So, I knew I needed to ride to St. Augustine for the start of the ride; and I knew that I wanted to take a route that I hadn't been on before. I began my planning with overpass-turbu.eu to find all the secondary, secondary connector and tertiary roads in the area between Spring Hill and St. Augustine. That equates to county and state highways. I really wanted to avoid interstate. Once I got the results back (about 8MB), I started putting together a route. I used Garmin BaseCamp to do that. BaseCamp is becoming very easy to use. Once you have the hang of it, route planning goes pretty quickly. I planned to start on the Gulf coast, get an obligatory picture of the bike with the Gulf in the background and, when I got the east coast, do the same in St. Augustine. I used a selection of roads I found with overpass and viola, I had a route with 25 way points. Routing between two waypoints took me on 15 miles of interstate; but, I suppose that's not bad on a 300 mile trip. I was pretty satisfied with the routing. I learned from the last planning with BaseCamp to put my waypoints before the intersection, and not after, or in the intersection. This worked out pretty well; but, somehow, I got routing that involved making a U-Turn. I was able to avoid it when I got to it though. This time around, there were no GPS rerouting failures. I'm learning.
The trip to Cedar Springs was uneventful. I grabbed an early breakfast, got gas and headed up there. I snapped a couple pictures and grabbed some video.
Breakfast. (Bike way in the background)
The temperature was supposed to be in the low to mid-seventies. It barely broke 60 and that was for just a short while in the morning. When I got to Alachua, it was time to take a break and warm up a bit. I found a Sonny's BBQ and that would do the job just fine, so I pulled in. Soon after, a motor officer from Alachua pulled in. Apparently, it was time for the Alachua Pd to have lunch also. Once warm, I hit the road again. I had to do a little back tracking because the roads I selected didn't join, so GPS routed between the two points and, actually put me on some nice roads. No complaints there.
-Weather before I left on the first leg.
- Cedar Key - before I found a spot to get better pictures of the Gulf.
The Gulf of Mexico as seen from Cedar Key.
Clearly, the temperature is going in the wrong direction today!
Arriving in St. Augustine, I went for the lighthouse right away and got my finishing picture. I wanted to stay around where Cliff and Jeff were staying, so I could meet up with them quickly. Last year, they stayed in the Atlassian, I think. I managed to get a room across the street from that. I think on the hotel scale, this is probably a 3. It's clean and that is what really matters. Internet is ridiculously slow though. It brings back memories of being on dial up.
Last year's kickoff dinner was at a lodge. This year's was at Jaybirds. It's a pizza restaurant. I happened to sit down at the table with 3 other firefighter/paramedics. 2 of them knew and worked with each other and were doing the ride together. The other just happened to sit with them before I arrived. Of course, we talked about many of the differences between Florida and Pennsylvania EMS. Dinner was free! One of the sponsors picked it up.
---Day 2 (3/5/2016)
So, at this point, I'd traveled across the State of Florida once, had dinner with the guys and was about to do it again with them. This was the same ride as last year's ride that found me riding my K16 in a freshly plowed farmers field. This year, they had a street ride. When I arrived, Wolfgang saw me pull in and realize I had to be there for that ride. He was going to be riding sweep and described Todd, the ride leader, to me. I quickly found Todd. Todd also had a Sena headset and showed me that you can pair them by taking them off the helmets and shaking them both. The light turns green and voila, they paired. This was great. Todd designed the route and pointed out everything to me as we went. So much work goes into planning and leading a ride. Even if you know what routes you want to take, you need to map them, load them into the GPS and for this group, produce a roll chart. Todd also pre-rode this route to make sure it would be OK for the bikes to do. Each way, this route is 6 hours, plus the time to create it, do the computer/gps work, etc. - Todd really put in some hours on this and I was most grateful. So, this is a rally format. Ride the ride and take the pictures at all the designated places. You accumulate points for the pictures and time. He who has all the pictures and the best time wins. In our case, there were 4 riders going to Steinhatchie and 3 of us coming back. The returning 3 would all get prizes, whether we took pictures or not. Picture taking does give you a chance to get off the bike though.
The first picture we needed to take was of this 'Alligator removal truck and trailer.' Zoom in. It's an interesting site.
Required picture # 2 - an ocean view. Behold the Atlantic ocean.
Required picture #3 - this boat.
Required picture #4 - This post building. Up front is Todd, second is Gustavo and our sweep was Wolfgang.
Time for lunch. Meet Todd, the leader of this group. Wolfgang is in the background. This is the Yearling Restaurant in Cross Creek. I ate a shrimp and alligator po' boy and it was outstanding. This is a must return restaurant.
This guy was playing the blues. I will go back to this restaurant in the future and enjoy a lazy afternoon of food and blues.
