Chuck Hitchcock Memorial Run

The NY trip (back a couple of weekends ago) was a success; made decent time on the trip out, and then made fantastic time on the way home; 502 miles in 6.5 hours. Not too shabby at all. (And I didn’t have a single cat jump out in front of me).

Friday morning, 5 minutes until departure:
The morning’s check of the radar showed that there was some rain in my near future. Sure enough, as I hit the Berkshires, the gray skies slowly began to release their contents. Thankfully, it was nothing too serious, but I kept an eye on the traffic coming in the other direction just the same. Their wipers weren’t running too hard, so I crossed some fingers and kept on rolling. The precipitation was off and on; long enough to get me a bit wet, but then would stop long enough to almost dry out before starting up again.

Further along and well into NY, the interstate rounded a mountain and brought one of the many scenic valleys into view. That was nice and all, but what I wasn’t so impressed with was the solid-black sky over the valley. I was trying to calculate what my chances might be that I would make it through the clouds unscathed, and that’s when the lightning started (which pretty much answered my question for me). Gearing myself up for a nasty stretch of roadway, I was quite surprised to see the highway cut to the left and around the storm system. I was treated to quite the light show as I rolled safely (and dryly) around the storm cell. It’s not often that one gets to watch a lightning show from the seat of the bike and still stay dry.

The clouds began to clear out as I pushed further into western NY and things were looking good. I arrived in Olean a bit early so I decided to slide over and visit the graves of a couple of fallen brothers. Now each year when I make it out there, I like to bring and leave a little something on the stones - this year; it would be some Massachusetts quarters. The first stone I visited was Dana’s. He used to bust our asses (those of us from Mass), calling us Massholes and such (not entirely undeserved, LOL). I’d half-wondered how he’d feel about having a Massachusetts quarter placed on his headstone, but I’d figured I’d chance it.

I pulled into the cemetery and began rolling between the markers - the closer I’m getting to Dana’s, the darker the sky is suddenly getting. I pull up to the spot, park, and make my way over. I say my hellos and lay the Mass quarter beside the collection of tokens left by others over the years. No sooner had I done that than I felt the first drops of rain begin. I made my way back to the bike and the sky just opened up. I knew Dana was telling me to “Get that sh*t off my stone!” (but I also knew the big guy could handle it). From there, I headed over to Gapper’s grave and paid my respects to him as well. From there, it was a quick blast through the downpours over to King and Pat’s house where the garage was open and the light was on. I rolled in out of the weather and shut her down. Strolling into the house, I was greeted with hugs and a nice cold beer. We kicked our feet up, caught up on things and let the rain fall harmlessly outside. It doesn’t get much better than that!

When the rain had passed, we headed down town to Mickey’s and met up with more of the crew for some grub and suds. After chowing down one of Tommy’s famous steak subs, it was time to head next door to The Parkwood for some more libations. The laughs were plenty, the drinks flowed easily, and the plans for the following day’s run were laid out.

The next morning, King and I fired the bikes up and we rolled over to Bub’s abode for breakfast. Breakfast! For the years I’ve been meeting up with these guys, we’ve always hit a McDonald’s or other similar establishment for breakfast. But not this time; this time we were living large. Walking into the kitchen, I was greeted by the efforts of Bub, Lynner and Steph; mountains of scrambled eggs, a full baking sheet stacked half a foot high with crisp bacon, two enormous stacks of French toast, donuts, bagels, orange juice, milk and 100% pure maple syrup. I haven’t seen a spread like that in ages. We all gathered round and filled our internal fuel tanks with a good hearty base for the coming ride.

After we’d had our fill of the fantastic spread, we all saddled up and pointed our tires towards the Knapp Creek fire station and the unfortunate event that awaited us.

