1464572476 2016/05/29 - Fernandina Beach (almost) and back

Originally, the plan was to ride with the Tampa Bay BMW group.  They have a Sunday ride.  I didn't leave until late and the ride is supposed to leave at 10:30.  I knew I'd be late and they would probably be gone.  I went anyway; thinking that they might leave late.  As luck would have it, I got there at 10 till 11 and they were still there.  They were just sitting and chatting.  They weren't planning on doing a real ride today.  Almost everyone was going to do something else.  The temp was already over 90.  2 people were going to ride through the Florida National Cemetery for Memorial day and asked if I wanted to join.  Of course I did.

There were 3 of us for the ride.   Frank leading, his wife and me batting last.  Frank had a new Yamaha 400CC bike with a kick start and he was breaking it in.  He said he wouldn't be doing more than 45; but, we were at 60 several times.

The Florida National Cemetery is a very big place.  I rode through today with a couple friends.  I really had no idea just how big it is.  There are rows after rows of grave stones in fields after fields.  It goes on for a long time.  I understand that there were several fields that we didn't even ride past.  At first, I thought all these people died in battle; but, I was told that any military person from Florida can be buried there.

After doing a little research, 624,999 service people have died in combat since and including WW1. That does not include all the wars that preceded that. The number since and including the American Revolutionary War would be 1,319,943, including Afghanistan and Iraq. There are probably a few more to add to this total for Syria and probably even more for casualties that occurred during black ops. That is the number of American troops I hope you are thinking about this weekend ... like before you order your Triple, Venti, Half Sweet, Non-Fat, Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks and before you start debating the merits of who can use which bathroom at Target or anywhere else. These things we would not be part of our lives without the people that made the ultimate sacrifice for us.

The Florida National Cemetery, as of now, has 129,000 interments.   I didn't see them all and that is only 20% of the total from WW2.  It's sobering how many people have given their lives.

...

After the cemetery, we parted ways.   My friends were planning on getting on their boat and relaxing on the water.  I was planning to put some miles on the bike, although, I didn't have a destination.  The first order of operations was lunch though, so I decided to go back to The Yearling and get a Shrimp and Alligator Po' Boy.  Willie Green was there, singing the Blues again.  I talked to him a little bit after I was done eating.  He's having some heart troubles.  He's still happy to be singing the Blues though.  I wished him well, having created a plan to ride up to Fernandina Beach in the far NE corner of Florida.

I chose Fernandina beach because I like the northern tier of Florida better than much of the rest of it and I'd never been there.  I also knew there was a river crossing ferry up that way, so I thought I'd try to find that.

I forgot to take off my fanny pack after lunch, so I stopped right off Rt. 301.  Right there, there's an old fire truck.  I took a picture of it with my bike.  There's always a reason to take a picture of the bike with a firetruck...old or new.

I didn't make it all the way to Fernandina beach.  Traffic started getting pretty dense and I had no desire to stand on the pavement at traffic lights in 97 degree temps.  That was the OAT as displayed by the temp gauge on my motorcycle.  It was probably a bit hotter for me since I'm riding on top of the engine that is getting air at that temperature.  Anyway, there was no way I was going any further on A1A, so I scrapped the idea of riding the coast south and opted for less traffic and more of the northern tier of Florida for the return.  I was trying to select roads that I didn't think I'd been on before.  It's getting pretty hard to do that now.  While I was riding, I decided to that I wanted to find out if I'd ridden in all the counties in Florida.  I have the data to figure that out, so I think I will do that.

On Rt. 90W, coming into Macclenny, a turkey vulture left it's perch and started flying on a course that would cause me to hit it.  It came off the left side of the road, crossed traffic and was headed right into my path.  It was trying to climb and turn away from me.  I was going pretty fast at the time and had to grab the brake lever to avoid hitting it.  It was close.  The updraft created by my windscreen lifted it high enough that it barely cleared my helmet.  I don't think it would have been all that bad if we had collided; but, I can't believe that I've had 2 close calls with large birds in as many months.

I chose 129 S. to avoid intercepting rt. 19 and having to ride that all the way home.  129S is a nice road and took me all the way down to Chiefland Fl., about 2 hours from my house.  I stopped at a shrimp place in Ingress for dinner.  I needed to cool down, even though I was only an hour away from home.  I shot this video of their fish tank.  They have 2 plecos in their 40 gallon tank.  1 is 10" and the other is 12".  Too much pleco for that tank!

