View Full Version : Moped trip... Epic! (adult language is used where appropriate)
Someone asked, so here's the story. Some additional pictures can be found here: http://home.comcast.net/~fhkqdude/moped.html It's my friend gumby's album.
Day -4: I left from my house and it took me four hours or so to ride 100 miles to my friend, gumby's house in massachusettes. I met matt Z, who had a gallon of piss in his room because he's too lazy to walk to the bathroom at night.
Gumby:
http://photos-608.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072608_2376.jpg
Day -3: me and gumby and his brother rode our mopeds to a bad ass rope swing. Then on the way to radio shack from there I was following gumby through an intersection. The light turned yellow as I wasapproaching it, so I sped up. I overleaned my moped and it slid out from under me through the corrner. I laid it down and slid like 8 or 10 feet through the intersection, with the moped ontop of me. It hurt, a lot. I hurt my arm and leg pretty bad, but nothing was broken. Since I was wearing swim trunks and a sleeveless T-shirt, so one shoulder, one elbow, one knee, and one ankle all were missing some amount of skin. I had to get bandaged up so I wouldn't bleed and puss all over the futon were I was sleeping.
My arm:
http://photos-607.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072607_2197.jpg
My Ass:
http://photos-605.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072605_1752.jpg
My leg:
http://photos-604.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072604_1587.jpg
So after I bit it, we evaded the police and ambulances, and went to radio shack. Then to papa ginos pizza. Then me and gumby and matt Z hiked a few miles into a closed state forest with two 55 gallon garbage cans full of compressed paper and cardboard, and lit it on fire, at 2 in the morning. that was awesome.
Day -2: Boring
Day -1: The steal for gumbys rack finally comes in, but not untill 5:00 in the evening, so it's too late to make the rack.
Day 0: We make gumbys rack. Gumby does the welding, I do the bitch work. It's a pretty awesome rack. Afterwords we pack our mopeds and get ready to ride. We plan on leaving at 5 AM, but still manage to stay up untill like 2 or 3 in the morning.
Day 1: We start the motherfuckin' trip. At 5:00 AM matt Z. and Gumbys brother stop by to ride with us for the first few miles. Matt Z is on a road bicycle, and gumbys brother is on a moped. We leave at like 5:30, and head for hull island. after getting lost a few times we get to the atlantic ocean. take some pictures, and then start on our way to my house.
Me at the atlantic:
http://photos-578.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072578_3602.jpg
Us with the mopeds:
http://photos-611.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072611_2935.jpg
They Really are mopeds:
http://photos-610.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072610_2763.jpg
I touched the ocean:
http://photos-620.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072620_4465.jpg
So did Gumby:
http://photos-617.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072617_3955.jpg
We almost made it.
It took 3 police cars to pull over 2 mopeds! 3 fucking cop cars! So they stop us, and my moped isn't registered. CT doesn't register mopeds, you can't register them, infact. Massachusettes cops are not happy about this. So they want to tow my moped. I told them that I would pedal it out of CT. After a little bit of arguing, they agreed.
So I pedaled it for a few hundred feet, then started it and pretended to pedal it for a mile or so, then gave up and just rode it for the next 10 or 15 out of massachusettes. It was sweet. We rode on a highway, which was scarry. It took us untill like 8:00 or 10:00 or something at night to make it to iggys house in Canton, Connecticut. We chilled out there for a bit then rode the last 40 minutes to my house.
A big stone wall in CT:
http://photos-579.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072579_3697.jpg
Day 2: We need to register my moped. I call the CT DMV, and they refuse to do it. So I call the MA DMV, wadn they say I can register it there. So the first DMV we get to gives us tons of shit. I'm a non resident, and my moped isn't on their "list" so after like an hour and a half of waiting, and 30 or 40 minutes of arguing we get fed up and ask for the next nearest DMV.
At this DMV we wait another hour and a half, but there's no hassle, and I, A connecticut resident, have a moped registered in massachusettes!
Day 3: We leave my house and ride to pennsylvainia. New York goes without incident, which is good, because I still don't know if my license is suspended there or not.
