Wesseld
Well-known member
So, I attempted my first SS1000 this weekend, and although I didn't complete the miles in less than 24 hours, I had a great time and made some new friends, and found people that would volunteer to help out a stranger. My faith in humanity is restored.
After weeks of planning and mapping and asking questions, I finally felt I and my FJR was ready to go. Thursday night I did my final preps like filling the tank bag bladder with water, and checking the tires air pressure, then headed to bed at about 8:00pm. The plan was to leave home in Phoenix at 3:00am on Friday morning, buy gas just down the street, and head south towards Tucson. Well, either I didn't hear the alarm or it didn't go off. I popped open my eyes at 3:30am. Crap, already an hour late. I gather up the last of the stuff, wolf down some turkey, a boiled egg, cheese, and a glass of OJ, and head out.
The full moon was just beautiful and the air was fairly cool for Arizona in late summer. I was enjoying this. Yada, yada, yada, and I reach Albuquerque NM about 12 hours later. Aside from New Mexico being absolutely beautiful with perfect riding weather, the only really memorable thing about this first part of the trip was how many bugs I killed. I was thinking of writing a letter to the Governer of New Mexico to apologize for killing so many of his insect residents and making such a mess on his roads. What the HELL are those large bugs that were crawling across the highway by the thousands? They kind of looked like big dark colored grasshoppers, but none of them hopped or flew away, just crawled to a point in front of my tire so I could squish them.
Anyway, back to Albuquerque. I had to get a receipt near the junction of I-25 and I-40 to show that I didn't cut the corner, so I stopped at the TA travel center at 6th St NW for gas and snacks and to offload some liquids. By now it's early rush hour on Friday afternoon around 5:00pm, and I'm getting on I-40 westbound where it's 5 lanes wide with upcoming disappearing lanes. Going around 65mph or so in solid traffic, I notice I'm in one of the right lanes that veers off at Coors Blvd, so I squeeze left into the middle lane. As I pass under the overpass into shadow, something large hits the rear tire making it jump up and to the right. Eeeek! There are a lot of cars behind me. Everything seems ok so I continue on for awhile, but then I start noticing the rear end wants to follow the grooves in the highway. Crap, the tire is going flat! I can't change lanes because the rear wants to go its own way, so I keep going but try to slow down gradually. By the time I can make it to the right lane and slow down to a controllable speed, I miss the next exit at Unser Blvd and the one after that at Arroyo Vista. I really don't want to stop by the side of a very busy freeway at rush hour so I go slowly another 3 miles on an obviously flat flat tire to the Atrisco Vista exit and pull off there and stop. F*ck. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that nothing worse happened that could have. Also, I didn't know it at the time, but that is the last exit for any kind of civilization near Albuquerque. There is an RV dealer and a Truck shop there and nothing else.
I called my wife first thing so she wouldn't panic when she noticed I was not moving. She was following my movements using the iPhone app, Find My iPhone. Right then, a guy in a Mustang stops and gets out to see if I needed help. We talk a bit and he makes a few calls to towing companies he knows as I was searching for a motorcycle shop on my phone. The nearest shop listed was Southwest Cycles, so I called and explained my story about the 1000 mile trip in less than 24 hours that I was about 650 miles into. The kind soul on the phone, Theresa Neiderman, was very concerned and was determined to help me any way they could. She said that her two mechanics were busy finishing up a rush job, but they will get out there as soon as possible. The Mustang guy was still there with me, so I told him that help was on the way fairly soon, so he didn't need to stay. Unfortunately, I don't remember his name, but his work badge said TempurPedic. Thank you Mustang guy!
While I waited for Southwest Cycles guys to show up, another 4 cars and two motorcycles stopped to see if I needed help. Also, a Semi truck repair truck stopped and helped me get two plugs into the 1/2" diameter hole in the rear tire. It was holding air, but the sidewall looked really funky from riding on it without the benefit of air pressure in it. Wow, all those helpful people for a sweaty road-weary solitary motorcyclist on a pretty desolate road about a quarter mile from the freeway.
