Cheese it - the cops!
I'm posting this morning from the lobby of the Brickyard Crossing Resort and Inn, on the grounds of the Speedway where the Indianapolis 500 is run each year. The kitsch factor here is an 11 on a scale of 1-10, right down to the music ("Hang on Snoopy" is playing right now - and it's not a cover version). Today is a rest day. I'll hang with my friend Heather, tour the Speedway and check out a little of the city. I ride again Wednesday. But here's what happened on day two of the trip --
It was a day of police as it turned out. First, there were the three guys in bad suits -- the kind only a cop can get apparently. I think they show their badge and say, “where are the ill-fitting, cheapest looking suits you have” -- knocking on a door a few away from mine in the lovely Super 8. I thought they were just house dicks, but the one that didn’t have a jacket did have a large gold shield and a sidearm the size of Rhode Island on his hip. They looked at me, laden with oversized backpack (known as a tailbag because it rests on the ‘tail’ of the bike), saddle bags, a tent roll, a sleeping bag roll, and a fist full of bungee cords, and one of them shifted to the other side of the hallway, as if to let me pass. Thankfully the elevator was just opposite my room and I didn’t need to get past them. I nodded my thanks and stepped into the elevator.
In front of the motel, standing a foot away from my bike, was another plain-clothes cop and one in a PA State Trooper uniform, mirrored sunglasses and all. As I stepped out of the motel, I asked them did they need me to move the bike. No, they said, it was fine where it was.
Now I have to pause here a moment and say that I’ve always had a fear of cops. Even when I’m not doing anything wrong, if I see a cop I think he (or she) is going to stop me. This probably comes from years of doing things I shouldn’t have, mostly while drinking. Drinking and driving, drinking and fighting, or simply going faster than the speed limit (even when sober). And my fear is really about being locked up, which is always what I think cops are going to do to me. So it’s not really about the cops because let’s face it a speeding ticket is nothing to fear.
OK – I’ll leave that there for now.
Back to the PA Staties … after I strapped all the gear to the bike (which went much faster than on the first day), I had to go back to my room to get my helmets and jacket. As the elevator doors opened on my floor, I slowly poked my head out to see if maybe they were wrestling in the hallway with a shirtless, beer-bellied perp high on something. But the hall was empty. I got the last of my things, went back down to the desk and checked out. I saw nothing more of the police, they must have taken whomever out the backway …
Later in Ohio … Oh, but wait, I wanted to say that PA loves motorcycles. More than any other state I’ve been to (except California), I’ve never seen so many people riding bikes as I have the past 2 days riding through Pennsylvania. Lots of bikes, lots of women riding bikes, lots of trikes … lots and lots of bikes, and very few helmets (yes, mom, I wore mine). I guess the fact that the Harley-Davidson factory is there and I saw at least 4 H-D dealerships as well, might have something to do with it, or the fact that there’s lots of good riding to be had in PA. Either way, there are a lot of motorcycles in Pennsylvania.
Alrighty … on to Ohio. US-40 is a great ride because there are long stretches of road with farms on either side, then you get to a small town and then more long stretches of road. Occasionally you hit an area where the speed limit gets down to 30 mph and there’s strip malls and crap you don’t want to see. Well that’s OK because US-40 parallels I-70, so when you get tired of the scenery, you can hop on the interstate and make up a little time.
Somewhere in Ohio I decided to do just that and took the next ramp onto I-70 West. About 10 minutes or so of high-speed interstate travel and suddenly everyone slows down and then we’re crawling along in stop-n-go traffic. I split the lane because it’s 96 degrees and the bike is air cooled (as am I) and if I don’t keep moving we could both overheat, besides it's why you ride a motorcycle, so you don't have to sit in traffic. Plus, I hate waiting (it’s childish, I know). Well in some states lane splitting (a.k.a white lining, a.k.a. sharing the road) is legal (or rather there is no language in the traffic code on it), in others it is not. In Ohio it’s the latter.
When the State Trooper points at me and then points at the side of the road (see here how I get myself into these things with cops – I’m always doing something I shouldn’t) I know I’m about to get a ticket, the question is how much does the state of Ohio charge for sharing the road (alright, the legal definition is that you shall not overtake a vehicle in the same lane).
So the trooper he asks me if I think it was smart to try and compete with trucks and cars and SUV’s by weaving in and out of the lane. I think this situation calls for me to say as little as possible, so I tell him it was not smart, no. He asks why I would do that and for a minute I think, “because the bike is air cooled, blah, blah, blah”, but I say because I wasn’t thinking, sir. He tells me to wait there, “just wait there and don’t you move.”
With the bike and my jacket both off, it’s only extremely hot, instead of painfully hot (which is what it would be sitting on a running bike wearing a leather jacket in 90 degree weather while NOT moving). I reached back and pulled out a water bottle that was more like tea water at that point, but it was still good to get a little fluid in me.
