This year’s ROT Rally in Austin was a new experience for me, the Humble Roving Texas Reporter, because I hadn’t actually been to the rally before. Riding my newly modified V-Rod bagger, I was set to see the Austin Rally with a few home boys and hang with some friends for the weekend. As is the usual for a road trip, everything took a shit in a hand basket the day I was leaving.
Our refrigerator died the day I was leaving so I told my wife, “Just go to Lowe’s and grab a new one.” Like I was John Rockefeller, right? Unfortunately, I have the last name White, not Rock, so she had to apply for credit and that didn’t go so well since I don’t pay bills lately until they turn pink..
Because I had just finished painting the bags and installing them the night before, I didn’t trust them yet. I packed lightly as I planned on being gone only a day and a half.
Friday morning as I am cinching everything down on the bike getting ready to leave, one of my travel buddies calls.
“Hey, go ahead without me, my primary’s got a leak and my bike’s bleeding to death. I’m not gonna make it.” So , as is the usual case on a run, at least 10 people start with good intentions, but only three of us actually make the trip.
As I am waiting for the guys to show up at my crib, I get another phone call. “Hello Mr. White, this is Comcast cable. We need an immediate payment or we will shut the cable off today.” With that my TV went black and my son gave me his usual look of disappointment. Oh well, screw it, I pay it giving them my credit card number without much thought. Yeah, that would come back to bite me.
My other two riding partners show up at my house an hour after we were planning on leaving, so along with the refrigerator, the news of another dropout, paying the late cable bill, and the uncertainty of my saddlebag engineering, I was on edge. I needed to get on the road.
When Kevin and Michael, the famous kicking Taekwondo madmen, showed up at my door, I was ready to roll. Because these two are brothers, one being a 3rd degree blackbelt and the other a Master 6th degree, I don’t say shit about them being late. Yeah, I’m a big puss….but I will offer to punch any of you reading this square in the mouth if you feel squirrely.
Ok, so we take off on a hot as hell June morning at 10:20 am and head for Austin, Texas. Kevin’s leading the way on his blacked out Night Train with Michael and I trailing on our GSXR and V-Rod.
The trip was uneventful and VERY SLOW as it took us till 2:30 before we were actually in Austin. Luckily the monotonous ride was broken by my new Cycle Sounds speakers and Ipod. Although it was a bit muffled by wind at times, it still beat the sound of only the wind and motor. Ok, and as for all you computer tough guys who wanna trash me for having tunes on my bike:
Why is it that every down on his luck, old school yadda yadda yadda that thinks he’s set all the rules for riding finds it necessary to expound upon the world his opinion about bikes, bikers, rules of the road, etc; as gospel of biking? Who says you can’t have tunes on a bike, or ride in shorts, or wear a freaking full face helmet? I just don’t get it. You ride your bike and I’ll ride mine. If you wanna ride a 30 year old Shovel, or a 20 Year old Evo, then cool, I like it! I can respect the older iron as much as the next guy. I like all bikes, foreign and domestic, new, old, exotic, I don’t care. I was just in a situation to buy a newer bike and I chose the one I chose for me! I don’t remember asking you if it was ok to sign the paperwork, or getting money from you for the payments, maintenance, etc. You wanna trailer your bagger, that’s your business, not mine. Yeah, I may snicker inside, but I’m no one to tell you what you can and can’t do. Hell, you may be trailering your bike to the rally, partying for a day before going on to some other business where you need a truck…who knows. But all these negative, self righteous dudes who always want to criticize others bikes just doesn’t make sense to me.
No, it’s not always older bikers who say something or talk the talk on a forum, but now we have The Horse 25 year old faithful who believe they are the only true bikers in the world and wanna look at you crazy because of their 25 year old rickety machine with apehangers is somehow deemed more worthy than my 3 year old V-Rod with bags and speakers. To all of you, I say get a life and worry about your own piece of shit and stop ripping on my bike or my idea of riding. It is my pleasure to do whatever I want, not what you deem cool or un-cool. Oh, and the best part is, NOBODY HAS EVER SAID A NEGATIVE WORD TO ME AT A RALLY OR EVENT. I always see and hear about it in articles, forum posts, or bullshit blogs where they have the buffer of the keyboard. Here’s an idea, if you don’t like someone’s ride, or style, or God forbid speakers….than don’t ride with them. Otherwise shut the fuck up and ride your bike! At every gas station, restaurant, bar, I meet righteous people and they always have positive comments…and that’s what’s cool and fun about bikes. You can build relationships at the gas pump just by admiring the others’ bike. But seriously, all this negativity about how some guys don’t get it while you find yourself an authority is rather petty and trite. Sigh…ok, off of my soapbox.
