OSP's Mobile Snake Pit

[OneSickPsycho]

The night before we had made the decision that Drewpy needed a new chain. He had only adjusted it like 5000 times in the past couple days, so I think it made sense.

We wake up late and he gets on the horn to find a local dealer... we find one pretty close by and we were off to the races.

At the dealer we ran into two guys who didn't look like total douchebags, so we gave them a card. As Drewpy was dicking around in service I checked out some of the new bikes... CBR1k looks better in person than in pics... Everything else was same old, same old...

About an hour there and we're back on the road with no fear of chains flying off at 90mph... On to Memphis!

The ride into Memphis was boring as a motherfucker. I don't even remember it to be honest. I just remember feeling pretty relieved when we got to Psychochild's place. Of course, that relief soon subsided when I realized she lived on the 2nd floor! AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

After unloading and some quick showers, we note that Psycho's place now looks like a tornado went through it cause of all our shit laying everywhere and well, it smelled like road and BO too. Sorry about that J.

We decide to grab a bite to eat at a place called Toots. Pretty good little place that has a mess of hot chicks working there... According to the waiter (sure we get the ONE dude) they were all actually over 18. They all looked like total jailbait... this place rocks.

We eat and then retire back to Psycho's place to hit the hay... for some reason I couldn't sleep... Could have been the 11 poops I had to take... all the Mexican, meat pies, and Krystal's caught up with me.... The good news is, I got to witness a pretty significant storm that rolled in probably around midnight. It poured like a motherfucker... It was nice, but I'm damn glad we didn't hit that while riding...

[OneSickPsycho]

I have no idea what time we woke up, nor do I have a clue as to what time we left... I think it was late morning. Who cares...

Drewpy dropped off most of his shit with Psycho and we hit the road. The plan was to meander our way towards Knoxville, meet up with Trip, and hit some good roads on the way to The Gap...

Well, we meandered and Drewpy showed me some pretty sweet roads on the way out to meet Trip... Roads so good in fact, that we hit one twice... Centerhill or some shit. Either way, we ran late.

We stopped along the way to gas up and got in touch with Trip to change meeting destinations... or more like, figure out where the hell both parties were...

Eventually we found our way to meet up...

While Drewpy had done a pretty good job of perpetuating the forum rumor that him and I were riding two up on the RC, Trip did not seem especially surprised by me rolling up on a new rig. We exchanged courtesies and they poked fun at my red carbon fiber.

Getting back on the road and heading to The Gap was not especially eventful... in fact, I really don't even remember much about the ride at that point... We ate at some BBQ place that was pretty good... I do however, remember when we finally hit US129...

It started out benign enough, some sweepers, nothing too impressive... still fun. Then all of a sudden the road starts getting tighter and the scenery starts engulfing the road... then... HOLY SHIT THIS ROAD IS RETARDED!

Someone once told me that NOTHING would prepare me for this 11 mile stretch of tarmac... I blew them off, 'whatever, I've ridden twisties'... Well... Nothing prepared me for this road.

No video, no picture, no description has ever done this road justice. The grade is much steeper than I had pictured... the turns were tighter and seemingly never-ending. The road appeared as if it were having a seizure down the side of the mountain. Wow.

I'll be quite honest... I was scared. Not OMG, I'm gonna die sorta scared... more like WTF is NEXT scared! It probably didn't help that I was on a bike I wasn't used to (yeah 2k miles of highway riding doesn't do shit to prepare you for a road this gnarley)... the fact that I had probably 100lbs of gear on the back couldn't have helped either...

At any rate, I went slow... damn slow. Trip and Drewpy got ahead and kept going... the advantage of having ridden the road before... especially one that is comprised of blind corner after blind corner after blind corner...

So I took my time and enjoyed the ride... I came to a clearing and saw the store with Trip and Drewpy, but fuck 'em... I kept going... Let's see where this thing goes...

Turns out it gets a little more timid past the store and turns back into big sweepers kinda like on the way in... Next thing you know, I see Trip in my mirror... "you missed the turn"... 'nope, I meant to that.'

We go back to the store and there's Gramps and Nighthawk... I dismount and my legs were like jello... Jeebus, I felt like a noob!

I take a minute to regroup, unload all my shit into Ben's (the stores owner) office, and we make a couple more runs. Recognize that by this time Drewpy has already gone back out and is about a run and a half ahead of me...

My pass back through was much better... I had a pretty good feel for the flow of the road and got a lot more comfortable with my machine. About halfway through, Drewpy passes me and I notice his top bag is hanging off the side of the bike... dumbass. I pick up the pace a little to catch up with him, but I take a second to recognize through one particular decreasing radius turn, that I'm probably pushing myself beyond where I should at this stage of the game so I ease up.

