No matter how many times I go to northwestern Arkansas to ride, whether on one of my sportbikes or on my dualsport, I always have a great time. The pavement around Eureka Springs is generally well-maintained and twisty as you like, weaving through the verdant Ozarks like a boa constrictor in need of a good chiropractor; there's the infamous Pig Trail (State Highway 23), of course, as well as old favorites like Highways 21, 16, 123, and others. The offroad stuff ranges from sightseer heaven overlooking the Buffalo River to as challenging as you've got the stones to make it single-track. The huge plus, of course, is that all this great riding is just a broken brake lever's throw from Oklahoma City. Not to mention the fact that Eureka Springs is, in and of itself, a really cool little town.
This past weekend, Eureka Springs played host to a ZZR rally, with something like 35 riders in attendance, most mounted on the mighty ZZR1200, but a few on the new ZX-14 (dubbed the ZZR1400 in Europe) and an assortment of other bikes. This rally was organized by my riding buddy Crazytrain and plugged on the
ZZR Bikes website for many months. Since I rarely miss an opportunity to ride (a) with Crazytrain and (b) in the Ozarks, I'd really been looking forward to this one.
I chose to leave my ZZR at home in the garage (it needs tires) and take my new CBR1000RR instead (it came with new tires -- ha!). The plan was to meet my buddy Greg in Talihina Thursday night; he would also be riding his brand new CBR. Greg and I would do Talimena Drive and play around in Arkansas, meeting up with the ZZR boys in Eureka Springs Friday evening. There was scattered rain in Oklahoma on Thursday, and wouldn't you know it, a bunch of it scattered in my direction just as I was getting ready to leave the house about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Thanks again, Mother Nature! I sat on the bike in the garage for about 30 minutes watching it come down, hoping it would pass through pretty quick. I hadn't ridden the CBR in the rain yet, and with nearly 160 ponies at the rear wheel, I was worried it might be a bit squirrelly on wet pavement. Finally, though, I just said screw it and rode. I didn't want to arrive in Talihina after dark -- too many deer in the area! Turns out I only had to ride in the rain for about 30 minutes and the CBR handled it well. Despite the massive amounts of "Get Outta Dodge Fast!" packed under its purty blue 'n yeller plastic, it really has a very manageable throttle.
I blazed out my usual route: Highway 9 to Highways 71, 2, and 1. Somewhere on a desolate stretch of 9, with me running about 90-95 mph and nothing but cows as witnesses to the crime, I crested a hill and found blue and red lights flashing from quite a ways down the road. It was a local sheriff type with someone already pulled over. I backed off the throttle, but didn't worry about it too much. Probably cruised past him doing 70-75 in a 65. Well, he musta been done, because he pulled out behind me, never bothering to switch off his happy lights from one customer to the next. At first I couldn't even believe he was after me. I let him follow me for a bit while I gradually slowed down, looking back over my shoulder with my most incredulous "Who, me?" posture going strong. When I pulled over, he proceeded to tell me that he'd clocked me at 85 (and even showed me the radar gun), but he was going to do me a favor ... yada yada yada, the usual drill. Damn, my second ticket in 5 months!
Now, maybe he did clock me at 85 ... but personally I think that was the reading from his last ticket ... or the ticket he wrote two weeks ago Tuesday ... or whatever. He wrote me up for 75, then told me the ticket would only cost $25. What?!?! $25? Why even bother? Hell, for $25, I'll speed through there every friggin' day of the week, Bubba! $25 isn't even worth the time I'm wasting sitting here jawing with you, Occifer. When I cautiously mentioned that I couldn't believe the ticket was so cheap, he let me in on the honest truth that it's all about revenue. At $125, most people go to court and fight the ticket, lots of people never pay them and cost the police time and money issuing bench warrants, and blah blah blah, it's all a great big money-making scam and the money rolls in just as fast as you please at a measly $25 a pop. The guy's about 350-400 pounds and his patrol car probably needs a new set of shocks and he's from someplace called Hanna, Oklahoma -- that I've never even heard of, nor have the faintest clue if I even passed through the stupid burg* -- where the donuts are probably coming up hot and fresh right now, thank you very much. Sign the dotted line and be on your merry way, Mr Sportbiker (and don't forget to mail in your $25!).
So I did. And pressed on. I'm calling bullshit on the whole incident, though, and would be willing to bet anything that the next person coming over that hill at anything above the speed limit got clocked at ... you guessed it ... 85 mph.