So the trip was ok, and we stopped for grub just outside Austin before heading into the expo. Now if you haven’t been to ROT, it is two separate events. You have the rally at the expo and than you have Austin, Texas and all it has to offer. The rally is int eh Austin Expo Center where you pay $70 to get in. Once you pay, you get a wristband and have access to the rally, expo center, vendor areas, and the camping areas. The camping is where the really crazy “biker parties” happen. I for one have never seen so many golf carts with topless women in my life, but before you get all excited, most of these broads had titties as brown and worn as the leather chaps that were for sale. I mean seriously, it looked like a pirate convention out there as I saw sooooo many people who really need to wear more clothes. I would definitely rate ROT as an adult only experience. Don’t get me wrong, I did see some hot ass women as well, but the majority really scared me and I was a bit disturbed by some of the images I was exposed to. Well, not really, but it was funny and alarming all in the same moment.
So for $70 bucks, you get to walk around looking at the vendors’ spaces, watching the sideshow at “the Trail of Tears”, and basically buy $6 beer. The “Trail of Tear” is where most of the nudity takes place as it becomes a parade of debauchery and hedonism…heaven for some, but I have to pass. The rest of the Expo was really pretty lame. From what I heard, it was less participation from vendors this year than years past, but the attendance was up. I spent most of the afternoon “walking the beat”. You see, when you go to a rally and you are kinda broke, walking around looking at stuff is pointless. I had just enough cash for gas, food, and maybe a few drinks. I found out after paying my cable bill, I actually had less than 100 bucks. So, after the $70 charge to get into the rally, I was basically hosed. While we met up with other friends at the rally, I was miserable. They were all spending money getting their neon lights, new seats, rally t-shirts, and drinking ….water. To make matters worse, my little party crew had no intention of going to the city, namely 6th street, whish was the whole reason I came to Austin. These guys were actually talking about going to watch a movie fer crying out loud! This is all before 7 pm, when my wife called yanging about the washer a dryer going to shit as well as the fridge, so I “needed to come home in the morning”. Needless to say, she was less than thrilled when I told her I’d be home Sunday, as planned, and hung up the phone. I felt pissed off and scared at the same time, as I am sure my nuts were particularly unsafe for a few days after I get home….just remember to hide all the knives. So with less than 30 bucks to my name, I said my farewells to my riding group and I set off for an unknown destination in my states’ capitol city.
I arrived in Austin, by myself, at just after 10 pm. I missed the damn parade, my feet hurt to high hell, and I have 30 bucks! At this point I had NO idea even where I was going to sleep, so I did what any self respecting man would do, found a bar. Luckily, 6th street is famous for parties and because of the rally, the police shut down the road except for bikes and bikers. It seemed the whole street was overrun with my people! To make things even better, my Sturgis partner Mike was here somewhere, so things were looking up.
I ended up finding Mike and a few of our friends in some bar called Dirty Dawg, where we drank the night away. By 1:30, we were leaving the bar and decided on a few impromptu drag races through the tattered outskirts of Austin on our way back to the hotel. We all know my bike’s the quickest, so I was cruising behind Mike and Brian as they jostled their way into the night screaming from light to light. It was funny because they were making a lot of noise, but neither was going anywhere too incredibly fast. I sat back chuckling feeling superior as hell in my radical V-rod when I hit a pothole, curb, or for all I know a small Volkswagen. The length of time my bike and I were in the air was definitely long enough for me to think, “Shit, this is gonna hurt like hell.” As the bike crashed down I heard my helmet pop off the sissy bar I had it perched on and the fullface shield and assembly skattered into a million pieces on the road. Another day on the road.
When we got to the hotel and parked our bikes in the bushes, I noticed my right saddlebag was sitting cock eyed and the lid was cracked. It seems the 10 foot jump caused some trauma to the fiberglass. I grabbed some electrical tape and attached the lid with two “x” pattern butterfly bandages. It held the rest of the trip.
