My First UnRally

[markgoodrich]

NOTE: all temperatures mentioned herein are factual; any references to my speeds in excess of posted legal limits are fictitious and unprovable; any references to others' illegal driving are exactly factual.

 

MY FIRST UNRALLY

 

Getting to the 2012 UnRally in Salida, CO, required riding a motorcycle across all of west Texas in July. During a heat wave, a term one might consider redundant, but in this case the heat was worse than a normal July. 105 degrees, no shade, no doubt temp at boot level behind the engine was 145. But hey, it was only for about eight hours or so. First night was Clovis, NM, and the next day was much better hopping over the high road to Taos in cooler temps, curving roads (the latter being sadly lacking in west Texas) to end the day in Salida, where the 90 degrees with no humidity felt like 75 in Austin. Yay.

 

Had dinner Sunday evening with a few other early arrivers, the Whips, RoadScholar, the Hansons, Oopsiedoozie...whatever...*Chris* and Chris Oudekerk, whose secret identity I have forgotten.

 

Next morning they all went off on an off-road adventure and I took one of the paved routes by myself, had a great time swooping through curves and over passes and ended up on a paved road that was not paved at all, but was instead slippery-ish washboard dirt and gravel for 12 miles to the top of Cottonwood Pass. I bravely made it to the top with all my fillings intact and the RT's side cases unscathed, and was standing around admiring the view at the top when the aforementioned off-roaders came zipping and zooming up the other side of the pass...on a paved road. On their various uber-gigantor off-road machinery. I was tactful in my snickering. I buzzed down the paved side and back to Salida in time to fulfill my duties as a checker-inner for Monday arrivers for a couple hours, and the off-roaders all went off and almost died, apparently, on a different muddy road. Well, except for Whip, who, in his own words, "wimped out," and turned tail without telling anyone, which in turn caused everyone to worry and backtrack and, again using Whip's own words, "ruined the trip for everyone." Belay the muddy road comment, it wasn't mud it was cow poo. Someone fell down in it with their motorcycle landing on top of them to keep it from getting poopy. I forget who it was.

 

Tuesday I buzzed down a different route, solo again, hundreds of miles of apexes, and arrived safely back in Salida happy and tired, in time for supper with a much larger group of Un-ians, none of whom, as far as I could determine, had ridden as far or as fast as I. That evening lofs of the Un-ians had tales to tell of their adventures and arrivals, and many adult beverages were consumed. Just about everyone arrived, almost a hundred folks.

 

Wednesday was the big group ride, a very long loop up out of Salida over Independence Pass to Aspen, on to a place called Redstone for lunch, south to, uh, somewhere, and then along the Black Canyon of the Gunnison road to the big highway, 50, and over Monarch Pass back to Salida. I had never been on a group ride, and was a bit trepidatious, fearful that someone might use a hand signal I wouldn't understand, that I'd be mistaken for one of those pirate-biker people, but it turned out to be unfounded fear. Steve Carr, whose superpower is Adventure Poser, was the leader, with Whip sweeping up the stragglers. Steve really, truly, never mind the prefatory note about speeds, kept to the posted limits, and I was quite surprised to suddenly notice mountains, big Christmas tree-looking things, streams, even a marmot, and nary an apex needed attending to. It was nice. We stopped at the top of the pass and everyone had their picture taken by a sign saying we were at the top of the pass, and we descended into Aspen, which is stupid-crowded with cars and people. We proceeded to lunch at the Redstone place, and Whip announced that anyone who wanted to could now, since there were only two roads to remember, go on ahead at a, um, brisker pace. So I pulled out of the lot first, and realized I'd best stop and hook my earphones up so I could hear my radar detector, and the rest of the group, 20-odd bikes, went by me, with Whip pulling over to wait. When he saw me start out, he caught up with the rest of the group, and, well. I believed him when he said we could go on ahead, and they were just going the speed limit in a long line, and where I come from double yellow lines are a recommendation against passing, so, well, the RT can hit 95 pretty quickly, and I got around all of them at once, and any aspersions regarding it being uphill around a blind curve are scurrilous at the very least. From then on I was back in Apex Land, the mountains and trees and streams disappeared, and the road lent itself perfectly to 100mph sweepers, one after another after another after another, for many, many miles. When I found a section that was recently worked on with lots of loose gravel I learned how Nicky Hayden is able to slide his bike into a curve and back it in, as they say, so I did that for awhile at about 123mph, and then it rained a little tiny bit so I slowed down to about 104 (you lose no more than 15% of traction on wet pavement) for awhile and then, oops, missed the turn-off and went about five miles too far, turned around, stopped for a pee, and went back to the turn-off, in time to see two other members of our group begin to disappear down the road, they, too, having taken Whip at his word.

 

So of course, like a dog on a leash, I had to catch them, and did, and passed them, and then one of them passed me back, so I had to pass him AGAIN, and then I pulled over to look into the maw of the Gunnison Canyon of Blackness and they went on. I'll not mention their names because, duh, I forgot. Wait: Stu was one. He could ride that FJR pretty good.

