Our world record ride is now a book!
- Thread starter bionicpelvis
- Start date
I've checked with Ian and he's happy for me to post some excerpts from the 780 page tome "Pushing Miles". These might tantalise those who haven't read it yet to acquire a copy. I'll post one a day for a couple of weeks.
We stayed for a few minutes longer than we probably should have, with the clock ticking persistently in the back of our minds, but the timing was just too perfect. We both love watching the sunrise, and this one was far too gorgeous to admire with furtive glances over our shoulders at 130 km/h. I took a few pictures and lamented, not for the first or last time, that I would never be a good enough photographer to capture the true essence of this place in this moment. It rarely stopped me from trying, but even as lovely as those pictures are, they simply can't convey the weight of the heavy blanket of night being shaken off by the eager sun, the silence only being broken by the soft sounds of unseen creatures waking up for the day or shuffling off to sleep. One of those moments that you simply have to absorb and appreciate, and hope your memory never lets go of that beauty.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p76
We stayed for a few minutes longer than we probably should have, with the clock ticking persistently in the back of our minds, but the timing was just too perfect. We both love watching the sunrise, and this one was far too gorgeous to admire with furtive glances over our shoulders at 130 km/h. I took a few pictures and lamented, not for the first or last time, that I would never be a good enough photographer to capture the true essence of this place in this moment. It rarely stopped me from trying, but even as lovely as those pictures are, they simply can't convey the weight of the heavy blanket of night being shaken off by the eager sun, the silence only being broken by the soft sounds of unseen creatures waking up for the day or shuffling off to sleep. One of those moments that you simply have to absorb and appreciate, and hope your memory never lets go of that beauty.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p76
And the wind! The wind was unbelievable. It was fortuitous that almost nobody else was on the road, because we struggled to keep our bikes between the two shoulders, let alone within our lane. Half the raindrops were stabbing painfully at our exposed skin, and the other half were coming down in buckets. We couldn't see the road; we could barely see each other. It felt like we were drowning. We knew we had to slow down, and we did a little, painfully aware of the precariousness of our current situation. We simply did not have enough time to be safe.
Then came the construction zone. I vaguely remember hitting miles upon miles of dirt road on the way up, but back then it was a sunny day and hard-packed clay. Tonight it was a mud pit. We couldn't see anything; we couldn't even feel if we left the bitumen and hit the dirt shoulder because now it was all dirt. If we got too close to the edge, we'd find out when we fell off. I felt my rear wheel squirm and pitch; I regained a modicum of stability and slowly decreased my speed. Ian quickly disappeared into the airborne sea ahead of me. I tucked tight behind my windscreen in an attempt to find some respite from the onslaught and found myself face-to-face with my GPS which was screaming that, unless we made some serious changes, we were now all but certain to miss the ferry to Tasmania. Damn it.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp95-6
Then came the construction zone. I vaguely remember hitting miles upon miles of dirt road on the way up, but back then it was a sunny day and hard-packed clay. Tonight it was a mud pit. We couldn't see anything; we couldn't even feel if we left the bitumen and hit the dirt shoulder because now it was all dirt. If we got too close to the edge, we'd find out when we fell off. I felt my rear wheel squirm and pitch; I regained a modicum of stability and slowly decreased my speed. Ian quickly disappeared into the airborne sea ahead of me. I tucked tight behind my windscreen in an attempt to find some respite from the onslaught and found myself face-to-face with my GPS which was screaming that, unless we made some serious changes, we were now all but certain to miss the ferry to Tasmania. Damn it.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp95-6
The entire gathering was like that. Almost everyone had set out in the rain and almost everyone had experienced the types of misadventures that would make your typical bikers hang up their helmet for the day. But here we were, all having battled the elements in one way or another just to stand around, covered in mud, and chat with far-flung friends for an hour or two before saddling up and doing it all again on the way home.