Here's the map of the route.

20160515 - 50,000 miles - Willie Green with Shrimp and Alligator Po'Boys.

Today was one of those rides that you don't want it to end; but, at the same time, you can't wait to get home to start writing about.

When I got home the other night, I realized that I was about 250 miles from rolling 50,000 miles on my odometer.  My bike is 2 and a half years old and while that may sound like a lot of miles to some, it's not in the crowd I run with.  My 'peers' seem to be able to do that in a year and I am also aware of 1 guy who regularly rides 100,000 per year and gets a new motorcycle every year.  It has something to do with work.  I've also heard what I think is folklore - people that have ridden over 1M miles in less than 3 years.  I digress.  I wanted to cross the 50,000 mile mark this weekend and I couldn't think of a better way to do it than to take a run up to a restaurant I was introduced to in Cross City.  I knew that they had a fantastic Po' Boy sandwich and a blues singer that came in once in a while.

I always want to travel new roads, so I decided I'd ride 50 East to 19 North and then in Marion county, get off on some back roads to the restaurant.  I'd ridden the 50E part many times and some of 19, but the county roads in Marion would be new.  The route would also be largely through Ocala National Forest.

As Florida scenery goes, it was nice; but, nothing great.  I've seen a lot of Florida now and most of the landscape falls into 4 general categories - The Keys - a landscape all to themselves.  Nobody has more ocean.  Populated areas - all southern Florida from Orlando south along both coasts.  Horse Farm land - lots of it north of Orlando to the northern border and over grown vegetation growing in sand.  That would be nearly everything in the middle of the state from the everglades to the northern border except for over populated cities and horse farms.  Ocala national forest is that.  It lacks the magnificent views of the Appalachians.  It is very flat.  The perspective changes when buildings appear.  That said, I'll take overgrown forest over cityscapes any day.  I arrived at The Yearling Restaurant at about 2:15, only 30 miles short of my 50,000 mile goal.  The place was packed; cars everywhere.  Somehow, I managed to get a spot right outside the front door.  By the time I left, there would be 3 Harley's partially sharing my spot and extending down the row.

When I opened the door, awesome blues music spilled out.  There sat Willie Green strumming his guitar.  Willie had many fans there and he knew it.  I had to wait for a table; but, it was worth it.  I was seated just to the side of Willie - a front row seat.  What is particularly notable is his voice.  It's fantastic.  I love the blues and this was a very nice treat.  Here's 10 seconds of Willie:

In keeping with the plan, I reviewed ordered a sweet tea from Jamie, my waitress.  I also noticed that Willie didn't have anything to drink by him and asked her to get him whatever he wanted to drink.  She said that he drinks water.  He's a diabetic.  I remarked to her about what a fantastic sound he has and then Jamie gave me the story.  Willie lives in a nursing home fairly close by.  They pick him up and take him to the restaurant, where he plays and plays and plays.  They pay him something.  He also has a tip jar and you can buy his CD's there.  You can also buy T-shirts.  Largely, he was covering recognizable songs by Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke and BB King.  Sometimes, he would riff on something I had never heard before.  He plays guitar and mouth harp at the same time.  I bought his first CD and am listening to his music as I write.

More pics:

After a while, Jamie came back for my order.  Actually, it was quite a while.  I had a sweet tea in front of me and I wasn't complaining.  Had I been at a chain restaurant, I would have lost my patience.  [Sidebar:  I am requesting a complete refund on my education.  I was advised by a 6th grade teacher friend that patients and patience are two different words.  I only knew of the first one.  This is the second time in less than a month that I found out something I should have known a long time ago.  Maybe I'll only get a partial refund.  After all, I can make change and do other nifty things with my education..perhaps some in the upcoming generation can't do.]  Back to ordering.  I ordered the Shrimp and Alligator Po' Boy.  On the menu it's one or the other; but, you can get both.  I wanted both.  I ordered that with cheese grits (something I'd never had before) and a cup of New England clam chowder.

 The New England Clam Chowder is so thick they should just call it New England Clam Casserole

 I'm going to get my southern on today!

How about with the cheese peeled back so you can see all the tasty morsels in there.  I think this would be better if none of it were breaded and fried...use the same seasonings and broil it.  That said, it was fantastic.

