This weekend marked my first road trip of any distance on a motorcycle - heading from Vancouver to Seattle on a borrowed Yamaha Virago cruiser.

When I got here - safe, sound and alive after having ridden almost 300 miles, I sent the note below to family and friends:

well, i’m alive

and in Mrka for the weekend. Trip was uneventful, except when I
figured out exactly how much fuel the “low fuel” indicator on this
bike means.

The bike’s speedometer and odometer are unhooked, so it’s difficult to
predict when it’ll be empty. A red light comes on, and that pretty
much means “get to a gas station RIGHT NOW if you’re doing 70 mph.”
engine started puttering on the off ramp, i switched it to reserve and
all was fine.

anyway, border crossing was fun. i jumped about 20 cars ahead because
a guard waved me through to the far right hand lane. nice little perk,
along with getting on ferries first. the guy told me to keep my helmet
on when i was messing around with glasses, which was kind of nice.

so anywyay, here i am - another holiday in Mrka (you have to say that
out loud - it’s a bit of a running joke) only this time on two wheels.

oh - the gas you ask? it’s $3/gallon and I’ve put $14 in. that’ll get
me half way home too. it’s the best thing about this thing, aside from
the fun.

This is a great way to travel, although I may have overloaded my courier bag a bit.

Virago’s are crusiers and this one is particularly Harley like, with a large seat pan that makes it extremely comfortable to sit in for a great distance. The bike itself though sends a huge amount of vibration through to the rider - this is most noticeable in the hands, which were quite sore by the time I got here.

Tomorrow I head home, swinging on a ferry out over to Bremerton to pick up a tank bag that’s for sale on Craigslist (an effective way to deal with the overloaded backpacks - tank bags are extremely convenient.) I may have taken I-5 here, but home it’ll be twisty windy roads the whole way and, I imagine, a border crossing from hell.

Such is life in the Pacific Northwest, where the flow from North to South is a constant, travel by ferries is frequent and the sun may not be visible but at least it never snows.

Posted by skooter at 8:02 AM This entry is filed under Travel.