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Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog
The Just One More Mile story of Paul's Trans Americas 2009 motorcycle expedition.Friday, 24 July 2009
ConeMan the Barbarian and the Trans AM 2009 Army...
Once more woke relatively early after a decent night's kip, showered, dressed and breakfasted – this time with toast and marmalade, going cold-turkey and giving up the maple syrup – and then updated the blog before the expedition meeting at 10am...
The meeting was to ensure everyone was reminded of all the “rules of the road” such as group riding, parking, hotel arrangements, riding conditions, etc. The section covering what we need to expect on the Dalton Highway (Monday and Tuesday on the way up to Prudhoe from Fairbanks) had everyone feeling a little more anxious, as the road is mostly gravel with sections of very difficult riding. What I think made it worse was when Kevin said he was determined to get everyone through it without incident this year, for the first time!
With the meeting over, and out final payments made we had the afternoon to ourselves, so I went out in search of a new camera... Whilst on the boat yesterday, it became obvious that the lack of a decent zoom on my camera would prevent me from getting good photos of wildlife, and Richard had an excellent little compact with a 12x optical zoom (the Panasonic ZS3). So I did some Internet research and went shopping. Unable to find the Panasonic, I settled on a Canon SX200 IS, which also has a 12x zoom and is little bigger than my IXUS. Being a Canon the controls are familiar, and an added bonus is it takes the same battery as my IXUS, so now I have 4 batteries and no excuse for rubbish pictures (all the following images were taken on the new camera, but not all by me!).
Armed with my new camera, I met the rest of the group and we rode out in convoy to the gun range... I say “convoy”, but given we'd just had a talk about group riding the first few miles as we rode out of town were anything but, with bikes changing position as people tried to settle into the groove... there's a nack to group riding and it takes a few minutes to settle into it, and line up in the staggered formation that's necessary to increase safety. But soon we had it pretty well sorted, and the sight of so many GS bikes burbling along the freeway was quite something...
At the range we met up with our hosts for the evening's entertainment, and their collection of machine guns...
At our disposal we had enough weapons to invade a small country – Uzi's (mini and maxi), Glock, M16 Armalite, Vickers machine gun (1919), Thomson, Sten gun, 9mm pistol, 44 Magnum, AK-47, 50 Calibre Browning, and many more the names of which I can't remember... and 50 rounds of 2 types of ammo, plus ammo for the AK-47 and a single round for the 50 cal...
Now before I explain what happened next, I need to recount “Andrew's Story”...
Andrew, who's doing the full Trans Am, when he was younger, 'borrowed' a traffic cone and was arrested as a result. So when it came to completing his Visa forms, he naturally, being a rehabilitated and now completely honest and decent chap, declared this. So the US Embassy refused him a full Visa, and the ensuing negotiations meant he had to revise his travel plans several times, and it was touch-and-go as to whether he'd be able to make the start of the trip. Eventually he was granted a special “visa waiver” which allowed him entry to the US, but under certain restrictions... So naturally when he arrived at the hotel he was presented with a souvenir to carry on the trip...
The writing on it says “US Embassy, London, Welcomes 'Cone-Man' (the Barbarian) – Have a Nice Day”...
So naturally the Cone was placed in the middle of the firing range prior to all hell breaking loose as the Trans AM 2009 expedition riders let loose...
Needless to say, it was mayhem. The 50 Cal in particular was completely crazy, a weapon that deafens even when wearing ear protection, and kicks back so hard it almost had us thrown off our seats...it was described by our host as a gun "of some authority"... no kidding! How the forces actually use any of these weapons in anger is beyond comprehension, they are so damn difficult to hold onto when on semi-automatic, and when on full auto they kick around making hitting passing seagulls more likely than hitting a chose target... Oh, and they empty a clip, that contains anything from 15-50 rounds and takes a good couple of minutes to load, in about 10 seconds... But hey, what a blast!
And the traffic cone?
Well, here's what it looked like after it had been subjected to the combined efforts of the Trans Am 2009 Army...
It doesn't actually look that bad, does it? Yet it's completely peppered with holes, the bullets simply passing straight through the plastic... I wouldn't want to swap places with it, put it that way!
