Breaking Through

15 February, 2018 – Bahia Blanca to Las Grutas via motorcycle, 416 km / 258 miles – 1-2 minute read

As it always does, our third day – today – saw us settling into life back on the road. We were lucky this morning, with a small kitchen in our apartment-hotel, and had a big breakfast of eggs (which we made ourselves) along with mixed fruit and other goodies from the breakfast buffet. Days beginning with eggs are better.

The road was, well, rough to begin with. Third day or not, having 30 mph cross winds makes for hard riding. We’ve been riding across what I’ve come to think of as Argentina’s Texas – hot, flat, windy – but ending, tonight, with a beach town.

I have to say that I’m loving my new fork brace. When we were in the mid-northern regions of Argentina, we hit a windy day, and spent the whole day fighting to stay in one lane, cruising at about 20 mph just to keep from becoming a semi-truck hood ornament. We had time to watch the birds flying overhead (flapping hard to stay still) and the goats (one baby goat tried to stand up, and was promptly knocked over by a particularly strong gust), but after seven hours we were halfway to our planned stop and exhausted, and stopped off at a little set of cabins, ending the day with a movie on our computers. The memory was great, actually, like so many times when things go wrong while traveling.

Still, I wouldn’t want to have that life-risking type of experience frequently, so in Buenos Aires I installed a front fork brace, and lowered my fender from beneath the headlight to just above the tire. What. A. Difference. It’s like riding a sport bike – better turns, much steadier in the wind. I’m still very careful passing semis, but at least I don’t feel as much like I’m about to cruise under their tires.

And we had a treat today, for the second half of the ride – we turned from west to south, and the wind that had been trying to push me over from the right suddenly was an amazing tailwind. 75 mph and felt like we were going 45. Amazing.

Till we ran out of gas, and so did the gas station. But I’ll fix that tomorrow.

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