The reason we had assembled (and the reason I’d ridden out to Olean) was that a good friend had passed recently in an accident on his daytime job. In addition to that job, Chuck Hitchcock was also the Fire Chief of the Knapp Creek volunteer fire department and that department had set up a dice run for this day, with the proceeds going to his family. The weather had cooperated and everyone was expecting a decent turnout. But we weren’t prepared for the sheer volume of bikes, riders and passengers that continued to show up. Registration was slated to commence at 10am and run for two hours, with the ride kicking off at noontime. When we fired up our bikes and the procession began pouring out of the parking lots, there were still people in line, waiting to register. In fact, almost 40 minutes later, when we had arrived at the first stop, parked, waited in line and then finally rolled our dice, we got word that there were still people registering back at the fire station. Truly amazing. But not surprising; Chuck was one hell of a nice guy.

But I’m getting ahead of myself; back at the parking lot (prior to the run starting), we were walking around and checking out some of the bikes that were lining up. It was a good mix of cruisers, trikes and a few sport bikes thrown in for good measure. Just before noontime, a reverend gathered us around and a few words were spoken for the family, for the friend we’d lost, and for our safety on the ride ahead of us. That done, we broke apart and headed for our rides.
There were a total of five rolls that would be made on this dice run, but rather than having us all wasting a lot of time with a bunch of different stops, the first and last rolls would be made right at the fire station. That left only three stops along the way, but more importantly; it left us about 3 hours of good solid riding through some fantastically scenic areas. AND, since we’d be riding through PA, we wouldn’t need our helmets. Although, there was the whole issue of the 1 mile standing between the fire station parking lot and the state line. It didn’t take more than a second or two for us to come to the conclusion; “Helmets? We don’t need no stinking helmets!”. So we packed ‘em and headed on down the road; our heads unencumbered by any foolish plastic headwear. Cruising along the main drag for a very short bit, we banked a left turn at the appropriate landmark and crossed over into PA, proper.

There’s not a lot I can add with words, so I’ll just let some pics do the talking for me…

At ride’s end, we gathered again at the fire station for our final rolls of the dice. Once again, my luck-of-the-dice held steady (IE: crappy) and I knew that my total would not be a threat to anyone else. No worries, there was still plenty of good company to enjoy, a slew of hearty food to sample, the 50/50 raffle, and the matter of a host of door prizes generously contributed by the surrounding community.

Having not eaten since the last stop (an agonizingly-distant 45 minutes earlier), I was thoroughly famished. I partook of some pizza and a huge cup of piping hot chili - topped with oyster crackers and shredded cheese! I figured that would hold me over until that evening’s cookout back at Mark & Mary’s house…granted; that was only two hours away.

As we enjoyed the food, we listened as the raffle ticket numbers were called out and the door prizes were slowly claimed. I soon realized that my luck-of-the-dice had spilled over to the raffle tickets and that again; I was no threat to anyone else. Holding out one last vestige of hope that perhaps I might finally have some luck with the 50/50, I moved in close to the MC so as to be sure to hear my numbers when they were called. Overall, it was a perfect outing for my luck; all bad. With the conclusion of the raffles and prizes reached, folks began to find their way back to their bikes and the gathering slowly broke apart. King and I headed back to his castle, dropped the bikes off and headed off to Mark &Mary’s BBQ in the Jeep.

Arriving at roughly the same time as the rest of the crew, we cracked some cold ones, gathered about the grille, set the food to cooking and set flame to the firepit. Plenty of wood kept the fire running strong and plenty of laughter kept the camaraderie going stronger. A few of us even had a marshmallow fight, bouncing the little white puffs off of each other‘s heads time and time again. Any that fell into the wet grass instantly turned into sticky blobs of goo…which only added to the hilarity as they would now stick to whatever they were thrown against; shirts…jackets…or faces. All in all; a great way to once again end a day; surrounded by friends.




The next day saw me up early; my thank-you’s and appreciation extended for the hospitality received once again, and rolling down Smith Hollow Road, heading in the wrong direction (trip concluded, headed home). The fog was thick, the sky; overcast. So there was really only one thing to do; rip the hell out of the throttle and get home sooner. Things worked out great; the front end didn’t disintegrate on me, I didn’t have any unplanned rendezvous’ with local law enforcement officials, and the sun actually managed to poke it’s head out by the time I rolled into my driveway…a mere 6.5 hours later. Not too shabby at all.

