2014 Daytime Halloween Run

I’ve been lax again, haven’t I?  Well, working 18 hour days kinda saps my energy for doing anything other than going home and getting some zzz’s.  But the good news is that (hopefully) the long days are over for this year and I can be somewhat responsible again with getting posts up here.  So with that said, I bring you…

The 2014 Daytime Halloween Run

The weather looked to be decent for this past Sunday’s Halloween run; a chilly start, but schedule to warm up quickly.  I set to decorating the bike with the usual myriad of Halloweeny items.  However, there was an added bonus this year; I’d been able to collect s bunch of old Halloween decorations from work which they were going to toss away.  Sweet!  Ok, I can’t get too carried away, but let’s see how I did…

First, a couple of mini skeletons on the crash bars, secured with zip ties…

 

Check out the hair on that second guy! 

I had a third little guy, but where to put him?  Ahhh, here’s a cool little spot for him to hang out…

With the quick detach luggage rack in place, I had the luxury of adding a couple extra things this year.  The skull must have been from some sort of full-sized body because it had a section of square steel tubing sticking out the bottom of it.  I drilled a hole it in, fitted an eyebolt and then secured the skull in place with more zip ties.  The vulture had wires coming out of the bottom of his legs, so I wound those around the luggage post and then used some mini bungee cords to hold him standing up.

 

The Haunted Hitchhiker made his customary appearance on the bike.  The wooden rack I rigged to his back fit down into the slot between the driver’s and passenger’s sections of the seat.  Then a couple of mini bungees to hold him in place and he was good to go…

 

Or was he?  His hands look pretty empty…

 

Ahh, much better; a spare crow wired and bungeed into place and now we’re all set!

 

That was as far as I wanted to go for decorations.  Much of this hadn’t been tested before and I didn’t know how well everything would travel, so I didn’t want to push my luck too much.

And that was it.  Now, just a matter of waiting to see who would show up for the pre-gaming.  I’d sent the word out over email earlier in the week, but since my phone was still non-operational, I had no way of knowing if anyone had texted or called to say they were coming.

Not one member of the usual crew showed up – which surprised me quite a bit.  Usually this thing has a good sized draw (Little did I know that this was a portent of the day to come).  At any rate, some of my new brothers from the Riders showed up and we hung out and had some good laughs before saddling up and heading over to this year’s rally point.

Arriving at said rally point, I was quite surprised to see that the turnout was far lower than other years.  What gives?  The weather is nice and sunny, the air is warming up well…huh.  Oh well, let’s get some raffle tickets and a beer and kick back for a bit.  Maybe there’ll be a last-minute rush of arrivals to bulk up the parking lot.

Nope.  When it came time to depart, the numbers were still quite dismal.  And this theme carried through for the run itself, too.  Not only did we have far fewer bikes than normal, we also had far fewer spectators along the route.  Sure there were still folks along just about the whole route, but it wasn’t the throngs and throngs that’re usually to be found.  Oh well, it was what it was.  And I did get a kick once again with all the kids pointing at my mask again this year.  I don’t know what it is about that thing, but kids (and some attractive ladies, too!) always point me out.  Maybe I should leave the mask at home one of these years and show them what a really scary face looks like.

When the run was over and we rolled back to the Canton Town Club, we found our numbers had dwindled even more.  Look at this pitiful showing…

 

Apparently a number of folks had peeled off along the way.  (Shrug)  No worries for me, just improves my odds at winning a raffle prize.

Let’s get some food!  Uhhhmmm…nope, not yet.  The food wasn’t even close to being ready.  What the?  Who the hell is running things around here?  It’s a cardinal rule that when a run is going on, the food is ready when the bikes return.  It’s not like they don’t know the route the bikes are going on, or don’t know how long the bikes will be gone for, or what time they can be reasonably be expected to return.  Whatever.  Let’s get a beer.

After about half an hour, the food was ready…and it was not worth the wait.  Pulled pork sandwich, potato salad, bag of Cheetos.  The pork was bland and essentially tasteless. The potato salad was watery.  The bag of Cheetos was the only tasty thing there.  Well, let’s see how I do with the raffles.

Do I even need to tell you how I did with the raffles?  All losing tickets again – for the whole table of us.  F it, we’d had enough and decided to salvage the day by heading back to our Post to watch the end of the Pats game.  That was a good game to watch so at least we had that going for us.

So there you go; the 2014 Daytime Halloween Run.  Man, this thing is really slipping.  It used to be an ENORMOUS run.  If this year is any indication of what’s to come, this thing doesn’t have many years left.  Which is too bad, because the funds raised always go to great causes.

Let’s hope it’ll return to its glory next year.

Ride Hard, Take Chances