Article and Photos By: Charlie Weisel
Originally Published In The May 2016 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine
This wasn’t my first time taking on a 1000 plus mile day, but it was by far the worst of them. Going into these long days there is always the question of “why am I doing this” in the back of my mind. I know, without a doubt, that it is going to hurt. I’m going to want to quit a 100 different times and I’ll essentially be worthless when I am finished. This time was no different. The day, not the ride, started at 7am with a typical work day. I’m an electrician for those of you who didn’t already know that, so most of my day involves climbing ladders, hauling materials and occasionally being electrocuted…sort of explains my twitchy nature. Due to my work schedule I knew there was no way I could hit the road until 4pm at the earliest. This breaks my first rule of a 1000-mile day- leave at 4am. Being hell bent on making Milwaukee for Bike Week the next day, I was willing to break this rule.
At 4:30 PM there were blue skies and temps in the 60’s; not a bad start. Here I go. My first stretch, I-76 eastbound, is very possibly the most bone rattling stretch of road in the country. It’s as if the road engineers measured the length of a motorcycle then cut the expansion joints to a depth and spacing interval to effectively remove the fillings from your teeth. Then, just for fun, they must have employed a crew of sledge hammer yielding inmates from the local prison to install an appropriate number of man eating size pot holes just to keep you on your toes. I’m confident there are cameras installed along this stretch of highway to capture the grimacing faces of the fools stupid enough to ride a hard tail down this road knowing full well that it takes us to Nebraska, not much of a reward there. But alas, I made it to the Nebraska state line where I knew the road conditions would improve. As I pulled over at the “Welcome to Nebraska” sign for the obligatory state line photo and to put on my helmet, I noticed the wind picking up. One interesting thing about Nebraska is that it is the only helmet law state in the area and the wind always blows, making your helmet especially miserable. Add in the fact that eastbound I-80 through Nebraska is hands down the most boring, uneventful highway in the country. It’s always littered with overzealous cops and just what you need to have the makings of c grade horror film. To make matters worse, after putting on the helmet I loathe so much, I realized that I was not only missing my license plate but my taillight as well, and in fact the entire mounting bracket was gone too.
Let’s see, I have no taillight, no license plate, it’s almost dark and I’m 800 miles from my destination…screw it, I figured let’s go! And go I did. I went until it was nearly dark and I was nearly out of gas. Pulling into a small mom and pop gas station somewhere along that god forsaken interstate of doom, I now realized that my headlight wasn’t working either! “You have got to be kidding me!” was all I could think. Now, broken lights are nothing new to me. In fact, if you ask any of my friends they will probably tell you that it is more surprising when they do work than when they don’t. This however was not a good time for this. Fortunately, my extensive experience in road side light repair led me to a broken ground wire, an easy fix. And again, I was on the road. It was dark, very dark and the temperature was plummeting. I was already wearing full leathers but it wasn’t enough, so I stopped and put on my rain gear to help block the wind. It helped substantially but it was still freezing. I can deal with cold for a while, but the thermostat was quickly being turned down to full shake. It’s that temperature your body gets when your teeth start to click and you are practically shaking out of your seat. I didn’t realize at the time that I would be in this condition for the remaining 650 miles, all the way to Milwaukee.
If you didn’t know, gas stop after gas stop can take a toll on your starter. To be honest, I knew going into this ride that my starter was in rough shape but I honestly thought it would make it. Of course I was wrong. Somewhere near York, NE, my starter began to slip more than ever. When I say “slip”, I really mean that the pinion gear is so warn that it no longer correctly engages the ring gear making a horrific metal on metal grinding noise that scares small children and sends 4th of July level sparks flying all over the gas pump scaring the kid’s parents. Basically, it’s a rather concerning experience for everyone around. Sadly, this wasn’t my first experience with this problem either so I felt confident that if I timed it correctly I could get to Milwaukee on what remained of the ring gear without having to resort to push starting. It turned out that I was wrong. “No problem” I said to myself as it went from difficult to impossible to start the bike using the starter, I’ll just resort to my back up plan, push starting and leaving the bike running when I get gas. And there it was, not even half way into this ride and I’m without taillight, license plate, starter and its freezing cold. There I was recruiting help from drunk farmers at 2am to push start me and I’m still 600 some miles from my destination. Things are looking grim.