Not sure what it is…but every time I hang out with that crew, I always have one hell of a time.

RIP Chuck, you will be missed.
Ride Hard, Take Chances

Scarecrows, Scenery and Stunts

A rare weekend free of tasks/projects/responsibilites had presented itself before us, so I decided to head up to the house in NH on Saturday morning. The weather was warm and somewhat humid - surprising for early October - but I wasn’t complaining. I was facing some incoming rain that evening, so I hammered the highway, looking to get up there and enjoy some of the sunshine before the clouds moved in. And when I say I hammered the highway, I hammered it….up until 4 miles before the 95/93 connection, and then I hit some heavy traffic, slowing me to about 15 miles an hour. I could see the overpass for 93 and the traffic was moving well - cool! That means this traffic mess is confined to 95 and all I gotta do is get to the exit and I’ll be rolling again. Some jockeying between lanes and soon I was in good shape, sliding up the 93 on-ramp and setting the speedo needle back on the high side of the gauge where it belongs. The blacktop was piling up behind me and I was back to making some decent time - things were looking good. I started hitting the expected backup right before the Mass/NH border and things slowed a bit. I figured I’d soon be rolling again, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Traffic had me stopped cold, feet planted unhappily on the roadway. I haven’t seen traffic that bad on that highway, in years and years. There was no rhyme or reason for it - no bad accident, no road construction, nothing. I was going to chalk it up to leaf-peepers, but that wouldn’t have made sense as the foliage really has a ways to go before it hits peak. Whatever the reason was, a trip that should have maybe taken 2.5 hours, wound up dragging into almost 4 hours in length.

Finally arriving into the outskirts of Wolfeboro, I started noticing many houses were displaying scarecrow-themed Halloween displays. I pulled over and snapped some pics of the ones I liked the best. Here’s one that was in front of a doctor’s office (they were doing surgery on a skeleton);

Here’s some scarecrow kids skateboarding on a half-pipe, in front of the town supermarket;

Here’s a scarecrow mailman, treed by some scarecrow dogs;

A lot of thought had been put into each of them, but definitely the one I thought was the best overall, was the Headless Horseman themed one.

I hit the house, unloaded the bike and headed back into town for eats and drinks at the Wolfe Tavern (love that place!). This place looks like an old town meeting house, or an old B&B or something, that has been converted into a cool tavern. Instead of one large bar area, or large function room, it has a lot of smaller rooms that are all interconnected. And in almost all of the rooms, thousands of cast beer steins are hanging from the ceilings. Here’s a shot from across the upstairs bar…

Here’s one of the smaller side-rooms, also awash with hanging mugs…

Here’s a shot of one of the front rooms - complete with fireplace (not shown) and a mounted moose head…and more mugs!

How does one get a mug of your own? The Wolfe Tavern has a beer list which contains something like 99 beers. They give you a beer punch-card and every time you have one of their different beers, they punch out the appropriate beer on your card. You’re only supposed to receive credit for 2 beers per visit (liability issues and all), but the bartenders are pretty cool and if you catch them on a good night, you can get credit for many more than just two.

So while I was eating and having a couple (wink wink) of beers, the bartender (Kathy) confirmed my guess that the town was hosting a scarecrow contest. Not sure if there’s a prize or not, I didn’t really get that far, we were too busy talking about the different displays and how cool they were.

Seeing that the daylight was fading into an ominous gray outside, I settled my account with the tavern and saddled back up on the bike. Thankfully, it’s only about 2 miles to the house, because turning onto the street from the parking lot, the skies in front of me were more than just gray; they were borderline black. I managed to get the bike into the garage and myself into the living room just as a deluge began to hammer down around me. There wasn’t much point in going back out at this point, so I just relaxed inside for the evening.

