Surfcycle Plague 4: Killer

Drunk bros in button down shirts and shiny necklaces with slicked up hair and foreigners of indistinguishable nationality were paying for their gas. I threw out the Twinkies wrapper and empty coffee cup and left the gas station on the east end of the Long Island Expressway. It's a good thing I had a full tank of caffeine because I did NOT fill up on gas.

Fifteen miles later I was near the geographic center of Long Island with an empty gas tank and no gas light indicating the fuel level. I ditched the motorcycle and bushwhacked off the expressway to a country road. I found a street light and started to call my insurance company. I saw a man walking his Great Dane and hung up.

“Excuse me, sir!” I waved my lit phone in his direction as I walked away from the streetlight, “Do you have a gallon of gas I could use?”

He was bald with a grey, maintained mustache and focused V-shaped eyebrows. He was wearing jean shorts and a t-shirt. He looked real serious for a guy walking his dog but not for a guy getting approached by a weirdo in the dark at 10:30PM on a Friday night in the middle of nowhere.

“Yeah, I do. You run out or something?” I explained the situation. He returned in ten minutes in a paneled van with his contracting company logo on the side and a foldable ladder tied to the top. The inside was a mess of paint cans, tools, and a gasoline canister... 

“I used to ride motorcycles too. Until the accident. Everyone has an accident.” Yes, he really said, "Until the accident."

Source

We talked about riding, wrestling (he was a high school coach), and Charlotte, where he went to college.

We added the gallon. It started. 100 feet later, it stopped. “I think we need more fuel,” he said as We continued to exhaust the charge of the battery.

We began to search for a gas station.  We started talking again. We didn't talk about anything important for about twenty minutes (I was wondering how he didn't know where the nearest gas station was) until he broke the casual nature:

“Here’s a piece of trivia you might like. Well, you may already know it.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a serial killer in the area.”

I was still calm because I didn't really believe him, “Really? Still on the loose?”

“Yeah.”

“As in, has murdered recently and not been caught?”

“Yeah, they found some of the bodies… well body parts at least. Right near where you broke down. Over by uhhh, Wading River Road. It's the Gilgo Beach Killer. I thought it was national news.”

Source

I gave the dramatic chipmunk look and thought of when and how I would have to get out of this.

A leather jacket would SURELY soften the blow of a couple of bullets to the torso as I rolled out of the car and hid in the woods right? I would probably even kill the Gilgo Beach Killer in a one-on-one "First Blood" scenario. I took the junior cadet Leadership Training Course on survival, escape, resistance, and evasion and did all four of those things. No way the GBK was going to take me down. I had my plan for the spear trap laid out in my head when he eased my fears:

“Don’t worry though. He mostly just kills prostitutes." PHEW!!

Keep riding,
LSF

Surfcycle Plague 3: Sleet

Based on the previous day's jaunt through the rain, I considered myself a seasoned motorcycle rider. Could prolllly go toe-to-toe with Peter Fonda and Ghost Rider. I had stared Death in the face, looked away, looked back at it, looked away, pretended to check my phone, and kept riding once it got bored and walked away. It takes the heart of a lion to make Death lose interest in you.

Say hello to MS Powerpoint's Smart Art. You can't teach this level of PP savvy.

Weeeeelllll, I couldn't look at my phone this time. Independence Day alien ship-like clouds floated above the Garden State Parkway in front of me. I counted mississisppis after each lightning bolt. At the one mississippi mark, a rush of anticipation and adrenaline surged within me that can only be likened to the readiness of Leeroy Jenkins before his dungeon blitz.

Light rain turned into heavy rain. Visibility dropped. Traffic slowed. Some cars pulled over as I plowed through the elements like the Waterboy through an unsuspecting offensive line. Confidence rose. Excited anticipation turned into determined focus.

Plinks turned into tinks as sleet began to hit the motorcycle's gas tank. I started to think about how icy gravel would affect traction and how the balls of ice could damage the bike. I finally pulled over after five whole minutes of the manliest withstanding of a barrage since Braveheart (1:48 mark). The sleet immediately stopped.

Keep riding,
LSF

Surfcycle Plague 2: Rain

We all know that rain is part of summer. It can ruin your fireworks, or your cookout, or your baseball game, or your motorcycle ride. There's not much you can do besides head back inside and watch black and white Spanish TV like the McCallisters in Florida.

However, on the first night of the Surfcycle Sojourn, I had somewhere to BE. I had to go to a someplace where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capastrano. I'm talking about a little place called Staten Island (wait, did that clip say Cincinnati?). I could not be deterred.

