Matt Placed 17th in the 2007 Iron Butt Rally

“Maaaaaaaat. What’s the county seat of Wahkiakum County?”

Some 23 years ago I was a freshman at Kennewick High and had to suffer the indignity of taking Washington State History. It’s not like Washington has much history compared to the rest of the nation and it seemed ludicrous that while a Maryland freshmen was studying the historical significant of The Battle of Antietam, I was forced to spend two weeks on the signicance of Whitman missionaries getting too pious with the local Indians and getting their pushy butts massacred.

To top it off my teacher, Addie Verner, had a serious prediliction for quoting straight from her “Teacher’s Edition” textbook …..clinging to it like a talisman to ward off 9th grade apathy.

It didn’t work very well.

If it were not for Spring and the appearance of short-shorts on increasingly shape-shapely girls…..I fear I would have gone AWOL.  Whatever the answer was to Wahkiakum I missed it that day.  Sigh.
Somehow months later I somehow crammed all 39 county seats into my head mustered an A- out of the class.  However, fast forward 23 years and I couldn’t tell you half of the county names, let alone their county seats.  Hell, the only way I know it’s even 39 counties is because I just Googled it.

“It’s Cathlamet Miss Verner!”

…although I think she’d disapprove of the Internet if she’s still alive today.

There is however a new chapter to this life story.

Yeah, I’m in the IBR, but that’s not until August and I’ve got a bunch of time before the Utah 1088 in June. I’ve been growing a seed of an idea all last fall and think I’ve got a plan. What would it take to ride to all 39 county seats? I’ve got a spiffy new Olympus E-500 I’d like to use in the IBR. How about if I take a picture of each courthouse? What route would I take, how many miles would it be, and how long would it take?

With the of counties and seats in hand I plugged them into Microsoft Streets and Trips and came up with the following first-cut route.

My first thought was…..”Wow. This is doable with a two day ride! Perfect for a 3 day weekend…..before Memorial Day.”

Looking at the basic route I saw several tricky counties. First was San Juan County at Friday Harbor. Getting stuck to wait a ferry cycle while in the middle of a route would be maddening as an LD rider. Maybe I’ll start the trip here.

I fiddled with some more routes and found variations in the 1700 mile range….which presents the second dilemma….or opportunity depending on how one looks at it. Clearly more than 1500 and less than 2000. Does one try and get them all in less than 36 hours and call it a Bun Burner or does one add on some extra miles at the end and call it a Saddle Sore 2000?

I’m hopeful that I can start the ride and have the option as the end approaches to make the decision. If I’m behind pace with a Bun Burner with all the mucking around of snapping pictures….it would be helpful to have 300 miles at the end of just a pure road blasting to bring things back on a 2K in 2 day schedule.

With basic cities down it’s now time to start actually finding the exact addresses of the courthouses. I won’t have time on the road to wander towns to find them. Sure it’s easy in some place like Pomeroy because the town is so tiny that the courthouse is the 2nd tallest structure behind the grain silo. But Tacoma seems to change courthouses every few decades. I figure something with a plaque on and is photogenic…or at least proves I was somewhere.

Off to figure out a more detailed route and plan…..and aplan to avoid getting hassled by cops.

This is Part 1 in a three part story:  Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 of this drama.

One of my checklist items was to remount my Pelican case and start sorting out my handheld CB and antennae mount on a plate I had made.

I was pretty tickled with myself for the mounting plate, finding the recessed fasteners, and even powdercoated the plate for the original Pelican case farkle.

However, I spotted a problem. My rear subframe was cracked! So much for my fabrication skills.

So, I’ve been glumly thinking about the rear sub frame, priced a new one out as around $500, had a little trouble finding a welder, and generally bummed. The moment arm of the case caused too much flex for the cast aluminum to take and I had only put about 2000 miles on the rack.

I ran across Tobie Stevens that now has the FJR that is actually the 2003 bike pictured in the original article and told him about my dilemma. I made a bet that he had the same problem even though he has over 100,000 miles on the bike and pushed on the frame a bit and it seemed intact. He had an extra clamp installed and may have helped.

I also worried about Lisa’s ‘06 as it has a Pelican installed too. We couldn’t see them at the scene because they had fuel cells install, but Tobie e-mailed confirmation a couple of days later 2003 had some cracks, but happily Lisa’s ‘06 seemed intact.

Tobie’s cracks were pretty similar to mine.

But the extra clamp he had run down ran through the two round holes to reduce moment-arm flex had actually broken a chunk completely off the bike and another hairline crack.

Tobie calle a few days later and said not only did he find a welder to repair things and he had him weld in some reinforcements.

