Leaf Ride

[emptysea]

Illinois Route 64 runs east-west across the state from Lake Michigan in Chicago to the Mississippi River in Union Township near Savanna. In Chicago, it's named North Avenue, but pronounced Nort-Av-nu. West of Oregon, it's a fairly straight run through Illinois farmland. After it starts overlaying US52 at Lanark, undulating terrain signaled I was riding deeper into the Mississippi River valley.

My Fujifilm XP 'lanyard' camera had been misbehaving since breakfast. As might be expected, I couldn't see exactly what the error messages were while riding along at speed, but I could see that screen icons that were usually white were showing as red and that it would shut itself off after just a few seconds of operation. I found that if I turned it off after each photo rather than letting it shut itself off, I could snap a few pictures. Unfortunately, this issue limited the number of photos I could take. I never did figure out the problem; when I returned home, the battery showed as half-charged and the icons were white. I still recommend this camera for the quality of the photos and for its waterproofing.


I chose 64/52 because it would deliver me directly and quickly to a couple of really great motorcycling roads. I was surprised, then, by the beauty of the fields of cornstalks blanketing the land as far as the eye could see. There was magnificence in this landscape that is diminished in photos taken from a motorcycle moving at 65mph. I will not soon forget being there, virtually alone, riding on a black ribbon rolling through these sculpted fields of brown.










My mind wanders on these longer, uncomplicated, stretches of road and it was at about this point that first began to wonder if I should turn back home. I continued to wonder about this even as a continued to ride further and further from home. My unwillingness to make a decision was, of course, a decision in and of itself and turned out to be the second mistake I made that day.

The first overnight motorcycle trip I ever took was to Galena, IL, an historic one-time mining town and home of President U.S. Grant which now draws tourists to its nineteenth century buildings housing a variety of shops, inns, and restaurants. The town sits above and a couple of miles from the Mississippi River and is roughly bisected by the Galena river which helps feed The Old Man. It's a delightful town set in hills untouched by the glacial drift that flattened most of the rest of northern Illinois.

On that first trip, I was just learning about riding and doing so on a Honda CBR250r. The three days we spent on the twisted and hilly roads in the area probably taught me more about how to control my motorcycle than in any other similar time frame before or since. I've been on much more technical roads in the Smoky Mountains, Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia and managed to navigate those successfully, if not artistically, in large part due to the lessons learned on my tiny little thumper on the roads of Jo Daviess County.

Scenic Ridge Road and Blackjack Road were two of those roads. When I'm in the area, I make sure to ride them and I was in the area Saturday. I would hit Scenic Ridge first which would take me north from IL64 (via a couple of local roads that were quite nice on their own). Scenic Ridge changes its name to something or another before intersecting with Hanover Road. Hanover Rd. is lovely as well, but for me it's just a connecting road to Blackjack. Blackjack Road, to my mind, is the coolest named road in my state. It's also a pretty cool ride. It takes you from the tiny town of Hanover into Galena with a number of turns, hills, and glimpses of the Mississippi tossed in to make it worthy of its cool name.



Dean Road. Pretty little farm road that takes you to Scenic Ridge


Scenic Ridge Road lives up to its name




Blackjack (I think).


I guess I could call this a "BlackJack-o-lantern". He pulled off to let us pass, which was nice.


Crossing the Galena River

Saturdays bring a lot of people into Galena and the traffic through town was a bit tight. I recall someone in this forum talking about rural postal vehicles and the unique danger they pose to riders. I was within about a foot and a half of validating that observation. Luckily, I was riding in the stop and go traffic coming into Galena and he was able to recognize my proximity to him before the big rubber front bumper of his little mail truck bounced off of my right ankle.

No harm, no foul. He gave me a sheepish gesture once behind me and I gave him a thumbs up followed by a dramatic grasping of my chest to let him know just how close he came. I think he was a shook up about this encounter as I was. We all make errors when we drive or ride and the look on his face told me that he knew he screwed up and that he was not likely to make this mistake again anytime soon.

