K11 Owners Group

[Off the grid]

Never a dull moment with you, eh Gwen?

Just when I was wondering where you had gone off to.

You took some fantastic pictures, this one of course is my favorite:


Welcome back Gwen, as Drake said, take it easy and mend up.

-Dave
_________________
Bane of your existence since July 2006
2007 Triumph Tiger ABS. "Sabertooth"
2009 Husqvarna TE610. "The dirty Italian mistress"

[wera32]

Great photos Gwen and a fun narration to read. I too know about collar bones.....and wheels over the ditch...... What kind of camera are you using? It takes beautiful pictures!
From 1985:
_________________
Paul - '93 K11/12RS (sold), 2002 R1100S BCP and '03 RC51 KOG 29

[rydor]

Glad you're getting her painted anyway in the forseeable future...
LOVE the train pics!
Take care of yourself, Gwen!!

[Shoganai]

[Rider]

Gwen,

You are one tough babe! Superb photographs and narration. I admire your composure to be able to document your RS laying in the ditch like a dead dog while you sit there trying to figure out a way to get it on its wheels again. I think there must be someone looking out for wandering motorcyclists.

Next time park in the middle of the road and if some one comes along you can move it over. Then if you drop it there will be help there to help pick it up.

Ed
_________________
2007 650 Burgman, 2003 400 Burgman


Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.

[drmalacarne]

Shogs.
You had a beautiful trip and some tense moments...
But I hope your spine stay in good shape, after all that huge affort to move your KRS.
I had a KRS like yours, and once it fell on my left leg, and I couldn't move it solo! My leg turns purple like a beetroot....
BUt I'm sure that you and your brick will be in perfect shape soon!
Guilherme.
_________________
1994 K1100LT SE n° 0267
1998 HD Heritage Springer 95th anniversary
Yes, a Hog and a Beemer can live together!

[Jim]

Gwen - thanks for the great pix - I love old trains and old houses . I do not love seeing motorcycles lying on their side, however . Sorry to read about your mishap.

Congrats on the new home! Take care of yourself.
_________________
Jim
1997 K1100LTSE 94,000 - still has gremlins!
1995 R100RT Classic 16,650 crashed - repaired!
1992 K75RTP 46,000

"We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed."

[Shoganai]

Part 2 Friday

The next morning I wake up rested and hunger about 0530.
Must……find…… coffee….. (yawn, stretch, scratch)

But I needed a shower first. The shower was the type where you have to
pull a cord and keep it pulled to keep the water running. So I pull
and wait….and wait….and wait…

10 minutes pass and still NO hot water. Heck, it wasn't even warm. I
gave up, gritted my teeth and eased into the rain of icicles. It felt
like 65 degrees! And made my scalp hurt.

I shiver myself dry and stalked back to warn others.

As others came back from the showers, EVERYBODY said they had hot water!
Sucked to be me!


I hook up with Augie Doggie and KLrboxerR for a ride to breakfast.





These are just two biscuits with gravy!



I had a western omelet with extra cheddar and hot salsa. Then it was
back to camp for more meet and greet. I met friends I haven't seen in
a while and lots of folks I had grown fond of through their posts and
via PM's but was meeting in meat space for the first time.


KLrboxerR



Zip tie use number 2971.



Drif10 and bostensr (on the bike)



That's the Party Boss in the background.



k-bike pic



The official furry butt welcoming Rep.



DevilDog, Adakrider, Bueller



Drif10



MentalGS



MentalGS and husband DevilDog



Giddy-up Girl



Rider and Beuller



Adakrider



KenOBSC



Adways AKA Eric



FBOMB



Beuller and wife Cindy



Beer kitty sleeping one off



Me and goatroper



Dingo Joe



The boys checking out the girl and her bike. She rides
solo all over the States and never really talks about it. Note Adways





For lunch, I hooked up with a first-time ADV event attendee that went
as Dfrnt and we rode to Bob Evans. Then made a Wal-mart run for drinks
and coffee.

Augie doggie



SlipChip



gsweave



(more later...)
_________________
1993 K1100RS aka The Shop Whore
1994 K1100RS aka Blue Streak

The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again,
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover. - JT


Nana korobi ya oki

[rydor]

Looks like a great turnout! Keep em coming, Gwen

[Shoganai]

Ok, on with the ride

Devil Dog and MetalGS 2^ for lunch. She rode her own bike
here but enjoys riding with her husband at times.



Damn Paparotizzi!!! AKA KlboxeR



Beer Kitty mooching SlimJims from Drif10



bostersr







Friday night I got WAY drunk. Someone brought Pirate Rum, which is OMG delicious! Half Black Strap rum and half butterscotch schnapps. I
stayed up till 0100 walking around and talking to lots of people. (But
I have little memory of what I said) I remember laughing and smiling a
lot. I poured one last huge shot of Stoli, climbed on my picnic table,
tossed it back and promptly passed out.