The gathering wrapped up with a little speech, where I received a little gift pack including IBA Australia swag, so that was awesome. My FarRider number is/was now 1196, a number possibly consigned to history as the FarRider group was sold and promptly disbanded shortly after this ride. By all accounts I had the third-to-last FarRider number ever assigned, which makes me all the more pleased that we were able to make it happen. One more round of hugs and goodbyes, then we were off.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p171
The gathering wrapped up with a little speech, where I received a little gift pack including IBA Australia swag, so that was awesome. My FarRider number is/was now 1196, a number possibly consigned to history as the FarRider group was sold and promptly disbanded shortly after this ride. By all accounts I had the third-to-last FarRider number ever assigned, which makes me all the more pleased that we were able to make it happen. One more round of hugs and goodbyes, then we were off.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p171
Unbeknownst to us at the time, that hadn't actually given us any useful info. (For all of you playing along at home, that makes four faulty jumper boxes on two continents; Ian neglected to mention that the two boost boxes I'd left in the Tahoe were also dead.) It's a nightmare getting into the battery on an R1100RT, so Ian got to work on that while I tore down the alternator belt housing to assess. The belt was still intact, if a bit squeally, but it was immediately evident that he'd picked up a bunch of rocks and gravel in the housing which had peeled a rib off the belt. Knowing that the belt wasn't our pertinent critical failure, and lacking torque wrenches to do the job properly, we elected to run with that belt. We tested the battery directly and it seemed good, which led me to suspect the starter. We gave it another try with the boost box and it started right up; again in retrospect, we now know it was the manual rotation of the engine and starter that did the job, not the boost box, but it led to us being unsure of the offending component.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p233
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p233
"Oh, man - it's you guys! You've got to be freezing! I was having a tough time with the wipers going, I don't know how you're doing it. How much farther are you going?" He kind of trailed off as my frosty brain was still slowly processing all of this, then he said, "Oh, I'm sorry. (waves towards his car). We've been seeing you all day. We made you our road buddies."
I had to laugh because I'd made them my road buddies too! Sometimes on these long, straight runs where you're burning through a full tank of gas, you find yourself hopscotching along with other vehicles who are clearly on a mission of their own. It's a fun little way to entertain yourself; sometimes the other vehicle is clearly aware of this new bond and does things like make space for you in traffic or signals you of police presence. Other times you're in a world of your own making, imagining their backstory and destination, left to wonder if other drivers ever mentally befriend you in the same way you've befriended them. Over the years I've occasionally pulled off for fuel at the same time as a Road Buddy, sometimes coincidentally and sometimes intentionally, but it has never resulted in anything more than a nod of recognition from distant bowsers. This was the first time it ever resulted in a full-on animated conversation with someone who was equally as excited to talk to me as I was to him.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp261-2
I had to laugh because I'd made them my road buddies too! Sometimes on these long, straight runs where you're burning through a full tank of gas, you find yourself hopscotching along with other vehicles who are clearly on a mission of their own. It's a fun little way to entertain yourself; sometimes the other vehicle is clearly aware of this new bond and does things like make space for you in traffic or signals you of police presence. Other times you're in a world of your own making, imagining their backstory and destination, left to wonder if other drivers ever mentally befriend you in the same way you've befriended them. Over the years I've occasionally pulled off for fuel at the same time as a Road Buddy, sometimes coincidentally and sometimes intentionally, but it has never resulted in anything more than a nod of recognition from distant bowsers. This was the first time it ever resulted in a full-on animated conversation with someone who was equally as excited to talk to me as I was to him.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp261-2
We were incredibly lucky - bad luck, good luck, all that - that we happened to be as close to the trailer as we were. It sounds counterintuitive, but I was actually close enough to see the wheel coming loose before it let go completely. I alerted Ian an instant before the blocks went flying; the car in front of us copped some pretty hard hits, but we managed to weave between the sliding projectiles without a scratch. Behind us, cars began to slam brakes and swerve unpredictably, creating new hazards in their own right. In my mirror I watched as blocks careened into cars, and cars into each other. We were in precisely the right position to watch the chaos unfolding before us and the carnage behind us, while somehow avoiding becoming part of it ourselves.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p277
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p277
We were in Sioux Falls when he suddenly mumbled something indecipherable through the comms before jerking across three lanes of traffic and bombing off an exit. I barely had time to react, horns blaring as I cut of traffic to give chase, trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong. It turns out he was simply too tired to go on, a realization he'd only had at that precise second. I was honestly pretty mad that he endangered me with that maneuver and I told him that if he pulled another stunt like that again he should not expect me to follow him. But truth be told, he was torched. Completely, legitimately torched. Our mishmash of short sleeps had simply not been enough to refill his coffers. He wasn't making sense and clearly couldn't think straight. We went into a Marlin's restaurant adjoining the truck stop where he'd pulled in and he went to sit at a table with chairs, not processing that we'd need a booth if he was going to lay down for a sleep. I gently redirected him to a corner booth and he immediately sacked out.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p346
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p346
Sitting in that booth, not really staring but merely observing the locals, it was not hard to tell that this was just the way life was for these people. Blue collar workers finished their day, stopped in for the habitual nightly jaw jacking session, and home to the others in their lives.
