Home after a 450 mile ride from Missouri. Great tour.
Ken said-
"Wow, thats a pretty strong statement coming from you Guy. Is that giving you any second thoughts about only having one horse in the stable?"
It has. It would be hard to get on the Honda for a long tour, and leave the FJR in the garage with its excellent seat, dial in suspension, cruise control, Sport/Tour setting for the throttle, advanced electronics and fierce powerplant. The RT offers a totally different kind of experience, and that in itself will keep it around.
But when it comes to the Honda, emotion takes over. The Feejer is suppose to be better, it has 10 years of development behind it. Honda made the ST and just left it alone for its entire run, and now it is no more. In its day it was a great bike. It still is, but it just can't compete with today's designs. Each year you will see a fewer more on the road. untill oneday they will be few and far between. I don't think I could ever sell my Honda though, but it could be retired from any more long rides.
I will go on record saying the ST 1300 is the most reliable bike ever made, it makes me sad Honda never updated the bike, and chose to phase it out.
But back to the tour at hand. I was wet almost every morning, but it could have been a lot worse. In Kansas, I was camped out in the fiercest storm I've ever seen in my 59 years. I'd never seen anything like it. Straight line winds in 70 mph range at least, belted me and my Eureka for over a hour. So much so it broke my pole and shredded the fabric. My tent collapsed in the squall, and so much lightening I thought some joker had turned his headlights on me, the sky was just a steady light so many flashes. When the tent collapsed the rain flap became ineffective. It rained so hard, it was like someone was pouring buckets over me. I had water pouring in. I was on my back using my legs and arms as tent poles to keep some kind of sheleter going. I had water pouring in from everywhere. Everything I owned got soaked. The motofizz might as well been outside on the table. It blew the can of plexus I left on the table up against a tree 40 yards away.
I fought fires and haz mats for 27 years but I didn't know scared till that night in Kansas. (elder state park in the north). I thought if the lightening doesn't get me, some vortex is gonna drop down and pull me up. The wind pulled me a inch off the ground one tme, I thought it was over. It was like a huge vacumn cleaner was over me. I had no place to go. Shelter was half mile away (washroom). This went on for over a hour. If you have seen those weather guys on the beach when a hurricane comes in, that was me. The only reason it didn't blow over the FJ it was facing into the wind and not cross wind.
How did this happen? 80 miles from the campsite I got out my Ipad to check the radar to see what was west of me (anything west is coming east) Radar said nothing. What I failed to notice the page didnt refresh, I was looking at yesterday's map. When I arrived in the campground I could see bad weather to the south and west, but figured they were isolated. Wrong. With no WIFI or 4g, I rode 25 miles next morning to a MickeyDs to get a reliable signal and said "I gotta see what happened to me last night." What I saw was a HUGE system 50 or so miles east of my location. Probably 80 miles in width why it took so long to go over me. It was presently covering half on Iowa.
What made it so bad was my tent was on the bank of huge lake. It was over a mile from where I was to the far bank, so with no wind breaks my little tent took it full force. Fortunately I arrived at my friends house in Colorado Springs next day and was able to wash and dry my clothes and sleeping gear. My sleeping bag looked it was dumped in the lake, same with my pad YUCK. The warm, no moisture air of Colorado dried my stuff out in a hour. Pete and I managed to fix my pole and patch up the holes and stitch the fabric to get me by the rest of the tour. but the Eureka will have to be replaced. That storm killed t, after all these years.
Folks don't kid yourself out there on a long ride. Storms this time of year in the midwest ain't nothing like what you have bsck east. Respect them. Have good intel. I took some pics the next morning of the aftermath, I have them on my website on the revelant day of the tour.
