Half the country seen through a bug smear….

    This is the story of an amazing adventure across the States, meeting a group of extraordinarily friendly V-Max people along the way. I rode from New Mexico to Boston and back, and thanks to all the cool people I met along the way, it was an experience of a life-time….

    May 23^rd, 1998, Saturday: I left Albuquerque, NM, for Van Buren, Arkansas, around 5 am. It was a wicked long boring drive across Texas and part of Oklahoma, but it was uneventful, and I made good time. I arrived in Van Buren, AR, near Ft Smith, around 6 pm and called my old Air Force room-mate, from when I was stationed in the Philippines, Mark, to come and meet me at a gas station near his house. He thought it was a bit odd that I was push-starting my overloaded V-Max motorcycle. It was cool to meet his two and a half year old daughter, Saundra, his older daughter, Heather, and to see Mark and his cool wife Daneene.

    May 24^th, Sunday: Mark and I visited his Aunt’s several thousand acre farm. We played with his 30/30 rifle and did some fishing, cool day. It was cool to hang out with his family on the farm. Mark’s uncle had a few helpful things to say about making my Montego run better.

    May 25^th, Monday, Memorial Day: Mark and Daneene, left the kids with Mark’s Mom, and we headed out into the woods with his relatively new four-wheel drive, did a bit of cool four-wheeling, and found a great out of the way place to fish. Mark and I convinced the guy at K-Mart that I’d just moved to the local Air Force base, and I didn’t have an AR driver’s license yet, but I was a resident, so I didn’t have to pay the outrageous out of state fishing license fee.

    Mark’s kids both seemed to enjoy meeting me, and it was really cool to see how his family is growing.

    May 26^th, Tuesday: I have two days to cover the 700 miles to Oak Ridge TN, where Rusty Morgan had graciously offered to put me up for a couple of nights. Rusty’s wife was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of a strange biker staying with them, but it worked out well.

    Two days and 700 miles doesn’t sound too bad, but it was raining pretty steadily. That wasn’t too bad at first, because I have the right gear for riding in the rain….. A few hours after I started out, the rain began to irritate my bike, and it started misfiring a bit. This happened in Maine, in Hurricane Bertha, July ’96 also. My oil light was staying on a bit too long also, so I pulled off the super-slab to add a bit of oil, and spray my wires with WD-40, to try and eliminate a simple wiring short or something. (worked on my old Omni) While I was sitting at a T in the road, looking for a gas station, a full school bus pulled up behind me and honked, the bike missed and stalled, and I had to get off the bike, turn it back down the hill, and jump it next to the bus, bummer. I limped my worrisome misfiring bike to a small gas station, and attempted to put it up on the center-stand. Between me guessing that the ground wasn’t tilting away from me too badly, me being in a somewhat foul mood, and the left saddle bag hitting my right knee, I dumped the bike over away from me and cracked a mirror mount and my new windshield. ..day’s not going well…

    P.S... 7-5-98 Sun:    My mirror waited until Fri morning to fall off.  Sat my bike wouldn't start. Sharon (Biker Babe) and I troubleshot it down to the ignition box.  John F's got one. Anyone got a spare right mirror stem?

    After topping off my gas and oil, and spraying a bit of thin oil around, I was ready to split. Max wasn’t having any of that. He would barely turn over. OK, I said to myself, I can push start it…. Not today. I tried running and push starting it three times in the rain, sweating my butt off (Yes, that’s why I’m so skinny) and it wouldn’t work. I even off-loaded my bags and camping gear in order to get a better run at it. No go. A police officer helped me jump start the bike, I reloaded, talked to John Furbur (the infamous V-Max parts appropriator from Colorado) about my starting troubles, and I was off for a Yamaha dealer in Russelleville, AR.

    They trouble shot my charging system down to a bad rectifier, crossed the V-Max rectifier part number to a Virago rectifier that they had on the showroom floor, swapped them out, charging voltage went up, and I was back on the road with a rectifier that had more cooling fins than a Max rectifier. That can’t be a bad thing.

    The afternoon cleared up, and I got to enjoy some nice AR back roads before heading for Chickasaw State Park to set up camp.

    Dinty Moore Beef Stew and Budweiser hit the spot.

    May 27^th, Wednesday: 350 miles to cover to get to Oak Ridge, TN, where Rusty lives. I spent the morning slowly working my way East on back roads, and then hit the freeway South of Nashville to make some better time.