I've spent my fair share of time in the rain. Canoeing the Amazon River, patrolling during the swamp phase of Ranger School, and even walking to my car earlier today. So I wasn't about to let a few lil droplets stop me.

The downpour was a combination of sting-ing rain and big ole FAT rain because I was hitting big ole FAT rain at 65mph. The roads were drenched. I had to defog the visor every few minutes and couldn't see a darn thing.

Smack dab in the center of the westbound Long Island Expressway three red lights hovered at eye level 100 yards in front of me. I started to coast. I saw a blob of a man in front of the lights acting as road guard at 50 yards. I recognized the cab of a semi the size of an untransformed Optimus Prime making a U-turn and slammed on both brakes.

The tires skidded as I fishtailed 30 degrees toward the back of the truck and cruised onto the shoulder. The truck finished its turn and I sat on the side of the road for a minute.

We're going to get serious for a minute. Have you ever thought of the worst case scenario and can't even imagine it? I came within a few feet of getting my entire upper body hacked off by an empty flatbed and thought, "At least it wouldn't hurt." I took a few more moments to let my heart rate slow down and carried on in a Churchill fashion.

Source

Keep riding,
LSF

PS: I think the internet overdid the "Keep Calm..." thing. Check out these search results. The only one REEALLY worth making was "Keep Calm and Call Batman". Words to live by.

Surfcycle Plague 1: Heat

Think way, way back to late June in the summer of 2012. Facebook was aglow with mobile updates of triple digit car dashboard thermometers, people updating "SO HOT OUTSIDE!!!!!!lol", or "omg al gore was right!", and others responding, "it's summer, dumdum", or posting a Fox News article refuting global warming. Ah yes, it certainly was fun to share the temperature, politics, and science. We all learned from each other...

MEANWHILE

I was sweating my baguettes off at Andersen Cycle Works in Framingham as they finished installing the saddlebags which would carry my luggage for two weeks and a suit for a wedding the next day (~4 cubic feet for poindexters people who like numbers).

I asked Mr. Andersen for any advice on my first trip. To be honest with you, readers, I was surprised:

"Go fast. Stay in front of all the cars or else you'll get complacent." Kaaaay. I was still taking turns with shakingly rigid arms and thinking through each turn as a procedure in list form. Proooolly not gonna stay in front of all the cars.

"Keep your jacket zipped up. You want to keep your sweat in to stay cool. You'll get dehydrated from the wind." "That is another thing that I am not going to do," I thought... defiantly. Because I don't play by anyone's rules, not even my own, like Craig Hoffman.

I completely ignored the experienced motorcyclist's tips and took off. I stopped every hour to hydrate and show off my awesome motorcycle.

After an hour, my jacket sleeves were stuck to my arms and the inside of my helmet smelled like used gym shorts. Luckily I only had 26 hours to go.

Keep riding,
LSF

PS: Blogging milestone of strikethrough-a-word-and-replace-it-with-something-less-offensive achieved.

The Six Plagues of the Surfcycle Diaries

Bear with a change in scope of the blog. It doesn't have to be all about advice or how you do this or that. It doesn't even have to be about athletic stuff. You, beloved reader, come here for two things: laughs and celebrities.

We exercise to live and not live to exercise... unlike what those hardcore motivational Pinterest posters would have us believe. Well maybe they don't but the hardcore levels reach Way Too High for an endstate of being healthy and being really really good looking.

To satisfy my lust for doing awesome stuff I bought a motorcycle. I two-birds-one-stoned it with a surfing trip I've been meaning to take since last year and went down the east coast for a couple of weeks.

I understand that motorcycles are dangerous. Even if you're a good driver... er rider... er driver, whatever, you're still extremely susceptible to getting hit by cell phone users, the elderly, and nerds.

Motorcycles can only stop so fast and only have so many swerve options. If you're not lucky, you could end up like Lawrence of Arabia, Lance Murdoch (you'll really like this clip if you like barely-audible Spanish), or, worse, Gary Busey. A+ clip of Busey btw, don't miss it.

But seriously, with a weekend course on riding and two days on the roads of Boston, taking off on a 2200 mile road and sea trip from Boston, MA to Wilmington, NC was a major risk which I would not recommend for the weak or faint of heart. It seemed like everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I was visited by the Six Plagues of the Surfcycle Sojourn.

Heat
Rain
Sleet
Killer
Spiders
Sand

Strap in for a Jumanji-like adventure.

Keep riding,
LSF

PS: Is Pinterest still cool? Do people go on there? Is it just for women?
PPS: Check out them sassy sox up there.
PPPS: Just cause you were curious--