At first it was just cloudy. The sun would disappear, I would be freezing and praying for death. Then the sun would reappear, and everything would be the absolute best, and I couldn’t believe how happy I was to be me and on that motorcycle. This vicious cycle continued for an hour or two before the shield on my helmet started getting misty. You guessed it: Rain.

The second horseman had arrived. There had only been about a 20% chance of rain that day, but this would have been no story if I had to skip a horseman, so there it was. The rain got heavier and heavier. The only part that bothered me was that everywhere else was sunny. There was just one cloud over my head as though I was in a Shel Silverstein book.

However, I was then greeted with the evidence that I had actually missed the worst of the rain. The roads in my path were absolutely drenched. Of course, I slowed my speed significantly. This didn’t prevent me from doing an accidental burnout at a stop sign. A good reminder of the third horseman I would encounter: Debris.

Obviously, some debris is more dangerous than others. But this particular version of debris was benign by itself but when combined with rain could be lethal: fallen leaves. Usually beautiful and scenic for a late fall motorcycle ride, once they’re wet you have absolutely no traction while driving on them. So then, you’re caught in the unenviable place of having to dodge leaves.

Fortunately, this unholy union didn’t last long. Just as the sun was back to full glare and my pants were starting to dry out, I got hit with the fourth and final horseman: Wind.

More Challenges

At first it was just a gust that caught me by surprise and pushed me a few feet from my usual track in the left tire lane of the road. I had assumed that it was just because of the temperature rising again, it would be temporary and then go away. Instead, it got worse and worse, until I reached this one plane where I was riding with the bike leaning about 5 degrees to my left just to stay moving in a straight line. It was then that I noticed a large number of wind turbines. Perhaps wind was not so uncommon to this area.

The wind kept up until the end of the ride. The only time it got particularly scary on this solo motorcycle trip was while crossing the large bridge over the Canadian/American border. As I approached the bridge, I braced myself for the fact that the wind would be extra strong up there and it would be harder to control myself. It was at this point I thought that I could take comfort in the guard rails.

Upon seeing the guard rails, I realized that there was no comfort to be had there. They were the perfect height to stop my bike from going over while my body, still controlled by inertia, would just keep going. Then, with a brief thought about who would be forced to fish out the body (Canadian or US authorities), I had an uneventful crossing.

Once across the border I was just over an hour from my hotel. I thought it was interesting that the GPS was saying that despite it being a fair distance away. After getting on the I69 to Flint I realized why that was. The speed limit was 75 mph, meaning I was doing 80 in the slow lane.

Now, three of the horsemen were ganging up on me. The I69 is grooved, the wind hadn’t let up, and there were dead animals and blown-out tires all over the place.