It was also a weird day in that I took my camera and DID NOT TAKE ONE SINGLE PICTURE. NOT ONE. I don't know why, just didn't feel like it. Didn't even ask anyone to take a pic of me (I like to have pics so that I can see what outfits go together and what works for what weather. So many different things fit now that I can't keep track/don't remember what works and what doesn't).
Firstly, I'm very grateful for Glen Sandstrom and Gary Felkel for the reassurance I feel when they're Tailgunners behind me. I kid them alot, they kid me back, but I love those two guys for the way they took care of me and protected me when I was having some riding issues. They didn't say anything about the gust that caught me in the twisties in the mountains coming down to Palm Desert, but I could feel them watching me and ready to jump in if something went wrong. Same thing on the 10 fwy. between Yes, I know that a Tailgunner must stay with a rider who feels they have to address a problem, but I feel like Glen and Gary went much farther for me. Until I realized that I ABSOLUTELY had to get off to do some fix-it, they were escorting me on the freeway, Glen in front and Gary behind me. When I had to get off the freeway, Glen came with me & offered ideas for stabilizing things that were pulling my focus on the 10 & loaned me his $125 goggles (those were SWEET, he got 'em at a shooting shop, and they LOOKED GOOD on me. Felt like stealing them or 'forgetting' to give them back), and Gary for waiting on the side of the freeway to make sure I got to the gas stop safely. I'm not TOO PROUD to recognize that they made my comfort level go 'way up with their support and encouragement, and faith in my riding ability.
The day started out good in that I picked out the correct clothing to wear the night before. I remembered our first official ride with Chapter 230 to Tehachapi in 2007 and how I FROZE. (We weren't on the email list yet so didn't get the head's up about riding gear & I thought I could kinda make do with some of my skiing stuff. NOPE) Richard Von Luft sent a website out that I'd had on my toolbar but TOTALLY forgot about since it was on there for about 500 years (ok, I exaggerate a tad) and never used the damn thing, so THANK YOU Richard, it's awesome! that calcs the mileage AND the temps for where you're going, what time and what date, up to 10 days after your current date. I plugged in the 13th of March, and saw that THE TRIP WAS GONNA BE FRICKIN' COLD, 47 degrees outta Mountain Center. We're talking 47 degrees in the middle of the day. LAYERS LAYERS LAYERS LAYERS did the trick, plus Bub put in his 2 cents work and made me take another, warmer pair of gloves.
Was a great idea, he always comes thru for me & I wish he coulda gone but he had the 6th off and the ride was called off and postponed until the 13th so he couldn't get off that date. IF he wasn't watching me ride off that morning, I SWEAR I woulda taken his bike. I should have, as you'll read later.
I emailed an officer of the chapter and told him I was gonna kind of be weird that day since Bub wouldn't be there and he said don't worry about it, I have friends there and it'll be ok.
(I ended up eating alone anyway until Glen and Gary started in on me. Made me feel a little better. It's hard to find layers of clothing that fit me now, but when I was going thru Laine's closet and drawers I saw a ton of his pants and jeans that he left behind. Yup, I found 4 pair that fit EXCELLENTLY, and wore one pair of his jeans yesterday. I didn't care that they had a 'wallet worn' back pocket outline, just now I don't have to go buy any. Interesting side note-a few weeks ago I found a couple pair of jeans in my closet and was wearing a pair just to see if they fit, what they looked like, etc. Barry texted me from his work and asked me to find his black thermal turtleneck and his black jeans because he was going to an "Unofficial" Bike Night (which I didn't know anything about where/when but I was teaching anyway). Found his T-neck, told him I could NOT find his black jeans for the life of me, where'd he leave them, yada, yada, yada. I was in the middle of texting him this when I realized that I was wearing the damn things-I thought they were mine.
TO CONTINUE ONWARD RE: RIDE YESTERDAY MARCH 13TH...
I wore comfy stuff, went down to the staging area and milled around as usual, chatting. Bought some raffle tix from Johney who came up behind me when I was calling Barry, telling him I got there and there's this big cheerful/smiling/booming voice over my shoulder and repeating me, "Yeah Barry, she got here ok". Found out that some people really DO like my blog here. I'm glad that people read and enjoy it and compliment me on my pics. Also found out that quite a few people on Facebook read it also and believe it or not, are actually helped by it.
When our President Terry warned us that there'd be wind, I thought that NO WIND could be worse than the wind on the way to Vegas. BOY was I wrong. But that's later.
I'm in group 2 as usual, Dan's in the lead, then Chuck & Patty, Charlie and Carol, me, Ryan, Glen and Gary. Great, the Sunshine Boys are behind me. Passed a HORRIFIC accident on the 91/55 with an SUV that had overturned and a smaller car into the side by a tree-the fire department was still trying to cut someone out of the smaller car. I don't see how anyone could have survived the SUV rollover-windows were cracked all to shit. Gas in Temecula (I think it was) then onward onto the Pines to Palms route. YES it got cold but it was doable since I had on glove liners/thermal socks/my long silky thermal underwear/head & neck coverup-balaclava, thermal T-neck and a ski sweater plus T-shirt underneath everything. It was just barely enough-it was cold but doable. NOTE TO SELF-probably need to wear a better leather jacket-that 'work' one I use isn't good enough nor lined to keep my core warm.