We meet up at the overlook and take a quick second to attach Drewpy's bag. Maybe it happened earlier, maybe it happened then... I don't know, but I think this may have been where I gave Drewpy my kneepucks. I wasn't draggin' knees, but he was... the sun was setting and he wanted to make sparks... coolio.

The my third Dragon run, continued my progress. I was running faster, but still had a couple 'Oh Shit!' moments as I came in hot on a few turns and/or misjudged the apex... Nothing real hairy, but enough to make me recognize my limits. Drewpy was running at a slower place to ensure I could see him throw sparks with my pucks... He did, like once. He said after that run that he was going too slow to get the knee down well... I didn't bother to tell him it was probably because he cranks on the brakes right before leaning in...

Back at the store I take note of the fact that I have completely removed all of the chicken strips from my tires... It's not that I was really going all that fast, but rather more like my tire profile blows ass and my suspension settings were fucked. It still felt good.

By this time the store was closing and people were leaving... We were going to stick around to watch the mini-motard races and worry about setting up camp later...

The mini races were pretty entertaining... some of those guys really railed on those little bikes... I am not sure if anyone really won, but everyone had a good time. Drewpy tried his hand at crashing... err... riding Trip's 50... I would have, but I was exhausted... Just after 10pm, the fun was put on hold until another day...

After a fair bit of BS'ing, we decide to head to camp... It happened to be 11 miles down the road... not the 318 turns in 11 miles, 11 miles, but twisty either way. Is this a bad time to mention that the optometrist once told me that I shouldn't drive at night?

Major pucker factor on the way out... Nighthawk led (with a tinted visor), I was in the middle (with terrible nightvision), and Drewpy - the one best equipped to lead - took up the rear. The air was cold and there were snakes and frogs and shit in the road... It's amazing I didn't crash.

At one point Nighthawk got out ahead of me a little and I lost him on a couple blind turns... Terrible. I literally couldn't see the road AT ALL. It was pure instinct and stupidity that kept me from falling off the side of the mountain, but we made it.

We get to camp, set up shop, split a little Rum and Dr. Pepper (Nighthawk bought the rum outside of Kansas City!), were mildly annoyed by some crazy loud Mexicans who were camping not too far away, and then hit the sack.

[OneSickPsycho]

As I wake up the next morning I notice that I had a few friends staying with me for the night... Some real strange bug was chillin' in the peak of my tent... as was a ladybug. I escorted them out and started to get myself together... when I notice another visitor...

An adolescent, female, wolf spider. For those of you who don't know about wolf spiders... they are like mini-tarantulas... probably the biggest spider native to TN up through OH... This one was slightly larger than a quarter, so nothing crazy, but I hate spiders. Close encounters such as that seriously make my manhood suck back up into my stomach and is quickly replaced by a salty vagina.

As I sat there thinking about how if my head would have been turned the other way when I woke up, it would have been 6 inches away from my eyeball, I contemplated how I was going to deal with it. The first thought was to pull out my gun and shoot it, but I had a new tent and .40 hollow points may have been a bit much. I decided to do the next best thing and use the plastic bag my gun was in to squish that bitch and toss it out the flap.

Mission accomplished... with minimal crying.

I exit my tent to find Gramps and Nighthawk packing up... they were heading home... I expressed to them my appreciation for the shared experience as well as the opportunity to come along. Three generations of family... then my dumbass. What good people.

We part ways at that point for the last time in the trip. Drewpy and I had planned on heading to Wheeler's (local shop) to have our suspension tuned, but it was probably to late, so we just headed to the store.

We ate breakfast, met up with Trip, and decided to give Wheeler's a shot anyway. They weren't too busy, but a Harley guy blew a stator so it would be a couple hours until he could fit us in.

We took off and Trip led us through some different roads in the surrounding area... Good roads, good scenery, but nothing compared to The Gap. Nothing compares to that insanity.

We rolled along and per my request Trip waived me ahead so he could give me pointers on my form. I was a little pissed that I wasn't draggin' my knee yet, but I had scraped my toes a couple times. I knew something was wrong, but I also knew it wasn't my foot position.

It turns out that my form wasn't completely terrible, with the exception of one little thing... Instead of rotating my ass off the seat around the tank, I was just hanging straight off the side. The second he said it, I realized it was damn true and I set about correcting it.

From there I felt soooo much better... it would have been nice for someone to tell me that like 10,000 miles earlier!