    I followed an undercover police car through Memphis driving from 85-120 mph!!! Don’t try this at home folks, this is just for experienced stupid folk like me.

    I made it into Oak Ridge, TN, around 4pm, and got to meet Rusty’s family. Very nice people. Rusty’s bike really made mine look like poop tho. It wasn’t hard to persuade me to clean it up behind his house. I didn’t think of it at the time, but this was probably to keep the dirty beast out of sight of the neighbors. Rusty’s bike is immaculate, should be entered in a show. My Rat-Max was honored to share the basement parking with the Tour-Master that night.

    May 28^th, Thursday: Rusty and I met up with a few other friends of his for the ride to Deal’s Gap!!!!! I got to meet Mike Acuff, Gene, another Mike on a sport-bike. We rode out towards the Gap and met Dan Cox, from Ohio, cruising around looking for us, we were a bit late. It was cool to meet another Maxer (Maximus Homosapianus)(V-Max rider) from the list. (V-Max Owners internet mail list) Rusty, Dan, Mike, Gene, and I cruised to the Gap on Maxes, and Mike on his FZR. (I think that’s what it was…)

    Rt 129 runs across the N. Carolina/TN state line in the Smoky Mtn Nat. Park. 318 turns in 11 miles!!!!

    What a rush!! I was in heaven. This was the kind of road I missed from my rides in the mountains of Japan. That’s the way a bike is supposed to be ridden, hardly ever upright!!!

    Mike Acuff lead me through the Gap at an exciting sporting pace. We were doing some great yanking and banking through the hills!! A couple of sport-bikes passed the others and caught up to us, but we didn’t let them by, and were barely holding them up anyhow! They told us at the other end, that they were enjoying hearing our bikes pull out of the curves, and didn’t mind following behind at all.

    Dan and I rode through the Gap a couple more times while the others rested at the cool biker motel/shop at the far end of the road. What a great place to ride! After Dan and I returned, Mike and I took off for another exciting paced run through the amazing twisties. We had a couple of run ins with the local dump trucks, but they didn’t slow us for long.

    Then, when we were all resting at the overlook, Mike offered me a ride on his bike! Mike has a Hindle, super-brace, and the frame braces, so I was really interested in how if felt. The bike felt great! I scraped the hindle once, (Mike knew I would and let me ride it anyhow!!) and then chilled out on the right-handers. I love that sound! Mike’s late model brakes felt great, and it pulled really nicely out of the curves.

    I hope I didn’t keep the guys waiting too long, but Wow, cool ride. They all commented on how cool the bike sounded as I accelerated through second and third out of the last curve, and did some nice sounding downshifts as I approached the overlook. Did sound good, not quite like my "Exhaust, by Makita."

    Then Gene offered to let me check his bike out! I was flattered! How can you say no? I didn’t like Gene’s high seat set-up as much as Mike’s lowered seat.

    We spent a majority of the afternoon cruising some more cool roads before we headed back to Oak Ridge for a couple of cold ones. I met some cool friends of Rusty and Mike. Since Rusty had to split early, a couple of them even went a fair ways out of their way to escort me back to the end of Rusty’s street at the end of the evening!

    May 29^th, Friday: I rolled away from Rusty’s cool house at 6:30 am to meet Dan at 8am. We met at a gas station as planned, and set off to meet Mike Sayers at the Coon Ridge Grocery Store, in Early, West Virginia, at noon.

    I led the way from the main highway to the Early exit without a hitch, just needed a couple of quick glances at Mikes good directions to get the mileage’s. Dan and I were hanging out at the store for about 15 min when we heard the cool sound of a V-Max with a header. Mike road right past the store. Dan and I figured we’d give him ten minutes, and then go after him.

    Mike came back in a few minutes and one more face was added to the names on the list.

    Mike Sayers didn’t impress us as a great person to be leading us to Danbury after his missing the Coon Ridge Grocery, and then missing one of our first turns of the day after we pulled out. That wrong turn was the only one Mike made tho, and he did a great job of leading us through some little known (even to him) Virginian roads on our way to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We hit some great roads that Mike had picked out on his computer mapping software, and then down-loaded into his handle-bar mounted GPS receiver!! Mike is one high-tech mountain road explorer, and it was good fun following him.

    Mike S.---We had dinner at Wendy's in Harrisonburg, then decided to slab it the rest of the way. We arrived at Inwood, WV just as it got dark, and had some frozen custard with my cousin.

