Shayne Prerun

This past Sunday we rallied a few folks together to do the annual pre-run of the Shayne route. It gives us the chance to see if there are any construction or pavement issues, detours, etc.  It also gives us a chance to enjoy the ride without the stress that accompanies the route on the day of the run.

The weather was gorgeous and when I rolled in to the Post parking lot (the rally point), I was very happy to see a lot of folks already there!  And more showed up, after!  We wound up with 23 people and something like 18 bikes.  Nice!!  Hugs and handshakes all around!

11am arrived, kickstands were raised, and off we went.  We were fortunate with most of the lights along the way and only really pressed our luck a couple of times where we had about half of the pack rumbling through an intersection after the light had turned red.

We stopped for a brief visit at the cemetery to pay our respects to Shayne, and were then on our way again.

Halfway through the route, we made our obligatory stop at Victory Lane for lunch and libations.  They greeted us as well as ever and there were lots of laughs and good times as we filled our bellies.

Then it was back to the road, eventually arriving safely back at the Post for a congratulatory beerfreshement.

The route itself is decent, overall.  There's one section in Millis where the pavement is torn up for road work.  We talked about it afterwards and some think it will be paved in time for the run (3 weeks) but I'm not so sure.  The section was deep in the throes of digging and filling, and wasn't even close to being prepared for resurfacing.  But, we shall find out soon enough.

After a little while at the Post, most folks ambled off in their own directions but a few of us headed off to Rex's house to continue the Sunday Funday theme for a while, before finally calling it quits ourselves.

Pics!

What a crowd!

Paying our respects...

Nelly still insists on drinking that nasty Lite stuff...

Outside Victory Lane was this awesome 2012 Ural!  The owner came out and was talking with us about it.  I'm familiar with them, and he talked about it's an absolute bitch sometimes to control, but he loves it for off-roading.

Opposing cylinders!

Lined up and getting ready to roll back out to the road...

 A bit of a backstory here.  We'd held the Shayne's Run Yard Sale the day before, and this little girl came by (with her guardian).  She was a foster child just recently rescued from her mother.  Well, maybe rescued isn't the right word...or maybe it is.  Her mother lives out of a car, has 6 children (including the little girl who showed up at the yard sale) and is pregnant with her 7th kid.  Awesome.  Anyway, this little girl has no money, nothing of her own, etc.  Lynn is friends with the guardian (a foster mother of other children) who explained things to us about how rough this little girl's life is starting out.  She mentioned that they were putting on a lemonade stand the following day, and Lynn said that we'd absolutely stop by.  Which we did.

And here we are, swarming the stand.  The little girl's face (and the faces of her friends) all lit up like it was Christmas time when we started all pulling up on our bikes.  She loved it!  And of course we stuffed her collection jar to the top with cash, she was beside herself, and it was so cool to see.

We'd parked across the road in an available parking lot (here's Bill, in the way of the picture) and when it came time to leave, we all made a grand spectacle of revving our engines and laying on our horns.  The kids were all smiling and waving at us as we rode on off into the sunset...er...around the next bend.

Over at Rex's house; my favorite 4-legged buddy; Mudslide!

Here's my attempt at doing a selfie with the crew.  All I managed to capture of myself was a small bit of my forehead in the lower left corner.  Everyone else agreed it was the best pic of me they've ever seen.

And there you have it.  It was a really great day - I think the best pre-run day we've ever had.

Next up is Labor Day Maine Event, which will officially kick off on Friday morning when we head up.  McCarthy is talking about leaving at 4am to beat the traffic.  We'll see how that goes.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Cook's Comes Through, NH Falls Through

As noted in my last post, I'd intended on being in NH today, staying overnight, doing a chit-ton of riding, then heading home on Thursday.  Well, that plan go bunged up.  I needed a new rear tire so I'd made arrangements with Cook's to hook me up this morning (he'd even rearranged his current job load so as to take me in first thing).

Things were going well until he found that on the left rear exhaust clip; the rear bolt on it had stripped out (F'n dealership - probably some knucklehead using an impact wrench and going too tight with it).  Anyway, since the receiving nut is essentially welded to the pipe, there was nothing else to do but drill it out, tap it, then drill out the hole on the clip, cut down a 3/8" bolt and use that.

Jon went to some serious lengths to accomplish this, too.  When drilling out the nut, he obviously didn't want to drill down into the pipe, so he used a tiny, thin gauge sheet of steel in between the nut and the pipe (there was about 1/32 of an inch gap to work with).

When he was drilling, he watched for the thin sheet to move, indicating the bit had touched it.  Then when tapping the expanded hole, he did the same with the thin sheet to make sure he didn't score the pipe.  The problem was that the tap was tapered at the end (naturally), so the tip of it was hitting the metal before the full width of the hole had been tapped.  So what did Jon do?  He cut the taper off of his tap!  Yep, he essentially ruined his tap, just to fix this issue for me.

