| Author | Message | ||
     Reepicheep |
Sounds fantastic! | ||
| Crusty |
The first part of my Journey through Homelessness is over. I’ve ridden through 28 states and covered over 13,500 miles. I’m going to kick around New England for a couple of weeks until my two doctor’s appointments on the 28th, then I’ll begin Phase 2 which will hopefully include visits to the West Virginia Buell Rally, the Springfield Mile on Labor Day weekend, The Cadillac Ranch in Texas and Carhenge in Nebraska. I’m also thinking about hitting Glacier National Park again to ride the entire Going-To-The-Sun Road and then actually getting back to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. I also want to eat Mexican Food in Albuquerque and ride through Monument Valley again. Oh; while I’m in the Texas Panhandle looking at graffiti covered half buried Caddys, I want to stop at the Big Texan Steak House and get a steak dinner. None of these are earth shaking items (well; maybe the Mile is. The thunder of a pack of Harley XR-750s turning close to 10,000 RPM does seem to vibrate the ground as well as my entire body), but they’re things I want to do and see. So what I want to know is; do you want me to continue posting these Snippets? While I know that a few of you really enjoy reading them, I can’t help but think that some of you are getting pretty bored with my ramblings. So after giving the matter considerable thought, (I have lots of time for thought while riding through the countryside) I’ve decided that if you want me to continue, you need to let me know. I will only post these scribblings if folks want them. | ||
| Ceejay |
re snippets - I dig reading them! I've meant to chime in with some suggestions, (used to live out west) but it seems like what you've got is working great. I will state that my favorite mexi joint is cuco's on broad in albuquerque. it's a hole in the wall, screen door for entry, flies buzzing about, but it's on route 66, was a 1/2 mile from my house, and the breakfast burritos were excellent - it may have had something to do with the hot chix in wife beaters serving it up at the time (but the streets don't change…) ifnya get the chance stop in, eat up, and write about it. | ||
| Airbozo |
Crusty, I have never met you and don't know any of the names and very few of the places you have visited, but I must admit to reading every word of this thread and it puts a smile on my face. It must be very therapeutic for you as well, so yes, please keep it up! If you ever hit the west coast (SF bay area or Santa Cruz area) I would be happy to give you a tour, buy you dinner (or lunch, etc) and give you a place to rest your weary bones. The least I could do for the smiles you have given me. | ||
| Ourdee |
John, I say keep writing. Some one needs to keep an eye on you.  ,R.D. PS. if they don't want it they don't have to click it | ||
| 1313 |
DON'T STOP!!! Your updates from the road are AWESOME! I envy your adventures since I can't just take off and go on a monumental moto-journey, but living vicariously through your updates is the next best thing. GO CRUSTY GO!!! | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
I love checking in to see what and how you are doing. SO! keep it coming | ||
| M2owner |
What they all said. You have a great way with descriptions of what you see and where you go. Thanks and please continue writing. | ||
| Strokizator |
As long as you're going to Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon, go see the North Rim. The view isn't as grand but the ride up through the Kaibab Nat'l Forest is cool. Another fun ride in AZ is Hwy 191 - aka The Coronado Trail. Keep up the snippets. They rekindle the memories of rides past and offer some new destinations for the future. | ||
| Cyclonedon |
Keep them coming John! We're all going along on this ride with you! | ||
| Buellish |
Crusty,your doing what I'd be doing if I had the funds.I'm stuck here in N GA (not such a bad place to be stuck), so I really enjoy hearing about the places I'd love to see,but can't. Please keep it coming! | ||
| Zane |
Crusty, Heck yes, keep writing!! I look forward to every new installment. You paint wonderful word pictures and I would encourage you to keep writing. | ||
| 86129squids |
"RoadCrust." I'll allow you to use that to title your book, if it congeals to be that. Just remember me a bit for the residuals, maybe a bit better than musicians... I once kept a journal, still have years of longhand pages somewhere in my shed- they've likely become rodent bedding. If you keep the habit, it'll produce good things. | ||
| Crusty |