Sunday came all too soon. There were two big sporting events to catch that day (Pats & Sox!), and rather than spend the day watching them up there and then have to fight traffic on the way home, I opted to hammer the highways again and watch them from the comfort of home. So I packed the bike, did a sweep to make sure everything was cleaned up and tidy, and rolled (regretfully) towards home and back towards reality.

But I still have time - the snow hasn’t come yet and the temps aren’t that cold. There’s still time to make it up there again for another visit to
NH and the beautiful scenery therein.


That would have been the end of the weekend there…but a buddy of mine from the gym had told me about some trick-riders that had been tearing up one of the dead-end streets near his house recently. Apparently they’ve been gathering on Sunday afternoons/evenings and practicing their stuff. So I figured what the hell, I’ll take a ride over and see if they’re there. They were, and it was awesome! There were many spectators, and about 5 guys on sport bikes doing all kinds of sick sh*t on their rides. Standing burnies, drifting burnies, wheelies, fronties, no hands, feet over the bars while burning, etc. etc. etc. I took some clips with the digital camera, let’s see if I can load one to give you an idea…

Here’s another one…

Here’s the guy doing the jump-n-go the right way (according to them); the front tire never hits the ground. Frikkin’ insane!

The crowd was cool with a couple of strangers showing up and taking pics/vids of them. Some of the riders belong to a group called Barely Legal Stunters (http://www.barelylegalstunters.com/home/home.htm). They said they’ll be back to the same place in following weeks, so you know I’ll have to try and get some more good clips!

Ok, that’ll do it for this post. I still have to do the write-up on my trip out to Olean last weekend – I’m hoping to have that posted by the end of this week. For now…

Ride Hard, Take Chances.

And now for something completely different...

So a while back, I made a comment that I may have to make a sacrifice to the weather gods, to thank them for the extended riding weather. I had even commented that maybe I would sacrifice the new Heineken beer keg that I’d bought. Well, I’ve been remiss in that regard, as the beer keg has remained untapped and unsacrificed…until now. Now…it’s Monday night - Monday Night Football is on…and my beloved Patriots are playing tonight. So now is the perfect time…the perfect place…the perfect scenario for the sacrifice of a beer keg. So without any further ado, here’s the steps I went through to tap this keg.

Ok hold on - you may be thinking “What the hell is he talking about - is he actually saying he doesn’t know how to tap a keg??” Trust me, I know how to tap a keg as well as the next person. But I’ve never tapped one of these mini kegs - and you know how I like to do little play-by-play breakdowns and goof around with things. So sit back and let’s have some fun…

Here we see the first shot - I figured tapping the keg right on the coffee table would be a good idea. Right in front of the TV, within easy reach of where we’d be sitting…it made perfect sense. Oh but wait, it’s probably not a good idea to tap a keg right next to the laptop…

So, I moved the keg over to the counter.

Here’s a shot of the instructions. Wow, talk about real in-depth, easy and precise, oh-so-nice, clear and concise directions. Hey look - it’s pictionary!

Only two moving parts? Huh…pretty sure that even I can’t screw it up if there’s only two moving parts.

Despite my confidence (having only found two moving parts to deal with), I figured there was still a good chance of making a mess, so I opted to move the keg down onto the floor.

Ok, so here we go. The first step is to take the round thingie and press it onto the top of the keg thingie, making sure to line up the round slot from the top of the keg thingie with the ring from the round thingie. ("Thingie" is the technical term, but I suppose I could have used thingamabob or whutzyacallit.)

Then press the nozzle thingie down into the receiving hole of the round thingie. But - and this is important! - don’t press down hard on the nozzle thingie! Because if you do, the beer starts shooting out!

Bad keg, Bad! You piddled on the floor!
Dispensing the beer is pretty simple; either press directly down on the spout, or flip the round lever forward and use that to press down on the spout...

So let’s test this bad boy out! (Do I lose points for using a Sam Adams glass?)