Another required picture and an pretty cool building.
Water tower.
So, we stroll in to Steinhatchie at 3:30 - 4:00 after having gassed up just outside of town. Bikes would begin rolling in soon. There were about 100 of us and this was the only restaurant in town that could possibly accommodate us all. Fortunately, they were serving a seafood buffet and were able to move us all through pretty quickly. I had dinner with Wolfgang, Todd and Steve (medic I met last night) and after they left, Cliff and Brian came in, so I sat down with them to catch up. We all had a great time and when we all left, I needed to get back on my bike as my hotel reservation was in Perry Fl., about 35 miles away. There were no rooms left in Steinhatchie and Perry was the closest place with rooms. It was a cool evening ride; but, the heated gear kept me nice and warm.
When morning came, I was up around 7 and knew that the group wouldn't pull out before 8:30 and probably start breakfast around 8. I wanted to see if there were any back roads to get from Perry to Steinhatchie and there were; but, I wasn't going to be able to do them. There wasn't enough time. I was able to get going at 7:30. I sent Todd a text to tell him I'd meet him there. The ride was a cool 40 degrees when I left. The dense air kept the smell from the paper plant hanging in the air and I smelt that from the time I left Perry until I turned off 19 onto 51. Yuck. I was about 5 minutes late in arriving. There were plenty of bikes getting ready for the ride back. Not many were ready to go though. When I walked in, Cliff and Brian were sitting right in front of me with Mark, another person I met the night before. They told me that they had been there an hour and they haven't even gotten coffee yet. The story was that there was a power failure in one of the waitress stations and they were percolating it now. The fact was that there were more than a hundred people in the restaurant and only 2 waitresses. Finally, we got a waitress to take our orders and our food was delivered to us; but, none of us had coffee or orange juice. Forget about tea - they were out. It was a horrible showing. When our meal was over, I went to pay the waitress, and she said that she was so sorry for the horrible service and that she was picking up the check. I asked her if she was picking up the check or if the restaurant was picking up the check and she wavered in her answer. She didn't want to give me a straight answer. At that point, I looked her in the eyes and said "Little lady, I asked you a direct question. Are you picking up the check, or is the restaurant." She started to tear up. She said she felt so bad and that the manager wouldn't even come out and talk to us when she asked him to. She was worried that nobody would come back, so she was picking up our check. I told her that I wasn't going to let her do that. It wasn't her fault and she tried her best. She continued to argue with me and I finally said to her 'look, you don't make enough to pick up checks if something goes wrong. How much do you make?" She said $4.19/hr + tips. I told her that she could either ring our table up and let me pay for it, or I would leave the money on the table. She charged me $18 and change. I gave her $30. I had no doubt in my mind that we weren't the only table she was comping, would have no earnings today and, chances are, would get fired for having her heart in the right place and not enough life experience to let the restaurant management worry about it. I hope she gets to keep her job. She deserves to.
During this conversation, I received a very nice complement. It was from Wolfgang, who was our sweep yesterday and will be our sweep today. He said 'watching you corner is a beautiful thing.' At the time, we had been talking about motorcycle performance and how nimble the GT was for it's mass. Wolfgang has probably been riding for 40+ years, so I really felt that. I put a lot of effort into not just getting around corners; but, gently pushing the degree of lean, apexing late, etc. I apply the skills I learned during the California Bike School track day I was at and try to improve as much as I can. It was nice to hear an unsolicited compliment like that.
So, we saddle up. Going back, we had 7 riders. We picked up some GS guys that had just had it with the trail riding. By the first stop (Perry railroad depot - .5 miles from where I stayed), we learned that one had a knee that was giving them troubles and they were going to break off from the group and get home sooner. That left us with 5. I'm not sure exactly when they bailed out on us; but, it was pretty early in the trip. Early into this ride, we took a 90 degree left turn. I am very good about checking intersections for gravel and I distinctly remember checking before I made this turn. I missed the gravel in the road and my front end came out from under me. I was already in the lean when I felt it go. The bike started going down; but, I wasn't about to let it. I put my left boot on the ground hard and kicked the bike up. About that time, the front tire caught some good pavement and the bike came back up to a straight up position. I continued the turn without incident. I was very lucky. I could have spilled out right there. Todd heard me say 'oh shit' or something similar. He was glad I was OK as well. It was much too close and just proved that no matter how careful you are, bad things can still happen. A couple hours after this, we had kicked up some vultures on the side of the road and one of them flew toward us. As I was going past, the vulture hadn't gotten much altitude and nearly missed my windscreen and helmet. I ducked and he went right over. He was big to. With his wings fully spread open, he covered the whole front end of my motorcycle. I wish I were rolling video for that one!
