Frenchy's Rant

I admit I kind of glossed over certain events in yesterday’s post about our little ride from Tennessee to Rhode Island. Obviously being the one that writes the blog, I’m bound to edit out certain events, especially when those certain events are extremely embarrassing or humiliating – to me. I consider just about anyone else fair game, but moi, humiliate moi self?? Come on now…

But, sometimes, though personally embarrassing, the story is worth sharing, and since nothing else of interest has happened lately, here it is, in all it’s gory glory – the story that did not make yesterday’s blog post:

The first day of our ride, Abi and I only rode about 160 miles. It wasn’t a long day, but it didn’t really need to be. We found a suitably dumpy hotel, which, at $52 a night was perfect.

For $52, you get a bed, a TV (usually with color), a toilet, and not much else. And as expected with that rate, most of those items will be old and worn, but will generally work as they should.

But of course, one of those items did NOT work as it should. In fact, after using that device in a generally approved manner, it was in desperate need of maintenance. In a $52 a night hotel, there obviously isn’t a large staff of maintenance folks hanging around and waiting to discreetly help you to unblock whatever hotel related problem you may experience.

Yes, the commode managed to get blocked up, and blocked up good. And, surprisingly, no Indian food was involved.

In any case, now there’s a problem. The only way to solve this problem is with a plunger. The only place that might have a plunger would be the front desk, because for $52 a night, you definitely don’t get in-room plumbing implements. The girl at the front desk was kind of cute, but this was probably not the best way to break the ice.

So, I trudged down the long Walk of Shame to the front desk, and lo and behold, the cute front desk girl had two equally cute friends in there, all watching Sex in the City and eating a nice McDonald’s takeout dinner together. Great.

“Hi.” she says. “Can I help you?”

“Err…” I can’t bring myself to ask. Why me? I just can’t do it.

She eyes me for a minute. All her friends stop watching Sex and quickly join in the staring.

“Err….”

The girl behind the desk starts looking a little nervous, probably wondering if another mumbling homeless maniac has wandered in to the Lo-Budget Inn. I start wondering how long it will take until the police come.

“Err… I was just kinda wondering if….”

“Yes?”

“If you have a…. ” – deep breath – “…a plunger handy?”

She visibly relaxed, and a smirk slowly crossed her lips. Did I say she was cute? Oh, how wrong I was. I’m sure this evil girl just lives for dishing out the sarcastic punishment in humiliating moments like this one. Hell, if it was me, I would too.

“Why?” the not-at-all cute witch drawled. “Is there a… problem?” One of her little hamburger swilling bitch friend snickers in the background.

I consider saying, “No, I just like to beat smart ass desk clerks to death with plungers, and I seem to have misplaced mine,” but that wouldn’t get me very far. Instead, I just meekly half nod.

She goes in back and comes out with a plunger, hands it across the desk with a massive eye roll, a barely covered up giggle, then, in a masterful piece of over-dramatic flair, she crumples up her half-eaten hamburger in the wrapper and ceremoniously throws it in the trash, far too disgusted by my problem to finish eating.

All three little bitches bust out in howling laughter as I emerge a beaten and humiliated shell of a man on the Walk of Shame to fix my self inflicted toilet problem.

Yeah, our motorcycle rides aren’t all glamor, and this story is a perfect example of why the shittiest parts don’t usually make the blog.

After nearly two years of touring, from California to Baja California, from ghost towns to TV trucks, from the Grand Canyon to Key West, and all the little places in between, my newly nicknamed Yamaha FJR, the bike that I traded the Hayabusa away for in California, has finally come home.

The bike’s new name? Rain Cloud Follows – given during the last leg of the ride home, from Tennessee to Rhode Island.

After the spectacular journey that was Scotland, I didn’t really feel up to taking a ton of pictures and writing a long, yawn-inspiring story of the trip. After all, it was only three days, kind of an intermission between epic rides. We got on our bikes on Wednesday in Tennessee, and got off them safe and sound on Saturday evening.

On the way up, we saw some interesting sights.

And interesting signs.