_________________
1993 K1100RS aka The Shop Whore
1994 K1100RS aka Blue Streak

The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again,
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover. - JT


Nana korobi ya oki

[Shoganai]

The next morning (Saturday) I was STILL drunk, and Drif10 said I
snored like a freight train.

So I ambled around, found some water and sobered up.

RebeccaV and I manage to slip away for a totally chilled, laid back,
testosterone-free ride. We hike to Cedar Falls. We were like a mutual
admiration society. I worship to road her wheels roll on as a hard
core LD rider. She has completed two Iron Butt rides (11,000 miles in
11 days) and competes in lots of other LD events. She has no need to
impress anyone other than herself. She wrenches her own bike and is a
very accomplished rider. On top of all that she is so feminine and
pretty. I want to be like her. She is my personal hero.

Us getting ready to head out.





waterfall



The stream



her



her walking the trail



the path



the rock in the water



her on the path



her riding





her at the gas station




We ask around and find this Mom and Pop dinner that was CLASSIC!

menu



pie



taking pics



my meal



her on the bike



Back at camp

Beer Kitty says, "Who farted!"



KenOBSC





ThisGuy



Then Drif10 gets a call and GPS numbers from a stranded rider.

Next up, a rescue party is rounded up.
_________________
1993 K1100RS aka The Shop Whore
1994 K1100RS aka Blue Streak

The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again,
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover. - JT


Nana korobi ya oki

[Shoganai]

A call comes in to the camp office, DeerSlayer is stuck. So we mount a
rescue posse and head out to the GPS coordinates he sent.

It was only about 15 miles away. I came along as the official photog.



We arrive to the last safe place DeerSlayer said our
bikes should go and prepared to hike in.









The road didn't look all that bad, but it did get MUCH worse!





This is what we found.







DeerSlayer dug and leverage that pig out of the mud for three hours
before calling for help. Here are some pics he took before we got
there. (pics he took before we arrived)





Let the pig wrestling begin.









This mud had an affinity for knobbies and took some scrapping to
encourage it to let go.
















This is what he rode through and got stuck in.


_________________
1993 K1100RS aka The Shop Whore
1994 K1100RS aka Blue Streak

The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again,
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover. - JT


Nana korobi ya oki

[Shoganai]

Well, everybody was rested, but he still has to make it to the road,
and the mud between here and there had the same drag coefficient as KY
jelly.















We're OUTTA here!



At camp he writes down the names of all that helped him, showed some
pics, then takes a load off.








Then I just mingle and take pics

Johntm



DataDaddy



Adways and DataDaddy



Rider and RebeccaV



K






dirty bike





A big BBQ dinner was planned and HUGE amounts of dead, tasty animals were consumed!



Me and Freaks bike



Freak



Gramps



Lexington (L) and Cauldron (R)



Kim



Pansy




There were door prizes. How sweet is that, this was Dfrtn's first ADV gathering and he nailed a shirt!



DevilDog scooped up this jacket.


_________________
1993 K1100RS aka The Shop Whore
1994 K1100RS aka Blue Streak

The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again,
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover. - JT


Nana korobi ya oki

[Shoganai]

DeerSlayer was honored with a new name. "Let it be known from this day
forward that the rider formally known as DeerSlayer shall hence forth
be known as DeerSTUCKER!"









K12R





That night I stayed up past midnight bonding was other riders over a
fire and music. I never drink the night before a long ride. I spent a lot of time talking with KLrboxeR. We talked like we've known each other for years!

Sunday morning we all pack up and head out. I went back to the dinner
for breakfast and had the ABSOLUTLY best steak, egg and cheddar
sandwich EVER! The bun was grilled in butter for crying out loud!
Awsome!!



I talk with this interesting old fellow for an hour.



Old post office



Some roads.












There was no left hand turn!





Another old grave yard





Note the old head stones in the wall.




A bump in the road caused the zip tie to fail. Maybe I should have been going just a littlle slower.

pannier



old house



old church













Old bridge





Another OLD!! Bridge.




Highway 89 HOLY HECK!!!! What an awesome road!!







Cool old tractor









Almost home





Hume



Sunset






Steve greets me in the garage, as I'm de-gearing and inquires about my
ride home. We briefly catch up then he tells me my friend Adways AKA
Eric died in a crash involving a car on the way home.

Here is what I posted on ADV about my friend.


http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7160637#post7160637




I have not been able to post here until now because every time I tried, I cried.

I miss Eric so much.

I first meet Eric in Atlanta at the Vortex in December 2006, but we had connected through ADV and PM's before then.



