Adaptive Curmudgeon

You want the truth?!? Of course you want the truth! You can handle the truth! You’re not whiny little bitches on Facebook, you’re actual goddamn adults!

So was it true? Was my fuel situation as bad as I thought? In a word “nope”. The embarrassing truth is that I had incorrect assumptions. They led me to be more uneasy than reality merited.

(What analogies can one make between my self inflicted motorcycle fuel worries and events of 2020? Yikes! Then again I didn’t just stand there and shit myself. I took action, adapted, learned, and am right now “upping my game”. Quite the opposite of modern society. A fully media-influenced human vote farm unit would be found on the same forest trail, 15 months from now, weeping at the horror of possible/theoretical/statistically modeled impending problems. “There’s only a 99.95% chance I can drive out of this mess… rather than risk it, I’ll quit living and hope for someone else to order me around for my own good.”)

I’m drifting off topic… back to motorcycle stories: I’m happy to report I hadn’t skated very far at all on the thin ice of bad choices.

The proof is in the math. I topped off my motorcycle after that ride. From that, I calculated my consumption at 76 MPG. (Clearly the earlier 68 MPG experience comes from flogging the bike at road speeds.) Also the internet told me that my TW has a 1.8 gallon tank (not the 1.4 I thought). That means a real world experienced range of 122 miles when wound up on pavement and 136 miles when sauntering through the forest. (I much prefer sauntering!)

I’m not going to bother with the gunk in my MSR bottle. Life is too short to deliberately experience bad gas. I’ll use that for cleaning auto parts and chainsaw chains.

Finally, y’all gave me a hand, even if you don’t know it yet! I appreciate every donation on Patreon or PayPal (or the kickback I get if you buy stuff from my Amazon links). It’s a trickle of income that mostly goes to boring crap like internet hosting fees… but a sliver is left over. I carefully hoard it for when I need to “encourage adventures”. By my logic, doing stupid shit is where fun stories come from, so it’s good to keep the “stupid shit” machine properly serviced. (Ugh, what a terrible metaphor! Oh well, I’m in a rush and it’ll have to do.)

I decided to tap that saved money. I ordered up parts for an excellent off-road fuel solution. I have a sexy new RotoPax arrangement coming in the mail. The next time I’m out there I should be have a full gallon of spare gas AND a full gallon of potable water. I’ll post photos when it’s installed; ideally very soon.

There are drawbacks to carrying that much weight but it’ll extend my range by 70+ miles and (if things go very bad) make me pretty dehydration resistant for up to 2 days. (Walking sucks and I doubt I’ll ever have to do it, but if you “play” far beyond pavement, you’d better have the resources to manage a “self rescue”.)

I doubt I’ll be worrying about fuel range again unless I start doing multi-day outings… which is not in my plans right now. (I love sleeping in the cot and you can’t carry something like that on a motorcycle. There are tempting new developments in the camping hammock arena. A hammock would fit on the bike too. But I have doubts that a hammock would work for me. Until I know more, I’m too cheap to buy a hammock-tent.)

Thanks to all of you who’ve tossed me a copper. You kindly keep the Curmudgeon’s motorcycle fueled!

Update: There’s a delay because of course there is. It’s 2021 and I forget we’re far beyond the “before times” of say… 2019. Supply chains strain and decay inhabits commerce. Components were shipped from multiple suppliers via UPS and USPS. (Guess which of the two is still in transit.) No photos until I get the materials. Sorry.

I rolled out going forward; heading toward wherever Beer Faeries come from. The trail was pretty rough but nothing a proper UTV or my little dirtbike couldn’t handle. Where the heck had they come from? Anywhere I supposed. They’d come 85 miles and that’s a very long way on backwoods trails.

I don’t have a fat UTV bench seat, two compatriots, and a nice squishy suspension. I was getting tired. By the time I emerged from the swamp trail I was at least 40 miles from my tent and probably more.