The back roads in West Virginia were as impressive as any I’ve had the pleasure of unraveling thus far. The state pastime in West Virginia seems to be either Street Sign Shooting, or Home Burning.
Since I was just riding and not really taking many pictures, I didn’t get any shots of all the burned homes, but there must have been thirty or forty of them, all torched to the ground. Seems people in West Virgina deal with foreclosure differently than people in New England do.

The biggest laugh of the trip was courtesy of the New River Gorge National Park ranger who advised us to go to an observation point three miles up the road to see the biggest waterfall in West Virginia.

The fact that the observation point was about three thousand miles above the falls probably didn’t help much. The sight was less than impressive. Later that day, Abi held a water bottle over his head, poured water out and said, “Can you guess what I am? No? I’m the second biggest waterfall in West Virginia!”

Like I said, this trip was just an interlude between major rides. You have to make your fun when you can.

Of course, every night it rained,usually starting just as we were stopping, though one day it misted and pissed all over us. The name Rain Cloud Follows came up, and is the perfect name for this bike.

Can’t wait to see what happens when Stormbringer and Rain Cloud Follows head up to Newfoundland in a few weeks.

We meandered through the rest of West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and finally, my home state, the Kingdom of Rhode Island.

And my favorite place of all. Home.

It’s good to be home, if only for a little while.

With this short poem, the 12^th century Persian poet Hafez perfectly summed up the final days of our ride. Here it is in his own words:

Which, if the free Arabic-English translation website got it right, translates into English as:

‘Although the road may be dangerous and the final destination far out of sight,
there is no route which does not come to an end.
Do not despair.‘

I despaired a little anyway, but despair was inevitable. The day arrived for the price for all this fun to be paid. It was time to leave my new found paradise and start heading back to dreary reality. Sad, really.

Starting off at the crack of late morning, the race to the end began. For an unprecedented third day in a row, the rain held off. Where was all this famous Scottish misty, drizzly, lousy weather everyone’s always bitching about? Wherever it was, it wasn’t in Lochcarron. The Secret Cloud Factory, possibly on strike, must have shut down for the weekend.

Looking at my map once again, sans helpful stranger, we decided to keep delaying the inevitable southbound slog as long as possible, which was a good thing for our morale, as well as material for one final ride report. We set off for our last fun ride – the Isle of Skye.

Over the bridge and on the Isle, more incredible scenery streaked past my eyes. You’d think by this point we’d be on scenic overload, and that would be pretty much true. Sounds strange, but apparently it’s possible to overdose on this place, on too much of a good thing; and become almost numb to the never-ending display of Rhode Scotland’s finest surroundings. Rather than fail with more words, here are a few more pictures of the Isle of Skye’s ocular assault:

Abi’s Zen-like assessment succicently summed up everything we’d experienced in the Highlands. “This place doesn’t suck.”

We’ve delayed it just about as long as possible. Time has pretty much run out, it’s time to stop all this fun sightseeing and get down to the serious business of heading home. In two days time we needed to return these fine machines to their stable so some other slobs could abuse and misuse them. In three days time we’d be once again confined to a metal tube, somehow defying gravity and floating five miles over the ocean, snacking on peanuts and hoping the wings don’t fall off.

But first, one more minor detour. Why not? This wasn’t some other lighthouse. This was serious business. I wanted to stop and check out a place I’d heard about to possibly purchase and spend the remainder of my still-in-the-distant-future retirement days. Never hurts to plan ahead.

Eilean Donan Castle, perched majestically on the shore of Loch Long. Yep, I suppose that’ll do nicely. I’ll take it.

The A87 was the beginning of the end, the road that would lead to the M6 which would lead to London, and we knew it. We figured we had all the beauty of the Highlands safely behind us, and could once again point at the horizon and twist the throttle, brains safely on pause, Ipod safely on shuffle.

Once again, I was wrong. Rhode Scotland had one final surprise in store for us.

The road that led from my future retirement cottage to Fort Williams was probably the best yet. (Yeah, yeah… I know. ‘Best yet’ once again. By now it’s an overused cliché. Thanks for noticing…) More impressive mountains screamed toward the sky, and the road snaked through a mostly barren valley. It didn’t suck either. With little traffic and no side roads, this would be the perfect place for a scenery overloaded scofflaw to really put a rental motorbike through its paces, maybe even flog it a little if one was so inclined.

