The Filthy Four _Filthy Freedom Summer Tour '06

After the terrible crash and Husker’s losing of face it was hard for him to keep up with us. We were averaging 85MPH on the interstate and he was lagging behind. His bike ran okay, El Stinko and I ran it few times and it seemed okay.

We were in Memphis, Tenn. and eating breakfast at a Waffle House–a place where you will always find someone who is 150 pounds heavier then you will ever be. Husker had got his own room at the hotel and shunned our after-ride beer drinking and TV commentary ritual. We’d sit in bed watching local TV news, drink Bud and mostly say, “I’d bang her. I’d do both of those girls upside down.etc” We told him at the waffle hut,for the brazilianth time, that if he fell behind he’d be left behind!

Well Husker had enough, and as we rode down the highway he fell behind, rode to a Greyhound station, abandoned his $4,600 1000cc, 2003 motorcycle in the parking lot. He wore the Angels shirt he bought at the Angels/Dodgers game I took him to and pointed to the shirt saying" I want to go here!"

He reportedly changed buses in Dallas, got into LA then to Orange County. He met a deranged bleached-blond Mexican woman, with a chihuaha that my dad said had scabis, who drove him to Casa De Bubba Sr. He was on a plane to Planet Taiwan the next day with tales of woe and half his luggage, (the other half Stinky was carrying for him) and lots of cool Walmart T-shirts for friends and family.

After 3 hours we gave up waiting for him then heard the above story 3 days later. Nothing like ditching your friends after 5,000 miles of riding!!! …then there were 2!

At least he didn’t take our Freakin’ tools like Mouldy did.

By this time we heard that Mouldy had left his bike in Pittsburg and was making his way back to Taiwan.

After Husker’s disappearance- we did what every biker trash redneck would have done-

We bought a gun and went to visit Elvis’ house and prayed to the King for divine intervention.

We stopped in a Bass and Hunt emporium that was a redneck Mecca. There were stuffed wildlife everywhere, rows of beef jerky, young kids begging parents to buy them highpowered weapons, I swear I heard one kid say while pointing at a chrome plated snub nosed .357 “That’s the one my grandma has.”

They had both kinds of music playing over the muzak- country and western.

There were huge displays of bass fishing boats, outboards, speed loaders, crossbows, scoped assualt rifles, and cammo kids wear. Guys drove up in camoflauged pick up trucks looking for a good time.

Well I found her. While shambling through the store I caught the eye of a blond, feather-haired beauty working there as a cashier. She was a juicy southern peach ready to be picked. I could see her undressing me wondering what my tattoos looked like under my Joe Rocket jacket and road grease. She looked like Farrah Fawcett did when I was twelve and every 12 year old had her poster on their bedroom wall. And every 12 year old was thinking right what I was thinking about miss southern belle. Miss Southern Peach she had round bouncy yammies and a backside that swung like a North Carolina porch swing on a long, hot summer night.

But I degress.

Stinko was working his charms at the gun counter with another cutey while looking at a black powder .44 pistol. Totally legal to carry and purchased without background check the same day.

I asked her if she and the cashier would like to go to Graceland with us after work. She said, "I don’t care about that stuff, I only like huntin’ and fishin’ " Stinky Rodriquez was in love. That lump in his pocket was not a .20 guage shell.

Gun bought, love unrequinted, we left for the Rock and Roll White house- Graceland.

Graceland is in a poor black neighborhood, we stopped at a drive through southern soul food restaurant next door to it. We parked in the parking lot and an angry black woman slid open the take-out window, took one look at the bikes and gear and yelled,
“Can I help you?”

I yelled back, “Yeah you can help me. You can sell me something to eat- I’m fuckin’ starving.”

Fried Catfish, coldslaw, sweet tea, huge potato chips–damn good. We prayed to the King for guidance and safety and then…

Off to Arkansas.
I hate Arkansas. It’s a mosquitoed-infested swamp between Tennesse and Oklahoma. Someone decided to make the swamp a state. Other than Jim Bowie Knives and pork rinds-I’ve never heard of anything good coming out of Arkansas. I’ve never had a good ride through Arkansas and this wasn’t going to be a good one either. The first thing I did in Arkansas was to almost run over a kyak oar lying on the interstate. Arkansas was either too hot or too cold. I seemed to suck me in like quick sand–the faster I rode the deeper I was sucked in. It took almost two days to leave it.
I was saved from its dull scenery by the heavy rains. We had to pull over because the spray from the semi-trucks rooster tailing water off the road was blinding us. As we sat swatting Arkansas mosquitoes I said to Stinky-“How come we never see Harley riders on days like today?”

