Guy Boutin's Motorcycle Touring and Travel Pages

Adventures in Sport Touring with the Honda ST 1100, 1300 and the BMW 1200RT

Exploring North America...One Road at a Time

Day 9
August 14th, 1973
LaGrange, Georgia

My dad was up early, getting ready for work, and I was up with him to tell him goodbye.  "It was fun having ya, I'll see you in a few days.  Tell your mother I'll come by the cafe on the way in."  "Ya gonna be home Thursday or Friday?"  "Probably Friday."  (After moving to Alabama, my dad worked in West Georgia for the next 18 years.  He came home on the weekends.)

I hung around the motel for another hour and loaded the 350.  I skipped lubing the chain.  "Home today, it will be ok till then."

It was a warm, muggy mid August morning.  While the Honda was warming up I went  and made a last time room check,  and locked the door. ( I have a pic of the 350 warming up in the parking lot, but I can't find it)  LaGrange, Georgia in 1973 was a quiet old South town., it had a small but busy downtown, and the exits around the new I-85 were nothing more then ramps and grass fields.  It is the mid point between Atlanta and Montgomery.  (Presently it is a bustling city and the hub of West Georgia.)

My plan this day was a quick ride south on I-85 to Auburn (I-85 is more east-west in this part of the country then north-south) where I plan to exit, and come home via SR 14.  I was also planning on stopping by the mother's cafe on the way in.  I was on the road by 8:30am.

I followed the I-85 signs out of downtown LaGrange, it took a few minutes to traverse the 2-3 miles.

On the interstate I brought the Four up to cruising speed (65mph).  The wind blew around me, and the little Honda ran true as ever.  (Now days I pick 85 up in LaGrange on my way home from the Blue Ridge.  My modern sport touring bikes hammer the 100 miles between LaGrange and Montgomery in the 85 mph range without breathing hard.  I can do the ride a little more then a hour.  But in 73 on a tiny 350 Four loaded for touring, things were not so easy, 65 mph was about all I could do.)

As I was going under one of the Georgia exits, I noticed 2 boys on bicycles looking down at me.  I waved at them and they waved back.  "This touring thing is really fun, I'm going to do it again."  ( I took a regional summer trip every year till 1977, the year I was married.)

Soon the Auburn exit came up and I veered off into the college town for SR 14.  I'd been this way before so didn't need a map.  It was summer so the town was quiet.  I stopped at Jack's Hamburgers, down the street from Sanford Hall, for a apple turnover.  The store had a local radio station on, and the song was "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John.  The reason I knew the song so well our basketball cheerleaders did a pom pom routine to the song every game.  I was on the team, but didn't play much so I had a bird's eye view of things when they took the floor.  Somethings you just never forget.

Two pretty coeds came in behind me at the counter.  Never one to be shy I said-"Hey how y'all doin?"  "Good and you?"  "I'm fine baby, what cha'll doin today?"  "We gotta go back to the apt and clean, we're moving to a bigger place, you wanna help us?"  I was tempted to say yes, but knew I couldn't.  These girls were probably sophomores or juniors, and here I was just 3 months out of high school.  Eventually they'd find that out and hurt my feelings.  "Well I would, be I gotta be somewhere."  "We were hoping you knew somebody with a truck." (in 1973 pick ups were limited to farms, and the SUV as we now know it was years away).  "Wish I could help."

The turnover was good but I needed to get going.  "I should make mother's just about lunch time."  I made my way through the campus, past Toomer's Corner and turned on SR 14.  The ride from here to Tallassee was pleasant, as I motored past farms and timberland.  Traffic was non existent, as it was for most of Alabama in 1973.

I was riding along thinking about what a great little tour this had been.  I met some new people, and looked up a few old friends.  I got in some pretty good riding, but mostly I was getting a dab of what life on the road is like.  At the time I could only imagine what a cross country ride would feel like.  To wake up in a whole new geography like the desert or mountains.  To ride in a place that was vastly different then Central Alabama, fired me up.

Riding along, minding my own business, I suddenly felt the Honda drift and squirm.  I instantly knew what it was-flat tire.  "Dang this ain't good."  I was lucky, a country store was just ahead.  I limped in, and dismounted.  The tire was not pancake flat, but it was down to just a few PSI.  I rotated the tire, no nails, but the tire was worn down to the white cords.  ( This is the day before radial motorcycle tires and tubeless.  Fixing a flat in 73 meant taking the wheel off, get out the tire irons, break tire from rim, patch the tube, remount and put back on bike, then look for air because no portable air pumps back then.  The procedure took 2 hours or so.  It was a major undertaking.)   I weighed my options.  "I'll air the tire up and try to make it Tallassee, more options there."

I got the tire aired up and got on the road.  " I dunno how long this will last, I think I have a slow leak,  maybe I can nurse it all the way home."  I slowed down to 50 mph and set out to make the last 10 miles to Tallassee.