Finally, a car and a modified sport bike pull up. It's Theresa and her son Jonah from Southwest Cycles. Before Theresa says anything, she hands me a bottle of water. Wow. Jonah looks at it and thinks it will make it back to their shop about 7 miles away. He also makes a call to CycleGear to find me a tire. We head off going no faster than 30mph because my rear tire is squirming around and jumping up due to the huge plug in the tire. We get to their shop at about 7:00pm, which is really a motorcycle salvage yard with a small repair shop area. We get the FJR in the building, and Theresa and I head off to Cycle Gear (about 12 miles away) for the tire.
Theresa is my new most favorite person in the world. We got along great, sharing family stories and such. She is just an angel of a person that cares about everybody. On the way back to the shop, she offers to let me stay at their house and make me dinner, but I insist that a hotel is just fine. She drops me off at Motel 6, and says she will be back in the morning to pick me up when the bike is nearly ready. Remember, I just met these people, and they are offering me a place to stay as well as moving bikes out of their shop so mine can be indoors overnight. Amazing.
She picked me up at about 10:00 and drove me to the shop where her husband, Carl is just getting started on the tire. I hung out in the office with Theresa and her two sons Jonah and Ricky until the bike was done. They all cared very much about my trip and are very sorry that they couldn't fix the tire the night before. As I was getting ready to leave, Theresa gave me a frozen package of green chiles that she has prepared. I told her that I'm not a hugger, and don't even often hug people that I know well, but that I wanted to hug her and get a picture of it:
As I rode away, I couldn't help but think that God didn't want me to leave Albuquerque before I met Theresa, Carl, Jonah, and Ricky. The remaining 7.5 hours of my ride back home went smoothly without any drama or issues. I arrived at home tired, a bit sore, and happy, with 1142 more miles on my FJR. Looking back now, I know that having the flat and meeting a bunch of really good folks was the best part of my first really long distance motorcycle ride.
If you live in the Albuquerque area, or are just passing through and in need of motorcycle help, or just want to meet some nice people, stop by Southwest Cycles and tell them that Don from Phoenix sent you. At the risk of this sounding like a commercial, here is their contact info:
Southwest Cycles
2623 Coors Blvd SW.
Albuquerque, NM 87121
Phone: (505) 967-4297
Email: [email protected]
Thanks for reading this long long posting!
Don
After weeks of planning and mapping and asking questions, I finally felt I and my FJR was ready to go. Thursday night I did my final preps like filling the tank bag bladder with water, and checking the tires air pressure, then headed to bed at about 8:00pm. The plan was to leave home in Phoenix at 3:00am on Friday morning, buy gas just down the street, and head south towards Tucson. Well, either I didn't hear the alarm or it didn't go off. I popped open my eyes at 3:30am. Crap, already an hour late. I gather up the last of the stuff, wolf down some turkey, a boiled egg, cheese, and a glass of OJ, and head out.
The full moon was just beautiful and the air was fairly cool for Arizona in late summer. I was enjoying this. Yada, yada, yada, and I reach Albuquerque NM about 12 hours later. Aside from New Mexico being absolutely beautiful with perfect riding weather, the only really memorable thing about this first part of the trip was how many bugs I killed. I was thinking of writing a letter to the Governer of New Mexico to apologize for killing so many of his insect residents and making such a mess on his roads. What the HELL are those large bugs that were crawling across the highway by the thousands? They kind of looked like big dark colored grasshoppers, but none of them hopped or flew away, just crawled to a point in front of my tire so I could squish them.
Anyway, back to Albuquerque. I had to get a receipt near the junction of I-25 and I-40 to show that I didn't cut the corner, so I stopped at the TA travel center at 6th St NW for gas and snacks and to offload some liquids. By now it's early rush hour on Friday afternoon around 5:00pm, and I'm getting on I-40 westbound where it's 5 lanes wide with upcoming disappearing lanes. Going around 65mph or so in solid traffic, I notice I'm in one of the right lanes that veers off at Coors Blvd, so I squeeze left into the middle lane. As I pass under the overpass into shadow, something large hits the rear tire making it jump up and to the right. Eeeek! There are a lot of cars behind me. Everything seems ok so I continue on for awhile, but then I start noticing the rear end wants to follow the grooves in the highway. Crap, the tire is going flat! I can't change lanes because the rear wants to go its own way, so I keep going but try to slow down gradually. By the time I can make it to the right lane and slow down to a controllable speed, I miss the next exit at Unser Blvd and the one after that at Arroyo Vista. I really don't want to stop by the side of a very busy freeway at rush hour so I go slowly another 3 miles on an obviously flat flat tire to the Atrisco Vista exit and pull off there and stop. F*ck. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that nothing worse happened that could have. Also, I didn't know it at the time, but that is the last exit for any kind of civilization near Albuquerque. There is an RV dealer and a Truck shop there and nothing else.