There’s a thing about distances. They’re relative. Forty miles is nothing if you’re flying down the interstate in a Subaru. It’s a middling piece on a cushy UTV. It’s a long way for a novice rider / old guy on a dirt bike. It’s two days walk in this temperature if the bike craps out on a solo rider. A guy like me can do a two day hike… I’ve done it before. But it sucks. I was already far enough out for an inexperienced suburbanite to get himself killed. (And yes, that does happen in this area from time to time. Not every year but every so often.)

It was late afternoon and I started evaluating my options. Should I go back the way I came or try a lop that might be easier (and therefore more fuel efficient) riding?

Going back the swamp trail was do-able but I prefer loops to backtracking. The sun was still high in the sky. I had food and water and two magic beers. How far does a little TW go on a tank? Also, how much energy did I have left? Enough to make me want to go forward instead of back.

I did some math. The TW has a 1.4 gallon tank. (I later researched and it’s really 1.8 gallons which I wished I’d known that day!) I’ve only gone on reserve once and that was at 68 miles. That day I was flogging the bike on a paved road at speeds the engine doesn’t like. I’d rolled about 5 miles on reserve to a gas station and the fill up had been a little over a gallon. So, being cautious, figure 68 MPG from my actual experience times 1.4 gallons in the tank. That’s about… carry the one, brush a bug out of my face, recalculating… 95 miles or so. That’s a conservative estimate, but then again walking is hard.

I was showing 50-ish miles on my odometer for this particular trip and that’s already more than half-ish of my conservative 95 miles. Glance at sun… I’m still going in the wrong direction. Shit!

So technically, I was potentially screwed. Though, probably not. This is a motorcycle and not a helicopter. I also guessed 98 mile range on a TW was a bit low. Did I do the math wrong or something? I’d been sputtering along slow and easy, surely I had more range than a hundred clicks?

Ace up the sleeve. I’ve got an MSR bottle stashed in my gear. It was either a pint or a quart but whatever it was would easily get me home. Nicely played Curmudgeon.

I rolled forward with confidence. I went through some nice forest, each mile putting me further from “home base” but embracing the chance to see more cool shit. I was hoping to catch a bear sighting… though any bear with half a brain wouldn’t be roaming in this sun. I wound up following some arrow straight ditches for a while and an hour later I was fully committed to “the loop”. There was no going back now.

Clever me to have stashed that MSR bottle! It has been sitting there, unused, since shortly after I bought the bike. Meant for just such a situation. I’m so… smart?

Wait a minute here! I’d stashed modern EPA witches brew gasoline last year? I knew I hadn’t added Sta-Bil. It was probably bad gas by now. Dang!

Still riding, I pondered the best course of action. The carbureted TW 200 would probably run on darned near anything that bears a resemblance to gas. It’s not a wimpy fuel injector system that would puke on the first sigh of trouble. Still, bad gas ‘aint good gas and walking sucks. Should I dump the crap from the MSR bottle into the tank now, hoping to dilute whatever crap I’d be adding? Or should I roll on with my perfectly running machine as long as I could. I really had no idea how far to camp. I might get there just fine. The distance might be shorter than I was guessing miles. I might have a better range than my conservative calculations. The “bad gas” might be good. Why test it before it’s needed? I kept rolling

I passed a lovely field. I just had to check it out. A bit behind the field I saw an RV, the only regular sized (non-ATV) vehicle I’d seen all day. Perhaps I could buy a pint of gas from some dude’s generator?

The guy I met was super nice. I didn’t bring up the gas situation and just talked about the topic du jour. “Hot enough for ya?” This guy and his RV had been there a million times. He was a fount of knowledge. He told me I was much closer to my campsite than I expected. This meant fuel was not an issue. Sweet!

I drank a half liter of water, listened to all the local lore I could absorb, and rolled out. True to his prediction, I wound up at camp just before sunset with plenty of fuel left. Nice!

It was a mellow happy (hot!) adventure. I hope y’all enjoyed coming along for the ride.

I was in an ugly chunk of terrain and mightily overheated. I was rolling down an endless trail, counting out my 10 minutes, planning to stop at the first good shade or when my time ran up… at which time I’d guzzle water like my life depended on it.