If it weren’t for the photos I’d suspect that you made up the whole story from your apartment in ChungHo (I still do a little :wink: ), but the photos appear to be genuine. One hell of a yarn. :notworthy: If you get it published as a book I’ll buy a copy for sure.

My god, abandoning a bike like that! I understand being exhausted physically and emotionally, but . . . :loco:

As for the gradual shrinking of your group, I don’t find that surprising at all. In fact, it would seem miraculous if you all had lasted together through all of that (no offense to any of you – just a long trip).

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Stink buys a gun.

[quote]If it weren’t for the photos I’d suspect that you made up the whole story from your apartment in Chungho (Zhonghe) (I still do a little ), but the photos appear to be genuine[/quote] :raspberry:

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Words to live by.

Summer is over so I better finish the freakin’ story.

It rained all day through Arkansas and the lightning storms were a sight to behold, strangely I no longer fear lightning when riding a motorcycle although common sense says I should.

Interstate riding is not for the weak hearted. I would pull into gas stations reeking of road kill sprayed up from the road- I got to be quite the expert on road kill.

Passing big trucks was frightening for about two days, bobbing around in the “dirty air’ slip stream that those fat assed land boats produced. We got used to them and made passing them something of a science. Even rainy days are good days when you’re riding so we took the showers with a shrug and headed into Oklahoma. Our luggage got good and soaked and riding with a wet crotch didn’t feel too groovy either after 400 miles.

We did a lot of night riding because of time restraints and the hot weather. I have to hand it to Joe Rocket, their Phoenix jacket was awesome and I wore it every mile of the trip and never felt overheated. I left my glasses in Maryland on my cousin’s boat so I was riding blind at night. I have pretty bad night blindness that I wear glasses for and the glare of oncoming headlights made the situation pretty hairy. A few times we really rode past our limits and I would start visually hallucinating in the late hours.

Stinky had cruise control on his older CBR but my ’05 couldn’t accommodate cruise control. I have simian-like forearms anyway so it didn’t bother me much. I chucked my luggage raincovers and rain pants in LA but regretted it later. Doing a constant 85 MPH knocks the crap out of the human body after a few hours, for those of you who don’t ride just imagine taking a long trip strapped to the hood of your car. Stink smokes like a broken train but he’s in good shape and even old Husker Du was a bit of a gym rat. I’m built like a large home appliance and lift weights like a Folsom prison inmate. But man, you got worn out after 12 hours of riding at 85 +. We would ride in the mornings (where we usually made our best distance) then break around lunchtime. As we rode the breaks became more frequent. I could get about 180 miles on a tank of gas and we could have ridden slower but - what the fuck is the point of riding a sport bike across America if you can’t ride like a speed sick freak?

A weird thing happens after a few days on the bike that the other guys agreed happened to them. You start to melt into the bike until the point you can’t feel the bike anymore. I almost feels like you are standing on the road!

We didn’t get any tickets on the whole trip. When we did meet police, they usually joked about how they couldn’t catch us and we’d be in the next county anyway if they’d tried. The real money is in ticketing dentists and real estate agents riding Harleys with loud pipes.

I don’t know what it is about Oklahoma but by far we met the nicest folks there. Eastern Oklahoma is flatter than hammered shit, and damn was it windy. It was pretty country and great weather the whole way through. We stopped at a remote gas station and started talking to the owner. He was a good ole boy and had a Honda Shadow in the garage.

We asked him if we could shoot the pistol behind his station.
“Go on ahead, my nearest neighbor ain’t within 10 miles of here.”
We even let him have a shot although he looked nervous when we said Stinky had loaded it in our hotel room the night before and slept with it on his pillow.

A bit down the road we got Stink a new tire and an oil change at a bike shop. The couple who ran it were great and we found everything we needed.

