The Pond at DuPuis

Our last night at DuPuis, we took a walk on the horse trails that lead off the back of the campground toward the pond. We walked for a good hour altogether, but the pond turned out to be over 5 miles away, so we resolved to take the bikes there in the morning.

After coffee and oats, we pulled the luggage off the bikes so they'd fit through the pedestrian gate and went dirt-roading. The roads were lovely and the pond at the end was utterly gorgeous. Photos will do better than words to describe this one, so I'll let Rogue take it from here.

Review: Zega Mundo Pannier System

When I bought Bee, she came with Triumph side panniers and a Coocase top box. Considered "day sized," they did the job until it was time to actually move onto the bike.

There weren't a whole lot of options for luggage that would fit my Tiger 1050; the newer 800XC is the more popular adventuring model, but Touratech had a couple of options. The Zega Pro pannier kit is modular, so that if one part of the box gets damaged, you need only replace that one part. For a difference of several hundred dollars, though, I was happy to go with the Zega Mundo, which are solid aluminum boxes that don't come apart.

I had a hell of a time mounting them. The left one slipped on with no trouble at all, but to fit the right I had to unmount the exhaust can. To unmount the exhaust can, I had to remove the seat and rear plastics, and to remove the rear plastics, I had to remove the Coocase mount.

When I had most of the bolts out, I discovered that the rear mount was actually broken. One of the feet that bolts vertically into the frame had snapped off. I didn't have time to replace it, so I just shoved it back together and hoped it wasn't too important.

The Zega mounts didn't play very nicely with the Coocase mount, but after 20 minutes of shoving and cursing while Rogue held up the platform for me, we got it cobbled together. The right Zega strut and one corner of the box touch the exhaust can, but not hard enough to leave a mark. There's one bolt missing that just utterly refused to fit, but it doesn't seem to have been an issue, as there are three more on that side and four on the other.

The boxes themselves are pretty great. I had to install the locks myself, which is a puzzling way to offer luggage - why wouldn't you want locks? - but they went in easily enough. I dented one of the boxes when I dropped the bike in Orlando, but it's not visible unless you're peering through the frame.

       

 

Pros:
•Relatively inexpensive - two side boxes, locks, and mounting kit cost ~$1100
•Waterproof - the lids seal well into the bodies and don't leak
•Sturdy - dropped the bike fully loaded and only suffered a small dent
•Dual hinged - can open the box from the front or back, and the other latch acts as a hinge
•Removable lids - open both latches and the lid comes off to be a tray, seat, cutting board, or improvised corporal-punishment device
•Tie-downs - each lid has four tie-down points. They'd be better if there was another millimeter of space between the bar and the lid, because any bungee cord or cargo net with coated hooks doesn't fit.

Cons:
•Difficult to install, at least if you're mixing manufacturers. Might have been easier had I bought a Zega top box system, but I already had the Coocase. The instructions are also awful, written in poorly-translated German with grainy grey photos that show nothing useful. The parts are unlabeled, so you figure out for yourself which bracket is left and which is right.
•Box mounting system - you have to open the box and leave the lid open or off while you screw the boxes onto the struts. They're secure, since you can lock the lid shut, but they can't be completely full while you operate the hand cranks. Those cranks also take up a bit of space in the box. I prefer the mounting system for the BMW GS panniers, which is keyed and operated from outside the box.

Overall I'm pretty happy with this system. These boxes will store a lot of stuff, take a good beating, keep the water out, and provide a great place for my growing sticker collection.

The Little Things: Bandannas

The Little Things is a series of posts about tiny and/or cheap travel items that I've learned to carry because they make my life so much easier.

I wear a bandanna under my helmet, tied like a do-rag. It serves two or three functions depending on the season:

1. It keeps my helmet liner clean. A clean liner means I don't have to wash it, which means I never have to fight with getting it back in correctly.

2. It keeps my hair less tangled. Even in a braid, my hair has a mind of its own, and the bandanna makes a difference at the end of a long day of riding.

3. It keeps my neck warmer in place in cold weather. Pulling the fleece up over my mouth and nose doesn't do any good if it comes right back down when I put the helmet on.

A bandanna also serves as a backup dish sponge, a rag for messy emergency bike work, or a tourniquet if the day really goes to shit. I keep several with me on long trips.

Birthday Manatees!

February 7th was my birthday (the last one at which I am still not 30, if you wondered). Rogue took me to a movie, the new Xander Cage Triple X, and it was everything we hoped: completely ridiculous, cheesy, impossible, and awesome. I've been a big fan of the original Triple X* since it came out, and the sequel didn't disappoint.