With the modified tap, he was able to get a good set of threads cut in, and things were moving again.  He wizzer-wheeled a bolt down to size, then wizzered a bit of a taper onto it, and voila!  The exhaust was secured nice and tight.

A quick stop over at the cash register to settle things up and I was off and running.  The problem?  It was now almost 2:30 in the afternoon and I knew if I hit the road then, I was gonna be slammed with traffic.  The heat and humidity were pretty bad, and I didn't want to spend another afternoon sitting in it, not moving (I'd hit a traffic jam on the way home from the dealership yesterday and had been at a crawl for almost an hour before finally moving to the breakdown lane just to get some air across my cylinders).

So, what to do.  Well, in addition to everything else, the forecasts were now calling for thunderstorms and rain in the Wolfeboro area in the morning.  That meant my best option was to still leave tonight and get there dry.  But it also meant that I'd  arrive after the food stores were closed up for the night (they roll the sidewalks up pretty early up there), which meant no late night snacks, but more importantly; no breakfast food.  And if the rain wasn't done until about 10am, then it meant Dave was going to be a miserable, hungry boy, right out of the gate.  It also meant that my long day of riding would be compressed, and it was already planned out to be a full day, anyway.  (Back roads up to the western end of the Kancamagus, ride that, then more back roads out to the eastern end of Hurricane Mountain Rd, then up to Mt Washington, then keep going north and take a chitload of back roads to make my way back down to Wolfeboro.)

The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I was forcing things with this trip.   The whole reason for taking this time off and heading up there was to relax and destress, but if anything, I was getting more stressed by trying to keep to a timetable which had already been busted.  What was the point?

So, I bagged the trip.  I'll find something to do with the days off - I started in on a small project for the front lawn, we'll see if I can complete it.  And aside from that, I'll try and see if I can relax and destress a bit.  NH isn't going anywhere, and neither are the awesome roads up there.

I'll get back up there at some point.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Bentley's, the Adventure

Ed, Greg and I hit the road on Friday with a wary eye on the skies above.  We were fortunate enough to make it almost an hour before we had to pull off and don the rain gear.  That proved to be pointless, however, because it proceeded to rain so hard that we wound up soaked to the core, anyway.

When we finally arrived, we got a tarp set up but opted to get some warm food into us before proceeding with tent assembly.  A short walk up to the restaurant and we soon had food in front of us, and hot toddy's (of a sort) in front of us.

After a bit, we headed back and got our tents set up, rearranged some of the over-cover, cleaned up with hot showers (separately, of course) and reveled the evening away at the on-site party headquarters.

The next day, the rain had abated a bit and we went in search of some nice roads, as well as possibly a brewhouse or two.  We did the obligatory ride out to the ocean but the parking enforcement officer informed us that since we weren't residents, we weren't allowed to park in the parking spots.  What the frik.  It was a gloomy, overcast day, the parking area was almost devoid of other cars, but nevertheless, we had to push on.

And push on we did - up to Portland to see what we could find.  The sun had made some appearances and seemed to be gaining strength as the day wore on.  And this seemed to bring out the open house brewery events.  What that meant is that as we were riding along trying to find certain places, we kept stumbling upon these little micro brewery places that had outdoor seating, roped off on sidewalks or in the parking area.  Well all right!  Let's check these places out!

We didn't really fit in too well - the environment in many of these places seemed to be pretty earthy crunchy/tree huggy, but I tell ya; these folks like their beer!  So while we did get our fair share of sidelong glances, we focused on enjoying the day, and the offerings.

We headed back to base camp before we got too silly, got cleaned up and then hung out at the main bar again for the evening.  We imbibed, we laughed, we danced with some of the fillies, and it was a great time.

Sunday morning came too soon for my head, but there was nothing for it; it was time to pack up camp and head home.  I parted with Ed and Greg when we got near Boston, as I needed to drop my bike off at the dealership for it's appointed service.  The handoff went smoothly, and I was soon ambling my way home on the loaner (an Electra Ultra this time).

Today was back to work, but I've got tomorrow through Thursday off and am heading up to NH to do some riding and recharging.  The dreaded budget season is fast approaching and nobody at my work is looking forward to that monstrosity.  But I digress.

Bentley's once again delivered a grand time.  I do think that we're done with the tenting thing, though.  Three years in a row now, the weather hasn't really treated us very well.  I think next year we'll have to look into renting one of the cabins they have up there.  Beds, solid walls, and a weatherproof top (roof).  Sounds like the way to go.

Pics!