I spied headlights ahead. Someone was driving a UTV down the narrow trail toward me. There was no way we could pass and the UTV would flounder in the swamp if pushed too far. So, I found an opening, rolled my bike into crotch deep weeds but kept the wheels on solid ground, and waited. I checked that my muffler wasn’t going to set any brush on fire but the muffler was well shielded. Silly me! I was frying like bacon but the little bike was in normal operating specs. Conditions beating me to death were “well within the bell curve” for my brick shithouse of a bike!

I was weary and sighed the frustrated and sweaty sigh of a man who’s had too much fun. My sense of adventure faded and I wished I was home and in air conditioning.

Then everything changed!

The UTV rolled up with three laughing women jammed side by side in the bench seat. They were joyously joking and smiling like a combination women’s book club and bar crawl had first gone mobile and then went ridiculously remote. They sure were having fun! If anyone might roll up in the middle of the forest to give Paul Bunyan himself a wedgie it was these three. They stopped next to me and said the most beautiful words in the English language.

“Want a beer?”

I almost fell off my still idling bike!

“Yes! Yes I do want a beer!”

I had my helmet off in a flash and practically fell over reaching for the can.

I had met what I call the “Beer Faeries”. It was a miracle and may God bless ‘em! This hard partying trio of ladies had left civilization some 85 miles ago (I was only half that far from my campsite). They were having all the fun a Polaris and two coolers can provide. They had matching shirts with some sort of dirty joke printed on them. They had spare fuel and all the gear they needed but without the uptight planning I’d been doing. They apparently do this sort of shit all the time.

I had to blink twice to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Here I was, roasting to death in literally in the exact definition of “middle of nowhere”… yet some woman was handing me an ice cold beer!

It was a shit brand of canned swill and I didn’t care. It was the best damned beer I’ve ever had!

They were telling me how last week they’d gotten lost and came home at 3:00 am… which was fine with them because that’s why they make headlights. I only heard half of it. I chugged the beer like an under-aged loser and wiped the can’s condensation on my forehead. I was instantly refreshed.

One of them was taking a piss on the other side of the UTV and I tried hard not to notice… though honestly that’s all me and had nothing to do with her. She might have peed on my boot just for fun.

The driver was standing there in flip flops which looked so much cooler than my sweltering motorcycle safety gear. The third one was lighting a smoke and insisted on pressing two more cans into my hands. I stowed them in my bike’s cooler… they were now the most precious things I owned.

They piled in their rig, stomped the gas, and they were gone. Like a switch being flipped, everything went pure nature again. The party on wheels had left and I was once again hearing only the sound of deerflies.

Did that really happen? I crushed the can and stowed it. Yep, it happened.

Life is grand!

Back on my motorcycle I quickly left the ATV area behind. I was now in a mix of swamp and working forest. Working forest is where tree harvest is a non-ironic genuine industrial activity. Most of the roads were in good condition though some ended at a logging landing. There were intermittent areas where roads were long neglected (passable but sketchy) or non-existent. In between there were occasional water infrastructure objects, ditches and irrigation gates and whatnot. Many of these would be a stone cold bitch to cross if you weren’t on a road or trail (or snowmobile). Further in I expected to find abandoned homesteads. Sure enough they appeared on cue. Mostly gone to brush a century ago and from there to forest again. How many Americans… let me rephrase that, how many north Americans or Europeans have seen places that once supported people and are now literally uninhabited. How different and more humble we would all be if we’d all seen such places. Confidence that “the arrow of history points to conclusion X” fades when you roll past an abandoned cemetary. A community was once there. People were born, grew up, and died in what was once a village, and then a ghost town, and is now nowhere. It’s a curiosity to ride by on a dirt bike and I thought of Ozymandias and folks freaking out in their efforts to slice 2021’s pie to their liking. Those old graves are a point of view most people haven’t had the privilege to experience.

Interspersed with all this were tall healthy tree plantations; more industrial forest. Works of the hand of man, good places to hunt big game. There were equally large patches of mature native generated forest. Just as industrial but not planted in rows and also just as pretty. There were also occasional burned areas; because fire is part of life.