At night we met some local farm kids, one of them said, “I want to buy a Hyabusa after I graduate high school!” His parents would have thanked me because I spent the better part of 15 minutes talking him out of that idea.
“Start small and cheap, take a safety course, practice wheelies in parking lots, and spend a lot of money on gear and a helmet.”

We met a lot of girls who would jokingly come up to us and ask for a ride, unfortunately we didn’t have any room on the back although we did offer to accommodate them in other ways. Stinky is a walking, talking 30 year old hormone driven pair of testicles. After 3 weeks he started saying stuff like,
“Wow did you check out the legs on that chair!” We never managed to stay in one place long enough to hook up so, I guess I won’t be posting anything in the Penthouse forum.

New Mexico is one of those magical places that looks good 24 hours a day. The lighting storms were amazing-huge fingers of God touching the earth. The red sand at dusk and daylight glowing sweetly with the distant vistas, and the stars at night crowed in impossible clusters. New Mexico is wonderfully empty. Billy the Kid and Pat Garret rode here, the dust they walked through still blowing across the plains. We got into New Mexico early morning and stopped at a gas station/trading post that looked like a big tepee. Stinky was beat so he laid down in the parking lot with his race collar as a pillow.
“Good idea.” I woke up an hour later with rain falling gently on my face. I was sound asleep in a gas station parking lot. I wonder what people must have thought of two motorcycle bums sleeping next to their bikes. I bought a snake skin-pocket knife and a snakehead key chain. We headed west hoping to see Arizona soon but not wanting to leave New Mexico too fast.

[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]FShould have gotten: Custom seat, Double-Bubble windscreen, better helmet (I’m using a Nolan) with a fighter pilot type open face, the front face touches my chin and it does get noisy over 70MPH.
More time off. Fuel injection is great in the twisties bad in the long stretches. I go through gas quickly if not careful .
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Just found this thread. Finally got time to locate it while in Australia.

Helmet. I had a shit helmet that hurt my forehead. Then got a Nolan that does the chin touch annoyance and mine was a full helmet. I don’t think Italians have chins (but then MJB’s chin hits in front of a Nolan as well)

Seat. Gel not good enough?

Fuel tank range. Yes…a big problem.

Wind blast. Almost worth looking nerdy to fix this. Wind blast wears you down.

Anyway, I’ll keep reading.

The Nolan was a light helmet that kept the wind noise down wonderfully.

It looked cool and the “jet fighter” open face was a great feature----but it touched my chin after getting into the high speeds. That would amount to an instant broken jaw/loss of bottom teeth in a serious crash.

Bugs!!!

[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]The Nolan was a light helmet that kept the wind noise down wonderfully.

It looked cool and the “jet fighter” open face was a great feature----but it touched my chin after getting into the high speeds. That would amount to an instant broken jaw/loss of bottom teeth in a serious crash.

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Okay, that helmet was the one with a red catch each side that you pull to lift it into open face mode. Correct?

They released a single catch version update and I bet they fixed the chin problem. I brought the old model because it was cheaper. I can’t resist a bargain half the price job and almost always wish I had spent more.

If you have the single red catch lift version and it still hit your chin then Nolan are idiots. Don’t buy a fucking Nolan.

Re seat. I only rode 6 hours a day and can’t imagine 12 hour riding days. Was the gel seagt not the answer? Why not?

Re windblast, I’m picturing something horrible looking like the Harley Davidson screens. What did you have in mind?

I watched herds of riders leaving Melbourne on Friday heading for the country. All with gear sacks over the bikes. Seems big in Australia to tour and spring right now with great blue sky riding weather. No chance of rain. Drought in fact.

Okay, that helmet was the one with a red catch each side that you pull to lift it into open face mode. Correct?

Yep.

They released a single catch version update and I bet they fixed the chin problem. I brought the old model because it was cheaper. I can’t resist a bargain half the price job and almost always wish I had spent more.

How much IS your head worth? I heard you were a something of a genius in your field, so always go big on a brain-bucket.

If you have the single red catch lift version and it still hit your chin then Nolan are idiots. Don’t buy a fucking Nolan.

Unless you’re a chin-less pin head.

Re seat. I only rode 6 hours a day and can’t imagine 12 hour riding days. Was the gel seat not the answer? Why not?

