Coast to Coast (and back?) with an Italian Supermodel

Took me about two days but I was riveted the whole time. Congratulations on the purchase of the Panigale, this trip seems like the best way to break that sucker in. If Ducati USA is watching, this guy deserves some recognition.

+1

I plan on heading out places for prolonged periods and would also like to see what to take. I'm a minimalist traveler as well!

Advance apologies for posting this 40 pages in....

I've been lurking - what a fantastic ride report!! Thanks!! You are making a difference to everyone reading this. You're giving us things doing what you love. And that's not a coincidence.

The issue with excuses is that people are not aware of them - the mind is really good into fooling itself. If you say to somebody head-on "you're making excuses" - well, expect an outpouring of excuses. As. Seen. Above. Expect all those "...but...." sentences to come out, even on this website. It's normal. It's to be expected. And it's just excuses.

Not making excuses, one has to be aware of one's own excuses first. I am certainly no superstar - but at least I am aware of my excuses. I am aware they're just stories I tell myself. And every time I become aware of a new story, every time I discover one, I go "ohh.. there's another one". And it's a huge A-Ha moment every time. It's thrilling.

At the same time, there's another confusion, which is about the goal of it all. What is the goal? Is it s trophy wife, a GT3, a Panigale super-extra edition? A huge house? 50 houses? A yacht, or 50? Wealthiest guy in the graveyard? Happiness?

Your idealized character Mr J is likely an exception; I've met people like that. And in my opinion the only thing that sets them apart from the others is not making those excuses. What sets them apart is not smarts, brawn, brains, birthright, upbringing. It's not making excuses. That's it. That's good news because you can do that, too. Even if you're not yet.

Everyone's obsessed with money - even ostensibly rich people think they don't have enough. Like the "poor" millionaires in the affluent areas of silicon valley - sure they might have 10 mill in the bank, but all their neighbors are billionaires. So they feel poor. Those who are aware that they have enough realize that, whoops, that wasn't it. But those on the other side of the fence think it solves all problems - a classic grass is greener scenario. All wealthy people will tell you otherwise - but you won't listen, until you see for yourself. That day may never arrive.

For myself I have come to the conclusion that if $100M appeared overnight in my bank account nothing would change in my life. Actually, and here's the relevance to this thread, the only difference it would make is vehicles. I'd drive a Porsche and have a stable of Ducatis. So now I can make educated decisions about what I am willing to sacrifice for money - I can make trade-offs. 10 years all work no play for better vehicles with nothing else changing - definitely not worth it. 1 year - nope. 1 day - maybe? Then again, each day is valuable.

On the other side of money is what would you do if you didn't need it. That's what you should do; now.

Hard work is an illusion. An 80 hour week doing what you love is not hard work. 1 hour doing what you don't want to is.

Good RR keep the pics and narrative coming

Ok, so here's my secret:



Multistrada Luggage donated to me by Dr. J, velcro'd to the back of the tail section. It's got enough room for my 6-disc DVD Player and TV, a six pack of Hendricks, all my gear, and a set of lawn darts.

lawn darts, FTW!

that post by the semen was awesome btw, see AH, you've gone worldwide mang!

I know that spot where you took a leak. I've done the same right there too.

Yep, traffic on I 70 sucks ass 24/7/365.

You rock! Subscribed.

With AH's blessing (and to avoid any potential thread-jacking accusations), here are some pics of how I pack my gear into the same bag. This is the setup we used for our recent 15 day, 3,000 mile trip. I'll note that (aside from the clothes) this stuff is not jammed into there like canned sardines. Everything is accessible and there's nothing there that we really don't need. We learned our lesson a long time ago. People tend to overpack when on a trip like this (AH has the right idea obviously). You wear your riding gear during the day, so all you really need is whatever you'll wear when you get to your destination (dinner, etc.). We also take into account that we'll be able to wash whatever little clothes we have at some of our destinations.
Anyway, I use eagle-creek packing cubes, which aside from making it a lot easier to pack and unpack, they also make it a lot easier to get everything in and out of the bag. Pretty important when your packing and unpacking almost every day. It basically lets you compress the stuff down before you get it in the bag and allows me to get all of this in there:
- 2 pants (jeans and hiking pants)
- 2 dress shirts
- Fleece pullover sweater
- Cotton gym shorts
- underwear
- socks
- belt
- 4 t-shirts (2 white, 2 black)
- 2 long-sleeved t-shirts
- Small air compressor
- Tire repair kit

