Modern Vespa

I was lucky enough to live next door to San Francisco, where CB08
started from. There were lots of out-of-towners, though, and they had
to crate up their bikes and ship them to San Francisco via Forward Air.

All of the locals chipped in and helped the out-of-towners get
themselves settled. I volunteered to help my good friend jrsjr, whom I
had never actually met before. I met him at the terminal at SFO and
took him to the Forward Air terminal to pick up his bike. Forward
Air requires you to drain all the fluids from your bike, so I came
armed with oil and some gas to get the bike fired up again.

Nice shirt he's got on there!

My scooter wasn't the only thing that needed work before the ride. I
volunteered my truck as the team support vehicle, piloted Rolf, our
mechanic and senior advisor. I had to do a bunch of mods to the truck
at the last minute in order to make sure it was capable of hauling all
the scooters back at the end of the race.

I welded a couple of weld-nuts onto the tailgate in order to hold the
ramp / bed extender in place. I still regularly use this setup for
hauling scooters.

Predictably, the last week or so before Cannonball was full-on panic.
I had a major reset just a month or two before the CB08 start date,
where I finally realized that the project I had poured a year of my
life into was a complete failure. I learned a lot in the process, but
the first bike I built was simply not fast enough to compete in
Cannonball.

So I switched gears, and built a second bike. This one was broken in
properly (by me) and didn't disappoint -- it was very fast.
Unfortunately, I had to build it into a long-haul endurance machine in
very short order.

The night before the race, I spent a lot of time inspecting the bike,
going over all the details in my head to make sure everything was as
it should be. After all, a relatively minor failure could put me out
of the race completely.

After I had spent a few hours just laying hands on the bike, talking
to it, I heard the soft, barely audible sound of the bike clearing its
throat.

I stepped closer, and put my ear down by its horncast.

In the quietest of voices, it said "Is it time yet? Can we go for a
ride? I'm ready."

The ride begins!

I got pretty much zero sleep the night before. Besides the issue of
getting everything done and getting my bike out of the shop, I was a
nervous wreck. And, of course, I forgot a few items at the shop, and
had to go back the next morning before the race. I then tore across
San Francisco, desperately trying to get to the starting line before
everyone else left.

I would later realize that the hardest part of Cannonball, for me,
would be just getting myself to the starting line. It was a year and a
half of constantly pushing myself, trying to get my project done,
trying to think of every possible solution to any problem that might
arise during the race, and trying to build something that was
ultimately a failure. The preparation was just brutal.

Once we left the starting line, though, I was sort of able to relax a
bit. I had made the first major hurdle. Now came the payoff for all
that preparation: ten days of nothing but riding.

This batch of pictures represents the starting line through the first
couple of checkpoints: Alice's Restaurant, Mount Hamilton / Lick
Observatory, and the entrance to Yosemite.

By the time I got to Yosemite, Rich Glass had already seemingly
dropped out of the race, suffering mechanical issues. He actually went
home (it was on the way, sort of) to try to remedy a mechanical issue
he was having. "Mechanical issue" might be too mild a description, but
I'll let him tell that story. I was actually pretty bummed about this.
He was probably my most serious serious competition in my class, but I
was really looking forward to testing myself against his riding
skills, and it was looking like it wasn't meant to be. This put a
serious pall on the ride up to Yosemite.

This batch of photos is basically Yosemite, which is a really stunning
park. The weather was beautiful, there was almost no traffic, and I
rode through Yosemite entirely by myself. I had taken a shortcut to
get there (while still legally going through all the checkpoints I was
required to) and so I was under the impression that I was ahead of
everyone else.

When I got to the junction of 140 and Big Oak Flat Road, though, the
local construction guys told me that another scooterist had gone
through before me, and that he had continued down the road that leads
into Yosemite Valley. I knew the way to Tioga Pass, though, and I knew
that Yosemite Valley wasn't it. At this point, the construction guy
started laughing, and I asked him how much the other guy had paid him
to say that.

I took the high road, literally, and continued on to Tioga Pass. Now,
though, I had to pick up the pace, because apparently someone was
ahead of me. When I got to the hotel in Lee Vining, I discovered that
it was Joel, and I was pissed at myself for having taken it easy up to
that point.