But I would never do something like that. Never. Especially if John from Raceway Rentals happens to be reading this.

I will say one thing though. Man, that FJR goes FAAST when it wants to!!

That night was spent in another non-descript hotel. The only thing remarkable about the place was the fact that when we checked in around 8 PM, every parking spot was taken, but when we checked out at 7AM , every spot was empty except ours. I wonder exactly what kind of hotel we’d found…

The M6 was the same long slog it was on the way up, with the additional bonus of warmth. The sun was out in force, and as the day wore on, it actually got hot enough to shed one or two of my fourteen layers. Sometime around lunch, we once again had the same idea at the same time.

“Ugh. Let’s get the fuck off this highway.”

A small yellow ribbon called the A684 seemed to cut directly east, connecting the M6 to the M1 (See? Road names make for a confusing story, don’t they? Don’t lie. You glazed right over that part, didn’t you?) While it wouldn’t help us get closer to London in any real sense, it might be fun. A sign at the start of the road confirmed my suspicions: ‘Warning. Twenty-four motorcyclists injured on the road in the past five years. Please ride safe.’ This road has to be good. I wondered if we stacked it up on this fine racetrack… err, I mean road, if they would change the sign to read ‘Twenty Four motorcyclists and Two Septic Yanks.‘ Probably not.

The stone wall lined road was infinitely better than the highway, and unraveling it was sheer pleasure. No, the A684 was not the best road ever, but definitely ranks somewhere in the top ten. The miles slid behind us with ease. Thirty miles into the ride we came upon a small outdoor festival in the tiny town of Leyburn. It was amazing to me the amount of people -including about fifty of our motorcycling brethren – all gathered together playing hooky from work. I imagine in a cloud covered country, the sunshine must increase the amount of sick calls exponentially. Scientists should look into this phenomenon – but not too carefully.

These pictures doesn’t really fit in with anything, I just snapped ’em because they made me giggle. Yes, I am five years old.

OK, hang in there. We’re almost finished here. Since every good movie has a montage, I thought I would include my random highway-inspired train of thought montage that helped me get though the boring bits of the M1 back to London. Here it is, in no particular order:

• For inventing beer, monks rule. Good job, guys!
• Does every person see the color red the same way I see it?
• There are no billboards anywhere in the UK.
• Even without billboards, I still hate highways.
• Why are there so many sheep here?
• Are peanuts vegetables?
• Random restroom graffiti – ‘i like turtles and werewolf movies‘
• What possesses someone to write that on a bathroom wall?
• I don’t think I saw any sheep roadkill anywhere.
• Can a human bladder explode?
• Oh look! More sheep!
• Thank you World Wrestling Entertainment for giving me this backstage pass to the world.
• Knowing me, knowing you. There is nothing we can’t do. (The entire ABBA song, or at least all the words I know)
• What are sunspots?
• What do they do with all the sheep?
• I really really really hope a human bladder can’t explode!
• Get me off this fucking highway!

And finally, the one that recurred the most –

• Pillowfighting cheerleaders.

After negotiating the labyrinth that is London with it’s confusing traffic signals and tearfully relinquishing our well-used motorbikes, all that was left to do was smoke a fine cigar and offer up a final, heartfelt ‘Slangevar’ to what, so far, has been the best ride ever.

Next month – We take our own motorcycles north to Newfoundland and Nova Scotland.

The Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition Ride Report can be found here.

Decisions, decisions.

For a welcome change, our debate this morning wasn’t whether to stay in Ullapool or not. An all-time Scottish weather record had been shattered, the sun was out for the second day in a row! Our pressing decision of the day was a simple matter of direction. North or south?

Going north held promise. We came from the north down into Ullapool, so we knew the scenery and roads would be tremendous. John o’ Groats, the northernmost settlement of mainland Great Britain was a short 180 miles away. And did I mention the unheralded string of two sunny days to take full advantage of? But heading south also had merit, not only for the Isle of Skye, but also because eventually Raceway Rentals was going to want these motorbikes back, and at the present moment, the shop lay about 700 or so miles to our south, and our short trip only had three days left.