Saturday morning I was wide awake at 7 am and Brian and Mike were snoring like grizzly bears. After brushing my teeth, changing clothes, and packing my gear, I decided the boys had slept long enough and we needed to get some grub. 7:12 am and I was waking them up with my rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. Less than pleased, they respected our country’s song and agreed we needed to get on the road…..I still chuckle about it today.
Once we got to breakfast, I realized my 30 bucks had dwindled to $7. Mike of course told me not to worry as he had me covered and we ate breakfast in peace while they tried to sober up. I have recently cut back my drinking to nil, as I have had an incident of waking up in the middle of the road with a smashed helmet, road rashed bike, and one hell of a cloudy memory for a week. The worst part of it was I don’t remember riding it before or after the wreck, but I woke up in my car at 4 am, and my bike in the driveway….yep, time to call it quits on the drinking. Then again, that’s another story.
It seemed we arrived in perfect time at the restaurant as we noticed when we were leaving the line to get in had grown to wrapping out the door. The outside temperature was already over 90 ºF, so waiting outside a restaurant seemed like a miserable option to me. I was glad we were heading back to the hotel for showers and coordinating a day of riding.
Austin, Texas has some of the most incredible roads you could ever hope to ride, and we decicded to take a few crazy favorite local routes with names like, “The Twisted Sisters”, Luckenbach, and Marble Falls. The scenery was incredible, but the God Awful heat was miserable, causing us to stop more than we cared. More than once in an effort to quench the heat I would emerge from a gas station bathroom completely drenched after dousing myself with water from the sink. It mattered not, within 15 miles I’d be bone-dry again.
Mike and Brian decided they were heading for a swim and more partying, but because I was a broke-dick, I didn’t want to live on their dime anymore and headed to an Uncle’s house locally. He was having a bar-be-que party so having me over was an easy fix.
In the morning, I decided to head to the gas station and see if my 7 dollars would give me enough gas to get home before I had to start using a credit card I prayed wasn’t maxed out. I only carry one credit card with a paltry $300 limit for emergencies. Coincidentally, my wife finds the term emergency to be a bit more routine than I do, so there seems to always be a $10-15 available credit. What are ya gonna do, right?
Pulling into the station, I notice the exodus has begun as bikers are everywhere filling their tanks, bingeing crap down, eating burritos and taquitos, generally bullshit before the road. The line for the pumps looks to be about 10 minutes or more, so I get in line and decide to check on Mike to see if he started home yet. After leaving him a voice-mail and moving three spots closer to fill up, I see Mike and Brian cresting the hill heading into what appears to be the last gas stop before the ride home. Needless to say, I let them in with me to fill up and I didn’t have to touch my $7 stash or hit up the usually over-the-limit card.
Riding home with Mike and Brian, I had to smile looking back on another successful road trip. With all the usual miscommunications, mishaps, and unexpected events, it was still a success. I was able to get away for a few days and ride my bike with my bros. We could race on the roads and generally cut up without reproach from our wives for acting like juveniles or having to hear our bosses grip about the amount of work we needed to get done. Even with the usual monetary drought on my part, the trip was an amazing success and I was glad to be heading home. The trip turned into a mini-Sturgis for me and I was glad to make it as I wont be making the trip to The Mecca this year. Overall, The Rally itself kinda blew. Just a giant extravaganza of leather titties, flashy baggers, and extraordinary amount of ATV’s. I am sure I’ll do it again, but we will have to wait and see.
The V-Rod bagger project was a success in that with the fairing and speakers I wasn’t beat to shit and had some tunes to play while I rode. If nothing else, with the wind drowning out some of the sound quality, the music would jar my memory enough that I could hear the song with my mind even if it might have been drowned out from my ear. Overall the faring and speakers worked fine. The bags, well they allowed me to pack all my stuff without having to use any bungees on the trip. They were sleek, and I had quite a few people talking to me about the bike, but in the end, they came off the bike. The V-Rod is an amazing bike that I truly enjoy riding, but it is what it is. I felt like I had taken a Corvette and added a dually rear end and a boat trailer to it. The bike was still fast as hell, but I couldn’t get over the look. Now she’s stripped back down to almost stock form and even is stripped of the front fender. I was doing a weekend cleaning and started removing parts to get at the grime when before I realized it, I had stripped the V-Rod lower than I had ever imagined and I LIKED IT! Now I’m looking at a solo fender, side mount license plate, and slamming the back end. I wonder how it would look with mini apes?
Until next time…..
