Welcome to North Carolina

Having only been here a short four days, I woke up this morning and decided to explore the area. A quick look at the forecast could only convince me more: blue skies and mid to high 60's. It was a bit chilly when I set out, but the sun warmed my back through my black leather coat and several layers. After a quick pit stop to give the Daytona an unleaded drink, I set off North on NC86. Leaving Chapel Hill around 9 AM meant that the road was somewhat crowded, although with ample room to breathe, but the traffic was just a reminder that I needed to be on my toes, as well as my best behavior in the cockpit, to avoid incident on my first exploratory ride in unknown territory. The pressure I was feeling from the traffic surrounding me disappeared as soon as I crossed over the intersection with I-40, the highway swallowing most of the vehicles that had previously surrounded me to sweep them off to their 9-5. This opened 86 up to me, and pretty much completely to me. The further I pushed on up it, the more it revealed the true character of this state to me. There were old wooden fences hugging the edges of rolling green fields, and the cows that happily grazed in them. Otherwise, I must say, this road was mostly uninteresting. There weren't many rises or dips in elevation, nor were there any corners challenging me. Bodies of several dead deer hinted at me to keep my pace under control, and I was happy to oblige. I had set out towards Alton, Virginia to find Virginia International Raceway, a very attractive plus to where I'm living. I've yet to ride it but I'm very excited about the opportunity to do so.

I never found it either. I eventually found my right onto route 119 and was immediately elated to find that this road offered me far more twists and turns than the previous, so I picked up the pace a bit and took full advantage of the clear, smooth warm tarmac. A sign which read simply, "VIR" pointed to a quickly approaching left hand onto a different road so I grabbed a handful with my right hand and not long thereafter was greeted with a sign saying, "Welcome to Virginia!" Sweet. I pulled over to soak in the surroundings. The tarmac changed from newer to older, though still smooth at the Virginia line. The fields on both sides of me were walled in by forest, and showed signs of being crop fields. I snapped a couple of pictures and was about to get back on and push towards VIR when I realized that my rear tire looked strange...strangely glossed over. Tales rushed into my head, recounted by previous owners of Triumphs, likening their motorcycles to the Exxon Valdez. Suddenly this analogy didn't seem so funny to me, a Northeast boy in some sort of Middle of Nowhere between N.C. and Virginia. If I were to lose all of my oil (the leak seemed pretty bad, small puddles were forming, dripping off the fairings) out here, I would have no savior except the kindness of a passerby with a truck. It seemed that the oil was coming from the filter-ok-all I have to do is tighten it without burning my hand. I realized something was awry when the filter seemed tight as could be. A quick trip to a nearby gas station and my two saviors came to my rescue. A couple of country men stepped out of a truck, I approached them and asked them for a filter wrench, and we met in the middle with a pipe wrench. One of them took it upon themself to try it for me. "Ya got a hole in ya filter," he very frankly and simply put it to me. "You know you need to ride it to Roxbury, there's a Kazuki dealer there (read: Kawasaki), they'll give you a new filter." I punched in said dealer to my GPS, was there a quick 15 minutes later, one eye on the road, one on my oil light, and was elated to see when I arrived that they were also a Triumph dealer. They gave me a new filter, topped off my oil, and chatted me up while I waited. A quick hot dog at the gas station down the street and off I went, whee whee whee all the way home.