You could sit on Jessica Alba’s breasts for 16 hours and they’d be uncomfortable. Like anything your body will adjust after a week. Fuck the comfort crap, if you wanted comfort you’d be driving a cage. We got to riding 12 hours each day after a week or so. They’d didn’t used to call you Ironman for nothing-- buck up Marine!!!

Re windblast, I’m picturing something horrible looking like the Harley Davidson screens. What did you have in mind?

Double-bubble as Master Plasmatron posted above. I didn’t get one becuase I didn’t have time.

I watched herds of riders leaving Melbourne on Friday heading for the country. All with gear sacks over the bikes. Seems big in Australia to tour and spring right now with great blue sky riding weather. No chance of rain. Drought in fact.

Just got to withstand their abuse and half-ass political theories when the Aussies are drunk and they’ve found out you’re a Yank. I think you’re from down unda’ so shouldn’t be a problem for you. Must be a pretty sight with all that big sky and awesome Aussie sunshine…Get a suck bottle to keep you hydrated. Which bike are you riding? Post some pics and keep the rubber side down!!!


Jessica Alba …and her breasts.

Jessica Alba’s seat adjustment.

[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]Jessica Alba …and her breasts.

Jessica Alba’s seat adjustment.

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Sorry to post such small pics but Sister Mary Joe Sax will slap my hands with a ruler if I’m not careful.

Bubba your quote function button must have broken off. Try not hitting it so hard.

Okay, pic here of a double bubble. Looks very good and just seems to be an extra kick up in the middle of the screen. An improvement on looks in my opinion and get the windblast above the helmet so you don’t get the wind pushing the helmet back hard into your face.

Could save your limbs turning blue then black and then dropping off during a long ride. That would be bloody annoying.

[quote]But weather conditions don`t have to get very extreme on a motorcycle in order to feel extremely cold. If the temperature outside is 50 degrees at 60 mph the wind chill temperature that your body feels is 39 degrees Fahrenheit.

Even at these temperatures Frostbite times are as low as 30 minutes.[/quote]

Stinky had a double bubble (bike in the foreground) adn said it really helped with wind blast.

Still haven’t said which bike you are riding.

I don’t know about limbs falling off but I was close to the second stage of hyperthermia (feeling sluggish and tired, blue lips ) a few times.

I think you’d better be ready for cold temperatures if riding at night.

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New Mexico was a nice ride and we stopped at night at a huge truck stop- more like a mall for truckers in the middle of nowhere Arizona. Every now and then a truck load of indians (Native Americans) would pull up in pick up trucks.

We met a trucker who rode a Harley. Man, Harleys are really big in the states now, gone are the days of rigid frame meth-head murderers on ape hanging choppers, it’s all accountants and software engineers who want to look like a scum bag on a $40,000 bike. Like the saying goes what’s the difference between a Harley and a vacuum cleaner? The size and position of the dirt bag. The trucker was old school and he had an flathead worked real well. He just kept shaking his head and saying,

“How can you ride so far sitting on your balls?”
“Well when they are made of steel like ours are, it doesn’t matter!”

I could ride all day and into the night pretty well by now, most of the small muscles in my body were aching from the road- I really got to hand it to those pro riders who ride hours and hours a day at high speeds in practice. My ass was just one sore mother scratcher and remained that way for about a week after. I own one chair-3 sofas- I hate sitting-I never sit except when I use the computer and ride. Stinky said he thought he was getting hemmroids but I was okay. Maybe it was catholic school or my physical training in martial arts for many years but I’ve always been able to endure discomfort for long periods of time. Sometimes I would put myself in another place and the physical discomfort wouldn’t steal all of my attention. I’d daydream about dancing with a girl or throwing knives or fishing and I’d feel okay.

We were behind schedule so we couldn’t make it to the grand canyon-next year I plan to ride a bike there exclusively next summer. One thing for sure I’m going alone.
I thought of doing trips in other countries or continents, Canada, Central or South America or maybe Europe. You gotta love the interstate system in the states for its conveinence, and most people speak English.

We had some close calls on the trip, Stinky almost got into a head-on from a semi truck going around a corner, the truck was way over the line and he pulled out at the last second. I almost ran head on with an oncoming car passing a truck on a long two lane road in the eastern part of California. The car pulled over and gave me room, Stink could see the older man driving the car screaming, oops–well. I was doing 100MPH on a pass and he was doing around 80 so that wouldn’t have ended up well.