I called my wife first thing so she wouldn't panic when she noticed I was not moving. She was following my movements using the iPhone app, Find My iPhone. Right then, a guy in a Mustang stops and gets out to see if I needed help. We talk a bit and he makes a few calls to towing companies he knows as I was searching for a motorcycle shop on my phone. The nearest shop listed was Southwest Cycles, so I called and explained my story about the 1000 mile trip in less than 24 hours that I was about 650 miles into. The kind soul on the phone, Theresa Neiderman, was very concerned and was determined to help me any way they could. She said that her two mechanics were busy finishing up a rush job, but they will get out there as soon as possible. The Mustang guy was still there with me, so I told him that help was on the way fairly soon, so he didn't need to stay. Unfortunately, I don't remember his name, but his work badge said TempurPedic. Thank you Mustang guy!
While I waited for Southwest Cycles guys to show up, another 4 cars and two motorcycles stopped to see if I needed help. Also, a Semi truck repair truck stopped and helped me get two plugs into the 1/2" diameter hole in the rear tire. It was holding air, but the sidewall looked really funky from riding on it without the benefit of air pressure in it. Wow, all those helpful people for a sweaty road-weary solitary motorcyclist on a pretty desolate road about a quarter mile from the freeway.
Finally, a car and a modified sport bike pull up. It's Theresa and her son Jonah from Southwest Cycles. Before Theresa says anything, she hands me a bottle of water. Wow. Jonah looks at it and thinks it will make it back to their shop about 7 miles away. He also makes a call to CycleGear to find me a tire. We head off going no faster than 30mph because my rear tire is squirming around and jumping up due to the huge plug in the tire. We get to their shop at about 7:00pm, which is really a motorcycle salvage yard with a small repair shop area. We get the FJR in the building, and Theresa and I head off to Cycle Gear (about 12 miles away) for the tire.
Theresa is my new most favorite person in the world. We got along great, sharing family stories and such. She is just an angel of a person that cares about everybody. On the way back to the shop, she offers to let me stay at their house and make me dinner, but I insist that a hotel is just fine. She drops me off at Motel 6, and says she will be back in the morning to pick me up when the bike is nearly ready. Remember, I just met these people, and they are offering me a place to stay as well as moving bikes out of their shop so mine can be indoors overnight. Amazing.
She picked me up at about 10:00 and drove me to the shop where her husband, Carl is just getting started on the tire. I hung out in the office with Theresa and her two sons Jonah and Ricky until the bike was done. They all cared very much about my trip and are very sorry that they couldn't fix the tire the night before. As I was getting ready to leave, Theresa gave me a frozen package of green chiles that she has prepared. I told her that I'm not a hugger, and don't even often hug people that I know well, but that I wanted to hug her and get a picture of it:
As I rode away, I couldn't help but think that God didn't want me to leave Albuquerque before I met Theresa, Carl, Jonah, and Ricky. The remaining 7.5 hours of my ride back home went smoothly without any drama or issues. I arrived at home tired, a bit sore, and happy, with 1142 more miles on my FJR. Looking back now, I know that having the flat and meeting a bunch of really good folks was the best part of my first really long distance motorcycle ride.
If you live in the Albuquerque area, or are just passing through and in need of motorcycle help, or just want to meet some nice people, stop by Southwest Cycles and tell them that Don from Phoenix sent you. At the risk of this sounding like a commercial, here is their contact info:
Southwest Cycles
2623 Coors Blvd SW.
Albuquerque, NM 87121
Phone: (505) 967-4297
Email: [email protected]
Thanks for reading this long long posting!
Don