It seemed such a contrast to what Wendy and I were doing, a clash where we were happy to be in several different states with no idea about tomorrow's events while these guys could almost set their clocks by who was standing where at what time of day. How very different we all were, I thought. Just how very different and not for the first time, even on that day, Wendy and I commented to each how lucky we were in our bad luck to find a store with the parts we needed, a motel with a room available, and somewhere nice to have a feed.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p400
It seemed such a contrast to what Wendy and I were doing, a clash where we were happy to be in several different states with no idea about tomorrow's events while these guys could almost set their clocks by who was standing where at what time of day. How very different we all were, I thought. Just how very different and not for the first time, even on that day, Wendy and I commented to each how lucky we were in our bad luck to find a store with the parts we needed, a motel with a room available, and somewhere nice to have a feed.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p400
I give full credit to Ian and his adorably gregarious ways, but it still blows my mind how often we stumbled upon the right person with the right attitude at the right moment to keep us rolling another day. Think about it: How many mobile welding rigs do you see on any given week? One? Five? What is the statistical probability, even when accounting for all our wildly undeserved optimism and, "She'll be right, mate!" that we would happen upon this guy, a fellow rider, with a welder, who had the time and willingness to do the job, not because we spotted him on the freeway and chased him down, but because we legitimately just stumbled upon him? It truly boggles the mind.
It doesn't matter how experienced Ian and I are as mechanics, and it doesn't matter how tenacious we are in our pursuit; if we aren't carrying a welder or a new clutch or whatever it was that had derailed us, we're just as stuck as the next guy. But here we were, 1,000 fruitless phone calls later, and we stumbled upon a solution that took up less time than our standard morning cup of joe. The guy refused payment because on the road, we're all brothers.
God bless good people, good luck, and that Aussie accent.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p433
It doesn't matter how experienced Ian and I are as mechanics, and it doesn't matter how tenacious we are in our pursuit; if we aren't carrying a welder or a new clutch or whatever it was that had derailed us, we're just as stuck as the next guy. But here we were, 1,000 fruitless phone calls later, and we stumbled upon a solution that took up less time than our standard morning cup of joe. The guy refused payment because on the road, we're all brothers.
God bless good people, good luck, and that Aussie accent.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p433
I was carrying a boost box, but it didn't seem to have enough juice to kick my bike over. To this day I still don't know if the problem is the alligator clamps or the box itself, but it seems to flawlessly power up just about everything but bikes. Plan B: Push start. The good news was, we were on a bit of a hill. The bad news was traffic was bumper-to-bumper on all these little one-way streets, and I had about 10 yards to get her started and make a quick off-camber right hand turn before I ended up mired down in dead-stopped traffic on the next (much flatter) block. I can bump start stuff fine, but I was less than enthusiastic about this situation and the blazing heat wasn't helping at all. We'd need to clear a lane of traffic so I'd have that couple car lengths to build a head of steam before the corner. Ian, completely unperturbed, walked out into traffic like he belonged there and brought everyone to a halt.
I dropped off the sidewalk into the road, and Ian gave me a valiant shove. He was shouting "Go, go, GO!" almost immediately, but I knew I only had one shot to get this right. About five feet from the corner with as much speed could hope to build, I dropped the clutch and... she purred back to life. Thank goodness for that. I was already terribly dehydrated and the last thing I wanted to be doing was shoving my bike halfway around the city on a 110-degree day. Ian trudged back up the hill and caught up with me around the corner, hot from the exertion but pleased with the results. He never had any doubt that everything would work out fine, and the funny thing is that he's usually right.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp504-5
I dropped off the sidewalk into the road, and Ian gave me a valiant shove. He was shouting "Go, go, GO!" almost immediately, but I knew I only had one shot to get this right. About five feet from the corner with as much speed could hope to build, I dropped the clutch and... she purred back to life. Thank goodness for that. I was already terribly dehydrated and the last thing I wanted to be doing was shoving my bike halfway around the city on a 110-degree day. Ian trudged back up the hill and caught up with me around the corner, hot from the exertion but pleased with the results. He never had any doubt that everything would work out fine, and the funny thing is that he's usually right.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp504-5
The two bikes were sitting there in the storage unit, front wheel to front wheel, the FJR looking at the BMW from its twin headlights. The FJR's requirements: an engine oil and filter change, a set of tyres, and that was all she wrote. Being the sort to rub in injustice to all other brands, the F]R slowly exposed the grip that had slid ever so imperceptibly down the bar, and the BMW watched with its one headlight that had a stone hole in it from Alaska as the grip was slid the ever so slight length back to original position. Even at this point in the ride, the amount of consumables the BMW absorbed was staggering compared to the FJR. The final count would be FJR: no brake pad changes, BMW: Three. FJR, not one single mechanical fault, the BMW had no mechanical faults with the ignition key switch and that's about it. Alternator belts, BMW: Three, FJR: nil (To be read in Wendy's most antagonistically angelic voice: "Hey, it's not my fault that FJRs don't have alternators" followed by inflammatory eyelash fluttering).