It pours well…tastes like normal Heinekan beer…but, I’m disappointed in the carbonation. It comes out pretty flat…very flat, actually. Brother Bill was assisting me with the consumption aspect and said that we should look on the bright side; having little carbonation meant we could proceed at a faster pace, without worry of those annoying little bubbles getting in the way. After all, we're watching our Patriots kick some ass on Monday Night Football - no need to stand on ceremony here; we just want beer, right? (Brother Bill is wise!)

So all in all, it was kinda fun to try, but I won’t be buying another one of these mini kegs. (But that didn’t stop us from finishing it off while we watched the Pats dismantle another team – Go Pats!)

And that is the saga of the mini beer keg.
Cheers!

Lance Corporal Shayne Cabino

A little over a week ago, we gathered for the 2nd annual memorial run for Lance Corporal Shayne Cabino. The day dawned bright and clear; temps were forecast in the 70’s and things were looking good. Brother Bill and I rolled our bikes out in the driveway and set to cleaning them up and getting our flags rigged up.

The rest of the crew arrived shortly thereafter and we headed off to the American Legion, Post 106, in Sharon. We rolled into the mass gathering and were directed by Danno to park over by his bike, as we’d be taking up positions at the front, behind his lead. Setting our kickstands into the dirt, we began making the rounds, exchanging handshakes and bear hugs to those we hadn’t seen for a while. Turnout was good – the previous year brought roughly 130+ bikes out…this year, with the better weather and word of mouth, it looked like we were going to top out much higher than that. (I think the final count was about 175 or so.)

Registration was handled very well and things went very smoothly. They were even handing out flags to those that hadn’t been able to line one up of their own. This ensured that each and every bike would be proudly displaying colors for the run. The parking lot was awash with sunlight glinting off of chrome, and flags flying fast in the breezes.

The departure time came and was met with the roar of bikes coming to life. Final checks were made, thumbs-up were given and the State Police escort eased us out onto the roadways. (Having a full police escort for the entire run allowed us to slide though a multitude of intersections without interruption, and that doesn’t suck.) The streets were lined with folks who cheered us on – some waved, some clapped, some stood solemnly at attention as we passed.

I tried snapping a couple of pics using my side mirror…but I guess I should have cleaned it ahead of time…

The pic I shot over my head, of the crew behind me, came out pretty good…
We wound our way over into Canton and took a very-slow pass by the Veterans Memorial there, then we meandered our way through Norwood, Westwood, Medfield, Millis, Medway, Franklin, Wrentham, Foxboro and back to Sharon for the cookout.

Once we were all settled back at the Legion, the throngs set to lining up for either beer or food…(one guess which line I became a part of)…

Beer! But before we could help ourselves to the frothy libations, we had to purchase tickets…ok, this should hold me for a while…

We ate to our hearts content, we talked about the ride and how well it had gone off, we played some horseshoes, we laughed at each others jokes, and some of us took home some pretty cool door prizes. So far, the day couldn’t have gone much better, all things considered.

When it was time to mosey along (hours later), we put a plan together to have the crew over to the house for a fire and more cookout- and margaritas. With our plan laid out before us, we broke off, each heading in our own directions; the crew opting to go exchange two wheels for four, and Brother Bill and I heading to the store for more grub to sacrifice to the BBQ gods.

We got back to the house just as the crew began arriving at the homestead. The grille was fired up, the fire was stocked and started and the blenders were set into motion. We ended that Saturday just as any day should be ended; together with friends.

The reason for the day’s events sucks – the loss of a brave Marine, who died far away from his home and family. But his sacrifice is something that we are all eternally grateful for, and we thank his family and we honor his memory.

www.shaynesrun.com

Ride Hard, Take Chances. And Support The Troops!

Near Cat-astrophe's

What the hell is up with cats lately? Why are they suddenly challenging our tires with such frequency?