I rolled into Talihina in plenty of time to beat the nightly parade of deer venturing out on the roadways to check out the pretty lights. Greg's bike was already parked at the hotel (Kiamichi Inn, same place we always stay: cheap but clean). As usual, he didn't come to the damn door when he heard me pull up -- probably already gone to bed. I revved the engine a couple times. Honked the CBR's funny little toy horn. Nothing. I finally kicked the door nearest his bike. Some strange guy yanked it open and glared at me. "Sorry, buddy. Wrong room. Where's the guy that owns the red and black bike?" "Beats the hell outta me," he said and slammed his door. I moved on to the next door in line which, fortunately, turned out to be Greg's room. He was watching television, flipping from channel to channel at high speed and grumbling like a gorilla with Attention Deficit Disorder. What, did he think there would actually be something on worth watching?
We had dinner at the little cafe on Talihina's main drag -- parked next to a VTX cruiser and one of those new sportbikes imported from China or Korea or Taiwan or some place. Hyosung? Not a bad looking bike, but I don't think you'll be seeing one in my garage in this lifetime. We didn't even have time to get our helmets off before a 15-year-old kid came running out of the cafe to drool over the CBRs. Turned out that the cheapo sportbike was his -- a little 250. Certainly more stylish than a Ninja 250 (but I'm betting not nearly as reliable) and I'd have killed to own one when I was 15, even if it fell apart in a year or two. (I'm not saying it will, mind you, but I wouldn't bet money against it.) The Honda VTX belongs to his dad, they're having dinner inside, and why don't we come join them. So we did. Nice folks. The kid was wearing race leathers (ebay booty) and a good helmet, so he was starting out right, but he did mention that the red sportbike was Number 2, as he'd already thrown down a black one. Dad was an OB/GYN from Muskogee who was now working at the VA Center in Talihina -- talk about a change in perspective! Anyway, Greg and I enjoyed their company while we waited an inordinately long time for our food.
The CBR1000RR and I above the fog on Talimena Drive.In the morning, Greg and I woke early to heavy fog. We dried the bikes with hotel towels, then had breakfast at the same cafe (Sorry, I don't recall the name of the place, but you can't miss it), hoping the fog would burn off while we ate. It didn't. We headed up into the mountains anyway, climbing above the fog line in short order, which was nice because I've been through there before when the fog went all the way to the top and I had to tiptoe through at 20 mph because I couldn't see a damn thing. We snapped a few cool pics at one of the overlooks, but generally just blazed up to the lodge at Queen Wilhelmina State Park (I watched for Danny's old tent as I went past, but it was gone), where we stopped for a pee break. Then it was on into Mena. From Mena, we worked our way north on 71 and 23. Once north of I-40, the really good roads began. We had plenty of time and were in no hurry to get to the hotel in Eureka Springs, figuring that most of the ZZR boys would be out riding anyway, so we decided to make a nice big loop incorporating some good twisty roads.
At a gas station somewhere, a pack of sportbikes came howling down the road and I immediately recognized the unique Micky Mouse headlight configuration. A second later, I recognized the lead rider, another riding
compadre of mine named Charlie. Charlie rides a ZZR dressed in the pretty blue plastic that the Canadians got one year, but we Americans didn't ... something to do with trashing his original bodywork in a getoff. He was leading about a dozen yahoos, some of whom I knew by screen name from the ZZR website. Howdy-do's were exchanged, the CBRs were drooled on a bit more (to be fair, I was drooling on the ZX-14s), and Greg and I decided to join the pack for the remainder of their ride.
Eventually, late in the afternoon, we turned for Eureka Springs, but not before it decided to rain on us. I think we rode about 30 miles in a downpour. My Gericke jacket proved itself minimally waterproof for the second or third time now. Boots and pants held up fine. I wasn't wearing waterproof gloves, so those got soaked. Fortunately, it was plenty warm. Dinner for me and the Gregmeister was Pizza Hut. We tried to swipe free salads from the salad bar, but the waitress added them to our bill. If I'd known I was gonna get charged for it, I'd have really tanked up on the salad goodies instead of the piddly little helping I actually took! Greg went to bed at his usual 8 pm or so, while I waited up for Crazytrain's scheduled late arrival ... but I finally got tired and went to bed, too. Supposedly Crazytrain arrived about 15 minutes after I went to bed. He had a couple guys on ZX-14s with him, one of whom promptly dropped his bike in the parking lot after making the long haul all the way from Houston. D'oh!
CBRs in the rain, Friday afternoon.