 

Anyhow, to get to the botttom of the story, I made it back to Salida about two or three hours before the group riders, showered, had a little nap, and met everyone out in the parking lot to go to dinner. Whip came sort of stalking up to me and said "You cost me a lot of money today!" in a rather angry tone, and of course I had no idea what he was talking about. It turned out that way back at lunch Whip had asked Dave Hanson who he thought would be the first to break from the pack ("break" is their term, Whip TOLD us we could take off), and Dave said "Mark." Whip then bet Dave dinner that it wouldn't be me. I had no knowledge this was happening. I just did what I was told I could do. Whip had the entire group; Dave only had me. Dave won. Whip could have won the bet by taking off first, right? How is any of this my fault? Whip sulked. Whip pouted. Dave strutted like a banty rooster. I stood there dumbfounded that Whip was so out of sorts.

 

So anyway, we went to dinner at some joint in downtown Salida, but there wasn't room enough for everyone, so the Whips and a few others went to another joint down the street. Dave, a little nervous about whether Whip would pay, asked me to go down there and get Whip's credit card. JustJean, Dave's wife, piped up with "no, get cash!" So I did. Ask Whip. He refused to give me his credit card, and refused to give me cash, but averred he would be there in time to pay their bill. [i should interject, and I'm sure you will agree, that it seems only fair that the Hansons should have bought my dinner, but no.] It's useful to note that Dave and JustJean normally order one entree and split it, and never order adult beverages. That's just the way they like to do things. That evening, however, they had: a dozen oysters on the half shell (imagine how much those cost, prolly flown in from Thailand); a large, expensive entree, each; between them about five or six glasses of wine; and a huge, expensive strawberry shortcake dessert. Oh, and water back. Whip, to his credit, did show up about the time the checks were coming out, but really, I think it was excessive and unfair of him to hit me repeatedly on my bald spot for causing him to lose a bet I was unaware of. [Had I known there was a bet, I would have negotiated with each of them; the one who offered the most would determine whether I stayed on the group ride or took off first.] This story took on a life of its own, with many variations being tossed around the next day, but what you have read here is the one true version. I did leave out the part about Richard Turk (BeniciaRT) being merciless in ridiculing Whip.

 

Thursday, I had laundry to do, and had slept in a little bit, so the parking lot was empty by the time I suited up, but Benicia, his lovely wife Jacqueline, Whosit Caputo, Carl, and Joe (forgot their secret identities) had said they were going to Bishop's Castle, a famous folly still under construction, so I decided to go on down that way, and prolly find them at the castle. Actually I caught up with them a little before the castle, and we all zoomed along around the curves at about 147mph (Benicia's GT is pretty fast) right past the castle, and stopped by the side of the road about 10 minutes later and milled around for half an hour. I'm not sure why we stopped, but I took advantage of the opportunity and had a nice pee on a Christmas tree-looking tree. Then we zoomed back past the castle (hey, I was just following along; if they didn't want to stop at the biggest tourist attraction in Colorado, I figured there would be another time for me) and stopped for lunch, where Benicia (I hate using that term, it's Richard Turk) goaded the waitress into harassing me even more than he had been. Made me kind of tired after awhile, but I left her a tip anyway. Then off we went, and at a stop sign, Richard was looking in his mirror for Jacqueline, and I got tired of waiting and took on off, which caused a minor furor, because apparently Richard is Der Leader. Carl took advantage of the situation and left Richard behind, too, and we were quickly hooning up some canyon (U. S. 50) in traffic, using the double-yellow-recommendation system, and dang if Richard didn't catch up to us and then did the unpardonable: HE PASSED ME! So I bided my time for one or two curves, and then I passed him right back, and raised up in my seat to show him my fanny. The nerve.

 

So anyway, that night we had the annual group dinner, and Tank and I got pushed out of the line and by the time we got up to the dessert the purple stuff we wanted was all gone, so we had to settle for peach stuff. It was good, but not the same as the purple. Fernando gave five or six speeches, minimum, Beemerboy gave one [beemerboy was our very, very highly esteemed oranizer, along with his wonderful consort Deb], thanking everyone who so much as offered to help, but of course forgot to thank Deb. I hollered at him and he rectified that situation, but I bet there were ramifications, don't you think?

 

Big party out in the parking lot after the dinner and all the speeches, people sort of organizing bikes, some bikes going onto trailers or into trucks, everyone but me lying about how fast they had gone (I simply told the truth, as you have read here), and I went to my room to get organized for the ride home and ended up pooping out and going to bed early. The ride home? Day 1: 100, 100, 100, 100, RADAR, Speed Limit, 100, 100, 100 RADAR, Speed Limit...etc, stop every hour and 15 minutes after noon to change out phase change cooling vest inserts. Day 2: repeat Day 1, leave out the vest part because I got home by 10:30.

 

Thanks a million to Beemerboy and Deb for all the hard work they put into making this thing look easy. Thanks to all who helped, who made up routes, who were friendly, etc. About 3,000 miles total, for me, I think. Let's see, 3,000/100 ave=30 hours of riding, yeah, that's about right. No, really.