    Dan and I stayed that night in a Motel near where Mike was staying with his cousin. Dan graciously picked up the tab since he had no intention of camping.

    May 30^th, Saturday: Mike met us near the motel, and Mike, Dan, and I rode up to Pennsylvania to meet the one and only, the infamous, Donna-maxer!! We were all looking forward to meeting one of the few, the rare cool breed, of female Max riders. We weren’t let down at all. The guys that knew her, in the restaurant we met her at, did give us hell tho….

    We had a good, albeit traffic riddled, ride to Brewster, NY, where we met Roy and Leslie Richards, from Florida at a motel. The four of us rode up to the Motel and couldn’t find the Richards, so we walked to the Restaurant across the street and met them walking out. They turned around and kept Mike, Dan, Donna and I good company for dinner.

    After dinner we spent hours talking V-Maxes outside the Motel rooms, good time.

    May 31^st, Sunday: Finally, the day I’d been looking forward to for more than six months, when I thought up the Marcus Dairy VMOA meeting. Marcus Dairy, in Danbury, CT, is a well known motorcycle meeting spot, and I’d always wanted to visit there anyway. Talk about meeting some cool people!!! I apologize for not remembering everyone’s names…. It took us about an hour to ride to the Dairy from the odd restaurant that we had breakfast at in Brewster, NY.

    Mike S.---It was called Duffy's Depot Diner and the waitress kept asking us if we wanted more "cwaffee".

Mike had a decent route set out for us. I had grand plans of us having some cool reserved parking set out, but that didn’t quite work out…. We parked under the underpass, and I soon got too ancy (English for fidgety) and scoped out the parking in front of the restaurant. I rallied the guys and gals to move to the front of the restaurant and squeeze out the other bikes parked there. They all moved, but the Rat-Max didn’t want to start. Someone helped me push it, and I pulled up in front of the restaurant next to Rich Croche’s bike. Talk about contrasts, the Rat-Max, and the most highly modified (aesthetically) Max I’ve ever seen. Oddly enough, Scott at PCW had given me a photograph of Rich’s bike a year or more ago, and it’s still on my Mom’s fridge. He’s done a bit more to it, and it looks really cool. He’s put on upside-down forks with a handle bar like a fat-boy, really clean looking.

I don’t quite remember the order I met the rest……

    Dave Robertson (No1V-Max, from the mail-list) showed up soon there after. Dave’s a super guy, with a great looking bike. Paul Civitello did some great looking work on Dave’s bike…. Cool rims for low profile Pirelli tires and most noticeably, a great license plate/tail light piece that mounted near the left end of the rear axle… made the stretched out rear swing-arm and fat Pirelli look great!! Dave immediately impressed me with his relaxed demeanor and friendly attitude. Dave brought his friend Victor, who seemed cool, .. I didn’t get to talk to him much.

    I was pinging, in second heaven.. it was so cool meeting a bunch of Maxers again. (Marble Falls, TX, and Phoenix were the other places I’d met VMOAers) (V-Max Owners Association)

    Alex, from Western NY showed up. Alex and I were just about the only ones with stock bikes.

    When Dennis Barch arrived at the Dairy, he gathered up quite a nice crowd to look at our…. his cool bike. Very cool bike it is. Dennis should soon have some good pictures on Ingo’s excellent internet page (http://members.aol.com/madvmax65/ ) to show off….. right Dennis? In case any of you are unaware, Dennis has a very trick supercharged Max with a fresh marble-like paint-job.

    Then Paul Beaumont and Father Ed arrived from NH!! I couldn’t wait to meet Paul… he is as funny and entertaining to talk to in person as he is on-line. Would be more funny in person, but his awkward appearance and the embarrassment of being seen standing near him were a bit distracting…. Father Ed was normal looking, he’s another cool older Maxer, really nice guy, a lot like Ross, in Florida.

    Dennis B.----I thought was a little funny,was the faces on everyone when Paul Beaumont arrived,& all waited with anticipation to see if he would start the "FLAMES" on everyone(in good fun!).

    Paul talked me into riding up to a bike show with Dave, Victor, Father Ed, and a couple of other guys. Paul and I got to talk for about an hour and a half. The initial embarrassment wore off, and he really does have some good stories. It was great to meet him. (He’s really not ugly, I’m just too pretentious. lol (Laughing Out Loud))

    Unfortunately, the day was getting long and the clouds intimidating. Alex and I set off North for Albany and beyond.

