Man Down! But Not Out…
I woke up hoping 1) that Dave had gotten his need to over-ride every road out of his system and/or 2) he would be leaving us to our own devices sooner rather than later. Neither of these hopes panned out.
We had talked about scheduling the night before. Dave knew we had a 350mi trip to Marquette, and Paul requested to leave about 8:30. So we did. Unpleasantly, Dave opted to talk business with me before the ride, which set a bit of a sour tone from the outset. This got worse for me when we turned onto the first county road on the route and Dave immediately dropped the hammer and took off. Awesome. Another morning of playing chase-the-bunny all day. Meh. So I rabbited along with him and watched as Paul dropped behind us in the curves and then had to really fly in the straights to try to keep up. I rationalized by telling myself that it was enough that Paul was staying within the limits of his bike and not trying to keep up in the corners. My ego was stroked a bit by the fact that it wasn’t difficult to keep up with this experienced rider in familiar territory on a more sport-oriented motorcycle. I found myself riding his ass a bit because I was still a bit torqued by the morning business and his imposition on my ride.
This went on through the morning, relentlessly. Corner after corner. Straight after straight. I can’t think of a straight where we weren’t 20-30mph over the speed limit. I honestly can’t believe that this doofus has a license at all, considering his total disregard for traffic laws. Yet here I was right with him, every step of the way. We’d stop and wait for Paul to catch up, then rabbit back out down the road. We finally stopped for lunch and had some Mexican. It was better than Wisconsin Mexican had any right to be, but it wasn’t as good as the Colorado Mexican in Leadville. When Dave stepped off to the bathroom, both Paul and I bitched about the pace and the ride, and hoped he would be departing soon. Then he came back and neither of us said a word.
Dave said he still had a few more hours with us. I looked at my GPS. The ETA to Marquette had been around 3:30pm when we left (you lose an hour as you travel). So about a 7hr drive. As we bombed around the countryside with Dave, though, the ETA slipped further and further, and it was now around 5:30. I didn’t say anything and off we went. There were a few more county roads, and then Dave said it would be a bit of regular road as we got to “this road I’ve been telling you about.” Geez. Finally. I was hoping this would be more direct and then be over quickly. No and No, would be the answers to those hopes.
We sailed along in a not-helpful direction for quite a ways, then we turned onto a riverfront road in a local indian reservation. On we cruised down a pretty, winding road. Which looked at this point like almost every other road that I’d ridden for two days. And since I have to look only at the road while I drive this way, I can really only tell you about the tarmac. Which is why I don’t get the point of this style of driving. If all I have time to look at is the road, why not just drive the same bit of road over and over? Dumb. Dave and I blitzed the length of the river road, stopping as the road turned back to civilization and freedom. Dave said he’d be splitting off from us once we were back to a state highway. Good riddance. But first we needed Paul. He had known he was approaching his limits and had played at being Mr. Good Driver all down the road. After about 15 minutes, a wild Paul appeared and we got back on the road. This connector road was clearly much less traveled. Several miles down the road, Dave and I raced through a corner and found a large drift of gravel in the dead center of the lane. I tried to activate my intercom to warn Paul, but he was out of range. I was slowing down and watching the corner in my mirror when Paul came through. He was going much slower than we had, which meant he didn’t swing wide in the turn like we had, and his line carried him right through the gravel patch. I watched as his bike slid across the empty oncoming lane and recovered just in time to drive straight off the road and into the grass along the side. “He’s down,” I told Dave (and Paul, who was now in the chat, but who already knew). We flipped u-turns and drove back to Paul, telling him to stay down. He was fine, as it turns out, standing up almost before we arrived. I lifted his bike off it’s left side and got it fired up. I took the Goldwing out for a shakedown spin and found it road-worthy. Mostly cosmetic damage was done, with the loss of a left mirror the most serious of the wounds. Thankfully Paul was well under the speed limit when he hit that gravel or the damage may have been worse.
Frustratingly, it turned out that we were only 2 or 3 corners from the end of this road and a return to civilization. Dave went south to head home, and we turned north for the remaining 2+ hours of the trip. Paul was pretty stunned by the get-off, and I was fuming over the whole situation. It was necessary and stupid, and I blamed (and still blame) myself for the end result. We allowed this guy to insinuate himself into the trip and take over virtually everything. Sure, he was the local expert and we saw parts of Wisconsin that we wouldn’t have otherwise seen, but it is still our trip and our vacation. I should’ve set boundaries and guidelines. Instead, we ceded control and followed a leader that neither of us liked along a path that neither of us wanted to follow. I allowed myself to be run closer to limits than I usually choose to run. Paul allowed himself to be pushed beyond his normal limits for his own reasons. For me, it was a bit of conceit, as noted above. It was an unwillingness to back down. A desire to finish what I started. And a bit of greed, based on the business aspect of things. Every time we should have said, “fuck you, slow down or move on,” we gritted our teeth and followed to the next corner.
Paul and I chatted about the situation on the way to Marquette. I am opting to use this as a teachable moment. I need to speak up, especially when my safety or the safety of others is at unacceptable risk. I should’ve told him to slow down. Or to move to a more direct route. Or to leave us alone. We agreed that we both hadn’t been happy with the situation but didn’t want to be “that guy” and speak up. Therefore, we agreed to speak up in the future. We travel well together. If one of us isn’t happy with a travel situation, likely the other one isn’t happy either and just isn’t saying anything. I apologized to Paul for letting the bullshit continue as long as it did, and I commended him for not giving in to the temptation of pushing his limits. It wasn’t really fair that he was the one of us that paid the price for Dave’s bullshit.
In the end, the whole ordeal felt like a test with no right answer. Dave sets a pace. I keep up easily, but somehow am found wanting. Paul’s bike causes him to fall behind, and he is found wanting as well. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat ad nauseam. As we rode, Dave told more and more stories of his motorcycle riding. Stories that seemed to invariably end with him or a buddy in the grass with a broken motorcycle. He happily told us about how he had a replacement ankle and knee from different accidents, both of which were directly due to his overly-aggressive approach to riding. In hindsight the crash seems inevitable, once we gave in to staying silent. We agreed that we wouldn’t do that again.
We limped into Marquette around 7 or so. It was a quick shower and change before we headed out to dinner before the city rolled up the sidewalk. I took Paul out to dinner at a local German joint, which was great. After celebrating a local’s 32nd birthday with the German crew, we headed out. Paul requested a whiskey, so we found a bar and got him a shot to calm his nerves. I opted to go to the local brewpub to close out the night, while Paul went back and got a bit of extra rest. We had already decided to eat the room in tomorrow’s planned stop of Sault Ste Marie and spend an extra night in Marquette to let Paul’s muscles recover a bit. I’ll take a quick day trip to Copper Harbor.