bamabikeguy
Active Member
Glad you enjoyed it 5-7. I thought I'd answer your PM'd question, in this thread, with a tip I learned back in 2006.
On Day #1 of this thread http://www.motoredbikes.com/showpost.php?p=199072&postcount=61 (pathetically funny how Day #1 was Post #61?? sheesh...)
I wrote:
I never realized truckers were my friend UNTIL I got to the northernmost part of Kansas in May '06.
There is a Highway 91 nearby, connecting Holly Pond to Hanceville, that has a huge plant near the interstate, and a continuous stream from it's fleet of trucks. I had noticed, everytime I got on that 11 mile stretch of road, after the first truck passed me, every other truck gave me plenty of room.
And on the Amelia Island, Florida warm up ride in March '06, I never really paid attention to the trucks. I was in flatlands on 80% of those 800 miles, and enjoying the superior pavements. Most of my road choices were the least traffic'd, and the only city I was trying to stay clear of was Columbus, GA, all the other areas were a piece of cake.
It was on Day #4 of the Denver trip, at a diner/truckstop in Oberlin, KS that I learned the power of CB-radio.
Keep in mind, my friend Bill up in North Carolina not only works at the Freightliner plant, he has a really low payroll number, one of the first welders they hired.
And so I had heard of some of the special trucks they built there. One of the stories he would tell is how Karl Malone, from the Utah Jazz, ordered the top of the line trucks for his company, and Bill was always in on those builds.
So I pull into the diner in Oberlin (this was the EXACT time I put in the deadly spare gas that vapor locked me), and there was a MALONE TRUCKING Freightliner, the driver standing next to it.
I roll up to the blue semi, and tell him I know "the" guy who did all the final inspections on his cab's interior, and how my friend always told me Malone's tractors were the best they built.
He opened the door of the cab and invited me to take a look, and Bill was right. These cabs have every bell and whistle.
Then he said that he had heard about the guy on the red bike two days previously, back when I was cutting through the Ozark Mountains in Missouri, and how he had passed me a half hour earlier.
That's the very first time I found out that "the guy on the red bike" was providing entertainment to the CB radio crowd.
They see regular bikers all the time, but because I was popping up at sunrise every morning, zig zagging west, then north, then west again, they had been tracking me the whole time. They had NO clue where I was headed, because I seemed to have no pattern.
He said they would be laughing on the radio, when they had me spotted on such and such a highway, then I would pull off and disappear from their radar, eating lunch or taking a nap or lost on a backroad/shortcut.
The way he was describing the CB game, I was remembering "Tora, Tora, Tora", where they were trying to spot the Japanese fleet.
Once he told me that, the Highway 91 "wide berth" made sense.
Then, on the return leg, when I got to Cordell, Oklahoma and the lady told me they heard about me on Trucker's Radio, I sure did wish I could have a tape of that "news", wondered what they were saying about the stupid looking orange Stihl helmet.
Ever since the Malone Trucking driver told me about the "spot the idjut on the red bike" story, I make it a point to meet and greet a driver early in my trek. Besides Smokey in a Plain Wrapper, "whack-a-mole me" zigging and zagging is just another amusement for them.
So, I told those 3 quarry drivers to radio ahead, and tell all the truckers exactly which way I was headed. And since the recumbent was so unique looking, I assumed the trucks all knew I was returning to Holly Pond the following week.
And of the thousands of vehicles that passed me, only in Gadsden did a red Knight Trucking crowd me, and that was at an intersection. The ******* knew I was there, because I was hitting all the lights, and he was behind me for at least a mile.
After I flipped the red truck the bird, the green semi behind him honked twice to signal "yeah, that guy really IS an *******."
When you and Hawaii Ed start doing your rides around the island, and see a delivery truck, go ahead and tell them this loooooooong story, how you would appreciate it if the trucks would look out for ya.
What happens is, when the truck passes wide to the left, all the following vehicles know "something's up", even if they can't see you. You could just be debris that fell off the bed of a pickup, for all the farthest-backest drivers know.
