Ten things I learned on the Wild Ride:
1. Corbin may make the best motorcycle seats in the world, but they won't save you from a sore ass if you drive six hours a day for several days in a row. Sore ass happens, get used to it.
2. Texas is hot. And by hot, I mean boiling-over, clothes fully saturated with sweat hot. I mean you'd-better-carry-water-because-you'll-drop-to-the-ground-from-heat-stroke-if-you-don't-stay-hydrated hot. Georgia is twice as hot as Texas.
3. Seat issues aside, sport bikes work just fine for touring, so long as the riding position isn't too racy. I had some issues with pressure on my right wrist (throttle, brake) and a little soreness in a couple of my fingers, but for the most part I was pleasantly surprised that my body didn't break in one way or another somewhere in the middle of the trip.
4. Carburated motorcycles do not like to sit still. I sort of knew this already, but it became a much more painful reality once we got to the lower states, where we would inevitably have to sit in slow-moving traffic. The hot sun is bad enough when you're wearing a black jacket, but an air-starved, heat-generating engine sitting between your legs is twice the torment. This is one of the main reasons that...
5. States that don't allow lane-splitting (which, unfortunately, is everwhere but California and Hawaii) suuuuuuuck. This is one of the most aggravatingly stupid laws that Cal bikers have to live with. If I come up to a traffic light in the aforementioned swealtering sun, then there is no reason, safety or otherwise, that I shouldn't be allowed to drive to the front of the line in between the cars that are waiting. Those cars have air conditioning and can afford to wait for the slugs in front of them to get moving. I don't, and shouldn't have to.
6. Slow-passing drivers suck more than non-lane-splitting states. For the love of all that is smoothly flowing, people, please push that gas pedal down when you make the decision to pass a vehicle. 1 MPH faster than the passee is not acceptable. A similar note to the truckers: That motorcycle 100 feet back? It is not going the same speed as you, I guarantee it. Don't merge until it's gone past.
7. The bugs come out at night. Not having made a trip like this, and only having driven my motorcycle at night inside San Fran, I thought bug build-up on my helmet visor was pretty bad during the day (splat... pause... splat...), but the first time I did some driving at night I realized how wrong I was (SPLATSPLATPLTSPTPSPSPPSLPSLTPSLTPS). And the first time I tried to wipe some of them off while driving I discovered that a dense group of bug carcasses is a lot better than a blurry layer of bug goop.
8. Listening to music on the motorcycle is a giant pain in the ass. Figuring out a strong combination of sound clarity and outside noise blocking is very difficult, and you often don't know you don't have a good seal until you're already up to highway speeds. And it's hard to get the helmet on without knocking them out of place. And you're always accidentally yanking the cord, hurting your ears. And all the trouble and frustration is completely worth it because driving with your favorite music is ten times better than driving in silence.
9. Not all wi-fi hot spots are created equal. Some of them aren't even lukewarm.
10. Whit Gurley is capable of driving 8700 miles in six weeks without getting a speeding ticket. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it.