“I must go on” I say to myself in some sort of Star Wars like voice, “I must go on!” Aside from the obvious mishaps everything else was going nicely. I hadn’t seen any of the wildlife I had been concerned about, traffic was light and the motor was running smoothly. At least that’s what I told the friendly highway patrolman that pulled me over in Omaha at 4am for the obvious reasons. Now, I certainly didn’t expect to get across Nebraska without getting pulled over and in fact I was surprised that I made it as far as I did, because let’s face it, in addition to being sans taillight and license plate, I always feel that speed limits are mere recommendations. Upon entering the fine city of Omaha I marveled at the total lack of traffic. There was literally no one on the 6 lane interstate, with the exception of a couple of late night highway patrolmen moonlighting in the median. The moment I saw them I knew my time had come to do some explaining. So, like any honest person would do in this situation, I lied. I acted like I had no idea I had lost my taillight and license plate. Come on, what was I supposed to do? How could I have possibly explained to him that I knew full well that they were missing before I even entered his territory? It worked. He bought my story. More than anything I think he was surprised that this tattooed, filthy biker on a ten-foot-long chopper was actually sober. Whatever it was, he sent me on my way with no real concern about anything. Trooper number 2 nabbed me 20 miles up the road with all the same questions followed by all the same answers and believe it or not I had the same result, nothing more than a gentle warning. Trooper number 3 got me another 20 miles up the road. At this rate I didn’t think I would ever get to Milwaukee. As trooper number 3 approached me, lights flashing behind him in the cold, dark, foggy sky, he asked “are you the guy that keeps getting pulled over for not having a taillight?” I responded with a cheerful “yep!” “Ok” he said “just watch for cars coming up behind you. You are really hard to see”. “You got it, Thanks.” I replied. Meanwhile, I’m thinking “no one is passing me, in fact, you probably could have just gotten me for speeding as well” But, I kept that to myself. I resaddled my stead and continued my ride. Luckily, that would be my last interaction with law enforcement on this ride.
At this point things were getting extremely difficult. I had lost so much time dealing with my starter, head light repairs and explaining myself to the friendly highway patrolmen that I was now just focused on making it to sunrise in hopes of a second wind and warmer air. This was one of those of those moments where I felt genuinely defeated and figured it couldn’t get much worse. And, again, I was wrong. It was about 5:30 in the morning and I was somewhere near Des Moines, Iowa. The fog was so dense I couldn’t see 50 feet in front of me and it was glazing on my glasses making it near impossible to see. While navigating blindly down the road I felt something bounce off my leg. Apparently the screws holding my throttle housing together had been coming loose but I couldn’t see them because of the conditions I was facing. Suddenly, my throttle housing was sliding off my bar and the cable was threatening to fall out entirely. Fortunately, I quickly discovered that if I held what was remaining up against my brake lever I could just barely keep it together well enough to continue on. The down side to this was that my right arm was exhausted from fighting the wind to keep it from flying off and leaving me stranded. But, I had no option so I pressed on. Just to give you a clear picture of my current condition at this point I should remind you that I was now without a taillight, license plate, correctly functioning throttle, dead starter, it’s 40 degrees, foggy, and I’m nearly shaking off my bike from being so cold. To top it off I’ve been pulled over three times and am way behind schedule. Not exactly optimum conditions for a 1000-mile day. But I still pressed on. The sun finally did rise, despite my doubts about even that happening, and provided a little relief. I won’t say that it warmed up substantially but at least I could see where I was going. The other benefit to the sunrise was that it did provide a very short lived second wind. At this point, if I remember correctly, I was about 300 miles away. “Not bad” I thought to myself. I stayed focused and pressed on.
I left the bike running for short gas stops and begged for push starts when I needed to rehydrate and get some calories in me. Going through Illinois after you turn north and begin your final approach into Wisconsin you find yourself on a toll road. One of those really annoying ones where you have to stop, pull off your gloves, dig through your gear only to find that you are out of cash, hand the attendant your warn out credit card that doesn’t swipe anymore therefore forcing them to hand enter the numbers while the stressed out father of 5 in the minivan behind you is losing his mind and repeatedly testing his horn for proper pitch and volume. Since this was not my first rodeo, I chose the questionably immoral method of merging into the scan pass lane, blended in with traffic and pretended to be a naive tourist. I figured I had broken so many laws at this point that throwing one more into the pile would most likely go unnoticed. To this day I have yet to get a bill from them. From this point it was just a quick 100 miles to Milwaukee. I rolled into town 21 hrs. after my departure; blurry eyed, wobbly and looking like some sort of homeless vagrant. Luckily my wonderful girlfriend, the motivation behind this insanity, was there to greet me. Despite my condition she welcomed me with open arms and a warm bed that I immediately took full advantage of. Even Sam the dog seemed happy to see me! Though I think he momentarily thought I was of the canine species as well. So, there I was, exhausted but happy, another 1000-mile day under my belt and one I won’t forget anytime soon.