I’d have used the same welder, but he’s increasingly booked up over the Spring and couldn’t leave my bike for two days when I live 100 miles from home. So, I took my bike to a local guy and he was all gung-ho about fixing it and even gusseting it, but when I asked where I should park my bike he gave me a very blank look.

“……Park? I guess you could do that. You brought all your tools?”

“Yeah, the plastic pops off relatively easily and figure a wet towel under the tail will keep slag from burning things.”

…another blank look. “You’re not thinking of leaving the subframe on the bike are you? The high-frequency from the TIG welding could kill your electronics.”

…now I have a blank look. “But, my buddy Tobie did it.”

Suffice it to say that I rode the bike home and am rethinking my plan. With various ABS sensors and being in the IBR I just don’t want to risk it. It’s going to be a bunch of extra work, but there will be another article and pictures about about taking off my subframe.

I’m planning on starting this weekend after a RTE Saturday.
Meanwhile, I’ll rethink my bracket design and have some pretty good ideas using the existing rack as a mounting point. It holds on at 5 points instead of 3. New and improved design to follow.

Boneheaded….dumb….lucky….funny….Whew!

These are the terms that come to mind about 20 minutes ago.

After I buttoned the nose back up on the FJR last month I had noticed that the nose bounced around a bit more than I liked after moving the various ballasts around in them. I wasn’t overly alarmed until I rode home last night from the Desert Valley Powersports Grand Opening and hit a section of I-184 that had an uneven section of concrete.  I’m sure oncoming traffic thought I was a beady-eyed cop with wig-wags on or a slammed Honda with worn out shocks.
It was bad enough that I started playing scenarios in my mind that I had not gotten one or all four screws to the headlight reflector tight enough….or that my new choice of ballast placement was sub-optimal and I’d have to undo what I did. Demoralizing thoughts as the evening air of 65 degrees felt so good and signaled the beginning of the prime motocycling season.
Missing a bolt or a nut does happen from time to time and I had even had a mini-drama at work where I found a nut on the ground where I usually park my bike last week. I thought I recognized it as the tank pivot bolt nut and put it in my pocket. This is one of those that’s not totally critical, but I chastised myself for not cinching it down last month.

As I went to put it back on that evening it wasn’t the tank nut afterall.  It was happily torqued and my confidence was restored.  I chalked it up to being my buddy McCabe’s FZ-6 as it had what I’ve learned to be a Yamaha fastener patina…..or one of the other motorcycles at work. Whatever.  So it sat in a bin at home.

Back to the independent issue of the nose…..I grabbed hold of the whole assembly and flexed it up and down. What I noticed was more movement than I remembered last week. Hmmm. I knew there was a steel nose structure that held the nose to the frame.  Ugh.  Had I broken something?

Coincidentally I had changed to my clear windshied Friday evening so I looked down through it as I flexed the bike’s droopy snout and I could easily see that it was moving almost half an inch!

I rooted around in under the handlebars and find a nut was so loose that it had about three turns before it was going to fall off. I shouted the proverbial, “Aha!” The last 45,000 miles has either just loosened things up or maybe the increase nose weight had exacerbated things.   I whipped out the mini-socket, a 14mm socket, and went to town tightening up the  wayward nut.

Much less flex!

There’s a second companion bolt about 4 inches down that I can’t really photograph and couldn’t even really see. I felt around with my hand and in a split second the giant mystery of the extra nut was solved. There was no nut…I grabbed open thread. That nut I had found in the parking lot was this magic missing fastener and Yamaha had used the same nut as the tank.

Spinning the sucker back on I torqued it back down and breathed a big sigh of relief.  I wasn’t guilty of not retorquing a fastener…..just not keeping a closer eye on tightness of existing fasteners.

…..I cogitated a little more though unresolved.  I muttered to myself in my best Clint Eastwood voice, “Improvise, adapt and overcome.“  So, I took the nuts back off and Loctited them.

The bike is now ready to invade Greneda.

I was invited by Dan Denchell to be volunteer staff for Desert Valley Powersports grand opening today. His move from Sunnyside to Prosser makes his business much more attractive to Tri-Citians and the new space is phenomenal. Dan and his business have been incredible supporters of the FJR community and Iron Butt Rally including being a checkpoint over the years.

A great turn-out by any measure!

Some of the FRJ folks there. It was hard with the 1000+ people to stage a photo of just FJRs and riders, but here’s a few. In fact, the right two folks are Lisa and Tobie, and the blue bike Warchild is mugging from are all in this year’s Iron Butt Rally.

The show was phenomenal…..and the pictures turned out better once I figured out some exposure settings on my camera.

Just to be clear about this shot. He’s going from right to left……not left to right. Figure that one out.

