I'm taking a cue from my buddy Mark Doyle who is currently hiking the Appalachian Trail: everyday he is out there hiking is his "best day ever!" What? No, I have no intention of hiking anywhere - this is about riding... it's right there in the title of this post.
It's going to be a hot one today: supposed to be in the 90s. All week. I decided to get out for a motorcycle ride early to beat the heat. Joan had other stuff to do around the coach, so this was a solo outing. It's a ride I've done frequently: down Highway 79, west on Highway 36, then north on Iron Mountain Road. No camera, no video, I turned on the Beatles Channel on Sirius XM and headed out.
It was in the upper 70s; comfortable in riding jeans and a mesh shirt with armor. Gorgeous sunshine. Hwy 79 is a divided 4-lane; nothing special about riding on it, other than it is a nice smooth road surface. Turning onto Hwy 36 gives you miles of sweeping turns; a 50 mph speed limit and a lot of fun to ride. But, it is Iron Mountain Road that is the main attraction here. I didn't know what to expect, with this being a Sunday in July.
Turns out, it was blissfully uncrowded almost the entire run on Iron Mountain Road. The curves are a motorcycle rider's delight: tight, sweeping, nicely crowned, decent road surface, S-turns, hairpin curves, the pigtail bridges (more than 360º through the curves), decreasing radius turns. I am not a "Ricky-racer" but I do enjoy an "enthusiastic" ride. I won't post my riding speeds because it doesn't matter - it just feels so good to lean into a turn and work the bike.
And speaking of "working the bike"... I am still surprised at how much I enjoy this Honda CTX. I think it is the Dual Clutch Transmission that makes it so much fun. People who have never ridden a DCT often have a bias against it... "It isn't really riding if you aren't shifting." I've heard that a bunch. My experience with this is the opposite of that - I am completely involved with the bike. You could put it in Sport Mode and have a very good ride through the twisties, just using it as an automatic transmission. But, it is the paddle shifters that really change the character: DCT does an admirable job, much like the automatic transmission in your car. Your car transmission can't see the road ahead to know if it should up shift, down shift, or just stay where it is. Same with the DCT on the bike... but the rider can see when he's coming into a tight curve and needs to downshift... a press on that paddle shifter makes that downshift faster than any human can do with a clutch handle and a shift lever. It really is all the control of a manual transmission, but faster and no achy left hand when a lot of shifting is required (like in stop and go traffic). It just depends on how you use it.
There was a bit of embarrassment on today's ride. "What'd you do Jim?" you ask. Nothing bad; I was embarrassed for my fellow Texans. There was almost no traffic on Iron Mountain Road... until I came to one of the tunnels that has a view of Mt Rushmore. Some dumbass with Texas license plates stopped before the tunnel and was holding up traffic in both directions while they got out of the truck, on the road in front of the tunnel, to take photos. And then they stopped at the other end of the tunnel to take more photos. With their freakin' phone, so Mt Rushmore is going to be a dot in the image. I do not "filter" to get through traffic (normally), but I had to get around this dipshit.
Once around them, there was very little traffic again, and nothing in my lane. The splits, the pigtails, the other two tunnels were unfettered with slow driving tourons.
The rest of Iron Mountain Road was big fun. Through Keystone, out Hwy 40, then north on the twisty back roads. Only one other incident of note, and it wasn't a "close call"... coming around one blind curve, a minivan (with Iowa plates) was half a vehicle over the centerline. The old guy driving the minivan looked completely panic-stricken. When Joan and I ride together, I usually take the left track in the lane. When I ride alone, I move to the right as I come up on blind curves... and there are plenty of blind curves on the roads here.
I stopped at a view point parking in Iron Mountain Road to get a drink of water. While stopped, I did take one photo with my phone; never got off the bike...
Something to remember this great riding day!
Best ride ever? Well, certainly the best ride today! :-)
2 comments:
Suh-weet. I remember great riding days like that.
We are in day 4 of triple digitas, with two more to go. Then we'll be at 98° -- like it makes a real difference. I wasn't going out for much anyway as I feel like crap warmed over. Tired, achy and alternating between shivering and sweating with a 102° fever. At least the fever had gone down again as of this morning. I had a nasty UTI a couple of weeks ago and they did not give me enough days of antibiotics to truly control it. So another trip to Urgent Care at 0800 today and I've started a different med for the next ten days. Plus I've added high-dose cranberry tablets. Chemical warfare at its best.
Sorry to hear you aren't feeling up to snuff, Earl. Hope you are better real soon. Best to stay out of that heat, as well as some meds make you more sensitive to the sun. Take care.
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