Joel, it turns out, would continue to be a thorn in my side for the
rest of the race. A friendly thorn, but a thorn nonetheless.

One of the things I would quickly discover about Cannonball is that
the best part of the ride takes place at the hotel at the end
of each day. Standing in the hotel parking lot, drinking beer, and
waiting for everyone else to trickle in over the course of the
afternoon / evening. There's talk of what each person saw, what
mechanical issues they had, brushes with the law, and so on. This was
what I'll remember most about Cannonball, long after the monotony of
the long days of riding have faded.

On the evening of Day One, Rich Glass finally showed up, still riding
that beast of a bike he built for this ride. He had some serious
mechanical problems which would foreshadow the problems I
would have with my own bike many days later. Basically, his variator
was able to rev high enough on that bike that the belt started eating
into the engine case, which ripped out the oil pan gasket and caused
everything in the normally dry transmission case to get covered with
oil.

Needless to say, that was bad. Still, he decided to stay in the ride,
and brought himself and his bike to Lee Vining, and we took it apart
and tried to fix it as best we could. Of course, we didn't have an oil
pan gasket to replace the failed one, but it was either make do or go
home. He made do.

Day two was the longest day (as far as distance) at 417 miles. The
intent had been to get across Nevada quickly to put ourselves in
position to take in some really beautiful roads on day 3. Turned out
that the Extraterrestrial Highway is really quite stunning though.

The day started off reasonably well, I guess: early morning riding in
the high desert, cold and clear.

Then things turned ugly.

None of the bikes were running especially well, presumably because of
the altitude. I set out and quickly pulled away from everyone else,
but could really only manage about 65mph. Headed toward the Nevada
border, Joel appeared in my rear view mirror, in full scooter tuck, and
eventually caught up me going maybe 2mph faster than I could manage.
Both of us were locked into position, trying as hard as we could to
make ourselves as small as possible to avoid the wind, but Joel
managed to slip away from me anyway.

I was crushed. On the second day, Joel (who was completely unknown to
us West Coasters) had just demonstrated to me that he was a better
rider, and he was on a faster bike. My heart sank. I knew the race was
already over. There was no way I could compete with him.

Still, I tried to keep up. Heading downhill into a long left-hand
sweeper, I looked down to check my speed, trying to gauge whether I
could make this turn or not. I thought I could do it, even at 65mph,
but it would be tough.

When I looked up, there was a *huge* cloud of dust, and Joel was
riding on the shoulder, clearly out of control. Then the bike stopped
abruptly, and Joel went flying out of the dust cloud, landing some 75
feet away. I kid you not.

It was spectacular.

Well, *now* it seems spectacular. At the time, I thought for sure that
Joel was dead, and that the race was *really* over, for reasons
entirely unlike the ones I had been considering mere seconds earlier.
I was trying to figure out how I was going to get emergency services
out in the middle of the desert, or whether emergency services would
even be necessary.

When I got off my bike (ripping my headphones abruptly out of my ears,
because I forgot I was plugged in) I saw that Joel was sitting up in
the hole in the desert he had landed in. By the time I ran out to the
hole, he was standing up, looking confused. I implored him to sit back
down so we could check him for the inevitable broken bones, but he
just kept saying "Where's my bike!?!" over and over again. I finally
pointed back up the road to where his bike was, now covered in dust
and looking like part of the desert, but Joel was incredulous. "How
did my bike get all the way over there?"

Heh.

Joel, it turns out, was only scratched by what had to be the crash of
the century. Certainly the most dramatic that I've ever witnessed. He
was clearly dazed, though.

A few moments later, the rest of the riders showed up, followed
shortly thereafter by Joel's support team. Joel implored us all to
continue on with our ride, and so I hopped back on and took off.

About ten minutes after I left the scene of Joel's accident, I found
myself headed downhill at a ridiculous rate of speed. I was already
going pretty fast at the top of the long slope down into a valley, and
I kept picking up speed as I went. I was watching the speedo climb,
and watching the GPS climb, and wondering in awe how fast I could get
the bike up to. When I passed 90 on the GPS, I could only think of one
thing:

"What are these tires rated for?"