One burned area was a bit larger than most and I crossed it slowly, getting lost in a maze of logging trails from the salvage cut. This is where the heat got to me once again. The air was dead calm and the burn had no canopy. No tree canopy meant no shade. I cooked out as little Honey Badger and I picked our way through the area. On the other side, I took a random turn and found myself on a long straightaway that went directly through a more or less impassible swamp. Weeds brushed me from all sides, no doubt giving my Peremethrin treated jeans a solid test.

I was panting and my mouth was dry. Not a good sign! At the next shaded spot I’d drink some water. I was feeling a little ill and didn’t relish the thought of stopping. When you’re thirsty but you’re not interested in water… you’re dehydrated. Yet, I was in no mood to stop in this swampy mess. I’d hold out for a shaded tree plantation but no more than 10 minutes. (I promised myself I’d stop in 10 minutes even if I was on a hornet’s nest. You need to put the logical brain in charge of the illogical during extreme conditions. Plus, I was alone. A certain extra caution behooves the solo adventurer.)

I finally got to the free primitive camping / ATV staging area I’d seen on a map. There were a few RVs. They had generators running and (presumably) people inside enjoying the AC. (I felt jealous.) Nearby were the horse people (including some horse trailers with living quarters… also with generators running).

There’s no conflict that I know of but horse and ATV people do tend to self segregate; maybe the ATVs freak out the horses? I dunno’. Judging from the distribution of horse crap and ATV tracks this was a long standing social order.

I reflected that people who piss and moan about racism or whatever other “ism” serves their needs should get outside more. The press is always angry that people to fail to mix in the perfectly diverse and therefore utterly uniform froth that Utopians demand, yet there are legitimate reasons people associate. The horse people hung out in one cluster. The ATV people in another. That doesn’t mean anyone is oppressing anyone. It probably has more to do with the axle position on a horse trailer versus an ATV trailer. Maybe the horses don’t like the smell of gas or the ATV people don’t like stepping in horseshit. Regardless, if they were forced to intermingle, it would suck for both.

A few RV’s didn’t seem to have ATV equipment (like an ATV trailer) or horse equipment. I gathered these were family units; grandma and grandpa snoozing in AC while their progeny, a generation or two distant, were out on Hondas and horses.

As for folks like me, it was too hot… there were no tents. Yet I was there and I could’ve put up a tent. I’d slept the night in a tent not 30 miles distant. That too doesn’t mean I was oppressed… just hot. I suspect the uses of this little area shift with the season. During big game season, hunters surely stampede the whole landscape (bringing their own ATVs and horses). There was a nearby sledding hill. After hunting season but before it’s the worst of blizzard season, kids are probably sledding up a storm. What a grand place to celebrate Christmas! Nearby snowmobile trails are impassible in summer (they can only be traversed when swamps are solid ice) yet they’re probably highways in January. They’d zip back and forth en masse yet scarcely know that ATVs and horses ruled the zone only a few months ago.

There was a winter warming hut, a hand pump for water, a smattering of fire rings, a few trash cans. All this was apparently maintained by what appeared to be volunteers in some sort of ad hoc randomness that made me love my people even more. It was clean but everything was well used and old. There weren’t a lot of government signs bitching about this thing or that. There was an array of recycling cans that would make an HOA Karen proud… all bear proof of course. The outhouses were good enough but more or less oven temperature inside.

I was, by then, utterly cooked in the sun.

I picked an empty campsite, dragged a picnic table into the shade, and sat down to write this post. I was carrying ice water (an unimaginable luxury in these conditions, traveling as I was) and drank greedily. It didn’t help. I’d gotten too hot to easily cool down. I had food but it was too hot to have an appetite. I stretched out on the picnic table to cool in the shade; maybe take a nap.

Nope. Too hot. Usually even the slightest breeze and a little shade will do the trick. One can cool slowly. Not in this weather. I just got hotter and hotter.

Think Curmudgeon, you’re an outdoors guy. How are you going to cool down?

I’d seen a lake about 8 miles back. I could jump in it? Meh… it was a swampy looking mess. I’d probably just wallow in warm mud and get eaten alive by leeches.

