Modern Vespa

On the last day of the cannonball we were on the clock from Oakland to
White's Ferry and from the arboretum to Ocean City. The tour through
DC was off the clock. We hit some heavy fog early in the morning that
left the roads wet but not too slick. My bike was running really
poorly, down on power about like it was going over Monarch pass. After
the fog cleared and it warmed up a bit the bike was back to normal.

The first part of today was pretty awesome. Lots of fun twisties in
dense, dense fog. Unfortunately, in part of that fog, I saw Rob on the
side of the road.

And here is where I'm a dick - I just kept going. At this point I had
found out I was in 4th so I wanted to hold on to that as best as I
could. I knew Rob had support and they would help him out.

I got to the Potomac as quickly as I could because, of all things, I
needed to pee very badly. I got to the ferry, which would arrive in 10
minutes, so I used that opportunity to piss on private property. At
which point Pete caught up to me and tried to scare me during my
urination.

On the other side of the Potomac, we were greeted by a whole mess of
scooterists who escorted us to Vespa DC.

Lots of pizza, chatting, and an escort through the capitol and we were
off again to our final destination.

Unfortunately I wasn't done having problems. Somewhere on the way to
Ocean City, my variator nut backed off, and my transmission got pissed.
I pulled over at the nearest most convenient location which happened
to be an auto repair shop. Unfortunately some of my tools were on the
support truck. Which meant I had to wait for Rolfie to come before I
could really tear into it.

An hour and a half later I was back on the road under my own power, an
rode as fast as I could through Delaware to Ocean City. Rolled in as
the sun set.

Success.

The tour through DC was really cool. I'd been to DC once before but to
ride through was completely different.

Last day of the race.

The name of the game today was Don't Fuck Up. Joel was 75 minutes
behind me, and all I had to do today was not wreck, not get pulled
over, and not get lost. Sounds easy, but the pressure was intense. I
was absolutely a mess today, the accumulated stress of trying to stay
in the lead had taken a serious toll on me. It's hard to really convey
the amount of tension I was feeling, so I'll just stop trying.

We started the day early because we had to make a public appearance
later that day. The DC-area scooter community was going to be meeting
us after the second checkpoint, and we were stopping the clock for a
"parade leg", a leg of just riding with the local scooterists and no
racing.

That didn't make the first part of the day any easier, though. It was
foggy, and we were hung over, and I was a basket case. I'm a terrible
rider in inclement weather, absolutely awful. It's easily my biggest
weak point, and the fog and mist on Day Ten was sufficient to send me
into a fetal position. I rode like a terrified newbie, no doubt about
it. There was oil on my rear tire from the ripped-out oil pan gasket,
my transmission was slipping, my LV exhaust had a broken baffle, my
scooter had been wrecked, and I was a basket case. Awesome!

Eventually, the fog burned off and I was mostly okay. The route took
us through the back roads of Virgina, which were just *lovely*, except
that (a) I really didn't have the time or mental capacity to enjoy
them, and (b) they were *still* a letdown compared to the whole of the
Western United States. Oh well.

I got to White's Ferry without too much difficulty, and the clock was
stopped. I got to meet a few people who I knew online but had never
met, most notably my former club-mate Valerie. I also got a chance to
swap spit with Mike Garrett, who is a dreamy kisser.

I hated the parade leg. I'm really glad all the local scooterists came
out, but they were really there for the vintage guys, and had little
interest in what the twist-and-go folks were doing. That's fine,
that's well and good, but I wanted to finish the race and be done with
it. The parade route, and the slog through busy DC traffic, was just
not what I needed at that point.

There was one high point to the parade leg: my wife was waiting at the
local Vespa dealership, where we stopped for some pizza. Patrick's
girlfriend was there as well. They had flown in from the West Coast,
and were going to drive from DC out to the finish line, essentially
following us. That made me feel quite a bit better.

After the parade leg, and once we got to the third and final
checkpoint, we re-started the clock and Rich and I took off. Again,
the name of the game was Don't Fuck Up. Getting pulled over at this
point would probably have meant losing the race. Wrecking or breaking
down, even more so. I started talking to my bike... a lot. I wanted my
bike to feel like it had a purpose, like its job was to deliver me. I
might have been hallucinating the whole thing, I'm still not sure.

Just a short while after Rich and I left the third checkpoint, a
miracle was delivered unto me: a group of Hyabusas roared past us,
doing some ungodly speed on the local freeway. This meant,
essentially, that Rich and I could go as fast as we wanted for the
foreseeable future with no chance of getting pulled over. w00t!

The rest of the ride is a blur. I remember my GPS repeatedly trying to
get me to deviate from the official route, but I refused. I knew that
Joel knew the area pretty well, and I was concerned that he would know
a short cut past the heavy vacation traffic I was encountering. I was
also super-ultra paranoid about police at this point, terrified that I
would get pulled over. Near the finish line, Rich took off on a
different route, apparently indulging his GPS, while I continued on
Hwy 50.

When I finally got to the hotel / finish line, there were a group of
people standing in the median. They were holding signs saying "Go
Joel!" This, it turned out, would be the most fantastic thing I could
see. If they were still waiting there, it meant that Joel was still
behind me, which meant, effectively, that I had won the race. What an
immense relief! What a horrible race!

I parked my bike and a few MVers had shown up to meet us in the
parking lot, with a mass quantity of beer. I swear, beer never tasted
so good as that moment. Thank you, mogeewogee.

We ate dinner, we had a party in Rich's room, we drank ourselves
silly. Ocean City, MD is an awful, awful place to go, but I was happy
to be there, alive, in one piece.

The last leg was uneventful. The bridges were fun but other than that
is was fast and flat. I was glad for it to be done and wanted it to
continue on at the same time. The SYM made it the whole way with no
maintenance other than adding a bit of oil and air to the tires. After
dinner we all gathered in Rich's room to enter the times for the day
and determine the final standings. Good times.

After we got in and we got settled, we had dinner and cut loose a bit.
I needed a ride to the airport and bobo helped me find one, and I
won't embarass him since he is on this board, but he really helped me
out and I appreciate the fact that he didn't mind that I passed out in
the truck on the way.

Before we left, I took some pics. GPS info for the route - distance,
top speed, etc. Also, saw the sunrise on the Atlantic before which
I've never done. I took a picture at the beach with some shells I
carry as a keepsake of my wife's, to let her know she was there with
me in my heart the whole time.

And I put my CBR sticker on my bike. She made it and she earned it.

My GT was on the truck for a while on the way home - Jess and Rich
drove all the way back, and Jess dropped it off one evening with a
caveat: turns out at some point, an who knows when, the rear wheel
developed a good shake to it. A horizontal shimmy of about a half inch
or even more in each direction. So i tore it down with Aaron just to
poke around.

Nut had worked it's way loose.

I also opened up the transmission to check on the variator - it was
pretty chewed. No big surprise there. Just a fact of life. Replaced it
with my pre cannonball outer half.

Good times had by all. Quite a lot of beer that afternoon. Sweet.

Cal game might have been on, too.