And again at No Clever Name...



Then again this past weekend...





Eric camped next to Drif10 where I slept on the picnic table at night, and took a nap in the afternoon. Eric wasn't there when I laid down, but I knew he would have gladly let me use his saddle pad as a pillow. So I did and slept like a big fat baby.



Eric was everything everybody has already spoke of. He was kind, gentle and more joyful than most souls I've met. His hugs were genuine and heartfelt. His laughter was pure and plentiful.

I remember drifting off to sleep at night to the big cat soft purr of Eric and Jim snoring softly.

I came home from BYOB and Steve met me in the garage and broke the news to me. I felt like I was stabbed in the back. Dear God, not Eric! I found myself on my knees crying, unable to process what had happened to my friend.

The morning I left for home, Eric threw himself in front of a unattended, run-away four wheeler and saved my bike from being run over. I yelled, "Eric! You're my hero!" and I hugged him mightily. We laughed about it and said our good-byes, each wishing the other a safe ride home. As I pulled away, I yelled, “I love ya man!” My last vision of Eric was him smiling and waving.

I want to leave you with this vision of Eric. His compassion expressed in such gentle tones and graceful touch. I was honored to call him my friend. Thank you for being you Adways.














Barb, you were the luckest of all to have the love of this good man. If I can serve you in anyway, I will.

And please lean on us during this tragic and sorrowful time.

Post, share, and vent and know that you are among family.



Gwen
_________________
1993 K1100RS aka The Shop Whore
1994 K1100RS aka Blue Streak

The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again,
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover. - JT


Nana korobi ya oki

[rydor]

So very sorry to hear about your friend, Gwen.

[Off the grid]

Looking at your pics Gwen I kind of had the feeling that was the last meet that Adways was at before his accident.

The good ones always die way before we want them to.

I didn't get a chance to meet Eric at the Jim Thorpe meet, but it looks as if he made an impact on most of the people he came across.

RIP Eric.
_________________
Bane of your existence since July 2006
2007 Triumph Tiger ABS. "Sabertooth"
2009 Husqvarna TE610. "The dirty Italian mistress"

[drmalacarne]

Sury was a terrible lost!
Sincerely.
Guilherme.
_________________
1994 K1100LT SE n° 0267
1998 HD Heritage Springer 95th anniversary
Yes, a Hog and a Beemer can live together!

[Shoganai]

Thank you all.
_________________
1993 K1100RS aka The Shop Whore
1994 K1100RS aka Blue Streak

The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again,
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover. - JT


Nana korobi ya oki

[Shoganai]

This RR will be very different. It’s all about family. Last weekend I rode to South Carolina to visit my son and parents.

My son Johnathan has had a very complex medical history.

He arrived on this plane of existence to a G0 P1 mother via emergency
C-section secondary to being full breech. His last trimester sonogram
showed enlarged kidneys but his amniocentesis was WNL. I gazed at him
through the general anesthesia fog. He was crying in the isolet and I
couldn't comfort him, instead the nurse stuffed a paper in my hand to
sign so they could fly him 60 miles away to have an operation. It
would be three days before I would see him again.

It would become the first of many times he would go under the blade.

First, bilateral uretero-pyleostomies for hydronephrosis. (that means
urine leaked constantly from two holes, one on each flank.) Thirteen
months later, they reversed of that. Then he under went several
operations to manage reflux including rebuilding ureter/bladder
junction, rebuild both renal pelvises, and resection of ureteral
stenosis but in the end he lost his right kidney.

He was also tested for Fragile X syndrome because he was a FLK. (funny
looking kid) At age 3 he was the youngest case of herpes zoster his aged
pediatrician had ever seen and it involved four dermatomes. To this
day he deals with chronic 'fever blisters' He also had a complete
immunoassay work up, that showed nothing remarkable.

I remember when he was 5 and started c/o belly pain after supper. As
the night progressed the pain would come and go. I sat at his bedside
rubbing his back but by 0100 he was moaning in his sleep over Tylenol.
My husband at the time persisted that he would be fine by the morning
so I waited. And I worried. By 0230 I had been passive in the presence
of his suffering long enough and went to the ER. He was in surgery by
0600.

The surgeon said later he had lost count of the number of bowel
adhesions he dehisced. You cannot imagine how devastated I felt.

In his early teens he had a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy because he
had breathing problems. He has a badly maloccluded bite. If repaired,
they would need to break the upper jaw and move it down and forward
and the lower jaw would have to move up and back.

Unfolding behind all this trauma was his disjointed mental and
emotional state. He didn't get a proper diagnosis until age 12.
Asperger Syndrome.

Then when we crashed in New Mexico last year, he was irradiated from
head to knees and he got a new diagnosis…Klippel-Fail Syndrome.