I wandered past the warming hut, assuming it was locked. Isn’t everything by the government locked? But it wasn’t! It was like the “before times” when the government served the people instead of the other way ‘round. Was the warming hut nice and cool? Nope! It was stuffy and sweltering.

Finally, I tried the hand pump. It had to be 100 years old but it was well maintained. A few cranks and out spilled cool clear water. I filled my hat and dumped the hat on my head. I almost had a stroke from the change in temperature. That water was cold! I shivered… which was ideal. I repeated the procedure a few more times. Thoroughly chilling myself.

I walked back toward my motorcycle but did a U-turn back to the pump and did it all over again. The second time was a charm. Now I could finally roll out.

Only as I left camp behind did I realize what I gem of an area I had found. The forest roads and various ATV trails (legal for motorcycles) spread out like spiderwebs! I had in mind to explore a designated ATV area about 20-ish miles away but I wasn’t particularly dedicated to the task. I didn’t head that way… I ambled. I took this forest road or that trail in no particular order. I’d see a cool stump or a neat grove of trees or a likely place for small game hunting in the fall and go check it out. I’d ping my SpotX occasionally but I was more or less lost. Not that I cared, the day was young and I was well prepared. The sun was brutal but also clearly visible. I kept an eye on it and managed to go in basically the correct direction.

I was “scouting” for future trips too. I found a few very nice dispersed camps (free!). I mildly regretted paying full scratch for a State Park just a few miles away. Then I remembered that nice cool shower. Luxuries are sometimes worth the expense.

The entire area was ideal. A perfect Curmudgeon playland! I made plans to come back for small game season. I’ve a mind to add hunting to my bike trips; carry a hunting firearm on the bike, ride to a nice hunting spot, whack a rabbit or a gamebird, and grill it right there in the forest. (At the moment, that’s not in the cards. Fire restrictions are in effect so grilling without returning to a metal ringed firepit is illegal. Also, it’s stupid. More importantly, it’s not the right hunting season. That’s OK. I’m patient and it’s an idea not a job.) I’ve experimented with motorcycle/fishing too. That was a different story that I never blogged but it hasn’t yet worked out. This area didn’t lend itself to fish dinner anyway. I didn’t find any secret fishing holes.

There’s a spectrum of “styles” for people playing in nature and I don’t sit at the middle of that bell curve. I’d shutdown my motorcycle and was sitting on a stump watching a goldfinch when I saw the first “other people”. It was an ATV “group” and it was my best guess as to “normal” for the area.

Four machines arrived in convoy and eight people piled out. A four seat UTV, complete with kids in the back wearing helmets. An older ATV driven by a bald guy (no helmet). A dirt bike operated by a guy that looked a bit like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Also no helmet. Finally a skinny sunburnt woman on an old ATV. She wore a muscle shirt and was clutching a lit cigarette. Some poor bastard (husband?) was perched on the back and holding on for deal life. No helmet on those two either.

I mention the helmet thing because helmets on a UTV seem like overkill. Since they’ve got roll cages it’s more a lawyer thing than a logical need (unless, of course, you’re going nuts on technical obstacles). Yet, I notice that even the craziest rednecks will carefully truss up kids like the tykes are going to space. That says something about our society and it seems rather positive to me. The woman with the muscle shirt looked like she ate meth from the skulls of her enemies yet she helped the kids with the gentlest hand… while waving a lit cigarette in the middle of a parched forest with the other. They gave me a nod, as if assessing the threat profile of a bearded weirdo sitting in the brush stalking songbirds. I nodded back. Everyone was happy. The kids frolicked a bit and then everyone saddled up and roared out. I love Americans!

I thought that, as I approached the ATV “area” I might be overrun by the extras from Mad Max, The Road Warrior. It was nothing of the sort. I saw only one additional ATV group. Three gleaming new UTVs in convoy; looking for all the world like an organized and highly financed high tech military patrol. I sputtered by, feeling sheepish to be going so slow on my “grandpa bike” but also macho to be exploring alone.

That was it. Two ATV groups. That was “the crowded part” of my day.