 

Couple of motorcycle travel things I bet are universal, especially if you ride a boxer bike: the garage instantly fills up with that baked-bug smell and it gets way up in you nose and can't get it out for hours. And when you ride past a dead skunk in the road, you flare your nostrils a bit, and pull that sulfurous smell deep, deep into your sinuses, just a little whiff. Admit it, you do it, don't you? You're flaring your nostrils right now.

 

 

[Bill_Walker]

This is a tale of such obvious veracity that no sane person could doubt a word of it.

 

Except the part about the skunk.

[eddd]

I shouldn't have to tell you this, but...

 

without picture none of this happened.

[algover]

I shouldn't have to tell you this, but...

 

without picture none of this happened.

 

[chrisolson]

I shouldn't have to tell you this, but... without picture none of this happened.

I can attest that Mark's account of Wednesday's ride did in fact contain much truth ... although just not all of it as all good story tellers must do.

[CoarsegoldKid]

I enjoyed your ride report. It made me miss you again. I haven't heard from Joe tonight. He and Franz are off on their own toot. Glad you had a good trip. Say hi to Suzanne. Juanita

[markgoodrich]

I shouldn't have to tell you this, but... without picture none of this happened.

I can attest that Mark's account of Wednesday's ride did in fact contain much truth ... although just not all of it as all good story tellers must do.

 

CHRIS!!!!! You're the guy whose name I couldn't remember!!!!! You passed me on the Gunnison Canyon Road of Blackness. Don't be offended, I can't remember anything.

 

And you're right, I did not tell all the truth. I left out some of it, like the part where...oh, I best not tell that.

[Patallaire]

It is funny what those Colorado roads do to you. Speed limits have no bearing on reality, curves seem to come at you slowly and predictabily, there is an invincibleness that creates the illusion that these are not public roads and that they are own private playground. Somehow we all survive to enjoy those memories and yearn for more. Colorado is a very special motorcycle meca. Glad you enjoyed yourself.

[OoPEZoO]

Oopsiedoozie...whatever...

 

Good to see you too Mark

[markgoodrich]

Due to some negative comments and aspersions regarding the truthfulness of my accounting of events, here and on Facebook, I will make one correction: I lied about Richard (Benicia) passing me on U. S. 50. I slowed down and let him, because I know he always has to be in front. Then I passed him again, and showed him my fanny, because of the horrible treatment at the restaurant earlier.

[dhanson]

I did feel bad about the drinks, I tried to have a good time, but every time I looked over, Jean had ordered another. I think she was celebrating something, not sure.

 

The oysters were to die for and I would be glad to reimburse Whip for those!

[MikeRC]

Mark:

 

Having finally had the pleasure of meeting you at the Un, it seems to me that some people just don't have an appreciation for someone with your observational skills, honesty and integrity.

 

Well, maybe not about the skunks. I hold my breath as long as I can.

 

Burnt bugs I can certainly relate to. Have you ever noticed the ones stuck in the oil cooler have more of a "fresh toasted almond" smell then the "burnt in bad cooking oil" smell of the ones on the exhaust and engine block?

 

Mike Cassidy

[markgoodrich]

Mark:

 

Having finally had the pleasure of meeting you at the Un, it seems to me that some people just don't have an appreciation for someone with your observational skills, honesty and integrity.

 

Well, maybe not about the skunks. I hold my breath as long as I can.

 

Burnt bugs I can certainly relate to. Have you ever noticed the ones stuck in the oil cooler have more of a "fresh toasted almond" smell then the "burnt in bad cooking oil" smell of the ones on the exhaust and engine block?

 

Mike Cassidy

 

I've had that appreciation problem my whole life. Why, in this thread alone more than one person has questioned the accuracy of my report.

 

Do try the skunk test sometime. You don't want a full-on fresh kill, one that's been lying there, flattened, for a day or two. I guarantee your nostrils will flair, and your amygdala will fire off all sorts of signals.

[Bernie]

Your RT will go 147 mph?

What is it on Nitrous? Turbo charger? Or just in your fantasy?

Thanks for being so accurate.

[SageRider]

Your RT will go 147 mph?

What is it on Nitrous? Turbo charger? Or just in your fantasy?

Thanks for being so accurate.

reference quote from above:

"It seems to me that some people just don't have an appreciation for someone with your (Mark's) observational skills, honesty and integrity."

[markgoodrich]

Your RT will go 147 mph?

What is it on Nitrous? Turbo charger? Or just in your fantasy?

Thanks for being so accurate.

 

I've been on a diet.

 

[CoarsegoldKid]

I've been on a diet.

Really!

[RT Russ]

I did feel bad about the drinks, I tried to have a good time, but every time I looked over, Jean had ordered another. I think she was celebrating something, not sure.

 

The oysters were to die for and I would be glad to reimburse Whip for those!

 

Did anyone tell Hanson those were Mountain Oysters?

[Paul Mihalka]

Mountain Oysters? This is where they come from: