Brian A. Hopkins
Adventure Stylin' Made Easy

Oklahoma Dualsport Rally
12 - 15 Oct 2006

-- "This doesn't look like twenty percent to me..." --

Sunday morning, sometime before dawn, it started to rain. I had checked the weather forecast before leaving home on Thursday and there was only supposed to be a 20% chance of rain for Sunday. I burrowed in my mummy bag and kept warm as the rain made music on my tent. I was in no hurry to get up and start packing. I hadn't forgotten my disappointment of rushing home last year, only to have the wife demonstrate how pissed she was at me. In fact, if the weather hadn't been looking nasty, I'd have probably stayed for Sunday's ride. With the VCR set to tape motoGP for me, there wasn't anything to get excited about at home. The wife and daughter probably hadn't even noticed I'd been gone.

Eventually, though, I got up (probably about the time Rich had the coffee ready -- ha!). It would be a solo ride home, because Danny had the family with him now. He asked if I wanted to throw my Dakar on his trailer and ride back in the truck with them, but I'd just as soon ride the bike. I packed my wet gear and tossed it in Rich's van so that he could graciously haul it home for me. I'd collect it from him Monday at the office (in between soul-sucking meetings and pacing in my cage). I loaded the bike. Said my goodbyes. And slipped outta camp during a brief lull in the drizzle.

I didn't get any further than Sardis Lake before it started raining again. About an hour later, it began to rain in earnest. The Gericke jacket I'd bought recently on clearance (Danny has the same jacket, only in red) turned out to be not as good of a deal as I'd thought. Waterproof it might claim to be ... but my testing proved otherwise. (When I talked to Danny on Monday and said "That damn jacket is NOT waterproof," his response was: "No shit!" Evidently, he'd been caught in the rain on Sunday's ride and his test results substantiate my own.)

It was an extremely cold rain. Silly me, I'd thought the ride home would be in comfortable temps, sixties even. It was not to be and I was unprepared.

The jacket failed first, water seeping in around the zippers. The Arai XD turned out not to be the best helmet in the rain. With the chin vents closed, the helmet's visor would fog. With them open, rain would come pelting through, splattering my lower face. Cold water would then run down my chin, down my neck, and under the collar of my jacket. Water would splash from my lower face and onto the inside of the Arai's visor, making it very difficult to see: fogging, beads of water hanging on the inside, streams of water trailing across the outside. (Note that the Arai XD was still the best helmet for the weekend, though, allowing me to drop the visor while on pavement like a street helmet and use my goggles with the visor up while riding offroad in the dust. Love that helmet!)

I was shivering. I'd packed my heated vest up with my other gear for Rich to haul home, thinking I wouldn't need it. All I was wearing under the jacket was a t-shirt. I hadn't even brought the jacket's thermal liner.

My rain pants, which had never let me down before, began to fail. Water soaked in around my knees, thighs, and crotch. The pants are more than three years old and have seen a fair amount of use, so perhaps they've exceed their life-expectancy. Maybe, with time and the beating of wind and rain, the polyvinyl material (or whatever it is) becomes porous. My Gaerne boots aren't waterproof to begin with -- even though I've treated the leather several times with Sno-Seal waterproofing -- so my feet began to get wet. I was wearing cheap cotton socks, not my good wool ones, so my feet quickly froze. Keep in mind that wind/rain protection on the Dakar is minimal, if not out and out nonexistent. On my ZZR, there's all that plastic to hide behind. Last, but not least, my gloves, which also had never failed me, began to leak. Fortunately, I had the heated grips going full blast, so my hands, though damp, were warm enough. There's nothing worse than having fingers that are so frozen you can't work the controls.

To stay warm, I fired up my iPod, which worked just fine this time (it had locked up on me on my last trip), and sang at the top of my lungs. (You should be grateful you couldn't hear me.)

I had to stop several times in order to clean the water from the inside of my visor. It's always entertaining to see the reaction normal people have to a rider out in the rain. Clearly, they thought I was nuts. They might be right. Some guy tried to talk to me at a gas station, but I had the iPod going at full blast and couldn't hear a word he was saying. In order to hear him, I would have had to open my jacket, switch off the iPod stashed in my breast pocket, remove my helmet (exposing my head to the pouring rain), and pull out at least one of my ear plugs. He probably just wanted to tell me I was nuts. I pointed in the general direction of my ears under my helmet and shrugged to indicate I couldn't hear him. I think he got the message.