Pictures, Michelin Commanders and Other Stuff Today, I went over to the shop and replaced those damnable Dunflop American Effete tires with a set of Michelin Commander IIs. I don’t expect the Michelins to last as long, but I’m hoping that they’ll at least give me some traction in the curves and in the rain. I’ve been doing business with Guido since 1972, and there are few people who I’d trust to do a job as well. I worked for him off and on for short spells, over the years, and they let me use the shop to work on my bike. To a reasonable degree. They let me tie up a lift today for damn near the entire day and use their tools to work on my bike; and they even gave me a hand when I needed one. I don’t know many shops that would do that. But GP Motorcycle is an “Old Time” kind of place. It’s a true gem in a world of sterile, bland motorcycle Emporiums. Anyhow, my bike is now re-shod and ready to roll. Tomorrow, I have to attend to a bit of mundane business. I have to go over to my Storage garage and hopefully find my checkbook so I can pay my Utility and cable/ISP bills. I have a pile of mail that I need to sort through; and some of it is about Medicare, so I’d better pay attention. I have to deposit my security deposit check from my former landlady. It’s funny; I put a spit shine on that apartment when I moved out, and she deducted five dollars for a can of Easy Off Oven Cleaner to clean the oven door. For five bucks, I’m not going to chase her down; but I left that apartment clean enough that anyone could move in and find things cleam and ready to use. I also have to do some laundry. Oh, the Humanity of it all. I’ve had quite a few folks asking me about pictures. I’ve taken very few. Sue gave me a Nikon Coolpix camera when I was out in Colorado, but I just haven’t been inclined to use it. I did take a couple of pictures of the Sportster in a couple of memorable places; the sign depicting the 45th Parallel in Yellowstone Park, the Monument at the geographic Center of North America in Rugby North Dakota, and in front of the closed EBR Motorcycle plant in East Troy, Wisconsin; but that’s about it. I just didn’t feel like taking pictures. I’m not really sure why. Maybe that’ll change during the next Phase. I used to take photos, but I don’t have the “Eye” for photography. Even a bad picture can bring back many memories though, so maybe I should start. We’ll see. In the meantime, have a nice weekend! | ||
| Two_seasons |
Crusty, Your prose are wonderful. I have been reliving my earlier life of motorcycle trips through your writings. I enjoy your sense of style! Don't forget to sample the micro's as you get along...  Steve | ||
| Buellish |
Lets see the intrepid Sportster!I've been trying to envision what it looks like,all decked out for touring. | ||
| Chauly |
+1000 Crusty! Keep on Truckin'! (Well, "Bikin") | ||
| Daddio |
Crusty, another vote "Aye," in favor of you continuing your rambling about your ramblings. EVERYone who posted above has said what I wish to say. BTW, if you continue north on US385 from Carhenge, you dead-end at my town. | ||
| 46champ |
Keep it up Crusty you are doing what most of us would love to do and we are doing it thru your posts. | ||
| 86129squids |
You know- when the day comes that you head Down Under, I anticipate you could have some seriously fun times with Graham! | ||
| Strokizator |
I just didn’t feel like taking pictures. I’m not really sure why. Funny, but I'm the same way. People ask me for pictures and I tell them to look at my route on Google Earth. Lots of pictures there and most better than I could do. I'm not a "selfie" guy, which seems to be the #1 reason a lot of people take pictures these days. My brother-in-law is a professional photographer and took a boat-load of pictures on our trip to Alaska last year (Oh look, another gd bear!). OK, if I could produce images like that, I'd probably take more. Ride on. | ||
| Buellmeister57 |
Keep posting, I'm truly enjoying every word. I would like to see a pic of your Sportster, put over 40,000 miles on my last one. | ||
| Crusty |
Good Pizza and a Belt Sometimes it seems like it takes two or three times longer to get something done than it should. It’s like something is speeding up time when my back is turned. For instance, Thursday morning, I woke up in Pittsfield. I figured it would take me three hours to ride to Fitchburg; instead, it took over 4 hours. Then, on Saturday, I had a list of everything I wanted to accomplish. I planned my stops in order, so I could get it all done efficiently; yet, I wound up having to completely rearrange my schedule, because I ran out of time and couldn’t get everything done. Today, I’m supposed to meet up with Kathryn for breakfast, get over to Fitchburg for noon and do a couple of errands, then go over to Ernie’s and pick up my mail there. It seems pretty basic and do-able. I bet something screws it up. Then again; I have to ask myself, “How important is it?” It will get done, eventually. Sunday, Ernie, Dondi and I went to Providence, Rhode Island for pizza. Dondi is a friend who loves to ride as a passenger, and