I took so many shots that didn’t turn out…..this is one the timing turned out pretty good.

How does one build-up to a trick like this? It helps when you have a kevlar scrotum….

Zoomed in….this guy is about 30 feet above the ground with legs flailing. Notice the lack of arm armor……it must just get in the way.

The wonderful thing about being volunteer staff for the day is that you get to demo the coolest bikes. These are spy shots of the new ‘08 FJRs. Warchild is trading in his FJR for this ‘08 in Tuscan Blue while Tobie is sporting the ‘08 FJR FS in Vino Black. The IS stands for “Fixed Sidestand”. It’s permanently down so with special piece of carpet glued to the bottom….so it’s impossible to tip over while parking. (inside joke to the FJR crowd)

When you’re the photographer there aren’t too many pictures of yourself. Tobie grabbed my camera and proved a person with zero experience can shoot a photo as well as I can….sigh.

The locals from PNWRiders.com came up to visit.

Denise is much nicer to look at than Warchild and Tobie.

Owner, Dan Denchel takes a practice run. He’s pretty close to being able to do a back flip with an FJR…….at least just once anyway.

What can I possibly say about this one? It was an 11 hour day at this point and he’d been there the previous two days. It’s wrong on so many levels. However I think the blue Yamaha shirt really brings out his eyes.

I participated in my first Patriot Guard Ride. At the invitation of the Pfister family I got to help honor their fallen son, Sgt. Travis Pfister. I didn’t know Travis myself, but known various members of the Pfister family over the years. First stop was a Venti Mocha at Starbucks and ran into a few work colleagues, riding buddies, and acquaintances from PNWRiders.com.

Overwhelmed by the number of bikes that started to show up to King City truckstop I started counting and as we left to ride I counted no less than 392 bikes! Simply stunning and impossible to capture even with a wide-angle lens.

Bikes of every type and age were represented. Many were Harleys and cruisers with leather swathed riders including patches to many clubs and rallies. Also present were various riders from the PNWRiders.com forum. I parked amongst a batch of bikes that measure their worlds in terms of cubic inches, but it truly became a celebration by all riders as the morning brightened.

I met Jeff Matson, ride organizer, and had a nice talk with him about the mission of the PGR, the plan for the day, some “uninvited guests” that ended up really being a very minor part of the day, and, of course, motorcycles! The Pasco Police helped tremendously and even loaned him a PA for the ever-increasing crowd.

Myself and buddy Jim set about counting the number of bikes and came up initially with 180. And, then as bikes road in I added them to the count.

I ended up counting 392 motorcycles at King City alone! Combined later with a bunch of bikes that came to TRAC separately and we easily exceeded 400 with serious possibilities of over 500 motorcycles! The PGR told me it was absolutely a record for Eastern Washington. So many, it was impossible to even remotely capture everybody and their bikes in one picture.

At about 11:30 we had a ride briefing that set out the plan for the day. And got to learn about the head of “uninvited guest” and media relations, Knuckles (can you guess which one?), and Cowboy.

By the way, did I say how great the Pasco Police were? They rocked! Officer Moore is in the right and one heck of a nice guy. This shot got to me….

Riding there was a surreal experience. I got out early with the first 20 or so bikes and was clearly the only non-straight piped rice rocket amongst the front of the pack and wish I could have gotten a picture of what must have been an overwhelming sight of motorcycles from King City to Road 68. I venture to guess that the head of the snake made it to the end of the ride, some 6 miles away, before the tail of the snake was able to start. I feel sorry for the folks that had to wait for us, but hope they understood the special cause.

A picture from my friend Jim’s FZ6.

Heading into TRAC

A shot taken by Q of me and full HID lights blazing:

A shot showing the main line of bikes coming from King City and another smaller group coming from another place. I can see Some sport bike riders in the mid-ground.

As I rode into TRAC it was a sea of flags on the avenue as we crossed through. People smiling, people waving, clapping, and saying “Good job!”. I teared up for sure.

Parking was a loose operation.

Once parked I had to help perform a duty and I ended up doing such a great job at turning my back to the uninvited guests that I didn’t even consider taking a picture of them and their scant 4 or so protesting members and actually only caught the briefest of glimpses of their colossally intolerant asses. I learned that instead of empowering their cause by saying their group’s name….it’s far better to just call them “uninvited guests” or the UGs.

…I’m not even sure they’re viewable in the picture as 4 people behind the tree across the street. I stood myself for about a half hour with my back to them. It really was a pretty insignificant non-event.

After the protesters tired and the family was safely in TRAC at the service it was time to depart for lunch. Helping out families is hungry work.

More pictures and experiences can be found here and here.