Saturday, Greg and I were up at dawn and spent hours waiting for everyone else to get their act together. We broke into groups and spent the day riding in glorious sunshine. You couldn't have asked for a prettier day! We rode with Crazytrain's fast group, which really should have been labeled the "Stupidly Effing Fast Group." Riding around like that is so much fun it ought to be illegal ... oh, wait, it
is illegal. There were a couple guys in the group who were so unbelievably fast that I know I'll never match them, but the CBR and I did fine, keeping up with 90% of the pack when we felt like it and drifting along in the rear and enjoying the scenery when we didn't. The bike itself is a huge part of the equation. It handles about ten times better than my ZZR ever did. Turns via some new-fangled mental telepathy interface or something. Brakes are from some alien technology unheard of in any other bike I've ever owned. Suspension has you so connected to the road, you can actually feel insect turds as you run over them. Certainly more power than I know what to do with. Damn comfy seat for a "crotch rocket." And so on. I only ever had one out-of-control moment when the bike was launched from a bump in the road. The CBR and I were literally airborne for a few seconds in the apex of a 35 mph sweeper that I was taking at about 80 mph. Not a good thing on a sportbike! We came through it unscathed, however, thanks to the incredible handling of the CBR.
Anybody got a towel?
Our group's ride was not without incident, though. A ZZR rider went down in what I know as ZRod's Corner (because this is where ZRod once rode his KLR straight through the curve and off the side of the mountain, just barely missing a huge boulder and several large trees). This is a 10 mph downhill switchback on the Pig Trail. If you've ever ridden there, you probably know the corner. It turns downhill (if you're riding north to south) through more than 180 degrees, doubling back under itself. Might be a 240 degree turn or something ungodly like that ... all downhill so that you're hard on the brakes and stuck to the seat by the proverbial pucker. Anyway, one of the ZZR riders in our fast group lowsided there and went down over the edge, narrowly missing the same trees and Volkswagon-sized boulder that ZRod had missed a couple years ago. Probably not the only two motorcycles that corner has claimed over the years. The bike was rideable -- after it took 4 or 5 of us 10 minutes to muscle it back up the bank and onto the road -- but it's looking at a new set of plastic now. I took a photo of it back at the hotel later ... along with shots of two other ZZRs that went down in the "slow group" that same day.
After getting home on Sunday and checking the ZZR website, I learned that two other bikes went down Sunday (Greg and I left for home early Sunday morning), one of them being my buddy Charlie, the other being a young guy on a ZX-6R, for a total of 5 bikes down out of the 35 or so in attendance. This is a horribly high percentage, and it's a miracle no one was injured. The problem with group rides like this is sometimes testosterone takes over or people get in over their heads following more experienced riders or ... I dunno. To everyone who attends these things, though, please be careful.
Sunday morning, Greg and I were up at dawn again and bugged out while most folks were still sawing logs. We set a nice, leisurely pace down Highway 23 to I-40. Somewhere along the way, a hillbilly in a pickup pulled out into the road and just stopped there, daring us to t-bone him. Less attentive riders might have done just that. Greg and I braked to make sure the dumbass wasn't going to back up, then shot by his rear bumper with about a foot of roadway to spare. He looked right at me, made eye contact and everything, completely unapologetic. What was he thinking?
At I-40, we got off the bikes, cleaned the bugs from our visors and parted with a hug. Greg continued on south for Dallas and I grabbed some interslab for a rocket-propelled ass-hauling to OKC, the speedo on the CBR hovering in the 95-100 range most of the way. I was home in about 4 hours and 15 minutes, the fastest I've ever made it home from Eureka Springs. Tried to listen to my iPod while slabbing, but the damn thing locked up on me three times before I gave up and put it away. I think the little hard drive inside gets shaken around too much when I wear it on my sleeve or maybe it gets too hot out in the sun. It works better stuffed inside my jacket, but then I can't work the controls, and if I get pulled over it's one more thing I'm fumbling for so that I can hear the friendly officer (who might think I'm digging in my jacket for a gun or something).
*So I just checked the map and Hanna is four or five miles south of Highway 9 and at least that many miles back to the west of where this donut jockey stopped me. I was nowhere near the stupid place!
Addendum: Those who read my motorcycle adventure blatherings on a regular basis know that I often include snippets from my riding buddies. This is from an email from the Gregmeister, talking about the ride home on Sunday:
Thanks for riding with me once again, Greg. Hope to share the road with you again real soon, my friend.