5:00 AM in CT
http://photos-580.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072580_3797.jpg
Awesome playground in NY:
http://photos-582.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072582_3984.jpg
Gumbys caption is: "If I decided to kill nick here, no one would have noticed nor would the trip changed much - No place special New York "
http://photos-581.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072581_3890.jpg
They look more ike mopeds here:
http://photos-623.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072623_4975.jpg
At the border between PA and NY theres a huge fucking bridge. It's awesome. We stop to snap some pictures and here some huge splash. After a little investigating, we see this kid who looks like napoleon dynamite jumping into the water. Gumby and I decide to go swimming. The kids name is Amis. thats right Amis. He is napoleon dynamite. He tells us all these weird facts, some of which contradict each other. He always jumps in in the exact same spot off these rocks. It's a pretty good time, but neither of us jump the bridge.
Gumby with Amis:
http://photos-628.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072628_5825.jpg
We made it this far:
http://photos-629.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072629_6010.jpg
We make it to my grandmothers house at like 8:00 or 9:00. At this point we've covered almost 600 miles.
On the road again:
http://photos-641.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072641_8168.jpg
Day 4: We start out early and ride to Erie, PA. I make it another 200 miles before DISASTER!
Ok, its like 6:00 at night. So gumby is riding ahead of me, and he sees some kind of a park or something to our left. he signals to turn right and pull over so we can figure out what to do. looks at me, sees im looking at him, starts applying his breaks, still looking at me, figures I know whats going on.
In my head I'm thinking about something else entirely. My mind is a million miles away. I'm starring straight at gumby, but I don't really see him. All of a sudden I snap to. There just feet infront of me is gumbys bike with the brake lights on. Stoping, or even worse, stopped.
Without thinking (obviously) I slam on both brakes. lock up both wheels. Within seconds I go from traveling 30 or 35 mph upright to being slammed on the ground at full speed, as hard as I could possibly imagine.
My I somehow manage to break the fall with my face and skid for quite while. My thoughts are centered squarely around my dental work and lack of insurance. I bite through my lip. Everything hurts. I finally stop sliding.
Fuck.
I Stand up.
I stand up. "Gumby... I'm sorry! I fucked it all up! I'm sorry!"
Then: "Quick, take a picture" For those of you lucky enough to get one, that was the postcard.
Not the Postcard, but pretty good:
http://photos-643.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072643_8505.jpg
I sit on the guard rail for a little while. My wrist is broken, I'm sure of it. I'm bleeding from everywhere. There is literaly no skin left on one of my knees. My nose has a huge gash on it. my lip is destroyed and my teeth are covered in blood. my shoulder, and elbow are anahilated, I'm missing a lot of skin. I was wearing shorts and a wife beater. (I should have learned my lesson last time, eh?) I can't feel my face and I am still very worried about my teeth. I really did break the fall with my face, and I thought for sure there was going to be some prolems. Aside for feeling loose, they turn out fine.
Gumby gets both our bikes to the park, I walk there. We try 911 and the cellphone doesn't work. So I flag down the first car I see and ask for a ride to the hospital. Its a massive guy, 300 or 400 pounds, in a pickup truck. He is hesitant at first, but after realizing that i'm going to be in some trouble if I don't get to a hospital soon, he gives me a ride.
For some reason, out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of PA, theres a motherfucking oil refinery. AN OIL REFINERY.
He drops me off at the emergency room, I stagger in and imieaditly people start helping me. It turns out that in order to jump the line, all you need to do is be driping blood onto the floor. After I get bandaged up I look like a mummy. They take some X-rays, of course it's broken. wrist and hand, 2 places. I get a splint. The doctor says I needto see an orthopedist imeadiatly. I'm a rock climber, it's not something I can fuck around with.
I rule!:
http://photos-585.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072585_4271.jpg
Gumby finally shows up. Then we ask for a place to camp. I start walking. after 2 or 3 miles I see gumby on the other side of the highway. Eventually he came back my way again, and told me that the site was wayyy to far away. So I walk to the next exit, and chill out in front of a bank while gumby tries to find a spot fo us to camp. The cops drive by me, it's like 3 AM, i'm spralled out in front of the bank on the sidewalk, and they don't even stop. hahahahhaha.
Gumby gets back, we set up camp in a baseball feild close by. I sleep very poorly.
Day 5: I goto an orthopedist. I have to walk there again, another 3 or 4 miles or so. I have to get my fucking thumb reset. HOLY FUCK. I'm still not taking anything for pain, and I refused everything at the hospital, but they say I need local anisthetic for this one. So the nurse brings in a 3 inch needle with a 5 CC syringe. The doctor says, "nope, bring me the big one" so I get 10 CCs of anisthetic into my thumb. by this time, my fucking hand has a lump the size of an egg on it. a big egg. I have no idea where all the anisthetic goes, but it takes him a good minute or two of jabbing my, and then moving the needle and jabbing again to get it all in.