*Funny aside: I was about 14 when 'XXX,' as it appeared on billboards, was released in theaters. I was on my way to see it with my friend Alex, and my dad asked what movie was on our docket. I responded "Triple X" and he roared in indignation while my mom laughed, because she already knew what it was, and also knew that Dad thought I was referring to the rating.

On my actual birthday we wandered into Jupiter, where I got a free bagel from Einstein Brothers (you can get one too if you join their email club; this was not birthday specific). Searching the TripAdvisor app for things to do in the area turned up something called Manatee Lagoon, and off we went.

The Lagoon is part of Florida Power and Light. There's a free museum with information about manatees and a cute little garden out front. FPL releases warm water from their steam cooling system into the bay, and the manatees are attracted to it in winter, because they don't survive well in cold water. There's a viewing deck above the area of warm water, and it was full of barracuda and triggerfish and a small handful of manatees. We saw four or five, which was quite exciting to us, although someone told us that when the water is really cold they can actually pile up in FPL's little square by the hundreds.

Another search of TripAdvisor turned up something called Northwood Village, which purported to be a artsy district with galleries and shops. A short ride dropped us right in the middle, and we walked around with increasing puzzlement.

There was some art, and there were some shops, but almost everything was closed, and the place had a strangely creepy feel. The website told me that the area was undergoing a renaissance, and reality said that the change was recent and still a struggle. Rogue compared it to Holyoke trying to become Northampton.

I always put, uh, sweaters on my trees...

When we returned to camp for the night, our neighbors had a roaring fire that consisted of one large palmetto stump. They allowed us to cook our hot dogs there, and we ended up staying a couple of hours and chatting about life. They're a band of roving antiquers from all over the country who wander around buying and selling interesting things.

Campgrounds contain an amazing selection of people. We've met fellow bikers, retirees, parents with kids, birders, and one drunken asshat who woke us up by hollering obscenities four nights running. He's still sharing a campground with us, and I'm sleeping with my harmonica under my pillow. I hope I don't have to use it, but if it's a question of self-defense, I'll do what must be done.

The Little Things: Key Tag

The Little Things is a series of posts about tiny and/or cheap travel items that I've learned to carry because they make my life so much easier.

It may seem silly to add anything else to my key ring, as I have a vested interest in saving every cubic centimeter of space. But if you've ever tried to pull a key out of your pocket while wearing a glove, as I do multiple times a day, you'll understand the value of anything that makes the keys easier to find.

My friend Charlie gave me this ribbon keychain. I had to get used to the way it flaps frenetically when I ride (in darkness, it makes my instrument panel appear to flicker), but it's so worth it when I don't lose my key on a regular basis, and can still retrieve it from my pocket even after my gloves are on.

Goodbye, Rain Suit

We were headed south, possibly toward the Everglades, when Rogue pulled up and waved at me. She pointed at her saddlebags, and I glanced at my own in the mirror and was surprised to find my rain suit gone. We took an exit, returned north, and entered the turnpike again for another southbound pass. Since Rogue had seen it fly away and I hadn't, she led the way.

It was less than half a mile from the entrance ramp, but traffic was heavy and pulling over proved difficult. We parked in the delta of the next exit, and Rogue waited while I sprinted across the four lanes of traffic and walked north.

A few minutes a long, a police cruiser sailed by and wailed its siren at me. I expected the officer to pull over and give me a hard time for walking on the highway, but I never saw them again. I wanted to ask what the point was of making noise at me. I know I'm not supposed to go for a walk on the turnpike, but I'm not supposed to litter either, and the rain suit was expensive.

Unfortunately by the time I reached it, the pants and the bath towel that had been with them were long gone. The jacket I retrieved and walked back to the bikes, which were thankfully un-crashed-into.

After all that, it turned out that the jacket zipper had been broken anyway, so it was marginally useful at best. I ordered a new rain and had it sent to Tyson, hoping we wouldn't encounter heavy rain in the next ten days.

I loved that rain suit and had plans to write a glowing review of it. I'll probably still do that, using photos of Rogue's, because she has the same one. The replacement is a different model from the same company, though, because I was forced to go with the cheap option. On the bright side, I'll have two different suits to review when it arrives.

The Little Things: Washcloth

The Little Things is a series of posts about tiny and/or cheap travel items that I've learned to carry because they make my life so much easier.

        

 

The washcloth is not for me; it's for Bee. Every time I wake up on a dewey morning and find the seat and mirrors dripping, I whip this out and don't start my day with a wet ass. It also comes in handy for wiping other people's spit off my seat, on those mornings when I leave work to find some disrespectful hooligan's calling card waiting for me in all its slimy glory.