This is everything that is packed into 2 small Eagle creek packing cubes:


The bag on the bike:


Jacket taken out of it's compression sack (visible (packed) in back-pack picture below)



I like to keep the backpack as slim as possible, and even then I have all this in there and still have room to spare):
- Pair of shoes (black Nike running shoes, double duty for day/night...even with dress shirts)
- jacket (in black compressed pouch in middle between shoes)
- tool roll (some tools and a tire repair/plug kit)
- Small ratchet/socket kit (pictured below)
- cable lock to lock the 2 bikes to each other at night (in small black Buell pouch)
- Towel and small spray bottle with auto quick detailer to clean visor.
- iPad
- Spare gloves (rain/cold weather)
- Backup hard drive
- a small pouch with all my charger cables, lens pen, etc


Backpack (Kriega R-20)


Small tool kit (which has become a go-to kit even at home. If you ever had to work in the tight spaces around this bike, you'd know what I mean):


Small compressor and SAE lighter plug and USB adapter (plugs into battery tender lead):


Here you can see that the backpack is pretty compact:


Tank bag: serves as a camera bag and contains[/U]:
- Digital SLR camera and a not-so-small (way-too-big) lens
- sunglasses
- rain cover

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your wheels alone


"Anti-Hero's Ride" somehow makes me think of the scene in "The Great Escape" when Steve McQueen's character tries and fails to jump a bike over a security fence to freedom, except this time, he makes it.

Thanks for a superbly written and photographed RR that, with it's philosophical aspect, soared above.

AH. Words and photos are awesome. Thank you for sharing.

RB

Thanks for this info.
I will have way more space in my set up, but I will have to bring camping stuff. The pack-it half cube is pretty interesting, never seen it before.

Outstanding RR on so many levels.

My Grandfathers first boyhood trips into Detroit were on a horsedrawn wagon with his Father. They would leave in the pre dawn darkness for the city on Saturday mornings. They sold produce from their farm, door to door. His father stayed on the reins, Grandpa hustled back and forth from wagon to house, food to the house, money to the wagon. The city eventually grew out to swallow the farm and the fields were sold to the school district. The original house still stands, flanked by two schools.
I was in Detroit last summer and saw the carnage you saw. What you don't see is the concentric circles of similar wreckage in the small towns around Detroit. For every job on the auto production line, there were 8 more jobs in support industries. For a hundred miles in any given direction, there are empty remnants of the small businesses that supported the Motherships of the Big 3. Tool and Die shops, metal works, textiles, plastics, etc. Thousands of family owned small businesses. Many of the medium sized names are gone as well. Fisher, Walker, Bendix, Aeroquip, Delco, etc. Detroit was once the jewel in the crown of American productivity. Businessmen came from around the world to see how it was done. I spent the first half of my life watching it all reduced to dust through greed, graft and corruption. They killed the goose that laid the golden egg, and a once beautiful city died a slow, ugly death.

I've been fortunate enough to spend weeks and months at a time on the road on a bike. You've done a superb job describing the altered state of conciousness that can come in a "moving meditation". Your essay on "Motorcycles function as limbic system regulators" set off bells in my head. As the product of sub-par parenting, there is much to explore there.

Now, I'm off to research Dr.Spitz and limbic function!

Ride on...

I like to roll my daily "necessities" into a gallon ziplock bag - socks, underwear, t-shirt. You can then squeeze all the extra air out and keeps things watertight (because even if you have a waterproof bag you'll have to open it eventually!) and easy to pack/unpack (and see what you're grabbing!).

