It all started in a bar. Seems like it always does start that way, with a Guinness in hand, map spread across a table.

“What if we rode to…. How far is it from…. Take a week off, or ride, work, then ride some more?” This is how our rides to Scotland, Baja and across the Unites States were conceived. No matter how complex or ridiculous, the logistics of the planned ride always seem to make sense around the fourth pint or so. Around the fifth the deal is sealed, and we’ve planned another riding adventure, this one a three part epic.

Since The Great Nova Scotia Expedition, my usual riding buddy Abi bought a brand new motorcycle, a Kawasaki Concours 14.


Seems Fireball, his well-traveled BMW Rockster will be spending the remainder of it’s days semi-retired in Florida.

The problem? Abi’s new Concours was parked in his garage deep in the wilds of Florida. Rain Cloud Follows, my Yamaha FJR was parked in the Kingdom of Rhode Island, probably being rained on.

According to our late night, alcohol fueled plan, we’ll both ride out separately, meet in Knoxville, then ride back across the country to California, so the bikes can spend the winter in a warm climate with great roads. (As I said, these ride plans are almost always Guinness powered, thus not always easy to follow.)

With our most recent ride, The Great Nova Scotia Expedition, my beautiful and patient girlfriend Fiona used up all her vacation time, so she wouldn’t be able to come along for part one. She’ll fly out and meet me for Part Two, Baltimore to Knoxville.

What all this babble really means is the first part of this three part epic, heading from the Kingdom of Rhode Island to Washington DC will be the rarest of rare rides for me, solo. Why Washington DC? Simple. RAW, the WWE show that I work on is live from the Verizon Center on Monday, so I have a free hotel room for a few days during work. That’s great, but the best part for me would be riding unencumbered I was free to pick the longest, most interesting route with the best roads I could figure out.

At first, I loved the idea. Riding alone, I could stop wherever I want, whenever I want. Every single lighthouse between Rhode Island and Washington DC? Sure. Nobody would complain! Ride late? No problem! Eat plenty of meat for dinner? Yes! Go out for cocktails after a long day’s ride, even if there’s a Red Sox game on? Why not?

But, while the positives are numerous, the more I thought about it, riding alone just seemed… oh, I dunno… wrong. Might be boring or something. So I did what any rider would do in this situation, I posted a ‘Riding Buddy Wanted’ message on my favorite motorcycling forum, Toyrider.com

I got a bunch of replies from a bunch of goofballs, but nothing really serious panned out. Looked like Part One of this ride would be solo after all.

The day before I left, I received what seemed to be the perfect response. It was eerie. At first I thought it was Abi goofing on me, this guy seemed so similar. A native of Trinidad, just like Abi, this guy wanted to break in his new touring bike, which just so happened to be an FJR. Bizarre. He also had just enough time off to do Part One with me. Weirdest of all, he was also a Red Sox fan. Oh well, nobody’s perfect.

Honestly, all that info sounded good, almost too good, but it was the pictures that he included that convinced me that this was the guy to make the trip with me:

Part One of this epic ride, titled The Misadventures of MiniAbi can be found here.

Author: frenchy