Arrival time was set @ 9am so at about 8:35 I headed out for coffee, bagels, juice, etc. Arriving back with minutes to spare, I quickly set up a makeshift table, complete with toaster! Check out this spread!
9:00 on the dot. Whew, just made it without a minute to spare. ‘Cause any second now, bikes are going to start rolling in. Yep…any second now. Ok, maybe “minute” is more accurate. Yeah; any minute now. Uhm…any hour? :-D (In folks’ defense, a number of guys had said they had stuff to take care of before they could get here.) Once folks did begin arriving, the mood quickly escalated into high spirits. Overall, the group seemed a bit shy with the coffee and food, but certainly not with the beer!
Oh yeah; I should mention COSTUMES! Since this is a Halloween Run, the call had been put out for folks to wear a costume, or a mask, or something in the Halloween spirit (Get it? “Spirit”? I’m here all week, folks.) Anyway, Matt went all-out, check this out!!
We were missing some of the usual suspects this year, but we had a few new faces to fill in the voids. I didn’t get any pics of them, but here’s a pic of a definite suspect; Christine, double-fisted, just like we like her to be!
Jumping ahead to 11 o’clock, we had 9 bikes lined up and ready (Yes, for those of you counting, there are only 8 bikes in this pic. Mike hadn’t shown up yet when I took it.)
Departure time arrived so we mounted up and hammered the short few miles to the rally point; Fusion 5. Pulling in, we exchanged a perfectly healthy green piece of paper for a flimsy white sticky one that we wrapped around our wrists. We were in! There were plenty of spots to park up close to the building, but experience has taught us to ride out to the large field in the back and pull up some out-of-the-way real estate. Not only does this afford us a great view of everything, but it also affords us the ability to enjoy our own road sodas at a much cheaper price than what’s being charged inside. So without further ado, let us adjourn to said road soda time…er…DAMN! I’d forgotten to pack road sodas!! What a farking rookie mistake!! Ahh, but not to worry, for this is why I hang with this crew. Not one, not two, but THREE of these guys had things covered, and proceeded to pull packed coolers out. And since they’d enjoyed my hospitality at the house, they were all too willing to let me enjoy theirs, now. Good times!
Oh yeah, I’ve got a couple more costume pics to toss up here. These were taken while we were out back in the field behind Fusion 5.
Greg, in his escaped-inmate garb.
Matt, with Chrissy.
Mike wears a full-faced lid so he can’t really do a costume, but he does attach a skeleton to his bike. Nice!
After a bit of time, the Call came in to fire things up. Hmmm…should I run to the woods and pee? Nah, I can hold it. Ha, man, was I majorly wrong! We hadn’t gotten halfway through the run before I was in absolute agony. I was looking for a place to pull over when thankfully a Dunkin Donuts came into sight. (Judging from the bikes in the parking lot, I wasn’t the only one in such a predicament.) Thankfully, the line wasn’t long at all and I was soon relieving myself of the built up pressure. Coming back out and looking far (far) to my right, I caught sight of the very last bike just rolling out of my field of vision. Ok, let’s get moving! Hopping onto the bike and firing her up, I sliced through the guys that were just milling around in the lot and snuck back out onto the road. Now this road was PACKED with all the cars that had been halted so the procession could pass by. Now that things had opened up again, there was a deluge of automobiles, all trying to make up for lost time. And being the sole guy on a motorcycle in the middle of that mess was not the best place to be!
After securing my re-entrance to the roadway, I quickly was upon a stoplight, and it was not green in my favor. No time to wait, I judged the passing traffic going left and right and shot through the first open slot I was presented with. Now I was on a curvy two-lane, twisting the throttle and bearing past the vehicles that lay between myself and my destination. (Most folks were very decent and, in looking in their rear view mirror and seeing a masked biker coming up hard on their rear, they put 2+2 together and realized I was trying to catch the run, and pulled over for me.)
Before too long, I found myself caught up with the ride, and found myself…Hey… I’m running the Sweep! Sweet! Hundreds of bikes in front of me and lil’ ol’ me is bringing up the rear. Yep, a guy could get used to…uh-oh… We came up to an intersection where one of the local constabulary was blocking traffic for us. As I eased on by him, he slid in behind me. Now that by itself may not seem so bad, but what I haven’t told you yet is that I’d rigged my bike with an additional bit of costumery (I can make words up if I want). See, I’d gone out and picked up this pumpkin-headed, scarecrow kind of thing and had affixed it to my back seat so it looked like I had a passenger. This passenger was facing backwards, too. Not too shabby, right? Well, it wasn’t enough for me, so I went ahead and secured a Bud Light can in its hand. It looked pretty funny, I thought. Right up until I had about 8 beers in me and a cop on my tail with his lights on. Let’s see. He’s either A) covering the rear of the run and couldn’t care less about my level of stupidity, or B); I’m getting popped. I’d sure love for option A to come true! But man, he’s right on my ass, and he’s not backing off at all. Could he really pull me over, out of the charity run, with onlookers watching? Let’s watch and find out what happens… After about a mile, he finally eased back and pulled off to a side street. Whew! Ok, the first thing I’m doing when I get back to the rally point is removing said beer can!
The last leg of the run was a 5 mile no-holds-barred hammering of Route 1. I don’t know what the route planners thought was going to happen at this point, but between the riders who were dying of thirst, the riders who were dying from overloaded bladders, or riders that were just looking to open things up for a change; it was madness incarnate. All three lanes were immediately filled with bikes flying up and down, in and around any poor cage caught up in the maelstrom. It was awesome! (Ok, in full disclosure, perhaps the front of the run was behaving, but back at the end, it was sheer madness.)
Finally pulling back into Fusion 5, I headed for the back lot again and found the guys pretty much where we’d been prior to departure. Everything was good! Oh no, no it isn’t; there’s only a handful of road sodas left! Not a problem – I jumped back on the bike and made a quick blast down to the corner store and we’re back in business with 2 full 12 packs. Ahh, more fun in the sun. (Tthe sun wound up being surprisingly strong this day I even wound up with a sunburn, not that that’s really difficult for my skin to achieve.)
Here’s a group shot, post-run (some of the crew was off peeing, or getting food, or getting themselves into some kind of trouble). Speaking of trouble, what the hell is Matt up to on the left?? Watch out Kim!
As we’re yukking things up and having a good time all around, one of the workers comes around and tells us “395 bikes pulled out of here today”, to which Flex says “Oh yeah? And how many of them made it back?” LOL, that got a good round of laughter.
As is always the case when you’re having a great day, beers start running short again. Not a problem, though – for we have an after-event to go to! Tweety’s birthday party! Ok, time to finish things up here and head back to my house to polish off the few remnants we’d left behind earlier this morning.
From there, it was off to Tweety’s birthday party, where we filled our bellies and still managed to squeeze in a few beers (and a few more after that. And of course there was more silliness to be had, too…
Maybe it’s time I traded my bike in for something sleeker…
As the evening wore on, folks began to disperse to their respective homesteads. After helping clean up a bit, I, too found myself heading homewards. Upon pulling into the driveway, there was nothing left to do but toss out the leftover ice from the cooler; a sure sign that you’ve done a good job with the beer supplies.
And that brings to a close the 2010 Annual Halloween Run.
Ride Hard, Take Chances...And Don’t Display Beer Cans On Your Bike.
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