Especially handy because I usually just strap a regular old army dry bag on the back of my bike when I go - and there's absolutely no organization inside those things - or pack an assault pack (whose straps conveniently cinch down on my passenger grab bars) which isn't waterproof in the least. Either one can be packed for long trips as long as you aren't sleeping outside - and then I just toss my waterproof sleeping back on there too (once again, issued gear, stuff sack is easy to attach to bike or pack).

well put.

lay out the clothes and money for your road trip. halve the clothes and double the money.

+1


I always favored taking old clothes and throwing them away as I went. Send a box with freshies to general delivery some where ahead. Since I've become a Jack Reacher fan, I may modify to just buying every few days and tossing.

AH, your attitude and writing style actually reminded me Lee Child/ Jack Reacher. That's what drew me into the RR initially.
You have definitely established your own voice.

No post in 2 days??????
I'm Jonesing!

Happy Holidays Anti where ever you may be. Thanks for giving us all the gift of your adventure!

Best quote ever.

Been on the road for three days, plus a couple. It's good that I'm behind, as it's going to take me a while to figure out where I'm at. :)

On to Vegas!


Vegas (and this R/R) all starts with a project I had called Six Six Twelve. When I originally got divorced, my plan was: Live in 6 states in 6 months, then go to Europe and live in 6 countries in 6 months. As I neared just as I was about to put my house up for sale, the economic meltdown hit. So I kept the house, went to Death Valley and came up with a new plan: train for and run my first marathon there--and if I didn't die--train for Ironman. (Lesson being: if one door slams in your face, go kick open another.)

We know what happens next: compete, tumor, breakup. But in between those last two I put a deposit down on the Panigale. My house was in escrow and I figured, fuck it--I'm going to Europe. Booked a flight to London a month after the house was supposed to close and then I met this guy online who just ordered a Panigale, but was now last in line for one. Seeing as though it would be a while before I needed mine, he and I swapped spots. Right around the time he picked up his (my) bike, I the house sale started to fall through (fraud or something or other on the buyers part). Fucking nothing just goes right for me. Ended up finally closing on the house, which happened literally 2 hours before my flight to Europe.

End result: now I had no bike and was not in Europe. Fast forward a few weeks and Newport Beach Ducati got in a huge shipment of Panigales and off I went. The dude I originally swapped bikes with seemed like a pretty awesome guy, though--and was not afraid of putting long miles on the Duc. We tried to meet up several times, but we never managed to make it work. So on my way back to CA I had to stop in Vegas. I had no idea what kind of ride awaited me, though. Holy SHIT! (*Legal disclaimer: everything I'm about to say is fictitious.)

We met up outside of Vegas and (I'll call him Ghost Rider for now) brought some friends with some very fast bikes (ZX-14s, an R1 (R6?) and an S1000RR). As I parked/got off my bike I spun around, caught my leg on the back of his 200 rear tire and fell right there in the parking lot in front of all him and all his buddies. If I had been standing there I'd have thought--fuck this guy! I'm not riding with a total klutz--if he can't even walk how the hell is he supposed to ride in a group?





"My" actual bike. I kind of feel sorry for her--she didn't get to see the US and got to star in only a chapter of this R/R instead of the whole thing. Consolation, though, is the pristine condition she's still in:






We get onto the road and it must have been a minute or two before we were out in the middle of nowhere closer to the rev limiter in sixth than the posted speed limit. Now, when I've put my license (and life) in jeopardy, it's typically been in very remote places on deserted roads and I've only stayed there long enough to get up to a certain point before backing the fuck off. But these guys didn't know that limit. We were on relatively deserted roads in the middle of nowhere, but it was as if we were all being chased by the apocalypse and propelled by desmo demons from hell. Full throttle for what seemed like an hour. It was fucking nuts. Legal disclaimer and all, I'm not even going to discuss the actual speeds or the location. Nuts.

Get back to Ghost Rider's house and I'll say someone has been paying attention to my vices:



Around this time of the trip I occasionally try to imagine settling down in a house. And I just can't. The 'state' of being a nomad is too much a part of me at this point...or so I thought. Yet another gorgeous and beautiful house to stay at for a couple nights: