Mistakes and divine intervention

[Albino Rhino]

Confession is good for the soul, so …(coming out of lurk mode to share)

My wife and I just returned from our annual trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway. This trip was 6 days and 5 nights on the parkway, staying at the Pisgah Inn and Bluffs Lodge.

We live about 125 miles from the parkway, so this trip was about 550 miles of parkway riding, not including detours, from the southern end in Cherokee, NC, to Rocky Knob in Virginia. I especially enjoy the southern, mountainous section from Cherokee to Asheville. I don’t know about those of you who have ridden the parkway, but after 5 days and 500 miles of twisties, I’m also happy to get off that road and ride some straight lines for a change.

For those of you that do not know me, my 2000 model Yamaha Venture (the Albino Rhino) and I have shared more than 100k miles of roads over the past 8 years. To say that I am familiar with the Rhino is an understatement.

Mistakes, I made a few…

For me, bike condition and safety are always supreme. Good tires are a must, especially before beginning a road trip. The rear tire, an Avon, only has 4k on it—good to go. The front tire, a Metzler 880, has 10k on it and is at minimums (a surprise as I normally get much better mileage from the front 880), but this is only a short trip and I have no time to mount a new tire, so I decide to go with it.

The first day is 190 miles to the Pisgah Inn (mile post 408.6), where we spend the night. This segment includes 60 miles of that glorious mountainous portion of the parkway, including the high point of the parkway, and the day is fine.

The next day we travel to Bluffs Lodge at MP 241, where we will spend the next 3 nights.

The first detour traveling north puts us off the parkway in Asheville. The official detour goes east on I-40, to US 221 north, to SR 226 north, then back to the parkway. I don’t like this route and choose to get off I-40 in Old Fort and take US 70 east to SR 80 and go north to the parkway. While enjoying twisty SR 80 I misjudge a mild right-hand curve and go wide into the opposing lane. Fortunately, there is no traffic for a close encounter. (whew!) Three days later, I realize that I did not misjudge the curve; I, for just the briefest of moments, stopped piloting the bike and missed setting up the proper entry.

Later that day as I am putting the Rhino to bed (covering the bike), I notice the front tire, with only 350 additional miles on it since leaving the house, is getting real thin left and right of center. So, the next morning, Wednesday, a no ride day (!), I call the dealer I buy tires from and ask him to order an Avon for the front and make arrangements to stop by his business on the way home at trip’s end to have it installed. The remainder of the day is spent relaxing and hiking some local trails.

Thursday we ride 70 miles north on the parkway to check out the Rocky Knob cabins, built in 1936, for next year’s accommodations.

Friday morning we depart Bluffs lodge traveling south for another night at the Pisgah Inn. Again we endure the two detours between Bluffs Lodge and Asheville, and just before getting back onto the parkway at Asheville, I get fuel. While fueling, we see that rain is close upon us, so we don our water repellant garments before continuing south. A small thunderstorm rolls over us while traversing the parkway around the Asheville area. We are out of the heavy rain after only a few miles, and a few miles further on, we stop at an overlook to wipe off the windshield and face shields.

Shortly after continuing on, and only about 20 miles from our destination, I again go wide in a right-hand curve. This time there is opposing traffic. Fortunately, the driver is alert and brakes and gives me room to get back to my side of the road. Again, I had momentarily stopped piloting the bike and lost control.

TARGET FIXATION. We learn about this in our riding classes. During my two departures of controlled riding, when I realized I was drifting wide, I fixated on the center line, and consequently crossed into the other lane. Needless to say, I was not happy with my performance, and I was especially unhappy about putting my wife’s life in jeopardy. (Let the fool kill himself, no others.)

Immediately after my second excursion, I did not know what had caused me to cross the center line. It was only afterward, when my mind had time to replay, many times, the event as it unfolded, did I understand that I had stopped riding the bike—my mind was completely focused on something else for just a brief instant in time.

Another aspect factors into the successful recoveries from my lane departures. I have become very conservative with speed when riding twisty roads; I am well inside the performance envelop and have maneuvering room while in a curve. Had I been traveling at a safe but faster speed in these curves the outcome mostly likely would have been ugly.

Devine intervention …

Remember that front tire? As arranged, we stopped this afternoon to have the new tire installed. I had considered waiting until Thursday (my day off) to do it, but decided to get it done today. While waiting for the tire change, we tested a Goldwing trike, but that is another story.

After the test ride, the owner came up to me and showed me the valve stem that had been removed from the wheel. As I’m looking at it (not seeing anything wrong with it), he takes it back and says to me, “it’s a good thing you didn’t check the air in your tires this morning.” Having said that, he easily slides the brass core of the valve stem from its rubber housing! He hands it back to me and the ease in which the brass core slides out flabbergasts me. The thing is, I did check the air in my tires this morning! Ronnie, the owner, explained that he had started to remove the valve core (Schrader valve) from the stem and heard air escaping, so he pulled on the stem an the brass core pulled out with virtually no resistance. Today we rode 185 miles to get to Ronnie’s: twisty roads and highway speeds up to 70 mph.

As best as I can recall, this is the original valve stem: 103,000 miles on it. I recommend that you change yours more often.

[Marcarl]

Thanks for the story. As with all stories, I take them and replay them, as you do your own. What went wrong, what was different, what could, should, might have been done. Hopefully in the process, I will learn from others mishaps, mistakes, and make a safer ride for the two of us. Target fixation can be ugly, you go where you're looking, and we all need to be very aware of it's presence. I find it really amazing that at one point as you get into a curve, at a descent rate of speed, you can find yourself heading oh so nicely into the opposite lane, but then if you realize what is causing this and change your target, the scoot seems to hop right back into the track it should have followed in the first place. Once again, thanks for the story, got something else to be thankful for today and something else to play through my mind to keep it busy.