From Galena it was north into Wisconsin. I knew at this point that I would have to turn around and head home soon, but I needed to get further north of the storm line anyway so I'd head to Potosi, Wisconsin for gas and a reassessment of the remainder of the day. My camera was acting up again, or still, so there are only a few pictures from this leg and only one worth posting. Weather, darkness, and my desire to focus on getting home would eliminate any picture taking after Potosi.

Just south of Potosi sits the farm town of Dickeyville, WI. Some readers will recall that I've been in Dickeyville and Balltown (Iowa) on the same day during a couple of other riding adventures. This is mentioned for no other reason than to see who giggles.

Dickeyville is significant to me because it was there that our riding group found shelter from a terrible rainstorm on our first trip to Eureka Springs (written about here someplace). We were huddled on the porch of a closed-for-the-day restaurant called Katina's Kitchen when Katina showed up and let us wait out the rain inside. That selfless act has brought us back to her place at least 3 other times when she was open. The irony that I was riding past our previous rain shelter as I was heading into a similar downpour was not lost on me. I briefly thought about stopping and asking her if I could spend the night on her porch.


Katina's Kitchen then


Katina's Kitchen now

[emptysea]

I pulled in to the tiny, 4 pump gas station/convenience store in Potosi a little before 3pm. Potosi has as its claim to local fame a brewery. It's a lovely little town and we've visited it and the brewery on several occasions. This would not be one of those times. This was strictly a gas, comfort, and ride planning stop. I did have short conversations with two locals who seemed at once impressed and dumbfounded upon learning of my day's ride thus far and of my route and ultimate destination for the rest of it.



My decision was to ride home via Wisconsin Hwy. 11. I would need one more gas stop, planned for Orfordville, and if I could get there reasonably warm and reasonably dry, I could get make the last 80 or so miles no matter what the conditions were that waiting.

This turned out to be a good decision. My ride across Wisconsin on 11 was fast and uneventful. The cloud cover made it darker than it should have been, but it was also getting toward sunset which wasn't helping. A few weeks ago, I found a pair of shooting glasses on sale at a Farm & Fleet and their yellow-tinted lenses were invaluable for the remainder of my ride. I recommend that you care something like these in your tank bag.

It wasn't until about 10 miles east of Monroe and 15 miles west of Orfordville that it began to drizzle. I had an alternate route that would turn southeast sooner than Orfordville on Highway 81 if it either was raining very hard or not raining at all. This route was modestly quicker, but would potential put me in the rain for longer. If I was already soaked, then the shorter ride made sense, I reasoned. Conversely, if I was dry, it might be worth the risk of taking the angle route home in hopes that I wouldn't hit the rain until I had made up more intervening miles. Since it was raining fairly steadily, but not hard at that point, I decided to follow 11 north a little and then due east on my original route. In hindsight, this was probably a good decision, too.

It was in Orfordville that I made my 3rd and last bad decision. I gassed up there in a steady but light rain. I thought about putting on my rain gear, but the rain wasn't that hard and I was layered in water-resistant gear. Lastly, I was only about 90 miles from my garage. I pulled out onto Highway 11 through "downtown" Orfordville on my way to Beloit and then home. It started pouring just about 5 minutes after I pulled out of the gas station.

"Here we go", I said aloud to whoever could hear me inside my helmet. I was completely soaked through in about 5 minutes of 55mph driving. There was no immediate place to pull off and at that point my heated gear was still doing its thing. Still, I should have stopped and added the waterproof layer. Instead, I rode on. Through the rain and wind.

The wind had really picked up, blowing water off the top of the puddles that seemed to appear in an instant along the shoulders of the road.

I managed to stay warm through Beloit and most of my way to Crystal Lake. I thought about detouring to the nearest interstate, but that didn't seem like a great option because of the increased distance required and because that particular interstate was under construction. Dark, wet, construction zones, and motorcycles seemed to me to be a bad combination.