The TROUBLE started when we left a brief potty stop at (I think) Hemet Lake. Now, one thing I'll say about our Group Leader Dan (the immediate Past President)-he takes care of his group, always asking me if I'm ok, good to go, just, you know, caring about the group. It's easy to read him/follow him, I always know when he's gonna switch lanes or signal for a lane change or speed up.
We went up to a summit past Black Hill, then while coming down into the curvies, a HUGE gust caught me by surprise. I almost pulled a shoulder muscle, trying to maintain the bike. Ryan behind me said that I looked like I was leaning nicely into a turn but then realized that I WASN'T TURNING. He said I handled it fine, though. He didn't realize that it FREAKED me out because THEN for the rest of the twisties I was waiting for the next gust, wondering if the next one would take me out. I should have better confidence in my riding ability, but frankly after seeing my husband TWICE go down on rides, with the 2nd time having a serious injury, well, I can get a tad concerned. The apprehension of the gusts totally ruined my enjoyment of the curvies. I did get some warning occasionally, because I saw Dan in the left lane go around a curve then end up in the right lane too early into the turn. I wondered 'why would he do that?' and then the same wind would catch me. Oh boy, I LEARNED. The others said that they had the same thing going on to a lesser extent because they had heavier (much!) bikes. Got down finally into Palm Desert, we were talking about the wind when we came to lights. I wasn't the only one who wasn't that thrilled-Patty (on the back of Chuck who was wing) said it kinda took her by surprise and not in a good way. The bikes that were riding 2 up and were heavier bikes were in good shape for windy weather. It's just that my bike is at least 100 pounds lighter than the next higher up bike, the 1100, God only knows how much lighter than everyone else's PLUS about 55 pound slighter than I'm used to, so I'm being blown like a leaf. Oh, wait, it GETS WORSE later on.Lunch in warmth in Palm Desert, we shucked down to T-shirts.
I knew that the gas stop was around Banning or somewhere so I checked the Blackberry for the temp and it was 61 degrees. Somebody said they were just going to wear their shirts and put their jackets away for a bit, but I mentioned that it was 61 degrees, they might not want to put the jackets away. Turned out to be a good thing. NowTAZ, I don't know HOW he did it, but he was in shirtsleeves and a light denim vest going all the way thru the entire ride. And we all thought JOHN RUHLAND was a polar bear!
We get onto the 10 freeway and after 5 minutes I KNOW I'm in trouble. When you look over to the windmill thingys and there's a big dust cloud off to the distance quasi-obscurring them, you KNOW there's some serious wind action. The crosswinds were bad enough, tossing my bike around and me straining my muscles to hold my bike steady, but the crosswinds are also trying to whip my glasses off my face. It's a little hard to hold your bike steady when your glasses are about to lift off by themselves, so after a few more miles I tapped the top of my helmet to tell the guys that I had to pull over and readjust stuff. Got onto an offramp with Glen and changed into glasses that were tighter, got back on and got in with Group 3.
It didn't work-my glasses seemed kinda ok, were moving around a little, but NOW my tankbag was trying to take off, and it has 4 magnets. HAD to pull off again at the Rest Stop and THIS time Glen offered me his goggles and I bungee'd the tank bag to my back seat. MUCH better, zoomed it to 80. Gary was by the side of the freeway by Cabazon, waiting for us. Got to the gas stop, people in my group were concerned wondering where I was. (Don't think the other groups knew, Richard noticed because he told me he was surprised that all of a sudden I'm in their group! and what happened.) Doing a post ride 20/20 hindsight, I felt that the wind was worse than on the way to Vegas, but Vegas didn't bother me as much since I was wearing a full-face and everything was bungee'd down for the trip. Dan asked if I was ok to go, because if he saw me riding ok, he'd continue his speed, but if he saw me lagging back then he'd slow down. I told him I was fine now with Glen's goggles because I zoomed it fine to gas.Got to El Torito fine, even though I was inwardly berating myself for my riding UNcapability. I was told that my riding had really really improved, that person was very pleasantly surprised at my much improved riding abilities, and that made ME surprised because I thought I was riding my usual way. Huh. I will say again that Barry going down twice affects my riding, because I'm always checking for him, seeing if he's doing ok. Pulls my focus away from my riding, especially in curves where I can't see him. I remember seeing him go to the other side of the road and fall off the bike the first time in my rearview mirror, and the second time hearing the scraping of metal on the asphalt, praying to myself that it wasn't Barry, then coming around the corner and seeing him lying there in the middle of the road with the bike on him, trying to get up. That's why I prefer now to ride at least one or two other riders. My own peace of mind.
I had a multitude of moods and emotions going on, not the least is being freaked out by the wind gusts of riding my normal 'ok' way AND feeling stupid for letting stuff get to me, so I couldn't resist trying to salvage my pride by zooming it from a light before an expert and excellent rider (on a Roadie that was almost 3x the size of mine) did. Sorry, couldn't resist it. Haven't done that type of thing in a LONG time.
On a scale of 1-10, I honestly can't say how the total day went-so much was going thru my mind, so many things happened that day, great, good and bad, that I just...don't...know.
I just hope Wednesday's Weekday Ride to Joshua Tree on March 17th is better. It'll be a big change for once-no drinking on my birthday the day before.
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