    I came to an interesting conclusion about the well known, and supposed to be very nice guy, Paul Civitello, aka, MadMax: he makes some great parts most of the time, but isn’t that into tuning a bike. As I’m a great fan of the guys at PCW, and their high quality work ethic and attitudes, I let several people know my opinion. As far as I can tell, PCW (518-346-7203)(shameless plug) is the only place you can send your bike for a mod, and they’ll give it back to you running great, with just the horsepower they said it would have! anyhooo….

    Alex and I rode out to the Taconic Parkway and rode North. Just as I was beginning to have a problem with sleepiness, Alex pulled over and bit me farewell. It was cool meeting him, and I was lucky he wanted to ride North most of the way with me. After Alex headed West, I stayed North on the Taconic. My boots were getting wet from freshly rained on pavement, but I kept missing the rain. I put on my boot covers to keep my feet dry, but still, no rain… The final stretch into Albany is a long downhill on Rt 90. I could see huge thunder bolts striking down in Albany as the grand view of the city opened up. (As good a view of Albany you can get….) Ten minutes after I pulled into Mom’s garage, the rain hit hard! I found out later, that I had just missed torrential downpours and TORNADOES!!! About fifty houses in Mechanicville, NY, were completely wiped out later that evening! Talk about Lucky!

    It was great seeing my Mom. We’re good friends, and we had a good time catching up over pizza.

WAKE UP!!!! This isn’t that bad of a story!!

    June 1^st, Monday: I was up bright and early for my ride up to Americade, in Lake George Village, NY. I was cruising at a mellow 70 (in a 55 zone) when a State Trooper pulled out onto the highway in a big hurry, right onto the rear bumper of a truck in the middle of the three lanes. I noticed he was eating something. (really!) He impatiently jumped in front of me in the left lane, and sped up to 85. Why do I know this you ask? Because I tailed him up to 90 a couple of times after that. I guess he didn’t like this too much. After five minutes or so, he pulled quickly into the middle lane, jammed on his brakes, turned on all his lights, and stuck his left hand out the window motioning me to the side. I apologized for riding at offensive speeds, and explained politely that I’d been running those speeds all week down South. He gave me a lecture about how he was hurrying along to respond to an emergency. (Right, with his lights off?) He stormed off with my license without even waiting for my registration, and let me go five minutes later with a "Slow Down, and Be Safe!!" Score!!!

    For that week, I worked as a motorcycle tour guide. Americade attendees can sign up for "mini-tours". On a mini-tour we guide a group of about 50 bikes on a nice ride and feed them lunch. This year I was assigned to the Vermont Covered Bridge Tour with a couple really cool guys, Steve (Gumby) and Stevie. I’d ridden with them in past years, so I was fortunate that Gumby chose me to work with him in ’98 as well. The three of us took out one of three waves that went out on the Bridge tour.

    This day, we went on a pre-run of the route, without any attendees, so we could learn the roads and note any possible problems with the group. I’ve always met some great people on the Americade Staff, and this year was no exception. The man that set up the route for the Vermont Covered Bridge Tour, is "Bing" Bingham. Talk about a character. Bing is quite a bit older than me with a heart of gold. A really great motorcyclist to talk to. I choke up thinking that he might not be able to make next year. Bing and I hit it off right away, and we enjoyed giving each other a hard time. Being some-what long in years, Bing had a hard time remembering, and then properly pronouncing my name, but we had good fun with it. He’d call me Ralph, and I’d call him Bang. Anyhow, ..hell of a guy.

June 2^nd, Tuesday: Prospect Mountain Diner at 6am: A bunch of the guides show up here for breakfast each day at Americade. I got to sit with a few of the guys I rode with in ’95, on the Mt. Equinox tour. I had great fun cutting up over breakfast each morning with Dennis, George and Ernie. My good-natured clever taunts weren’t to last all week tho…..

    Tuesday night Gumby and his wife, Nan, invited me up to Steve’s parents house on Lake George to try and adjust my lousy steering head and have dinner with Steve, Nan, their cool son, Stevie, and Steve’s parents. Another fine evening.

    Stevie and I closed the night out with a couple of beers in the Village.