I arrived at the gas station in Crystal Lake soaked through. Turns out that once you are wet and all your clothes are wet, your heated gear is virtually ineffective. So now I was cold and wet and 30 miles from home when I met my friend in his Camry. Perhaps donning my rain gear now would have helped the rain gear work better, but frankly I didn't even think of that at this point. 30 miles is not that far, even with stop lights. Oh and by the way, this is the first time that I hoped for red lights on a ride. I found that stopping in the rain gave me a chance to get refocused for the next stretch.

Here is a map of the route I actually took from Potosi home.



Here's a pic of the radar shortly after I arrived home...compare to map above.


As I write this, my gloves are still damp in the inside. Since they have electrics in them, the instructions for drying is to hang them. I had them in the garage which probably slowed the process. I brought them inside and figure they'll dry out by morning.

Upon arriving home, I stripped in the garage and started to shake a bit. I laid out my wet gear as best I could. I left the bike in the middle of the garage. I took a long, warm then hot, shower, and wrote down this note to myself: The answer to the question "Should I put my rain gear on?" is ALWAYS "Yes".





12 hours. 400 miles. All for a leaf of one type or another.





Thanks for reading.

[the Ferret]

Great finish Sea.

[GoldOxide_imp]

Sorry to read the excursion started to dilapidate. Likely many riders made unlucky decisions and got swindled by the weather. I have a couple of times and paid for it with soaking discomfort in the crotch. It is made worse by cold water. Glad to be reading your story which means you safely arrived to write about it.

Nice images, even the wet ones! Neat collection of stats.

[Offroad]

Great Riding and Writing!

The best thing I've found for boots and gloves (should be OK for electric gloves too, the heat is very mild but effective).



https://www.ruralking.com/dry-guy-maxx-d...uMQAvD_BwE

[emptysea]

Thanks, offroad. I’ll look into that.

[Cormanus]

I pulled in to the tiny, 4 pump gas station/convenience store in Potosi a little before 3pm. Potosi has as its claim to local fame a brewery. It's a lovely little town and we've visited it and the brewery on several occasions. This would not be one of those times. This was strictly a gas, comfort, and ride planning stop. I did have short conversations with two locals who seemed at once impressed and dumbfounded upon learning of my day's ride thus far and of my route and ultimate destination for the rest of it.



My decision was to ride home via Wisconsin Hwy. 11. I would need one more gas stop, planned for Orfordville, and if I could get there reasonably warm and reasonably dry, I could get make the last 80 or so miles no matter what the conditions were that waiting.

This turned out to be a good decision. My ride across Wisconsin on 11 was fast and uneventful. The cloud cover made it darker than it should have been, but it was also getting toward sunset which wasn't helping. A few weeks ago, I found a pair of shooting glasses on sale at a Farm & Fleet and their yellow-tinted lenses were invaluable for the remainder of my ride. I recommend that you care something like these in your tank bag.

It wasn't until about 10 miles east of Monroe and 15 miles west of Orfordville that it began to drizzle. I had an alternate route that would turn southeast sooner than Orfordville on Highway 81 if it either was raining very hard or not raining at all. This route was modestly quicker, but would potential put me in the rain for longer. If I was already soaked, then the shorter ride made sense, I reasoned. Conversely, if I was dry, it might be worth the risk of taking the angle route home in hopes that I wouldn't hit the rain until I had made up more intervening miles. Since it was raining fairly steadily, but not hard at that point, I decided to follow 11 north a little and then due east on my original route. In hindsight, this was probably a good decision, too.

It was in Orfordville that I made my 3rd and last bad decision. I gassed up there in a steady but light rain. I thought about putting on my rain gear, but the rain wasn't that hard and I was layered in water-resistant gear. Lastly, I was only about 90 miles from my garage. I pulled out onto Highway 11 through "downtown" Orfordville on my way to Beloit and then home. It started pouring just about 5 minutes after I pulled out of the gas station.

"Here we go", I said aloud to whoever could hear me inside my helmet. I was completely soaked through in about 5 minutes of 55mph driving. There was no immediate place to pull off and at that point my heated gear was still doing its thing. Still, I should have stopped and added the waterproof layer. Instead, I rode on. Through the rain and wind.

