I loaded up and were finally rolling down the road to Houston.

First stop? Joshua Tree National Park, perfectly disrupting Mr. Erdon’s straight line theory. I usually try to have some sort of theme idea on a ride, be it National Parks or lighthouses or whatever; though often times the real theme will just naturally evolve. The first evolving theme of this ride quickly became ‘How Many Miles Can We Add?‘ The Joshua Tree detour added quite a few, but the scenery and road were well worth it.

I Need To Wash My Fried Liver!!!

From Joshua Tree National Park, we put the hammer down and sped through about half of the approximately two hundred boring, straight-line highway miles necessary for this ride.

The craptastic Super 8 in Quartzsite, AZ became our first home away from home. Fresh cigars and plastic cups full of Macallan helped us unwind as we toasted the Best Day Ever from the parking lot before calling it a night. The sound of screaming diesel engines on I-10 lulled us to fitful unconsciousness, content with the knowledge that even better days lay straight ahead.

The next part of this incredible story can be found here.