The morning after:
http://photos-642.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072642_8335.jpg
Gumby's caption: "Barely a week into our trip we are down a moped and down a nick, believe me, nicks are hard to replace - After a late night E.R. stay, nick and I awake at a Warren, PA park/playground/ball field"
http://photos-586.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072586_4413.jpg
It still hurts a lot when he re aligns that fucking bone. I get a sweet ass cast.
Gumby and I walk around the rest of the day. We get me a bike lock. Mike Powers's awesome friend Sara V. comes to pick me up. it's like 3 hours from where she lives in cleavland. I'm saved.
She meets me at the emergency room, and then all of us, me, sara, her friend, and gumby goto the park where my moped is, and lock that up. Then we drop gumby back off, he's going to continue by moped to cleavland to meet me there.
Day 6: I chill out at sara's place. She brings me pizza. Awesome.
Day 7: same as day 6
My leg, a few days after the accident:
http://photos-645.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072645_8848.jpg
Another leg picture:
http://photos-644.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072644_8671.jpg
Day 8: Mike and gumby come and get me at sara's house. Mike just got back from his job at NASA
Mike:
http://photos-603.facebook.com/n8/4752/40/48805852/n48805852_30072603_1286.jpg
Day 8-20: I chill out at mikes house, it's fucking sweet. my wounds heal. My wrist is still in a cast.
siafirede
2005-12-27, 09:18 PM
Sounds like an adventure. Where were you hoping to ride to? And where in PA did you go?
andrew_carter
2005-12-28, 04:00 AM
That was an interesting read. Sounds like a full face helmet was the way to go...either that or not crashing at all. ;) Sounds like it must have been painful but it's good to see you've got your spirits up. At least you got some nice photos. By the way, are those widescreen aspect photos a standard feature on your camera or cropped to that later? I'm a big fan...of all things widescreen. What sort of speeds do you get up to on a moped?
Andrew
abbabibble
2005-12-28, 05:19 AM
Those'll make for some killer scars.
Sounds like an adventure. Where were you hoping to ride to? And where in PA did you go?
We were trying to make it to the pacific... seattle, actually. I stayed in scranton, PA, and then crashed in warren, PA.
That was an interesting read. Sounds like a full face helmet was the way to go...either that or not crashing at all. ;) Sounds like it must have been painful but it's good to see you've got your spirits up. At least you got some nice photos. By the way, are those widescreen aspect photos a standard feature on your camera or cropped to that later? I'm a big fan...of all things widescreen. What sort of speeds do you get up to on a moped?
Andrew
I'm going to stick with my helmet for now, and just stop crashing. aside from where my glasses took a huge chunk out of my nose, and where I bit through my lip, my face wasn't bad.
The wide screen photos were taken by my friends disposable camera... sorry to disappoint you...
My moped does about 30 mph on flats. on steep steep uphills it slows to 25 mph. even on the steepest hills I've ever been on (pretty steep) it still made it to 20 mph. my friends was last years model, and it slowed enough that it was better to get off and push wile holding the throttle on steep hills! They both managed about 40 mph down the steep hills, which was pretty scarry at times. but very awesome.
I forgot to mention, this all happened back in August...
I'm out of the cast, and I do have some pretty bitchin scars now.
Also, this made me very placiated (right word?.. "not afraid") towards motorcycles. I crashed at 35 or 40 mph, and pretty much as poorly as I could, and I didn't reallly have any long term affects as far as my body is concerned, I'm fine. If I had been wearing long pants, and a jacket, as I should have been, I would have only had to deal with my wrist.
So I bought a (small) motorcycle... a 1973, honda 175 cc. it's awesome.
andrew_carter
2005-12-28, 08:11 PM
Can we see photos of the new bike? I'm a motorcyclist myself. I ride an old Yamaha SRX250...this nice and simple single cylinder thing that's older than I am. I love it! Although as soon as I can afford it, I'm getting myself a Ducati Monster 620. :)
Andrew
Can we see photos of the new bike? I'm a motorcyclist myself. I ride an old Yamaha SRX250...this nice and simple single cylinder thing that's older than I am. I love it! Although as soon as I can afford it, I'm getting myself a Ducati Monster 620. :)
Andrew
I'll take some tomorow. it's not great, but I love it.
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