The wind had really picked up, blowing water off the top of the puddles that seemed to appear in an instant along the shoulders of the road.

I managed to stay warm through Beloit and most of my way to Crystal Lake. I thought about detouring to the nearest interstate, but that didn't seem like a great option because of the increased distance required and because that particular interstate was under construction. Dark, wet, construction zones, and motorcycles seemed to me to be a bad combination.

I arrived at the gas station in Crystal Lake soaked through. Turns out that once you are wet and all your clothes are wet, your heated gear is virtually ineffective. So now I was cold and wet and 30 miles from home when I met my friend in his Camry. Perhaps donning my rain gear now would have helped the rain gear work better, but frankly I didn't even think of that at this point. 30 miles is not that far, even with stop lights. Oh and by the way, this is the first time that I hoped for red lights on a ride. I found that stopping in the rain gave me a chance to get refocused for the next stretch.

Here is a map of the route I actually took from Potosi home.



Here's a pic of the radar shortly after I arrived home...compare to map above.


As I write this, my gloves are still damp in the inside. Since they have electrics in them, the instructions for drying is to hang them. I had them in the garage which probably slowed the process. I brought them inside and figure they'll dry out by morning.

Upon arriving home, I stripped in the garage and started to shake a bit. I laid out my wet gear as best I could. I left the bike in the middle of the garage. I took a long, warm then hot, shower, and wrote down this note to myself: The answer to the question "Should I put my rain gear on?" is ALWAYS "Yes".





12 hours. 400 miles. All for a leaf of one type or another.





Thanks for reading.

An important and very wise aphorism. Thanks for enduring and sharing that experience, MTC.

[run-tmc_imp]

EmptySea, that was great, captivating storytelling! I thoroughly enjoyed it and am happy you had good luck on your side in avoiding a wreck with the mail truck and any incidents resulting from slower reaction times from numb fingers, reduced visibility, reduced awareness from other drivers... Nice work.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Nortoon_imp]

I suffer from Ol'timers and can't remember what I had for dinner last night. But I can remember riding home in solid rain from Toronto to Ottawa in 1972. It was cold when I left home so I wore a ski jacket thinking it would be warmer than my leather jacket.

That jacket, gloves and my jeans were soaking wet before I put Toronto behind me. Riding at 75 MPH just pushed the cold rain through my clothes on that miserable 4 1/2 hour ride. When I reached home I had trouble getting off the bike because I was so numb with hypothermia.

When I peeled of my wet clothes I realized I was blue. Started off with warm water in the bathtub. Changed it out several times with water of increasing heat. The whole process took about an hour to bring my body temperature back to normal. That was followed by a long nap to regain my strength so I could move normally.

Now although I do have a good rain suit, I don't ride if the there is a threat of rain. I am also reluctant to start out in the morning unless the temperature is in the mid-60sF and promises to be in the 70sF in the afternoon.

[GoldOxide_imp]

lol - maybe many have at least once been in your situation of almost falling off the bike at a stop following a very cold run. It is a somewhat scary circumstance, and usually only takes one instance to learn from it.

I suffer from Ol'timers and can't remember what I had for dinner last night. But I can remember riding home in solid rain from Toronto to Ottawa in 1972. It was cold when I left home so I wore a ski jacket thinking it would be warmer than my leather jacket.

That jacket, gloves and my jeans were soaking wet before I put Toronto behind me. Riding at 75 MPH just pushed the cold rain through my clothes on that miserable 4 1/2 hour ride. When I reached home I had trouble getting off the bike because I was so numb with hypothermia.

When I peeled of my wet clothes I realized I was blue. Started off with warm water in the bathtub. Changed it out several times with water of increasing heat. The whole process took about an hour to bring my body temperature back to normal. That was followed by a long nap to regain my strength so I could move normally.

Now although I do have a good rain suit, I don't ride if the there is a threat of rain. I am also reluctant to start out in the morning unless the temperature is in the mid-60sF and promises to be in the 70sF in the afternoon.