To: WL From: "Kathy E. Gill" Subject: Day Six : Still a newbie - part one Cc: Bcc: PE X-Attachments: Day Six : Still a newbie - part one I really wish I knew *why* I must learn experientially. Here's the positives of the day: -- I now have an Arai helmet that fits (xs) even though they only come in white -- My clutch lever now matches the brake lever (ie, short) -- I have another pair of nice REI pants that breath well and wick away sweat How this came to be (might as well be chronological). First off - nothing *bad* happened. Seriously inconvenienced? yes. Potentially bad? yes. But not bad. Got up at 5 in Grand Junction. Walked out of the motel (the Mesa) at 6:10 - helps to have packed up everything the night before. Except that the temps are different and I slightly underestimated how much clothing I'd soon need. . Check out - drive up the street for my complimentary breakfast - remember I left the MCI phone card on the table. Go back for it. Get on the road about 7 am. I-70 is scenic. I know it's hard to think of "interstate" and "scenic" in the same breath, but headed east from GJ - it is. It follows the Colorado as the river meanders through canyons. Quite lovely. Keeping a fairly easy pace - running with traffic, which is about 10 above posted speeds. Feels odd to be back *in* traffic. I didn't realize how soon I'd be climbing - or how soon I'd be cold. After ~40 miles - I pull off at a Texeco - gas up. Pull out clothes and head for the bathroom. Pull the polarfleece jacket from the small compression sack that has been sitting on the right tourmaster for 5 days. When I recompress it - it's Much smaller -it has only dirty laundry and a sweatshirt. Fully half of its bulk is gone. This is significant later. Proceed east - surprised that Aspen comes up so soon - and that it is so far away from Denver. I didn't remember. Approach Vail and am in another of the many "highway repair" zones. BUMP down to grooved pavement - BUMP up again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat a couple miles later. I'm behind a van - the flagger signals "slow" then, right as I get beside her, she turns the sign to "stop" - but I'm in slow react time and think "why is she trying to stop the second vehicle?" A few hundred feet - back to right lane to let the car behind me pass. They pull alongside - windows rolled down - point to the shoulder - and mouth something that looks like "fire". I do a quick stop and sure enough, the small compression sack has come "unbungeed" up front but remains "tied" at the back - so it "flipped" behind the tourmaster - and obviously touched the pipe. I grab the water bottle from behind the ventura and splash - out goes the fire. A truck pulls up behind me immediately - the passenger jumps out with a can of coke. "This happened to me on my BMW!" he exclaimed. By now, I'm untying the mess that remains - half a sweatshirt. I must be in shock because I'm calm and using graveyard type humor. Another guy stops - he's an EMT or something with Vail hospital. He's carrying a radio. "I have to ask you to please not leave," he said, "someone on a cell phone called 911 and a firetruck is on its way. It's not possible to turn it around." He also tells me that this is on the radio - "motorcycle with saddlebag on fire on I-70." I'm Thursday morning's entertainment. So he and I chat. He asks where I'm from. I tell him what I'm doing. "Oh. My mom has breast cancer. She just had a masectomy. They tell you everything about what's happening physically - but they don't prepare you for the emotions. My dad's having a tough time. So are us kids." Pause. "I'm glad someone is doing something about education and research. Thank you." I gulp ... this is, remember, why I'm doing this. The moment ends when he says, "Oh, there's the fire truck coming now. I'll be on my way. Thanks again." I turn to look west and sure enough, here comes the fire truck, lights blazing. I calmly walk up to the truck as the guys jump out pulling on their masks. (this really IS funny) There is no fire, I explain. We walk over to the bike and they look at the charred mess on the ground. They have to do an inspection though - one guy has a gun-looking thing that checks temps. He makes sure there's nothing smoldering anywhere. About this time, a statey pulls up. (let's just have a party on the shoulder, shall we?) He's in a jovial mood - we're keeping him from a meeting that he doesn't want to attend. ;-) However, he decides not to write up a report and heads off to his meeting. The firemen take the 'trash' so that I don't add litering to my insults of the day. I look the bike over to make sure nothing is screwed up. Lights work. Turn signals work. No damage. Ah - wait. The corner of the tent stuff sack is melted. Sigh. I'm not going to think about this right now (doing a Scarlett). Get back on the bike - and the seriousness of what happened (and didn't) finally hits me. Plus - I'm trying to figure out what went wrong. Analysis: when i put the compression sack back on the tourmaster - i didn't change the tension on the bungee cords that secured it up front. therefore, given its smaller size, it was "loose". If, however, I had tied it up front and bungeed it in the back - this never would have happened. Lesson learned. Kathy on digest FAIAP postponed