I couldn't remember, and so with Joel's high-speed crash fresh in my
head, I decided to back off. The max speed I set at that moment,
though, was 91.3mph, on the GPS. I saw it, it wasn't just a fluke. I'm
positive. Not that anyone has ever believed me on this point, but I am
absolutely certain that on that day, at that moment, I hit 91.3 on a
GTS 250. I've never come close, before or since.

Patrick is right, the extra-terrestrial highway was beautiful. Long,
and sometimes monotonous, but still stunningly beautiful.

After Joel's wreck, a number of riders managed to get ahead of me.
They didn't really stop, and since people were already tending to
Joel, they didn't really need to. Still, I had to catch them, so I
spent much of the day doing exactly that.

Patrick was, as usual, the hardest to catch, but out on the open road,
with no curves in site, displacement wins over skill. Still, I
couldn't shake him until we got to Caliente, when he pulled off for gas.

I got to the hotel first, and patted myself on the back for a moment
before remembering that I was only fortunate through Joel's
misfortune, and then I felt like a self-congratulatory schmuck.

Patrick got there ten minutes behind me, and Maroy about ten minutes
behind him. Someone had mentioned earlier that whoever was first each
day had to buy beer for the people straggling in afterwards, so I went
to the quickie mart across the road and picked up a couple of twelve
packs.

Ever seen someone carry a couple of twelve packs on their scooter? I
hope someone else has a picture of it, as I don't.

As people started straggling in, we got the status reports. Rich and
Oz both got popped by the police in Caliente. Oz had spark plug
issues, and had been repeatedly stranded. Joel wrecked, of course, and
I think Patrick had been unaware of it until we got to Cedar City.

That evening, I helped Joel transplant his LV exhaust from his wrecked
bike to Bobo's bike, which he had switched to after the wreck. Oz
managed to gall the threads on his spark plug, and he would spend the
rest of the race trying to cope with that. I really didn't get to do
any inspection on my own bike, being occupied with everything else.

Jess wrote big things with his. I'm not gonna. If you want to see that
I hve a blog. Here was the meet up it was fun! I met the
competition and decided I'd beat them. Even though I wouldn't
stupid Joel

Starting line, sudden be sting in jacket, back of Mt Hamilton

Lee Vining, giant dead bug, dinner with jess, Julie, Patrick. Met up
with Rob at the gas station. He was encountering the expected
difficulties of running a 125 across country but he was hanging in
there.

Can't quite tell but I boiled my rear brake on Mt Hamilton. It was
soft as hell. Doh. Leaked a bit too.

Lee Vining in the morning. The Joel's... wild ride? His bike was done
but he wasn't. Then my plug issues... My plug was failing (stripping
the threads off the auminum nipple and the HT cap was popping off) and
I took it out of the head at temp. When I put it back in I galled the
threads and blammo. Stuck with that plug that was fucking up for the
rest of cannonball. And I needed a new head.

And oh yeah. I got a ticket. Oops. Speeding and then he tacked on
something else I didn't exactly agree with but he had knocked down my
speeding fine considerably and I wasn't about to argue.

Rich was working on something and I bugged him by taking a picture.
Feel the love. Feel it.

The start of day 3 was beautiful beyond words. The roads were good and
every time you thought the scenery had reached its peak you'd come
around a corner and find it was still building. I took over 300
pictures this day and it's been hard to get it down to a
representative sample.

Patrick is right in that we were riding through beautiful scenery. I
wasn't having fun, though.

The first problem is that during an event like Cannonball, you really
have no time to look at scenery, and that really sucks. I would love
to do Day Three again, but taking my time and taking in the sights.

The second problem for Day Three is that we had a 40-mile stretch of
heavily washboarded dirt and gravel, featuring a switchback that drops
some 1,000 feet in very short order.

The third problem for Day Three is that, at the end of the dirt
section, there's a ferry crossing that only runs every two hours. Miss
the ferry, and you're waiting around in the hot sun for a while, and
you'll take a big hit in your overall time. That makes the pressure to
hurry up way, way too intense.