Pouring over the tankbag map in the car park, an older gentleman suddenly appeared, and as people often seem to do in the magical country, he came over and immediately started shooting the breeze. “If ye are lookin’ for the best roads, ye mus’ go to Applecross. One of the top one hundred motorbike roads in the woirld. Aye. Applecross. Ye won’t be regrettin’ it.”

I looked down at my map, located the town this mysterious stranger just mentioned, and realized the tiny, squiggly gray line leading to Applecross looked interesting. Very interesting. The GPS had the gray line simply listed as ‘Road‘. That settled it. South to ‘Road‘ it is!

When I looked up to thank the man, he was nowhere to be found. Gone. Well, that was… odd. I started wondering if he was really there at all, or just some strange Scottish Motorcycling Spirit sent to improve our already fantastic ride? I asked Abi, who was busy loading his SV if he’d seen the apparition or if I just imagined the whole encounter.

“Yes, stupid. I saw him,” he answered while rolling his eyes. “He got in his car and drove away while you were looking at the GPS. You OK over there, old man?”

Though our general direction was set, I had a little detour in mind first. But it was a detour that would be best sprung on Abi without telling him where we were going, since it involved something that causes me endless ball busting from my riding buddy. Here’s the big secret: I like to photograph lighthouses. It has nothing to do with big, long, hard cylindrical tubes thrusting up in the air or anything like that, I simply think a lighthouse in a picture makes for a good picture. And if I can incorporate taking a picture of a lighthouse into a motorcycle trip, it makes the trip better, at least to me. Abi disagrees. Every time.

I knew that sometime the previous day we’d passed the turn off for Stoer Head lighthouse, but at the time we were having too much fun to stop. I figured the turn off was about five miles back the way we’d come, so I took a left out of the lot instead of the agreed on right. Abi pulled up next to me and asked what I was doing.

“Oh, just taking a little scenic detour, that’s all”

“We better not be going to a fucking lighthouse.”

I just nodded and sped away.

Its times like these, times when I am being selfish with our trip that I realize what a good riding buddy Abi really is. Not for going along with me to another lighthouse without protesting. Not for following me down a long, single track road for ten miles to get to a place that he doesn’t even want to see in the first place, but for the fact that when we finally made it to the end of my selfish detour, and the lighthouse I thought was Stoer Head ended up being the wrong one – in fact it was just some dinky little eight foot high tube with a blinking light on top – he wouldn’t even think of making fun of me by strapping a headlamp on and shouting, “Ooooh! Look! Look at me! I’m a big lighthouse, much taller and brighter than the one over there!”

That’s what riding buddies are for.

We turned around, and filled up in Ullapool. Rumor was finding petrol in Northern Scotland could be tricky, especially on a Sunday, and with the SV’s 120 mile range, we wanted to be sure we started off full. $300 poorer, we started down the long, winding road toward London, via the mythical town of Applecross.

The roads, the sights and the scenery were all on par with yesterday’s. Words can’t really convey the true beauty of this place, at least none that I can string together. Since a picture is worth a thousand words anyway (two thousand with the exchange rate) I found myself taking my cheap little HP ‘point and pray’ digital camera out of my pocket constantly. I got a few really good pictures of the countryside…

– and because taking pictures left handed while riding ain’t always easy, some great shots of the FJR dashboard too.

Flying through perfect curve after perfect curve, two motorbikes suddenly appeared in the opposite lane, sporting the ugliest bright neon yellow paint job imaginable. Yup, they were bike cops. Fortunately, they were having too much fun racing each other through the curves to pay any attention to us at all. I thought to myself, ‘Now there’s the perfect job for me! Motorcycle cop! You can ride as fast as you want and call it working, you get to carry a gun, and as we all know, chicks dig guys in uniform.’ But then I realized that I’d probably have to give tickets and arrest people too, and that would ruin the fun.

Points of the ride were so scenic, sometimes we just had to stop to absorb it all. I stopped near a mountain surrounded lake to shoot a few pictures, and answer nature’s call. I couldn’t help but think that right then, at that moment, this was by far the most beautiful place I’d ever peed.