Our arrival - ok, this is down the street at the service plaza where we filled up, but you get the idea.

The tarps have been assembled and the bikes are parked.

Click on the pic to expand it.  This is what we'd been driving through for about an hour and a half.

I don't drink coffee; I can't stand the flavor of it.  But toss in some JD and it's the cure for a bone-deep chill.

Back at the site and tents have been set up.  Then it was back to the party...

They were doing a Miller Lite promotion and these two girls were walking around with cups of it, just giving it away.  They said they got to go home when it was all gone.  (I'm a gentleman, but I have my limits.  I didn't help them end their night - that Miller Lite stuff is vile.)

This guy was just hanging out back by himself, not bothering anyone.  Apparently that wasn't good enough for my compatriots.  Ed seemed content to fondle the guys chin, while Greg was...wait..what?  What the hell, Greg!  :-)

There were a few other folks that were tenting also, and they had this guy with them.  I asked that the story/significance was, and they didn't know.  Just somehow along the line, this thing had become a part of the troupe, and went where they did.

The obligatory beach pics.  Very gloomy this year.

On our way to a distillery, we happened to come across Big Bear HD, and they were having an open house.  Free burgers, pulled pork, etc.
Oh, and free drafts!

Back out on the road, we found the location of the distillery, but there was a microbrewery next to it with some of that outdoor seating I mentioned earlier.  So we stopped in to sample the wares.

 (After this, we strolled next door and tried a bit of the distillery's offerings as well.)

The trip was a success on another front, too; we found an open American Legion!!  (We had to do a walk-around before finally discovering that the place was indeed open, and the entrance was tucked out in the back.)

Here was the front.  It was an impressive, albeit old building.

Our next stop was a place whose name had intrigued us; One Eye Open Brewing.

Yeah, well unfortunately they didn't have a tasting room.  In fact, it was basically a couple of young guys brewing beer in their backyard garage.  Didn't seem very sanitary in the least, so I was kinda glad they didn't have offerings available.

Down the street, though; salvation.  Rising Tide brewery and once again; outdoor seating.  I could get used to this!

This place had a distillery next to it also, but as it turned out, they had JUST moved, that very day.

Not deterred, Greg mapped it out for us once again and we were soon walking in the front door, being greeted with this happy guy...

A quick glance around and I spotted this little gem from Monty Python...

They're still in the process of getting settled into their new (larger) location, but they were more than happy to take the time to show us around and give us their background.

Mmmm....wide open vats that oozed scents of molasses...

Look at the size of this modular still! (They had an enormous pot still off to the side, too.)

This was pretty cool; a full window opening, filled with empty whiskey bottles.

On our way back to Bentley's we passed an antique auto dealership so we u-turned it and checked out some of the sights.  Pretty cool cars here!

Back at the site, we set to laying out some of our clothes to try and reduce the amount of wet laundry we'd have to pack up the next morning.
This was our official Riders Vest pole (Bentley's doesn't allow colors of any kind so the vests had to stay at the site).

Yep; full white trashery has been achieved.

I didn't take any pics on Sat night, or on Sunday's ride home, so that's all I've got for ya.

But it was definitely worth all the wet.  It was Ed's first time and he seems all on board with making this an annual thing with us, so hopefully we'll get a few more for next year.  Because it's a great time, and it's really not that far away.

So if you're reading this and you haven't been yet, change that.

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Bentley's

It hit me on the ride in this morning that I should put something up here.  After all, my last post said I'd be sporadic, it didn't say I was walked away completely.

In lookng at the calendar, I noticed that it's been exactly one month since I put anything up here.  I guess that certainly meets the criteria for "sporadic"...

Anyway, this weekend is our annual guys trip up to Bentley's in Maine.  Camping...which of course means there's rain in the forecast. Thankfully, the predictions appear to be getting slightly better.  Yesterday, the call was for rain on all three days.  This morning, it looks like rain on Friday night into Saturday morning but then clear for the rest of it.  I can live with that I suppose.

There'll be just three of us this year; Ed Galley, Greg and myself.  Artie had originally signed up to share a campsite with Ed, but then backed out.  I guess there's always a chance that someone can jump in last minute to fill the spot but all the other regulars have said they can't make it, so the odds aren't good.

It should be a good ride up tomorrow and I imagine we'll arrive before check-in time.  What to do with the down time...well, I found a number of brew houses and distilleries on-line, so there's always that.  And of course the awesome roadways and scenery, so that will play a big part, too.

I just realized that I should also see if I can find any Legions up there that are open (last year, we found 4, but they were all closed; doing rentals/events only).

Here's wishing everyone a great long weekend.  What?  Oh, right; it's a long weekend for me because I'm taking Friday off.  Well, happy long weekend to me.

Ride Hard, Take Chances