MotoJournal_001 - “The Test Ride”
Well, here we go, my first attempt at a “blog”. I never thought anybody would care to read about my activities, but this is really to be more of a personal journal of my motorcycle journeys, if others enjoy reading them too then I’m ok with that. 
So, a little background to start………I bought my first motorcycle on July 3rd, 2009 from a guy I work with. He had bought it for $900 and planned to use it as a starter bike for his wife. She is a very short lady and it turned out the bike was too tall for her, so he sold it to me for what he paid for it. It’s a 1985 Honda Shadow VT700, red with a black seat and saddle bags. It really looks great for a nearly 25 year old bike! Some minor scratches and one dent but you really have to be close to see any of it. Runs good, sounds good, and is a blast to ride! I also have an iPhone 3G, and one particular GPS/geocaching App inspired me to use geocaching to pick some motorcycle cruise destinations. So I went to the geocaching website and found a “cache” about 8.5 miles from me that was just northeast of the small town of Frankton. It was the location of a natural Artisan Spring, one of several here in Madison County. So I plugged the coordinates into the GPS App (MotionX), it showed me the location on the map and even allowed me to view satellite images. It would keep track of the elapsed time, distance, average/max speeds, and record a track of the path we took. Having already visited the hardware store and rigged a very sturdy handlebar mount for the iPhone, I was all ready to begin my first GeoCache Journey. Though I used the GeoCache as the inspiration for the journey (and blog), this particular one was what seems to be called an “EarthCache” where there isn’t an object to find, but more like a task to perform. Being an Artisan Spring, it asked you to bring a gallon jug and a stop watch so you could record the gallons-per-hour of the spring and upload the results to the website. I wasn’t intending to do all this, it was really just to see if my iPhone could find the location and if the software worked as advertised. Also, to test the sturdiness of the handlebar mount (which, btw, worked like a charm!!). So, this was just a general software/hardware test to see how everything panned out and if this was a viable idea. But at the very least, I get a nice country ride out of the deal! My buddy Kyle called (he has an 09 Shadow 750 Aero) and was wanting to ride, so it turned out this would be a 2 man ride!
He showed up about 1:30, it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, just south of 80 degrees and sunny. After a quick stop for gas, and another quick stop so Kyle could adjust his shocks, we were off! We headed west on Cross Street, then turned north on Florida Station Road (200W). This is a road I have travelled many times, going to and coming home from college, and have always enjoyed. It is straight as an arrow with mostly corn fields on either side and a few scattered houses/farms, quite the epitome of an “Indiana country road”. A nice ride everytime. At this time of year (end of July) the corn is about 6-8 feet tall so at times we were driving through one of the many “Corridors of Corn”. I’ve lived in this area all my life, and I still love the feeling of driving down a straight country road with 10 feet of corn towering over you from both sides……..it’s just cool!!! We continued north for about 9 miles to Bethel Pike (1100N) and turned left to head west towards the Artisan Spring. This turned out to be a wide, smooth, curvy road with trees on either side…a great ride! I should explain, I love any and all twisty roads. I live for them. Even the small ones. And on half the wheels they’re twice as thrilling!! We continued down this road for a bit, enjoying the scenery, before turning south on 400W. I was relying on gps coordinates, which turned out to be a little off, but Kyle had been there before and knew where to stop. After a few miles down another scenic (if a bit bumpy) road he signaled that it was on the left. We turned and saw a couple of Pedestrians were just pulling up to the spring too so we went down the road a bit giving them a minute to get settled, made a u-turn and went back. We parked our bikes on the side of the road and grabbed our water bottles before strolling over to the Spring. I’ve been to a couple of these springs before, usually nothing more than a little gravel parking spot and a pipe coming out of the ground. This one had nice stone work around the spout, a bench, some landscaping and a pic-a-nic table where the Pedestrians had settled. I was quite surprised at how “fixed-up” this spring was. Out in the middle of no-where, but some nice roads leading to it and a nice scenic area to have a sit and a drink. I think this will be one of my favorite short cruises! We filled up our bottles and took a few big swigs before heading back to the bikes for the return trip. We continued through the country, following a twisty, hilly, and bumpy road until we hit S.R. 128, onto which we turned east and head back to Florida Station Road. We backtracked on the same path until parting ways at my apartment………I had a Formula 1 race to watch!! Other than the coordinates from the website being a little off, the GPS App worked great and should be a handy tool for finding and documenting more adventures! I found it was not the App that was off, but the coordinates from the website. I plugged the same coordinates into Google maps on my computer and it showed the same spot as my iPhone. The handlebar mount also worked great and only cost about $1.25 (plus the car holder I already had) for the hardware.
Here are the overall stats for the trip:Destination Location: Lat. 40.234919N, Lon. 85.747175W
Elapsed time: 50 minutes, 48 seconds
Total distance: 29.4 miles
Average speed: 24.7mph
Max speed: 67.3mph
The App also allows me to upload the track to Google Earth where it is then laid on to of a 3D map. Once I figure out how to do that, I will try to include that with any future posts.
Overall, everything seemed to go as I pictured it and I plan on using GeoCaching and the MotionX GPS App to find and document my motorcycle journeys!! I look forward to making many more posts in my MotoJournal!
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