So, I'm finishing up and two ladies walk in.  They had clearly been here before and came to see Willie and after we started talking, I found out they also come in for the 'Sour Orange Pie.'  What????  Sour orange pie?  I didn't know such a thing exists.  They said that one time they got here and only 1 piece was left, so they had to split it.  Now, they order it first and then order their meal.  They said I had to try it.  So I did.  Jamie asked me if I wanted that with chocolate syrup on it and whip cream.  How should I know?  I never had Sour Orange Pie before.  I considered it for a moment and I couldn't think of a meal that would be simply ruined with chocolate syrup and whip cream, so I said yes.  I should have taken a picture and I did not; sorry.  It was very tasty and now it would seem that my meal at The Yearling could be cemented in place.  Then again, there are other tasty things on the menu.  A return trip is in order for sure.

Back on the bike...like an hour or so later, I decided to do a compass run back - just follow the compass.  I know I need to go south and west.  Florida is easy to navigate.  Since I live on the West coast, I am going to run into one of the major highways  that will get me to Spring Hill ... 19, 41, 75,  301, 33/19 ...those would be US highways and 75 is an Interstate.  All the major east/west highways are numbered between 40 and 70 for most of the state.  I prefer county roads though.  Those are all 3 digit numbers and it's anyone's guess where one goes, other than odd numbers run north and south and even numbers run east and west.  That said, I follow the compass on county roads.

Let me tell you about road engineers.  Federal road engineers - Interstate architects are very uptight people.  They don't like more than 10 degrees of turn.  They like wide lanes and unified direction of travel.  They like consistent, predictable entry and exit points.  The signage is impeccable.  All Interstates either take you directly through a major city at some point or around it, like a beltway.  If these people weren't engineering interstates, they would be doing some other job that required tedious attention to regulation and standards.  These people are no fun and would not be expected to show up to a Saturday night dance..under any circumstances.  Should something happen that they accidentally tripped and fell into the room and couldn't get out, they would be stuck fast to the wall paper.  Boring people.  State roadway engineers are slightly more fun.  They are happy to design a road with traffic moving in both directions, passing zones, and an occasional sweeping turn; but, are also very moody and will slam a blinking light or traffic sign right in the middle of things.  They will run their road right through a town, keeping the market space for 25, 35, 45 and 55 mph speed limit signs alive and well.  These engineers, with much trepidation, would be dragged to the Saturday night dance and when they danced, they would barely move their feet, be stiff as a board.  We'd all be glad they are there because we can dance better; his/her significant other...not so much.   Then there are county road engineers.  These guys architect roads while smoking weed.  I can clearly hear the conversation.  'Dude, let's put a giant sweeping turn right here, and then another giant sweeper going the opposite way right after it.  We'll put a 45 mph speed limit sign on it to make the bureaucrats happy; but, every motorcycle rider will love us.  They'll come from miles around and go around these curves with their helmets on fire.'  These are the guys that will come to the Saturday night dance.  They will have fun.  Their significant other will have fun and everyone near them will have fun.  I like county road engineers.  I imagine Tommy Chong.  None of this applies to road engineers from Montana.  I'm convinced all of them are smoking crack.  I've been on two lane windy roads in Montana posted at 75mph.  These guys go to the dance and rig the equipment to play the music double speed.  Everyone becomes confused.

So, back to the county roads.  I was on many and as a result, forgot to pull over when I hit 50,000 miles for the obligatory here's my 50,000 mile picture.  When I remembered, I was only slightly past it.  So, here's my 50,004 mile picture.  At the time, I was listening to 'Don't fear the reaper' and thinking 'I need more cow bell.'  As for the rear pressure indicator, my rear tire was not flat.  The bolt that holds the tire pressure sensor broke and it won't be replaced until I need to mount and balance new tires...hopefully in more than 10,000 miles.  2400 miles is the number of miles since I was at Scot's house doing the last maintenance and yes, I was in Dynamic mode grabbing lots of throttle through the twisties designed by someone that reminds me of Tommy Chong.

I found this great bio of Willie Green.  It's worth a read.  Here's are the maps.  It's all about making new lines on the map.

I think this looks like an apple.

20160513 - Rear ended and not a scratch on me or the bike

All good stories start with "There I was" or "This is a true story," so:

This is a true story.  There I was in Orlando.  The temp was reading 100.7 and I was on E. Colonial, a very busy road with lots of traffic lights and too many vehicles.  There are multiple lanes in each direction.  I was traveling east, GPS navigating to Starbucks to kill some time before I meet with friends for dinner.  In the previous 5 miles, I probably sat through at least 6 traffic lights, each 3-5 minutes.  I was hot, sweating and every time I looked at my GPS, it was telling me that the Starbucks I was going to was just another intersection away...and then it would zoom in a little more and put another 3 intersections between me and it.  It's safe to say I was hot and really wanted to get off the hot pavement.  It's safe to say that I had less patience for the situation than what was called for.