The fourth problem for Day Three is that too many people crashed. Most
of us were just a bit banged up, but Jim (riding a Big Ruckus with
linked brakes) was seriously injured.

I was one of the people that crashed on Day Three. I was hurrying,
riding outside of my abilities, trying to catch Joel, who navigated
the switchback like he was taking an elevator to the bottom of the
canyon. Damn you, Joel! On one of the switchback segments, I started
picking up speed, and even with my rear brake completely locked up, I
was still moving, still accelerating, and still heading for the edge
of the cliff. I had to do something, and that something was to
grab the front brake. I knew it would probably mean hitting the
ground, but that was preferable to hitting the ground on the section
of switchback below, i.e. falling off the cliff.

I picked myself up, knee stinging badly, and tried to wrestle my bike
back up onto the stand. The catch is that it was fully loaded with
fuel and tools, and everytime I got it up off its side, it would start
rolling downhill before I really got it upright. I struggled for a
while and eventually got it upright, only to find that I couldn't
readily put it on the stand because that meant pushing it back uphill,
with all the aforementioned extra weight.

Gah!

I did finally succeed, though, and then immediately sent an "I'm Okay"
message from my Spot Messenger. Later, my wife would proclaim "So you
were lying!?!"

Heh.

I didn't take any more pictures between when I crashed and the ferry,
but it was really beautiful scenery. I caught up with Rich and Jim
along the way. Jim had crashed earlier, had gone off the side of the
road, and he had been pinned under his bike for half an hour until
some tourists happened by and helped him get out of the ditch. He got
back on his bike and rode himself out of the wilderness, some 120-ish
miles in total. We would later find out that he had a bunch of broken
ribs and a punctured lung.

In the grand scheme of things, Jim's experience makes my own plight on
Day Three seem pretty small.

The Burr Trail is 74 miles across Capitol Reef National Park from
Boulder to Lake Powell. Google Maps said it would take over 3 1/2
hours to get through this section (and would prove to be correct). We
had reports that there was about 40 miles of good condition gravel on
this road but that it should be ok as long as it wasn't raining. Oh,
and then there were the switchbacks, I could not wait to see them. for
the first 20 miles the road was paved and I took a few pictures but I
put the camera away for the most part. There are times when you can
experience a moment or capture it to film but not both. Completed this
section in 1 hour 48 minutes.

Rich and I rode together through the mix of asphalt and dirt, trying
our best to get to the Ferry in time. Jim, with his broken ribs and
punctured lung, actually out-rode us on that segment. We were humbled.

Along the way, we hit some very fine white sand, which was a lot
deeper than we expected. Actually, it looked like badly laid concrete
from a distance. It was only when my rear tire started sliding around
that I realized it wasn't concrete. I managed to stay upright through
that, and made it through the wash on the other side. When I turned
around to see how Rich was doing, he was still on the other side of
the wash, standing next to his bike. I asked if he was alright, and
didn't get an answer, so I parked my bike and walked back over there.
He had slid out in the sand, and quickly picked his bike back up,
hoping nobody would notice. He was kind of upset, though, and wanted
to take a moment to feel sorry for himself. I could certainly relate,
but I knew the ferry was still a ways away, and we had to get there
pronto. Rich hadn't reset his clock, and so he thought we had an extra
hour. I informed him of his mistake, told him to get his sorry ass
back on the bike, and get going.

We made it to the Ferry. Jim made it as well, and we laid him down in
the shade. It was really hot, though, and the diesel fumes from the
ferry weren't helping. Jim was in bad shape, and so we decided to
inform a park ranger (who happened to be crossing on the ferry) that
we needed help. She summoned a paramedic, who showed up on a giant
powerboat to look at Jim. She decided that Jim needed medical
attention, and so they loaded him onto the powerboat, along with
Patrick, and took him to the other side of the lake.

Rich and I rode from the ferry to the hotel in Blanding, UT, somewhat
somber from Jim's ordeal and really beat from the heat, the dirt, and
the general sorry state we were in. We had forgiven Patrick for taking
us through the dirt, but when we got to Blanding, we had a new reason
to be upset.