Eventually, I made it home, slipping through my neighborhood in a friggin' downpour that certainly didn't match the weatherman's 20% prediction. As usual, no one saw me roll down the street and turn into my driveway. It's just as well that I didn't have an audience. It's hard to be stylin' when you're soaked through and through and shivering like a terrified cheerleader in a Friday the 13th movie. I honked at the garage door, too cold to get off the bike and use the keypad, but no one heard me. I got off, keyed the code, then pushed the bike inside. I stripped out of my wet clothes in the garage and stumbled indoors, where a long hot shower chased away the goosebumps and thawed out my popsicle joints.

And that's about it for this adventure ... Man, I really wrote a lot. If I'd spent this time working on a novel instead, maybe I could afford another motorcycle ... Ha.

Acknowledgements (in no particular order): I'd like to thank James Pratt and his family for organizing another great weekend of riding; I can't wait to do it all again. Thanks to Adam and Kay for letting me ride their bikes; I had great fun on both of them. Thanks to Daniel for being a fantastic traveling companion and great friend; I'll ride with you anywhere, anytime, bud. Thanks to Rich and Ashley for feeding me and hauling my junk. Thanks to James, Terry, Randy, Danny, and Rich for letting me use some of their photos in my report. Thanks to Chris, Terry, Ed, Cyndi, Connie, Phil, Nate, Trish, and others that I'll undoubtedly regret forgetting to mention for being such great company; you guys are fun to hang out with and I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

Addendum: When Daniel's mother, Greta, read the preceding bit about why I ride and my rambling about the cages in which we find ourselves trapped, she made a supporting observation about houses and front porches. Houses rarely have big porches any more -- and even when they do, they're not the gathering places that they once were, because we're all hiding in the cage/box/cave that our homes have become, soaking up our air-conditioning, staring at the boob-tube, stuffing our faces with microwave dinners, etc. James Pratt's father was at the rally (he actually made the arrangements for the BBQ and did other things behind the scenes so that everyone would go off without a hitch) and he showed me photos of the log house they've been building for the past year or so. I've seen the actual house several times now when I've been out to visit, but this was the first time I'd seen it since they'd put on the huge porch that nearly encircles the entire house. Looking at the photo, there was something about the log house that I really liked (other than just the rustic rural appeal of a log building, which naturally calls to my anachronistic nature), but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I realize now, after reading Greta's comment, that it was the porch and the fellowship that it represents. I find myself sitting outside in front of my garage an awful lot, in part because I enjoy being both outside and near my bikes, but also, I think, because I'm missing something in my life. I realize I'm sitting there waiting for someone to come rolling down the driveway, someone who'll sit and chat about motorcycles, past and future adventures, and all the things that are wrong with our world. If some of you guys start visiting, I promise I'll build a porch.

Disclaimer: Don't email me saying I got this or that wrong, or this event out of sequence with some other event. I readily acknowledge that my ride reports are 50% fact, 25% embellishment/dramatization, 25% bold face lie, and 25% the unique (and often warped) perspective of Brian A. Hopkins (who can't add for shit, btw). History is created by survivors/victors willing to spend the time creating a written record. Don't like my version of the weekend? Write your own!

And a Last Minute Commercial Plug: I've been pleased with products from Tourmaster/Cortech. On this trip, my BMW sported Cortech tank and tailbag, and I really like both. It baffles me, however, why someone can't make a waterproof bag. It should just be a matter of making a good flap to shield the zippers. Be that as it may, the rain covers that Cortech provides with their bags work well. On the way home, however, the wind stripped the cover from my tail bag (my own fault, I believe, for not securing it well enough). I didn't notice until the rain cover was long lost.  Amazingly, the gear in my tail bag stayed mostly dry, in spite of the heavy downpour. There was just a little dampness around the zippers on the bag. Nothing serious. It didn't, for instance, even damage my cell phone. I called Cortech the next day to inquire about a replacement, and they immediately agreed to send me a new rain cover at no charge. It's customer service like that which will keep me coming back. Thanks, Cortech!

Until next time, everybody ride safe.

Brian A. Hopkins
at Road's End, Oklahoma City
21 October 2006