At this point, we were way behind schedule. We didn't leave until 9:20. We intended to leave at 8:30. As a result, we got to the restaurant an hour late and right in the middle of the crowd of GS riders, who were also dining there. We waited about 15 minutes for a table, so not too long. At this point, it was Todd, Wolfgang, Mark (a physical therapist who had been with us since Steinhatchie and Patrick, a retired man from PA who flew down to pick up a used R80GS. This is a story in itself.
At lunch, we pulled in to a big restaurant in High Springs called 'Great Outdoors.' I didn't see any outdoor seating and the place was packed. I think all the riders that left Steinhatchie were already there, plus their normal crowd. I had to circle around for parking and finally got a space right outside the restaurant. We waited about 15 minutes for a table, at which time the place was clearing out. Our waitress was pretty lively and Wolfgang picked up the vibe and had quite the banter going with her. While that was all going on, he mentioned something about one of his ex-wives and Patrick asked how many wives he's had. Wolfgang said he was on #7 and loved all of them. He said he still has great relationships with them all. Patrick asked him how many kids he's had and that was when things really started to get amusing. Wolfgang said he had between 10 and 20 kids he knows about; but, he doesn't interact with them. He goes and sees them, gets a bead on how they're doing in life and leaves, not saying a word; but, he'll send them something if they need it. The story was getting deeper and deeper and Patrick even said that this conversation was firmly in strange land; but, he appeared to be buying it. I couldn't tell if Matt was also buying it or not. It was entertaining though. Wolfgang is a no holds barred and very lively fellow. He's in his 70's and looks like he's 50.
Soon after this, I asked Patrick if he rode his bike down here for this ride and he said he flew. So I asked how he got his motorcycle for the ride and he said he flew down in November to buy it. He went into detail about the issues with the bike and the back and forth with the original owner. This bike had some serious valve issues and left him stranded more than once. The previous owner was able to fix them and Patrick went through with the sale. This whole transaction took place over several months and Patrick stuck with it. I, personally would have bailed out on it at the first indication of serious trouble. I was riding behind Patrick the whole time and didn't notice any smoking like he had trouble with and I didn't notice any pings, knocks, skips or any other issues. It would appear that he has things in hand. He said the plan was to ride it back to Pennsylvania and that the weather was good. I said he needed to take advantage of that and told him about my trip during winter storm Boreas in December (Houston to NJ), where I arrived and it was 11 degrees.
Lunch took a long time and that had to cut into our riding time. Todd planned to cut off a couple of segments so we'd get to the restaurant on time. He said he'd be surprised if all of us went to the restaurant. It is Sunday night and folks needed to get home to their families, etc. We were also going to lose Patrick and Matt along the way. That would leave me with Todd and Wolfgang. We stopped for very few pictures on the way back. We didn't need to do anything except show up to win the E-Class trophy (all 3 of us).
St. Augustine was busy with people - so many people and traffic. We pulled into the restaurant and I thought I'd work on getting a room first. Todd told me about some nice B&B's in the area, so I started with Airbnb. I'd never booked a room with Airbnb, and after my experience, I don't think I ever will. First, I registered a while ago and forgot my login credentials, so I did a password reset. The link they send takes you to the login page, not the change password page, so that was useless. I had to create another account, using another email address. I did that. I found a room and went to book it. As expected, it asked me for my credit card information, which I supplied. Then it asked me for a picture of my drivers license, which was unusual; but, not unreasonable as the Airbnb service is probably doing this as a service for the BNB owners and to have it on hand before people actually show up at the door. Then I was asked to supply a message to the owner so they knew when I'd arrive. Also expected and I supplied that. After all that was done, and I'd been working on this reservation for probably half an hour now, I was asked to supply either my FaceBook or LinkedIn information to confirm my online identity. That was the last straw. There is no reason for that. I bailed out of the reservation, after putting down a credit card deposit. The credit card information is the last thing they should take in case someone wants to bail out of the process mid way. I could see no reason at all that they needed to 'confirm my online identity.' What if I were retired and didn't have a Linkedin account, and didn't have a Facebook account? So much time wasted. I was ticked off. So, after that, I found that Travelocity showed no rooms available in St. Augustine. I called Best Western direct at that point. A very nice lady from Beliz answered the phone and helped me with my reservations. She asked which I wanted to stay at as there were actually 6 in St. Augustine. I said lowest cost. I've stayed at Best Westerns many times and have never had a quality issue. Wifi is always pretty good, the room clean, bed comfortable and linens plentiful. She found me a room in the Historic district, 5 miles from where I was sitting for $90. That is pretty darn good considering the amount of people here. I thought for sure rates would be extraordinarily high. I booked. The whole process of searching for best rate, etc. took about half an hour. So, within about an hour of arriving, I had a room reservation for the night. On to dinner.
