It ain’t over till it’s over. More of the pieces are lined up so it’s time to give adventure travel another shot. True, it is late in the year. The plan, fly to San Jose, California where a 2003 Honda Nighthawk has been stored for the last four months. Get her out of moth balls. Try to recall what maintenance was done since and continue on from there. Tires were last changed on this newly acquired bike last spring. Since then, we’ve been on alternate morning rides around home, a day ride to Springfield, Ill., a ‘see what she can do’ to Gettysburg and a ‘stretch her legs’ cross country to California. We’ll need new tires.
Could find a shop somewhere along the way. Get goin’. Fix it, when it needs fixing. That would be time consuming and those odd sized Honda tires (had the same problem with the Shadow) are hard to come by. 17 and 18s might be found in stock Dunlops. That would mean some layover time and I would much rather go with longer lasting road tires like Bridgestone Battleaxes. That means ordering online pronto with two day delivery promised. Not thrilled with the prospect of carrying tires if not absolutely necessary. There is the option of ordering tires through a dealership and paying a premium. Arrive Friday, get the bike running and have tires mounted Saturday, piece of cake. Just find a place that can be ridden to, without having to deal with too much obscene traffic.
Riding a bike through big city expressways scares the bejeezus out of me. A town like Chicago is best attempted during early Sunday morning hours. The loonies, druggies and boozers are mostly tucked away, off the highway and out of my lane. At first light, you can best run the gauntlet with some semblance of safety. Approaching any downtown, I hug the express lane, do my best to match speed, find a ‘lead car’ which can be seen through to get a heads up and hope for traffic to eventually die down. You can get some tricky cities like Chi-town, where cars will merge from the left. Fortunately, you will not find that very often.
I pick the express lane for the obvious reasons that lane changers can only come at you from one side. In a quick stop situation, there is a left emergency lane to duck into. On the slow side, you have to contend with cagers who are approaching from the on ramp or other vehicles that just so happened to remember, at the last minute, this was their exit.
We have all had our moments. I recall being pushed out of my lane in Cusco because I just happened to be only a bike while he had ‘might is right of way’ in a car. There was the surreal experience in Minneapolis, St. Paul remembering to move over into the left lane, missing the lost rolling tire that happened to fall out of a pickup truck bed. My worst nightmare was traveling east through Kansas City where seven lanes merge into three choices. Pick one, pick it fast and whatever you do, don’t hesitate. What the hell!
The check in bag weighed in at 20kg. Felt more like 40. Upon arrival in San Jose, the bag was examined by security. Perhaps motorcycle chains are suspect?