I still have a lot of practicing to do, but with the new body position everything was easier... Less work for my legs for certain. The only issue that I was having is now I wasn't supporting my upper body enough with my legs and core... that's my opportunity now.

We went back to Wheeler's a few hours later and got our suspensions set up... AMAZING what having someone that knows what the hell they are doing can do to make your bike feel totally different... and a MILLION times better.

With everything stiffened up, we explored a little more and headed back to The Dragon.

The couple passes I layed down were much faster than before, but still nothing to write home about... I watched Trip and Drewpy lay sparks from their knee pucks, but had no luck getting the knee down... No biggie, I wasn't pushing for it anyway, but rather focusing on improving my form...

We head back to the campsite, pack up all our shit, load the bikes, and head back up the hill... We hit the store to do some touristy souvenir shopping and take a couple pictures... Mission accomplished... it's time to head home...

Interestingly enough, the last pass through The Gap was probably my fastest despite the fact that I had all my shit hanging off the back of my bike. I did push it a little two far a couple times... weight on my bars from my failure to full adapt to the change in my form, and all the crap on my bike... there were a few points where my front tire started to wash out, but I was getting enough feedback from the bike that I had time to react appropriately...

When we got back to the overlook, Drewpy exclaimed, "you got your knee down, I KNOW IT!"... Nope, not at all, but I guess I was, as he put it, "a dog's ass hair away"... Again, not a huge deal... now I know I can do it with just a little more work on my form, but I'll be honest... it was slightly frustrating being right up Trip's ass through the turns and watching him so effortlessly draggin' knees and shooting pretty white titanium sparks... *sniffle* I want sparks.

Anywho, it's time to head back to Knoxville (Nashville for Drewpy), get my truck, and get the hell back home...

The ride back to Trip's was ok... Did some squidliness on the highway... triple digits... whatever... I got to watch Trip and Drewpy use motorcycle sign language back and forth for like 10 miles as Trip tried to explain which exit Drewpy needed. It probably would have been slightly easier to just have talked about it before we left The Gap.

At Trip's exit we parted ways... I flipped Drewpy the bird, then waved like a newbie... 'later buddy, it was fun...'

Rollin' through Trip's neighborhood some punks were havin' a party and tossing the football around in the drive... They motioned for us to do wheelies... Retards.

Get to my truck, unload all the gear into the front seat, strip down to my skivvies, and thrown on a pair of shorts... time to load the bike...

Trip rides my bike over to the gas station, I line the truck up, pull the bike on, strap her down, and head on down the road... It's just getting dark...

I drove all through the night to get home... Energy drink after energy drink... stopped at a couple rest stops, did some jumping jacks, pushups, and stretched to keep the blood flowing... Anything to keep me awake...

Not sure where it was, or what time it was cause everything from that night was such a blur... somewhere along the way I run into some drunk kid at a random gas station... probably in GA.

Dude is fascinated with my bike and starts asking me all sorts of dumbass questions... I humor him with solid information and tell the short, short, short version of my trip... He asks me what I think of the 'Hayabusa 700' and I tell him it's a girl's bike... he should get a Tomahawk.

I finally make it home... somewhere around 7am. I am greeted by my parents wiener dog and the folks. We talk for a while about the trip, I unload all my shit, we unload the bike, and chill.

I end up not being able to really sleep... still sorta pumped from the trip... my mind raced, trying to catch up with all of the events over the past 10 days... What a blur...

Finally, after nearly 36 hours without sleep... I crash. Hard.

[OneSickPsycho]

With the amount of negative information driven into our skulls on a consistent basis... the war, poverty, our economy, violence, global warming, terrorism, natural disasters, disease... so on and so on... It's very easy to get jaded and cynical... I know I fell victim to it too. This trip really snapped me back into the right mindset... What really matters?

Honda had an ad campaign in the 60's.. their slogan was, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda." It turns out to be true... but you also meet the nicest people on a Buell... on a BMW... on a Yamaha...

Reflecting back on the trip brings about a great sense of accomplishment. So many naysayers told me we were crazy, stupid, senseless for even attempting it.

I guess they could just never understand... The trip was more than miles, more than states, more than money (a FUCKLOAD of money BTW)... It was a defining moment in my life... it was a beginning of new experiences... it was the strengthening of friendships... the birth of new friendships...

All in all the trip cost me more money than I could afford, took a serious toll on my body, put my mind at wits end consistently, and just generally beat the living shit out of me... 3869 miles on two wheels in 10 days, plus an additional ~1200 miles in the truck. Whew!


I can't wait to figure out where we're riding to next year.