In the past week, I've ridden past two dead felines on the sides of roads. Then, while out riding last night, a kitten comes barreling out from the opposite side of the road, on a straight course for my front tire. My immediate reaction is that it'll realize I'm right there and will stop/turn around. Nope, it actually ADJUSTED it's path and pushed faster, still trying to cross in front of me. I clutched in to slow my speed and opened the throttle up to scare it off - no dice; it kept coming on strong. At this point, I ease onto the brakes a bit, figuring this thing just HAS to realize there's a large, very noisy object directly in it's path and it'll have to stop. No, it keeps coming! It gets to within ONE FOOT of my tire (I'm cutting hard to the right and stomping on the brakes at this point) when it suddenly throws itself to the side, twisting upon itself and pedaling furiously at the pavement to get back to the safety of where it had come out from. I couldn't believe the thing had almost been mowed down by my tire like that.

Then this morning, I'm riding in to work and a grown cat comes flying across a lawn on my right, gets to the edge of the road (just as the vehicle in front of me pulls even with the cat) and the thing pulls up hard, one leg in the air, just poised and ready. I can see that it's scanning the traffic and it just WANTS to go for it. Last night's memories are flying through my head and I'm looking for an exit direction in case this thing decides to go for it. Thankfully, it's pea-brain didn't click into "GO!" mode until just after I passed by. Looking in my side mirror, I saw the streak of gray and white make it safely to the other side - having shot between the two cars behind me and under a bus going the other way. Un-frikkin'-real.

Here's hoping this weekend's road trip doesn't involve any more animules trying to jump under my tires.

Ride Hard...Take Chances (but not if you're a cat, Dammit!)

Falling Behind and Catching Up

I know! I know...I said I was going to stay current with the blogging, and I've been slacking of late. I have been out on the bike, though, so that should garner some leeway? Or not. But here's what's been going on;

I'm back to commuting on the bike, which is a frikkin' huge relief. Love being back in the open air again. The weather gods have seen fit to bless me with an extended summer season, which I am truly thankful for - and for which I'll have to find something worthy to sacrifice...maybe that new Heineken beer-keg that I bought last week? Yeah, maybe I'll have to sacrifice that soon...although, it'll be my liver that actually does the sacrificing... (I don't even drink Heineken, but that beer-keg looked pretty interesting so I picked one up. I guess that's what you call good marketing/advertising.)

I did a memorial run this past Saturday. It was the 2nd annual memorial run for Shayne Cabino. He was a Lance Corporal in the Marines and he made the ultimate sacrifice on October 6th, 2005. (http://www.shaynesrun.com/) I'll do a write up and post some pics when I have a bit more time. I'll do a quick post now to get things a bit caught up, but I want to take my time when I do the write-up for this run, as it deserves respect and I don't want to just slam through it.

This past Sunday, A few of us went to CT - the weather was plenty warm and the sky was 100% pure blue; not a single cloud to be seen anywhere. (Trust me, I looked for one, too. Being as susceptible to sunburn as I am, clouds are my friend.) Riding around, I found an apple orchard and stopped in.

Our hunting/gathering skills were put to the test as we sought out the red & ripened fruits. The apples didn't put up much of a fight - they were just "hanging" around, anyway (I'm here all week, folks, try the veal!).

The blackberries were a different story; after about an hour of searching (and eating), we'd gathered barely enough berries to cover the bottom of the carton. The decision was made at this point to abandon said orchards and head off down the road again. We found some good roadways, soaked up a ton of sunshine and didn't roll back into the homefront until almost 12 hours later.

Just prior to heading down to CT, however, I noticed that my left-rear directional was loosening up on me and had actually turned downwards a bit. Realizing that my rear tire really didn't need to be kept abreast of any intentions to make a left-hand turn, I knew I would need to set things right.

The next opportunity I had to delve into fixing things, didn't come until a couple of days later. The first thing to do was to remove the duct tape I'd used to secure the directional for the CT trip and ensure that it wouldn't come completely apart and start rapping off of the paint.

Next was to remove the sissy bar frame and the fender-strut bolts to give the fender some play. This would allow me to both; push the fender down a bit, as well as ease the strut out a bit. Between the two, I would have enough room to get at the bolt which was loosening up.