When all the dust had settled, it was time to head back to the hotel, but not before I'd armed myself in case we came across the tow-truck driver from yesterday...
The meeting was to ensure everyone was reminded of all the “rules of the road” such as group riding, parking, hotel arrangements, riding conditions, etc. The section covering what we need to expect on the Dalton Highway (Monday and Tuesday on the way up to Prudhoe from Fairbanks) had everyone feeling a little more anxious, as the road is mostly gravel with sections of very difficult riding. What I think made it worse was when Kevin said he was determined to get everyone through it without incident this year, for the first time!
With the meeting over, and out final payments made we had the afternoon to ourselves, so I went out in search of a new camera... Whilst on the boat yesterday, it became obvious that the lack of a decent zoom on my camera would prevent me from getting good photos of wildlife, and Richard had an excellent little compact with a 12x optical zoom (the Panasonic ZS3). So I did some Internet research and went shopping. Unable to find the Panasonic, I settled on a Canon SX200 IS, which also has a 12x zoom and is little bigger than my IXUS. Being a Canon the controls are familiar, and an added bonus is it takes the same battery as my IXUS, so now I have 4 batteries and no excuse for rubbish pictures (all the following images were taken on the new camera, but not all by me!).
Armed with my new camera, I met the rest of the group and we rode out in convoy to the gun range... I say “convoy”, but given we'd just had a talk about group riding the first few miles as we rode out of town were anything but, with bikes changing position as people tried to settle into the groove... there's a nack to group riding and it takes a few minutes to settle into it, and line up in the staggered formation that's necessary to increase safety. But soon we had it pretty well sorted, and the sight of so many GS bikes burbling along the freeway was quite something...
At the range we met up with our hosts for the evening's entertainment, and their collection of machine guns...
At our disposal we had enough weapons to invade a small country – Uzi's (mini and maxi), Glock, M16 Armalite, Vickers machine gun (1919), Thomson, Sten gun, 9mm pistol, 44 Magnum, AK-47, 50 Calibre Browning, and many more the names of which I can't remember... and 50 rounds of 2 types of ammo, plus ammo for the AK-47 and a single round for the 50 cal...
Now before I explain what happened next, I need to recount “Andrew's Story”...
Andrew, who's doing the full Trans Am, when he was younger, 'borrowed' a traffic cone and was arrested as a result. So when it came to completing his Visa forms, he naturally, being a rehabilitated and now completely honest and decent chap, declared this. So the US Embassy refused him a full Visa, and the ensuing negotiations meant he had to revise his travel plans several times, and it was touch-and-go as to whether he'd be able to make the start of the trip. Eventually he was granted a special “visa waiver” which allowed him entry to the US, but under certain restrictions... So naturally when he arrived at the hotel he was presented with a souvenir to carry on the trip...
The writing on it says “US Embassy, London, Welcomes 'Cone-Man' (the Barbarian) – Have a Nice Day”...
So naturally the Cone was placed in the middle of the firing range prior to all hell breaking loose as the Trans AM 2009 expedition riders let loose...
Needless to say, it was mayhem. The 50 Cal in particular was completely crazy, a weapon that deafens even when wearing ear protection, and kicks back so hard it almost had us thrown off our seats...it was described by our host as a gun "of some authority"... no kidding! How the forces actually use any of these weapons in anger is beyond comprehension, they are so damn difficult to hold onto when on semi-automatic, and when on full auto they kick around making hitting passing seagulls more likely than hitting a chose target... Oh, and they empty a clip, that contains anything from 15-50 rounds and takes a good couple of minutes to load, in about 10 seconds... But hey, what a blast!
And the traffic cone?
Well, here's what it looked like after it had been subjected to the combined efforts of the Trans Am 2009 Army...
It doesn't actually look that bad, does it? Yet it's completely peppered with holes, the bullets simply passing straight through the plastic... I wouldn't want to swap places with it, put it that way!
When all the dust had settled, it was time to head back to the hotel, but not before I'd armed myself in case we came across the tow-truck driver from yesterday...
posted by Paul # 23:00 
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