No such thing as Time on a bike-only Timing.

We rode hard into eastern Arizona and it was cold and wet in the mountains. I was following a truck up a mountain pass, rain was coming down so hard I just had to follow his back lights to see. There wasn’t a rest stop or hotel for miles so we couldn’t stop. Stinko was following me and it was about 12:00 at night, never understood that-follow the old, blind guy with no glasses at night- I was on the outside of the lane then from underneath the truck I saw something that looked like a couch go by on the road.

There was a lot of lightning falling all around us and visibility sucked, Stiny pulled up next to me gesturing wildly. We got off on the shoulder and he got off his bike and laid down holding his ankle. Apparently he hit whatever it was, sprained his ankle and his gear shift lever was broken off from the force of hitting it.

“Didn’t you see me flashing my lights to stop you A-hole!”

I looked around at the lighting falling around us.

“You gotta be kidding me.”

"What was that thing?’

“It was an elk.”

It made sense because we had seen elk crossing signs up there, they look like deer crossing signs only the antlers are
REALLY FUCKING BIG on the sign.

“You mean that sofa in the road?”

I didn’t doubt him, he is an insane deer hunter and has killed thousands of things that run, fly, crawl and swim. His friend sent him gun oil when he was in Taiwan so he could get a fix of the smell during hunting season back home in Canada. So he knew.

We tried to get him to ride it since the bike was in third or fourth gear but no go, it was all up steep hills, so we took a ratchet extension and pounded it onto the gear shift mounting piece on the case with a mallet ( we bought new tools to replace the ones Mouldy Marvin took.)
The gear shift was completely gone.

When we got into Flagstaff the rain had died down but it was coooooold!

I told Stink that if he wanted to find a shop in Flagstaff that I couldn’t wait for him, I had to rebook my flight and my very understanding boss who gave me a month off to do the trip was waiting for me. I had to be in LA the next day. I hated to abandon him since we had been through so much and we were the last ones left but I had promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

He took a look at the jimmeyed up gear shift and shrugged-“Screw it-I’ll ride it like this.”

And so he did for the next 350 some miles.

If you are ever going to ride through the Mojave desert on a motorcycle don’t do it at midday and don’t do it in July. We did both of course.

I told him- well it will be like driving through a blast furnace just keep your visor cracked open a bit and stop if you are feeling dizzy. Heat stroke on a bike at our speeds would be death. We had to plan out our speeds and fuel consumption because there were many chances to stop for gas.

At the hotel in Flagstaff at breakfast we met a woman who was visting from LA she was setting up an office in Sedona. “What are you guys all dressed up for?”
We told her about the Filthy Four becoming the Thirsty Two trip.

“What kind of business do you do?”

“I’m a psychic- I read cards.”

I figured she wasn’t that good if she had to ask us where we were going and what we were doing.

“I think you will have a safe journey- there is good energy around you.”

“Well we could have used your advice yesterday before my friend hit an elk.”

I lost my MP3 player and favorite pair of sunglasses on the LAST 3 hours of the trip. Damn. Both flew out of my open jacket pocket.

In LA we stopped to get gas, a heavily tattooed cholo walked up to me,
“I wanna shake your hand Ese. You dudes look like you’ve been on the road for ever.”

We rolled into LA and the funny thing was after all those miles, the traffic in LA still scares the crap out of me.

I rolled in at 5:00, unpacked, repacked, took a shower, mama cooked a great dinner, (BBQ salmon, greens and some butterscotch ice cream for dessert) kissed mama and shook hands with Bubba Sr. then off to LAX for a wonderful whiskey and Tylenol PM laden 12 hour flight.

I landed in CKS in the early AM, went home, washed and changed clothes then went to work. The next day i woke up bright and early and you guessed it-

I took my motorcycle out for a ride. :noway:

Exhibit A

Boots.

Bubba -
Is that harbor pic up above from San Pedro?

No man that’s San Fran- Pedro has more cement and drunks laying around.

Looked a bit like the parking lot by the “Yacht Club” docks in Pedro. Buddy of mine has had his boat there for years. I think he has ‘grandfathered’ rates or something.
Oh well, it just looked familiar.Hell, after a while all harbors and dock sites look the same. Free showers and water…woo hooo.