It seemed I would never get there but I made it, and started looking for a place to air up.  Just as I spotted one, the tire bottomed out, and I crawled into the parking lot of another gas station.  Once again I aired up.  

Getting through Tallassee was slow.  I went across the dam following highway 14.  I was about 40 miles from home.  Because it was slow going through the old mill town, I aired the tire back up before leaving it.  "If I can just get to Wetumpka, I can call somebody to come get me."

I never paid any attention to the tire wear on this trip.  It was fine when I left but tires of this era did not last very long, a few thousand miles even on a small bike like the 350 Four.

The old gas station on the west side of the city was doing a brisk business.  I remember it had one of those black tubes across the pump ramp that sounded a bell on the inside when a car pulled in to let the attendant know someone was needing gas pumped.  I topped off the tire and continued west.

In 1973 there wasn't much in the 25 miles from Wetumpka to Tallassee.  I knew that, but took the chance the tire would hold out.  It didn't.  I was 5 miles west of the city, in a long, but not challenging left hand curve, when I felt the the bike shift in the back.  I was in the middle of the turn, and was going to have to use some of the opposing lane to get the 350 under control.  I looked up the highway and saw a milk truck in the distance, not that close, but no time to dally.  With the rear end squirming I took the 350 out of its modest lean, came across the yellow, "if I can't quiet the rear end down, I'm going in the ditch, not gonna hit a milk truck."  I got the 350 under control and came back over.  I coasted to a stop, tire totally flat now, the tube was hanging out.  "No air up and ride this time."

Only thing I could do was start pushing.  I saw a store of some kind about a quarter mile away.  "I'll go there and see what comes next."

Under a hot sun I pushed the Honda for 15 minutes to the country store.  A young man about my age was working the counter.  His family operated the store.  (The store closed up a couple years later, and was torn down many years ago.  The curve where the tire went flat was straightened by the state back in the 80s)

"Can I use your phone?"

"Yeah, have a problem?"

"My bike has a flat"

"Lets check it out."  I put the phone away and we went outside to size up the situation.

"Where ya from?"

"Prattville"

"How much would it be worth to ya to get it home?"

"Five dollars?"

"Ok, I just got off the phone with my buddy, he's on his way down here with his truck, we'll load it and take it for ya.  Here he comes now."

About that time he drove up in some kind of pick up that I can't remember.  Like most southern boys this time of year he had on cut offs and a T shirt.  He spoke in long southern twang.

The 3 of us loaded the Four front first without much problem.  We had no tie downs, so I set the side stand and jumped in the back to hold it.  "Look here, DON'T take ANY curves fast, go real easy."

"ok"

I was 25 miles from home.

The ride in the pick up was long.  The slide window was open and I could hear the 2 friends talking, but was unable to make out the details.  My home neighborhood was just of highway 14, after turning from the highway you only needed to make one more turn.

I tapped on the window to get their attention, "turn left at the next road."  They did and, "ok, now make a right."

And soon we were in front of my house.  We unloaded the bike and I pushed it under the carport.  Not a good way to end a tour, but hey I was home.

I called my mother to let her know I was home, I didn't give her any details.  "I'll be down there in about 30 minutes to eat a lunch."  I called De De, who was back in Montgomery, "yeah that was fun last week, lemme get sorted out and maybe I'll shoot over there tonight."

The 350 a few minutes after landing back in my carport.
I was sad the tour ended like it did, but glad to get the 
bike home.  Note the tube hanging out.

Finished with that I got out my notes to make this one last journal entry; "Just made it back in.  Great trip.  Had a flat in just east of Wetumpka, 2 guys in truck took me home.  Called mother and De De.  Totals miles for the trip was 1, 234 miles. Can't wait to to do it again."

I unloaded the bike, and threw my dirty laundry in a pile by the washing machine, after that I was in my 72 Malibu heading to Montgomery to eat lunch at the cafe.  I called De De before leaving and told her to meet me there.

And thus ended my first true adventure.

Epilogue- 

From this ride, I knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea when I'd be able to do it.  At the time I thought "5 years at the most," but then life got in the way.

I took a regional summer tour each year for the next 4 years. Each time going a little further and further.  I met Debbie in 1975, and we married in late 76, so I put Long Riding on hold, for the next 24 years or so.  I was riding most of those years, just not very far.

After being bike less for 10 years, in 2000 I began the process to open my current life chapter.  My son was grown and self sufficient, I had a few coins, and plenty of time.  The result is now what you read about on this web site.  But this ride, taken long ago by a young man just wanting to see what was out there, started it all, and planted the seeds of that carried me all those years till I was able to fulfill my dream of being a true Long Rider.

I sold the Honda 350 Four the next summer and bought a brand new Kawasaki Z1.

I lost my father in a 1989 automobile accident, my mother never got over it, she died at he age of 81 in 2005.

As I said at the beginning of this story, the images and details are very much fresh in my mind.  I can't tell you how many times I've been out on the road in some far away place and think back to this ride.  It proved to be one of the defining moments of my life.