Anyway, it works, and I can count "close calls" on one middle finger.
Do you get any situations like cars/trucks driving by you a little too close? That's what worries me.
On Day #1 of this thread http://www.motoredbikes.com/showpost.php?p=199072&postcount=61 (pathetically funny how Day #1 was Post #61?? sheesh...)
I wrote:
I never realized truckers were my friend UNTIL I got to the northernmost part of Kansas in May '06.
There is a Highway 91 nearby, connecting Holly Pond to Hanceville, that has a huge plant near the interstate, and a continuous stream from it's fleet of trucks. I had noticed, everytime I got on that 11 mile stretch of road, after the first truck passed me, every other truck gave me plenty of room.
And on the Amelia Island, Florida warm up ride in March '06, I never really paid attention to the trucks. I was in flatlands on 80% of those 800 miles, and enjoying the superior pavements. Most of my road choices were the least traffic'd, and the only city I was trying to stay clear of was Columbus, GA, all the other areas were a piece of cake.
It was on Day #4 of the Denver trip, at a diner/truckstop in Oberlin, KS that I learned the power of CB-radio.
Keep in mind, my friend Bill up in North Carolina not only works at the Freightliner plant, he has a really low payroll number, one of the first welders they hired.
And so I had heard of some of the special trucks they built there. One of the stories he would tell is how Karl Malone, from the Utah Jazz, ordered the top of the line trucks for his company, and Bill was always in on those builds.
So I pull into the diner in Oberlin (this was the EXACT time I put in the deadly spare gas that vapor locked me), and there was a MALONE TRUCKING Freightliner, the driver standing next to it.
I roll up to the blue semi, and tell him I know "the" guy who did all the final inspections on his cab's interior, and how my friend always told me Malone's tractors were the best they built.
He opened the door of the cab and invited me to take a look, and Bill was right. These cabs have every bell and whistle.
Then he said that he had heard about the guy on the red bike two days previously, back when I was cutting through the Ozark Mountains in Missouri, and how he had passed me a half hour earlier.
That's the very first time I found out that "the guy on the red bike" was providing entertainment to the CB radio crowd.
They see regular bikers all the time, but because I was popping up at sunrise every morning, zig zagging west, then north, then west again, they had been tracking me the whole time. They had NO clue where I was headed, because I seemed to have no pattern.
He said they would be laughing on the radio, when they had me spotted on such and such a highway, then I would pull off and disappear from their radar, eating lunch or taking a nap or lost on a backroad/shortcut.
The way he was describing the CB game, I was remembering "Tora, Tora, Tora", where they were trying to spot the Japanese fleet.
Once he told me that, the Highway 91 "wide berth" made sense.
Then, on the return leg, when I got to Cordell, Oklahoma and the lady told me they heard about me on Trucker's Radio, I sure did wish I could have a tape of that "news", wondered what they were saying about the stupid looking orange Stihl helmet.
Ever since the Malone Trucking driver told me about the "spot the idjut on the red bike" story, I make it a point to meet and greet a driver early in my trek. Besides Smokey in a Plain Wrapper, "whack-a-mole me" zigging and zagging is just another amusement for them.
So, I told those 3 quarry drivers to radio ahead, and tell all the truckers exactly which way I was headed. And since the recumbent was so unique looking, I assumed the trucks all knew I was returning to Holly Pond the following week.
And of the thousands of vehicles that passed me, only in Gadsden did a red Knight Trucking crowd me, and that was at an intersection. The ******* knew I was there, because I was hitting all the lights, and he was behind me for at least a mile.
After I flipped the red truck the bird, the green semi behind him honked twice to signal "yeah, that guy really IS an *******."
When you and Hawaii Ed start doing your rides around the island, and see a delivery truck, go ahead and tell them this loooooooong story, how you would appreciate it if the trucks would look out for ya.
What happens is, when the truck passes wide to the left, all the following vehicles know "something's up", even if they can't see you. You could just be debris that fell off the bed of a pickup, for all the farthest-backest drivers know.
Anyway, it works, and I can count "close calls" on one middle finger.