she hadn’t been on a ride on my Sportster yet. Both of them like good pizza and I know of a great place on Federal Hill in Providence (the Italian neighborhood) called Caserta’s. The pizza there is unique in both its appearance and flavor. There’s construction on I 95 in Providence, and it screwed me up. We wound up in the wrong place. But after stopping at a gas station, I got directions, and we found it. The Pizza was just as good as I remembered, and both Dondi and Ernie really enjoyed it. We rode back together as far as Worcester, then Ernie went east to Hudson while Dondi and I went north toward Fitchburg. We were at a traffic light in Fitchburg, and when the light changed, I tried to accelerate but the bike wouldn’t move. The Drive Belt had snapped. A good Samaritan named Shawn in a Jeep stopped to help us. and so did a police officer. The Policeman stopped traffic while Shawn helped me push the bike over into a nearby parking lot. (The lot was the one at my Income Tax accountant’s, and he rides a BMW, so I figured he wouldn’t mind). Shawn then gave Dondi and I a ride to where her car was parked. I wound up staying at Dondi’s house Sunday night, then yesterday morning, she ran me around to my storage garage, so I could get the tools together to change the belt, then we stopped at the accountant’s office so I could explain to him what happened, then over to the Harley shop in Leominster to buy a new belt, then back to the bike. Then back to the garage, because I’d forgotten to grab the Torx sockets, then back to the bike. Then back to the garage, because while I’d gotten the tools out to do the job, I set some of them down while I moved other stuff around and forgotten to put them in the bag with the other tools. Then back to the bike. Dondi sat in the car and read a book while I installed the new belt, and eventually, I got the job done. It actually only took me an hour and a half to change the belt, but I used up seven hours accomplishing it. You know; breaking the belt was a half empty/ half full kind of occurrence. While breaking a belt is a royal pain in the butt, so many good things were apparent. First; the belt broke in town where things are familiar to me. It didn’t break while coming through Worcester at 70 MPH in heavy traffic. Then Shawn appeared, and helped us out, as did the cop who arrived on cue to stop traffic while we moved the bike. We were close to my accountant’s office (where my bike was parked out of sight of the street), my tools, and a Harley shop, which had a belt in stock. I can’t really blame the belt for breaking; it was over ten years old. It powered the bike for over 14,000 miles since I set out on my trip, and through some pretty desolate places and performed its job. If it had broken on some of the pretty remote roads hundreds of miles from a dealership that I had traveled on, it could have been a real problem. All in all, things worked out pretty well. Anyhow, my bike now has a new drive belt, new tires and fresh oil in both the engine and transmission. I have a few things to accomplish today and a couple of fairly important things to accomplish tomorrow morning (like paying the Shop for the tires and oil change), then I’ll be off to the Great State of Maine to visit with Megan and Rocky. (Message edited by Crusty on July 21, 2015) | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
Thanks for the update! I would have been spitting bullets at myself for all the tool trips... why... been there done that and will probably do it a bunch more times It never fails, every time I get under the truck or Jeep... the tool I just went to get is left on the work bench or just out of reach | ||
| Buellish |
Crusty,I'm with you on the pluses of braking a belt in a convenient area. I've broken two belts on S2's.One about a mile from the HD shop where I worked.The tow driver,knowing what a Buell was said "you want to go to the Harley shop?",I told him "no,my repair shop is at home in Woodstock",so thats where we went. The second belt happened North of town on my way home from the mountains,about a half mile from a convenience store.I was having a Crohn's flare-up and that half mile may as well have been ten miles as bad as I needed to use the bath room. | ||
| Crusty |
My Sportster as it looked when I arrived at Megan and Rocky's place.  | ||
| Chauly |
" I figured it would take me three hours to ride to Fitchburg; instead, it took over 4 hours. " I had a Jeep like that: Williamstown to Lexington: 6 hours! (& 12 quarts of oil...)  | ||
| Crusty |
Here's the other side:  | ||
| Ourdee |
Bike's looking good and ready to roll some more. | ||
| Prior |
Crusty, Great looking Sporty! She found a great spot for some maintenance and to catch up with some friends! Glad it's fixed so you can ride on. This is what motorcycling is all about. Ride Crusty Ride!!! |