Blanding is a dry town. No alcohol. On the day when we needed it most.
Patrick has no idea how close to being strung up he was at that moment.

Fortunately, there was a gas station outside of town that sold beer,
and a few people were sent to procure large amounts of it.

Joel, who had descended the switchback with such skill, was nowhere to
be found when we got to the hotel. He was still riding Bobo's bike,
having wrecked his own bike the day before. The thing about Bobo is
that he likes his bikes bone-stock, and so there was no mount for the
Zumo 550 GPS that Joel and nearly all of us were carrying. Now, the
Zumo, which is a fantastic two-wheel GPS, has one very notable
weakness: it can really only be used while hardwired to the bike. It
has a battery, but it only lasts a few hours.

It turns out that at a critical point in the route, Joel's GPS was out
of juice, and he missed a turn. I'm not entirely sure which route he
ended up taking, but it was (a) the long way around, and (b) missed a
checkpoint. I had taken a major time hit at the ferry while the
paramedic looked at Jim, but Joel had taken an even bigger one by
missing a checkpoint and going the wrong way.

Between that mistake and his wreck the day before, this put Joel very,
very far down the ranks. So much so that I magically became a real
contender for winning my class. In fact, Joel was now so far behind
that I stopped worrying about him, or even paying attention to where
he was in the standings.

That would turn out to be a mistake.

On the ferry I found out that not everyone was having such a good
time. I knew Jess and Rich hated me for the dirt part. They had
flagged me down on the burr trail, and when I stopped Jess said, "Rich
is going to hold you while I pummel you." The extent of the lack of
fun was extensive. Jim was hurt bad and fainted on the ferry ride.

The next two hours were hell and it took me a good three months before
I even wanted to think about cannonball. There was an urgent care
center back on the other side of the lake so while a boat was called
to transport Jim we unloaded the bikes. I decided to go with Jim to
make sure he was ok, of course the aluminum boat with two huge
outboards was a draw as well It was not all hell. As we started
across the lake and the air started to cool they asked Jim if they
could up the speed and plane out the boat. He gave a thumbs up and as
the throttle was applied a grin spread across his face. That thing was
really fast. At the urgent care they wanted to air lift Jim but he was
not keen on the idea. Meanwhile Oz showed up fretting about his
sparkplug, there was no mobile coverage at all, and the support trucks
had all taken the longer paved route. About this time Jim said, "let's
get out of here." We started to sneak out and were stopped. I
explained that my best hope of getting him to a hospital was in our
support truck and it would be heading to the other side of the lake to
pick up the bikes. A shuttle was called to take us to the ferry, a
call was made to hold the ferry, and an ace bandage was wrapped around
Jim's ribs. Once on the ferry we pulled away and returned to the dock
twice as the last of the riders arrived. On the other side of the lake
we got Jim on his bike and finished out the last 90 miles of the day.

I'm not going to either over demonize, overstate, or overglamorize
this day.

Depending on who you were - one of the x people that went down (today
had been dubbed 'Cannonfall'), one of those who just had a regular
every day run, or somewhere in between, this day was so subjective
it's not really worth whining or being effusive about it.

Things did go bad obviously, for wire a few people. Jim T had a very
bad accident and broke bones. His bike wasn't too happy either. His
fall was the worst of our incidents and we hoped it wouldn't get worse
as the went went on.

Patrick showed a lot of strength in his tough spot and did a good job
of taking care of Jim T.

I had more problems with my plug, and wasn't sure if my bike was going
to make the day, but a guy at Bullfrog lake saw me, and happened to
restore vintage Volkswagons. So he had a remedy that would last me the
rest of the ride. Fortuitous.

A few Burr Trail pics.
I didn't go down but ended up on the side of the road after having
lost a touch of control. After I regained control and stopped (in the
gutter), I lost my footing and tipped over. Bike landed on my right
knee. Very stupid.
But not much more eventful from me.

Rest of the Burr Trail. Dirty bike. Jim T. Etc.