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p540
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p540
From behind us, two big rigs both moved to pass the entire group with Rig #2 drafting tight on the ass of Rig #1. They both continued in the oncoming lane well beyond the end of the passing zone, flying up the blind hill. Right at the crest, I saw the headlights from an oncoming car. The car slammed brakes as Rig #1 whipped back into the right lane, nearly side-swiping the rig in front of us in the process but Rig #2 had been following so closely behind that he had no way of seeing the car, nor time to react when he finally did. Even if he'd had time to react, there was no space in our lane to accommodate him. Something had to give. Rig #2 held his ground, sending the oncoming car skittering off the road onto the grass. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion and I was honestly expecting to watch someone die. I'm amazed that the oncoming car was able to react so lightning fast to the realization that there was a second truck in his lane behind the first and didn't end up as a hood ornament or cartwheeling across the prairie. It was incredibly intense and I tasted the adrenaline from that the rest of the way home.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp580-1
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp580-1
We were approaching one of the two traffic lights in town with me in the lead, rolling about 2 mph under the speed limit. I'd initiated our left-hand turn on a green turn arrow and the light was red by the time I exited the intersection. The gumballs were flashing behind us before we'd even completed our turn. Our comms were off at the time and I began furiously trying to link up with Ian to establish a plan, or at the very least eavesdrop on his conversation. We had done nothing to warrant getting pulled over and I was in no mood to play nice. Meanwhile, Ian had taken off his helmet as soon as we'd pulled to the curb so I was left sitting there glowering and straining to hear what was going on behind me. Two giant dudes in flak jackets who were clearly not local cops were reading him the riot act, about how this may be how he does things in his backwards little country but here in The Murca if they start allowing people to run red lights, lambs will start laying down with lions or some such shit. Several times, very politely, Ian pointed out that he had plenty of experience riding in the USA and that the light was clearly yellow when he entered the intersection.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p657
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p657
Wendy was leading, she and the blue FJR disappearing through the downhill section in front of me; as the road flattened out on the 20-mile stretch before Rachel and with no warning the Buffalo let out a big bang under my feet. My breath caught as I ripped in the clutch lever waiting for something to lock up and throw me down the road. It didn't happen. The engine was running. I gave it a it a rev, ok, maybe it was a one-off, maybe I didn't hear what I thought I'd heard? Possibly? Letting out the clutch with no real load on anything, okay, that sounded fine, I said to myself. Putting on the power to get back to speed, the banging started again in earnest and right there in that moment with the banging under me, I knew this was serious. We were in the middle of nowhere, and my purpose-built transmission was toast. The over-abundance of ongoing, never-ending problems had reached the zenith, a pinnacle of sorts; the shit pile had capped itself off with a wisp of paper and there was no way out of this problem that didn't involve lots of money and time and I felt totally crushed.
"Gotta stop," I said to Wendy.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p684
"Gotta stop," I said to Wendy.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p684
It took about a split second to understand what happened. It took the same split second to understand my ongoing clutch problems, the excessive and then intermittent or nonexistent slipping, the oil leaks, the funny feel on the lever, the inconsistent everything, the rumbling feeling I had been having through the seat and pegs and bars. It took the next split second to swing from utter rage to complete despondency to white hot anger to incredulity and back to rage. All this time, all through this ride, all through all our downtime, the expense, the heartache, the worry about whether I would get to the next town, there in front of me was the culprit, or should I say the evidence caused by an unknown culprit.
There is a part in the transmission called the drive shaft. It is integral in relaying the motion from the transmission gears out through the final drive system. On the end of this shaft is a small circlip. It's a $9 part from BMW. What we found on autopsy was that this circlip, which was supposed to have external ears, instead had internal ears. It was the wrong circlip. This resulted in a roughly 40% diminished engagement surface, which over time weakened and damaged the engagement groove on the shaft until a large part of the shaft's end broke off. This would be the horrible grinding crunching squealing failure we experienced outside of Rachel.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p704
So that's it folks. Buy the book and fill in all those tantalising gaps!
There is a part in the transmission called the drive shaft. It is integral in relaying the motion from the transmission gears out through the final drive system. On the end of this shaft is a small circlip. It's a $9 part from BMW. What we found on autopsy was that this circlip, which was supposed to have external ears, instead had internal ears. It was the wrong circlip. This resulted in a roughly 40% diminished engagement surface, which over time weakened and damaged the engagement groove on the shaft until a large part of the shaft's end broke off. This would be the horrible grinding crunching squealing failure we experienced outside of Rachel.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p704
So that's it folks. Buy the book and fill in all those tantalising gaps!
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Wendy, I picked up your book this weekend and have been cheerfully reading it instead of getting work done all afternoon. I've been enjoying your surgical skill with profanity, although the thing I've been wondering for the last few chapters is if continuous riding on the brink of disaster is actually the goal?