So, I'm in stop and go traffic, inching along and my GPS is calling for a right turn (into Plato's Closet).  I'm looking for the Starbucks and I can't see it...largely because the GPS had it on the wrong side of the street.  Not wanting to miss the turn, just in case I didn't see it, I looked right (much too quickly) and started moving into the lane to my right.  As I started crossing the line, I saw the front end of a burgundy / burnt orange car bearing down on me.  He, or she saw what was happening and locked up the brakes.  At the same time, I let the clutch go and added a fistful of throttle.  We did make contact.  I'm pretty sure of it.  There was no crunch of breaking plastic and it didn't destabilize my bike.  I pulled into the next parking lot to see what damage was done; but, the driver kept going.  I can't say whether or not I'm surprised about that.  It's entirely possible that he/she had no idea that our vehicles made contact.  I think when I wash my bike, I put more pressure on the plastic parts than that car put on my bike; but, I will say that it felt strangely like my dad pushing me forward when I was learning to ride a bicycle - just a gentle tap.

Now I suppose if you ride long enough, something like this is going to happen.  In all honesty though, that's not good enough and I need to own it.  An argument could easily be made that the car was going to fast.  Traffic was going 10 miles per hour or less in my lane and he/she was going much faster than that.  That said, I know that I looked to my right an appropriate distance for the speed I was traveling; but, did not look far enough back in the lane for the speed he/she was traveling.  I turned my head to look.  I did not check my mirror.  Perhaps if I had, I would not be writing this.  The fact is, I got damn lucky.  Had that driver been heads down texting or otherwise distracted,  I'd have to change the ending to this story.  It was both our reactions that contributed to a positive  outcome.

May is motorcycle awareness month.  I really need to thank motorists that are not distracted and who, I am now sure, have saved many lives by seeing and avoiding motorcycles.  I think a great many riders would like to place blame for traffic accidents with motorcycles squarely at the feet of motorcyclists; but, my experience in this case is that is not always right.

20160504 - strange electrical problem

So, there I was over 400 miles from home at 6:30 in the morning when I get the flashing triangle thingy and the headlight with a zero symbol.  Ignore everything else in the picture.  I took this when I was safely at home, the bike was on the stand and I had a cold one in hand.

I was leaving Atlanta on the last leg of my journey (400+ miles), when I got the flashing yellow warning triangle and the headlight with a zero indicator.  I didn't know what that symbol was as I was riding.  My eyes aren't what they used to be when I was 20 and even at that, I wouldn't have guessed that was a headlight symbol.  What I new was that the following things happened with the appearance of that symbol:  The cruise control turned off, I couldn't move the wind screen up or down, my radio station was locked in.  I couldn't go through any menu items.  The good news was:  The bike had power and brakes.  The battery wasn't discharging.  Right then, I had a choice to make.  I could either navigate to the nearest BMW dealer and wait there for them to open or press on.  My GS-911 was at home and even if it weren't, I couldn't get a replacement part until a dealership opened and, more likely than not, they would have to order it unless it was a maintenance item.  I decided to press on and see what I could do while riding to further diagnose this problem.

Realistically, my biggest concern was that I was going to eventually have to fill up and when I did, I would remove the key from the ignition to open the tank.  At that point, I had no idea whether or not the bike would restart.  There are some things that can happen where the bike will keep running until it is turned off and then it will not start again until the message was cleared.  By my estimation, when all that happened, I would be about 60 miles from another dealership with the diagnostic equipment to figure this out.  That would mean a tow if I couldn't get it to start.  I would still be over 300 miles from my house, so parking it, going home another way and coming back with my trailer was possible; but, a serious time consumer.  I hoped that I'd be able to get a dealer on the phone with me while I was still riding to see if there was anything I could do to avoid a shutdown, if that was a possibility.  Unfortunately, I would be out of gas before anyone even turned the lights on.  Another thought I had was that I needed to stop at a town with some infrastructure...gas, hotel, auto parts, etc.  It works out that I ended up stopping just north of Valdosta Ga.  Before I turned off the bike, I pulled out the manual from the trunk.  TAKE NOTE:  THE MANUAL IS UNDER YOUR SEAT WHEN YOU GET THE BIKE.  PUT IT IN THE TRUNK.  YOU NEED THE KEY TO GET UNDER THE SEAT, WHICH MEANS TURNING OFF THE BIKE.  The manual said this was a headlight with a zero and that the cause had something to do with the computer not knowing where the headlight was or a bulb being out.  It said nothing about whether or not I'd be able to start my bike.  Throwing caution to the wind, I turned it off, filled it up and fortunately, was able to turn it back on.