Prior to doing the pushing/pulling, I undid the directional wiring from the clips inside the fender, as this would give me the play I needed so as to not stress the wiring itself.

With all of that taken care of, I was able to sneak the torx wrench in, tighten things up nice and securely and then reassemble everything. (I checked the other directional while I was there and it was plenty tight still.)

The last step was to take a rag and some gas and clean the duct tape residue off of the directional itself (it's the stuff that looks like scratches, in this pic).

And with that, she was good to go.

As I mentioned back at the start of this post, I've still got to do a write-up on the memorial run I attended this past Saturday. Sadly, I need to attend another run this coming Saturday, out in Olean. It's for a great guy who died on the job, back at the end of July. I'll be taking Friday off and heading out that way. I'm kicking around the idea of just riding straight through to Ohio (because I can) and then backtracking to King's house for the night. We'll do the run on Saturday and share some silence, some stories, and some laughter. Then Sunday, it's back home again.

My buddy Paul is actually going to be in my neck of the woods when I get back home, so me, him, and Zig are getting together to discuss our (motorcycle) trip to Scotland next year. That's right - Scotland! No time to get into that now, but rest assured; there will be plenty of info as the time approaches (Aug. '08).

So it should be a lot of miles this weekend - which is just fine with me. I hope the weather cooperates for everyone out there. There's plenty of pavement for everyone - Fall is coming, and Winter isn't far behind - get the miles on while you can!

Ride Hard, Take Chances

Rolling!

Zig was convinced the problem with the front end was due to the (new) tire having not been inflated to proper pressure. I was convinced there was no way that that could account for things flopping back and forth. So, there was only one thing to do. I walked the bike out once again, fired things up and rolled out towards the nearest gas station. Keeping things under the 40 mph speed limit wasn’t a problem, as the front end felt like it was going to fly off in a different direction at any moment. Got to the gas station, popped a few quarters into the compressor and brought things up to where they should be (I figured I’d be a sport and check the rear tire while I was at it, and it took a few pounds as well). Then it was test-time. I twisted the front end from left to right a few times and was surprised to find that things actually felt much better. The real test of course, was to rock and roll down the blacktop and see how things handled.

Firing her to life once again, I rumbled to the edge of the pavement and awaited the next break in traffic. With the mental green-light received, I eased into the flow. Doing some leaning here, and some counter-steering there, I found that the bike basically handled like I felt it should. Sweet! I brought her up to highway speed and eased through the traffic, paying close attention to every twist, lean, and turn, to make sure that everything felt right - it pretty much did! I would rate the feel as being 95% of how I felt it should ride. There were a couple of times where the bike seemed to hesitate in reacting to a counter-steer, but for now, I’m chalking it up to getting used to the new risers.

So I took it out for a bit last night and she seemed to ride well, overall. Then this morning, I rolled up another 60 miles - in the rain. I suppose this would be a good spot to say something sappy like “Even though it was raining, it was the best ride ever!”…or; “It may have been raining on the outside, but I was all sunshine and smiles on the inside!”. Nope; the rain still sucks, period.

I suppose I could also point out that the two+ months that I’ve been down, have been the driest months we’ve had in years? And yet, the minute I’m back up and running, it starts raining? What’s up with that?

So anyway, with any luck, the saga of the front end has drawn to a close. I’m not 100% sold yet, there’s still that odd feeling every now and then, but we’ll see how things…roll. I’ll be…rolling…up the miles and we’ll see if that odd feeling goes away (or, maybe I’ll just get used to it). Time will tell…

Can’t seem to get the old Aerosmith lyrics “I’m Baaaaack! I’m BACK in the saddle, again!” out of my head. But that’s a good thing.

So I’m rolling again! I’ve got a couple of memorial runs coming up, some fall trips planned…there’s a lot of mileage to be made up, so hang on. This could get ugly.

Ride Hard, Take Chances