After something like 10 minutes of waiting, the trooper finishes dealing with the original accident that caused the traffic jam then comes over to me and asks which would I rather have done, waited there or gotten a $120 ticket. I told him I’d rather wait. He said to be careful, then let me go. So we like Ohio State Troopers, or at least we do today.
It was a day of police as it turned out. First, there were the three guys in bad suits -- the kind only a cop can get apparently. I think they show their badge and say, “where are the ill-fitting, cheapest looking suits you have” -- knocking on a door a few away from mine in the lovely Super 8. I thought they were just house dicks, but the one that didn’t have a jacket did have a large gold shield and a sidearm the size of Rhode Island on his hip. They looked at me, laden with oversized backpack (known as a tailbag because it rests on the ‘tail’ of the bike), saddle bags, a tent roll, a sleeping bag roll, and a fist full of bungee cords, and one of them shifted to the other side of the hallway, as if to let me pass. Thankfully the elevator was just opposite my room and I didn’t need to get past them. I nodded my thanks and stepped into the elevator.
In front of the motel, standing a foot away from my bike, was another plain-clothes cop and one in a PA State Trooper uniform, mirrored sunglasses and all. As I stepped out of the motel, I asked them did they need me to move the bike. No, they said, it was fine where it was.
Now I have to pause here a moment and say that I’ve always had a fear of cops. Even when I’m not doing anything wrong, if I see a cop I think he (or she) is going to stop me. This probably comes from years of doing things I shouldn’t have, mostly while drinking. Drinking and driving, drinking and fighting, or simply going faster than the speed limit (even when sober). And my fear is really about being locked up, which is always what I think cops are going to do to me. So it’s not really about the cops because let’s face it a speeding ticket is nothing to fear.
OK – I’ll leave that there for now.
Back to the PA Staties … after I strapped all the gear to the bike (which went much faster than on the first day), I had to go back to my room to get my helmets and jacket. As the elevator doors opened on my floor, I slowly poked my head out to see if maybe they were wrestling in the hallway with a shirtless, beer-bellied perp high on something. But the hall was empty. I got the last of my things, went back down to the desk and checked out. I saw nothing more of the police, they must have taken whomever out the backway …
Later in Ohio … Oh, but wait, I wanted to say that PA loves motorcycles. More than any other state I’ve been to (except California), I’ve never seen so many people riding bikes as I have the past 2 days riding through Pennsylvania. Lots of bikes, lots of women riding bikes, lots of trikes … lots and lots of bikes, and very few helmets (yes, mom, I wore mine). I guess the fact that the Harley-Davidson factory is there and I saw at least 4 H-D dealerships as well, might have something to do with it, or the fact that there’s lots of good riding to be had in PA. Either way, there are a lot of motorcycles in Pennsylvania.
Alrighty … on to Ohio. US-40 is a great ride because there are long stretches of road with farms on either side, then you get to a small town and then more long stretches of road. Occasionally you hit an area where the speed limit gets down to 30 mph and there’s strip malls and crap you don’t want to see. Well that’s OK because US-40 parallels I-70, so when you get tired of the scenery, you can hop on the interstate and make up a little time.
Somewhere in Ohio I decided to do just that and took the next ramp onto I-70 West. About 10 minutes or so of high-speed interstate travel and suddenly everyone slows down and then we’re crawling along in stop-n-go traffic. I split the lane because it’s 96 degrees and the bike is air cooled (as am I) and if I don’t keep moving we could both overheat, besides it's why you ride a motorcycle, so you don't have to sit in traffic. Plus, I hate waiting (it’s childish, I know). Well in some states lane splitting (a.k.a white lining, a.k.a. sharing the road) is legal (or rather there is no language in the traffic code on it), in others it is not. In Ohio it’s the latter.
When the State Trooper points at me and then points at the side of the road (see here how I get myself into these things with cops – I’m always doing something I shouldn’t) I know I’m about to get a ticket, the question is how much does the state of Ohio charge for sharing the road (alright, the legal definition is that you shall not overtake a vehicle in the same lane).
So the trooper he asks me if I think it was smart to try and compete with trucks and cars and SUV’s by weaving in and out of the lane. I think this situation calls for me to say as little as possible, so I tell him it was not smart, no. He asks why I would do that and for a minute I think, “because the bike is air cooled, blah, blah, blah”, but I say because I wasn’t thinking, sir. He tells me to wait there, “just wait there and don’t you move.”
With the bike and my jacket both off, it’s only extremely hot, instead of painfully hot (which is what it would be sitting on a running bike wearing a leather jacket in 90 degree weather while NOT moving). I reached back and pulled out a water bottle that was more like tea water at that point, but it was still good to get a little fluid in me.
After something like 10 minutes of waiting, the trooper finishes dealing with the original accident that caused the traffic jam then comes over to me and asks which would I rather have done, waited there or gotten a $120 ticket. I told him I’d rather wait. He said to be careful, then let me go. So we like Ohio State Troopers, or at least we do today.
Maybe I should have budgeted for a few tickets on this trip ... $120 would have punched a big hole in my daily budget, so I guess I lucked out on day two.
posted by DJ at 9:51 AM
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