I’m a firm believer in always having a backup plan, and thus I’d set a backup lighthouse in the GPS, just in case. Ooooohhh, Abi will love this one! Rubha Reidh lighthouse was down another of those fun ‘B’ roads – B8021. This road was the second ‘single track’ road we’d encountered, and if you’ve never been on one, they’re a real treat, and a great way to work out your adrenaline gland. Basically, the road is big enough for one vehicle at a time, but – here’s the kicker – it’s NOT A ONE WAY!!! Every so often on these single track roads there is a place to pull out, usually indicated by a small, white, diamond shaped sign. When two vehicles are setting up for a head-on collision, the one closest to the turn out pulls in, and lets the other pass, often with a wave. For a frightening sounding system, it seems to work pretty well. Not so sure it would be as successful back in the states though.

The most funnest, most bestest part of all about these tiny, rural single track roads is they really aren’t all that busy, and they can be quite curvy, not to mention they carve through more of the spectacular scenery I’ve gushed on about for three posts now. And since they are single track, it doesn’t matter what side of the road you choose to ride on. For the first time since leaving London, I could ignore my helmet cheat notes. However, after riding on these great little tracks for a while, you forget that speeding traffic can suddenly appear over the next hill, and cause you to become a permanent part of the landscape. And if an oncoming tractor doesn’t get you, one of the approximately thirteen hundred billion cotton ball sheep that freely roam the countryside could always lumber into your path.

Pure entertainment!

On the way, I saw some strange creatures grazing in a field that I had to stop and take pictures of. Part bull, part Wookie, these enormous Highland cows were more than happy to pose for the camera. If there was a way, I would take one back home with me as a pet. I’m sure the neighbors would love all the free fertilizer!

Rubha Reidh was everything that the puny eight foot tower wasn’t. It was a real deal lighthouse. Even still, I caught just as much grief as before from my riding buddy.

When he finished harassing me, he told me that we should fill up at the next station. I still had half a tank, but his bike’s range was significantly less than the FJR.The next town had no petrol station, but a good lunch. We asked the waiter where we could fill up.

“It’s Sunday. I dunna tink ye’ll find mooch open now. The chemist down the road sells petrol in foive liter jerry cans. If not, tha closes’ one is in Kinlochewe, boot they close at two.”

Ahh, come on. Buying petrol from a jerry can? What is this? Mexico? No thanks! I’ve got a GPS, it has every gas station in the whole country programmed in. Technology is my friend. We’re good. We’ll find something.

Sometimes I can be so dumb.

We rode past the closed station in Kinlochewe, past two other closed stations, past three non-existent stations – including one that, according to my wonder of technology would’ve been in the middle of the ocean, all with no luck. The single track roads between towns were fun, but completely barren of any form of gas station. We reached a sign for the Applecross turnoff, and that sign had a picture of gas pumps on it. But my GPS said there was a Shell station a bit further in Lochcarron. At this point, Abi’s low fuel warning light was glowing like a demonic eye. We had another decision to make.

Lochcarron? Applecross? Where is my Haunted Spirit Riding Helper Guy now? Probably driving around Ullapool with a full petrol tank… Great. Using the most advanced form of scientific decisional-based emergency navigational triangulation known to man, we made our fateful choice. Simply put, we chose Lochcarron because the font on the map was a little bigger for Lochcarron than Applecross.

Abi, literally riding on fumes, pulled in the clutch and coasted down every hill on the way, and by some miracle coasted into the only open petrol station for a hundred miles in any direction, 132 miles after leaving Ullapool. And to think the range on that SV was supposed to be 120 miles!

While whooping it up at the station, a young kid walked over and asked if we were planning to ride to Applecross. He gave the now standard ‘Best Road, Best Scenery’ speech, then asked where we were staying that night, because by coincidence, his parents own a small, three room Bed and Breakfast called the Rock Villa Hotel that is biker friendly, right there in town, and by further coincidence it had three rooms available.

The road to Applecross was everything promised, the weather was sublime all day, and the Rock Villa Hotel was the perfect way to end what could only be called The Best Day Ever!

And better still, the Isle of Skye and Eilean Donan Castle topped the agenda for the next day, and then, the dreaded long slog back to London begins…………..