Back on the road, with the warning light still blazing and electrical function still hit and miss, I called BMW Jacksonville to solicit their advice.  They said that there was nothing I could do from the roadside and that normally, the indicator is limited to headlight issues; but, since I'm having other issues, the problem is deeper and will require a diagnostic module hookup.  This was not good news because my windscreen was now in the up position and I was going to be riding into thunderstorms.  I like to get the windscreen down in heavy rain.  I had a big bag on the back, so riding from the back seat wasn't going to happen either.  I put the bike into rain mode and that was when I realized that all functionality lost was on the left cluster.  Horn, high beams, hazards, plus the stuff already mentioned were gone.  Additionally, everything on the left fairing (radio controls) were also gone.

As predicted, I got within 60 miles of home and ran into heavy rain.  By stretching, I could get my eyes over the windscreen.  Visibility was poorer than poor; but, I made my way.  At some point, I noted that the indicator had gone away.  I immediately lowered the windscreen and changed the station I'd been listening to (POTUS) for the last several hours.  I engaged the cruise control to finally give my right hand a break.  Intermittently, from then on, the failure would happen until I got home.

My understanding is that there are two campaigns out on the K16 that could be responsible for this - one is the handlebar cluster (which I've had replaced twice) and one having to do with software.

I will update this post once I run diagnostics on the bike and get the issue fixed.


----------Update----------

See my 48,000 mile maintenance report to understand why I won't go back to Eurocycles of Tampa Bay anymore.  Even after I discussed the broken bolts and rounded out bolts, they would not take any responsibility for any of it.  I'm done with them.

The next closest dealer is in Orlando (Magic City Motorsports).  Orlando is a two hour ride for me, as opposed to just over an hour for me to get to Tampa.  If you want service that is/might be covered by BMW, you have to go to a dealership, so off I went.

Mike is the Service Manager.  He answered the phone when I called a week ago and described the problem as being the L cluster switch.  He looked up my VIN on the spot and said that the switch had been replaced back in July.  He also said that this is a known issue and that he could probably get the switch replaced for me free of charge, even though my bike is thousands of miles out of warranty.

Steve was the tech that was going to work on my bike.  He noted that the tire pressure indicator was showing no pressure and I explained to him the history of that.  He really wanted to fix it because he doesn't like letting bikes go out that aren't perfect.  Unfortunately, they didn't have the bolt.  This is my kind of technician.  Steve agreed that the problem was the left cluster switch and replaced it.  I was in and out in an hour or so.  Magic City Motorsports replaced the cluster switch with no charge.  The cluster switch itself costs over $400.  Steve said that BMW has gone through 3 different manufacturers of this switch and knows they are still having issues.  BMW seems to think that the problem is manufacturing related, not engineering.  I hope they are right and that this switch doesn't need to be replaced!

........

If you're curious about everything else in the picture above:

The top two symbols are absolutely normal on startup and disappear when the bike starts rolling.  Ever noticed them before?  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  The top most one is about the abs check being in progress.  The second one I don't know.  There's an explanation of all of these in the manual, except that one.  Maybe I just haven't read the section where it appears with an explanation...you'll never see this, so don't worry about it.  Moving right, I had less than 25 miles in the tank, was in neutral and had the fog lights on.  In the next panel, I was riding through thunderstorms, so I was in rain mode.  Again, I'm in neutral, the engine is off and mostly cool, I'm nearly out of gas.  I did my own 48,000 mile service, including a tire change.  The pressure sensor was broken and it was late on Saturday.  There was no chance I was getting a new one, so I get a tire pressure warning until I swap out the rear and put the sensor back.  I really like the 80's on 8.  The only other channels I listen to are 70's on 7 and POTUS.  Yes, that's a decent amount of miles for a bike that is only 2 and a half years old.  I'm 2026 from my last service.  I had a boatload of stuff I was packing for the ride, so the suspension is set for two up and yes, I like my long distance rides to be in comfort.