It was like the bomb went off in my head. Holy shit! Now so much about
him made sense.

1. The abnormalities of the head and face (FLK and his grade 3
malocclusion of his jaw)
2. The respiratory problems. (Chronic sinusitis)
3. The anomalies of the kidneys and the ribs (he has C7 ribs)
4. Scoliosis (this was discovered from the N.M. x-rays)
5. The low hairline at the back of the head.
6. Restricted mobility of the upper spine. (he has always moved in a
stilted, robotic way with poor head rotation)
7. Congenital fusion of cervical vertebrae (this was discovered from
the N.M. x-rays)

And then there was this… " Some considered Klippel-Feil syndrome to be
some type of global fetal insult, which could explain the other
associated conditions"

I didn't drink or smoke while I carried and had good pre-natal care.
WTF went wrong? What the hell did I do or didn't do that could have
caused this? There are no answers. Not then. Not now. There is only
shoganai and the love we have for each other.

Now at 22 his life has taken a new course. He needs to be as self
realized as possible and I can't do that for him. After many months of
planning and with his hardy excitement, he has chosen to live in a
group home. There, they can provide job training and transportation,
psyche canceling, professional life skills and social training, and
most importantly he will learn to live without me. It will be me
learning to trust others with my child's well-being and that has been
the hardest.

So I was going to see him for the first time since he entered the group home.


Saturday morning I packed the bike, did a pre-trip and Steve helps me put air in my tires. Then I settled into a 500-mile one-way, all interstate ride to S.C.

I stopped at Stewarts Draft, VA for lunch and ate for the first time at South River American Grill. I had a Rib Eye steak sandwich and a warm creamy crab dip with Parmesan cheese on top. I scooped it up with warm, seasoned soft, chewy buttered bread.





Very satisfied, I marked this place in my head to come back to the next time I pass this way again.


About two hours down the road, I started having intermittent right leg/ hip/ lower abdomen pain. I pulled over and took 600mg of Motrin and walked around a bit. It’s eased off and I started south again. The pain started back almost at once and no matter how I shifted about, it just kept getting worse. After 5 hours on the road, I had had enough. I simply could not focus on the ride and traffic.

I pulled off the interstate at Statesville, NC and started looking for a place to lie down. After 10 minutes or so I located a shady spot at the outer corner of a mall parking lot. I de-geared and made a pallet out of my jacket and Helen Two Wheels bag for a pillow. I rummaged thru my tank bag and popped 800mg of Motrin and 1000mg of Tylenol.

I knew what this was and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it but safe the bike and myself until it passed. It was an ovarian cyst about to rupture. It happened once before and I writhed in bed for 4 hours in near the worst pain I had ever known. Now let me tell you, I’m comparing that 11 broken bones, breast reduction, gallstones, C-section, and torn ACL.



I spend that next 1.5 hours here. Thankfully this was not anywhere near as bad as the last time and two hours after I stopped I was back on the road south.

That delay put me arriving in Charlottesville, NC just as a huge summer thunderstorm burst area the area. Of course people suddenly forget how to drive in the rain and the 4 lanes of traffic on South I-77 just 10 miles north of town come to a complete stop.

I pulled under an overpass and donned my Gore-tex jacket liner, but I didn’t care if anything else got wet. Then I excused my way across the lanes until I was back in the fast lane. Well, fast it was not. It was creeping along at an average of 10mph and the raindrops were as big as Hershey’s Kisses. O, yeah, I’m having fun now! I spotted a blue and white Gixxer just one car ahead of me and it was clearly mounted by a chick. The rider was wearing a blue and white leather jacket and matching helmet, black jeans and riding boots.

Although lane splitting is illegal here, I slipped up next to her and we nodding at each other. The rain was starting to ease off and we flipped open out shields and talked as we duck paddled our bikes thru the rain and traffic. It was cool and it helped pass an otherwise miserable time with laughs and smiles. After 45 minutes the traffic picked up enough speed and we rode together for another 2-3 miles before she waved me off and exited towards home.

The ride went smoothly the rest of the way until I exited I-20 in SC. There I received a performance award for 70 in 55. I was tired, the road had been long, I was arriving 4 hours late and I had spent most of the day moving at 70mph. It’s no excuse, but I feel those things played a role in me getting the ticket.




_________________
1993 K1100RS aka The Shop Whore
1994 K1100RS aka Blue Streak

The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again,
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover. - JT


Nana korobi ya oki

[Off the grid]

Damn Shogs quite the saga.

And stop w the tickets already.

Or get a good radar detector.
_________________
Bane of your existence since July 2006
2007 Triumph Tiger ABS. "Sabertooth"
2009 Husqvarna TE610. "The dirty Italian mistress"