Todd and Wolfgang were sitting at a table on the dock. We had a great view of the airport on the other side and the sunset. The plan was to eat light since we had such a big lunch. Mission accomplished, we split conch fritters, alligator fritters and I ordered a bowl of clam soup (red). Their iced tea was horrible. I didn't drink much of that. Along the way, Cliff and Brian joined us. We received our trophies for completing the ride and there was a prize drawing. Cliff and Brian both won!
So, here I sit in my hotel room catching up on my blog. It's not even 8am yet. The plan is to meet up with Cliff and Brian today. They want to do demo rides - try out other motorcycles. I'd like to ride a GS and some others. I really want to get into dual sport and will eventually buy one. I know nothing about dual sport bikes, so selecting the right machine could we as easy as plunking down a whole lot of money for a GS and having the best of everything, or making a few sacrifices here and there and saving thousands. I think I'm going to get an education from Cliff today!
Here's some pics!
Another train depot.
I'm a fan of clocks (actually, this and the previous pic were from yesterday)
Todd, Mark, Patrick
Lunch at the Outdoor Restaurant - Lots O Bikes
Got Bow tie? This is my track from my spot tracker for the last couple days.
Sunsets are always good pictures.
Cliff in Silhouette
Todd. Awesome ride planner and all around guy. It would be a priveledge to ride with him again.
Space shuttle tank. This is going to be transported as soon as all the permits are done. It's been sitting there for months and will probably sit for months more.
This weekends trips. 3/4/2016 - 3/7/2016.
3/7/2016 -
Right after finishing the blog entry above, I jumped in the shower, packed and was on the bike and ready to go. I had texted and called Cliff without answer. I have a Bluetooth headset, so I'd get his call or text if he were to call me back. I thought that I should get going since I had about a half hour to 45 minute ride to get to their campground. When I was nearing exit 295, I was getting concerned because I thought that was the exit for the camp ground and Cliff had not called back. There was no exit 295 and I kept going. Finally Cliff called and I asked him what exit I needed and he said 278. I was at exit 278 at that very moment. I pulled off and Cliff talked me in to his camp site. I had to pay $20 at the campsite with the promise that I'd get it back at the end of the day. As things worked out, I didn't get the $20 back because we went out and never came back to the site. :-(
I was hoping that those guys would not have eaten breakfast yet; but, they had and it looked like they weren't going out for a while. They did offer me a corn muffin and some yogurt, which totally did the job. Given all the over eating I'd been doing lately, this was a nice light breakfast and a good change of pace. The plan was to first figure out what was going on with Brian's brand new (1000 miles) Kawasaki KLR dual sport bike. Most of those miles were put on the bike during this trip.
The problem was that he would only get about 2 gallons of gas per tank before the engine started sputtering. He'd switch to reserver; but, only get a few miles and have to pull into a gas station. The bike still had several gallons of fuel in it. My thought was that one of two possibilities existed - either there was a problem with the petcock, or the fuel wasn't making it from one side of the fuel tank to the other. That was until I heard that he had installed a fuel filter on the bike where one previously did not exist. I was betting that there was already a fuel filter on the petcock and that the double filtering was causing flow issues. Fred was very convinced that the fuel filter had nothing to do with it and demonstrated that fuel would flow through the filter with the engine side of the fuel line disconnected. That said, he went on line and asked in the Kawasaki forum for help and someone replied that you should not put a fuel filter on the KLR. So, we took it off and test road the bike. Brian was not having any further issues. I am waiting for them to tell me about the ride home from Daytona, where I left them to come home.
Our ride to test this possible solution to the bike sputtering out started at the campground and took some back roads to A1A and then all the way down to Ponce inlet. We ate lunch there and then went the back way to the Daytona speedway. Brian had no trouble at all. At the speedway, we did some demo rides on some Yamaha bikes. I'd never ridden a Yamaha and one of the few left was an R3. This is a little girl's bike. It's about 350 pounds and 44.1 horsepower. That's about half the weight of my K1600GT and under 1/3 the horsepower. This bike didn't have a lot of giddy-up and go. It was highly maneuverable though and easy to place on any patch of pavement I wanted.
We left the speedway at about 5:45 and I headed home, while the rest of the guys went back to the campground. My ride home was 3 hours. I went across on Rt. 92 to Rt. 44 and down Rt41. I was looking to avoid all things around Orlando. Traffic in Daytona was a bear; but, once I was about 30 miles out of town, things lightened up significantly. I just barely made it in Chulas, the local Mexican restaurant by my house, before they closed.
This was a very memorable trip. I met new friends and got to catch up with one I made last year. I'm already looking forward to next years trip and hopefully, by then, I'll be on a dual sport or endo bike and doing the off road stuff!
All Florida trips to date. (K1600GT only)
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