Raging Bikeaholic

What with the ICE folks deciding to make my crossing the Canadian border a little more difficult as of the beginning of June — I made a mad dash for Edmonton in mid-May in order to get back before June 1 (and have time to clean out my office as well).
This was a great opportunity to see what the new bike was like — whether it had any substantial differences from the ‘02 Wing or not — and to try out stuff like the built-in GPS and XM radio.
Before my journey started, I asked my wife (she’s so much better on the phone than I am — I loathe phones) to contact XM and see what kind of deal she could get me, since my 3 month free trial had ended before I could even use it. Smooth talker that she is, she managed to get the free trial reinstated! Of course, when I set it all up again, I noticed that neither the weather nor traffic icons were active, so I asked if she could check on that the next day … which she did — before I had crossed the Bridge, I noticed that the weather was active.
The trip started uneventfully, although the Mackinac Bridge was under repair, as usual, with the southbound lanes closed off and traffic sharing the northbound lanes. I had gassed up the Wing in Midland and left at about 7:00 AM from the gas station with exactly 350 miles on the odometer. Shortly before 10AM, I was sitting in the McDonalds in St. Ignace having breakfast and coffee. The speedometer seemed to be absolutely dead on the speed, unlike the ‘02 … likely a function of the GPS, and the cruise control was also dead accurate.
On down US-2 with a detour around some construction, and then following the path laid out by the GPS, I took a few new roads across the UP. The winds were rather strong when I got close to Lake Superior, but the day was basically very enjoyable, and I reached Superior/Duluth in the late afternoon. I kept to US-2 into Minnesota … looking for somewhere to stop for supper … the place I’d planned on was closed up (of course). The place and meal couldn’t have been very memorable since I cannot dig it out of the sludge pile in my head … but I am pretty sure I stopped and ate somewhere along the way.
Shortly after that, mid-evening, I was getting close to Bemidji and the light rian that I’d encountered suddenly changed tenor! The first indication that this was HARD rain was a clunk from the top of my helmet, quickly followed by several more and then the hail really kicked into high gear. Fortunately I’d already slowed down a bit when the light rain started to get heavier … but I was still doing about 45 mph when I suddenly noticed that the ENTIRE road surface in front on my — 2 lanes and wide shoulders – was COMPLETELY covered in hail. As you might imagine, memories of my last Wing unceremoniously tossing me down the road flashed through my mind, and I was starting to FEEL the impact that was sure to come when my tires no longer had any purchase on the road … but somehow I managed to get pulled over to the shoulder. During this whole time, there was a solid sheet of hail beating down. A pickup pulling a trailer had pulled up behind me as the visibility would have been just as negligible for them, and they pulled up beside me and asked if I wanted to climb in and wait it out. But being the tough guy (– idiot –) that I am, I said I was ok, and it would surely die down quickly. And so it did … and funnier yet, when I got started up again (very, VERY slowly), I had only 150 feet or so to go before the solid covering of hail turned to just a wet road … I could have saved myself a few minutes of listening to hail bounce off my helmet and biek if I had kept going a short bit longer …
Not needing to have a 4×4 bounced off my head to tell me that was enough for one day, I pulled into Bemidji (I had planned on making Grand Forks) and grabbed a motel for the night.
When I got up and started the pack the bike at 6AM the next morning, I immediately noticed the ice on the seat. When I had shut it down for the night, it was still in the low 60’s, so that was surprising. I started the bike and hit the temp display and realized that packing an extra sweatshirt and heavy gloves had been smart … it was 26 degrees. To add to the low temperature, I must’ve gotten a bad batch of gas during the last stop, since I wasn’t 5 minutes out when I got a Check Engine light. I immediately pulled to the shoulder and checked it out but couldn’t find anything, and turning the bike off and on reset the light. It reappeared several times in the next several hours but disappeared at noon after the temp exceed 50 degrees.
On down US-2, west into North Dakota, and then north to catch the border at Portal where I encountered a huge lineup — mostly caused by a few people in cars not realizing they didn’t need to sit in the midst of all the trucks. I grabbed a quick pizza at a truck stop and then passed most of the traffic to get to the customs station … and then headed into Canada. A guy walked up behind me at a stoplight in Estevan and asked if I had time for a coffee and I figured, sure, why not … so I allowed him to buy me a coffee at the local A&W and we talked about an upcoming bike rally in Estevan. After he left, I got back in the saddle and followed the GPS directions (instead of my inclination) … and ended up sweating for over an hour as I searched for a gas station. The odometer was showing 275 miles when I finally located some fuel … and they were just about to close, so I was doubly lucky! With a load of fuel sufficient to make Saskatoon, and my sister’s place, I headed northwest again … into the rain that started just as was finishing putting gas in the bike. The further north I got, the more the temperature dropped, and as I was about 30 miles away from my destination … the temperature display was showing 34e degrees, and the rain had turned white!! I did that last 30 miles wondering just where my last vestiges of sanity had deserted me to … and being very, VERY careful in my handling of the steering. By the time I got to my sisters, my red bike was mostly white!
As the weather did not improve for most of the next day, I put off my departure for an extra day (which was good since it had been a long time since the last visit), and continued my trip to Edmonton a day “late”. I enjoyed several days of just visiting with my mother and brother, and made a quick trip to Ft. Saskatchewan to have a “retirement” lunch with friends I had worked with. They all got a chuckle out of my account of the trip, and a bigger chuckle over the fact that it was AGAIN snowing lightly … it was 20 miles of snow back into Edmonton before I left the snow behind!
During the trip out to Edmonton, I had listened to the XM country stations most of the time, and I had enjoyed them sufficiently to be considering getting a subscription … but on my trip back to Midland, I was only able to get a signal about 15-20% of the time. It seemed that any time I was headed SSE, SE, ESE or East … I was getting a NO XM SIGNAL message. Strangely, though, I could always get the weather map with current info. And obviously I was getting better at reading the weather map, since I was able to see all the storms in front of me on the way back (not that I could have easily changing my routing).
The return trip was much less eventful, at least until I got to the Bridge. Now I understand why all the routing maps always ignore the route to the UP and across US-2 … it’s just to avoid the Bridge. Not only do they charge as much for a bike as a car, but then they try to make the trip as dangerous as hell … since the southbound lanes were closed, I had to do the entire bridge deck crossing on the grating … and I’m not sure whether it was the tires, the grating, the conditions, or a combination of those, but it was the most stressful part of the entire ride … I felt — for two miles — like the front tire was going to slide out from under me at any moment. I think that instead of charging me $3 to cross … they should be PAYING me! From now on, I’ll attempt to route any crossing except the Mackinac!