    June 3^rd, Wednesday: After another funny breakfast with the guys, I met the Steve’s, and the other guides down at the beach for the mini-tour staging. We, the staff, line the mini-tour attendees up in taped off lanes, guided by signs, into one long row for each of the six tours. I was walking up the line of covered bridge folks, handing out small maps of the tour, when I was stopped because I didn't know whose bike I was at, so I addressed the group that was just beyond the bike and said, "Whose bike is this?" 

    "That's mine."   

    "Wow, are you single?" I said to the attractive lady in front of me. She started laughing, as did the group of six guys that she was with—oops.

    "Yes.." she continued laughing.

    "Well you are one good looking biker lady," I said.

    One of the guys behind her  (Al) , "You talk to everyone like that?"

    I looked him up and down, "You’re one good looking biker-dude, what are you doing later?"

    That’s how I met my biker babe, Sharon.

    Later at lunch, her whole group of eight were sitting at a table with one spare seat on the end. I walked up with my plate of food to the biker-dude I’d admired earlier, "Wow, you saved me a seat, this could lead to something…."

    I had a fun lunch kidding around with Sharon’s group of friends, including her cool brother Jo and their good friend Rocky.

    As I was assigned to ride in the middle of the pack that day, I managed to slip into the group of 40-50 bikes just behind Sharon on her nice 750 Shadow. I really hadn’t planned that at first, but when I picked a spot to fall into, Sharon was just a few bikes further back, so I slowed up a bit and slipped in behind her. At one traffic light, I asked her if she liked beer, "yes," good. 20 minutes later at another light I asked if she wanted to go out for one later, "yes," score!!

    For the next few nights we had a great time meeting up and staying up late talking. She’s great to talk to and has a great sense of humor, not to mention being a fine looking woman.

    June 4^th, Thursday: I couldn’t quite make the diner, so I grabbed a donut on beach road, at the staging area, at about 6:45 am. I was a bit tired. We took out another large group of riders. Gumby was pretty funny at the drivers meeting before we left. I added a bit about how AMA staggered riding looks more organized than the staggering one might do out of a bar. We had a bit of a problem the day before. Being a guide is a lot of fun, I like hamming up on a stage like that.

    After pulling over to help a broken down biker, I won’t mention what overly popular American bike he was riding… , I had to catch up with the group. Hurt me… good roads to open it up a bit on. You meet some great people in these huge groups, and it’s fun being a guide, but the riding itself gets a bit monotonous at the below speed limit rubber-banding speeds. I was enjoying a rapid approach to the Crown Point Bridge, that goes from NY, across Lake Champlain, into Vermont, when a trooper rounded the corner infront of me, coming my way, turning on all his lights, slamming on his brakes, making a wicked quick u-turn, and pulling over the Bronco II a half a mile in-front of me!!!! Score!! The remainder of the day’s ride was somewhat uneventful.

    At the end of the day the guides usually meet in the Staff office to chew over the days events. After chewing over some of the small problems we had during the day, I took a fair amount of ribbing for being so tired all day. – I found a new way to keep myself awake, DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME, I held my breath, could make you pass out too, I wouldn’t recommend it…

    After I expressed my excitement about tracking Sharon down for another nice evening, Bing asked me to think of him if I did meet up with her. I told Bing, "Bing, the only reason I’d think of you tonight is if I had to prolong something…"

    Disclaimer: Not that Sharon is anything less that a perfect lady, you understand. But the guys had let their imaginations run wild. That line went over well, anyhow.

    I did have another great evening laughing with Sharon. I think it’s rare when you click like this with someone.

    June 5^th, Friday: I made the diner this morning, physically anyhow. I tried making a couple of jokes. I was told that I really wasn’t at all funny when I was that tired. (No, really, they did think I was funny other mornings, I swear!) I was dead. I had a hard time ordering breakfast even. All I had to do was say I wanted the special, but I wasn’t functioning that well… Ernie said the funny thing was, he was jealous. He had ample reason to be. Sharon’s a pretty cool lady.

    Had a good ride with the group Friday. Met some funny people, but couldn’t wait to get back to Lake George.

    Guess who showed up at my hotel room!! Dave Robertson! I was psyched. Had to turn my Tour-Max into Cruise-Max. I ditched the CB, took off most of the antenna, took off the 16" windshield, and used rags, a hotel towel, and a trash can to clean my bike up. ..after all, Dave’s bike looks really sharp, so I had to look better riding through town with him.

    At about the same time Sharon paged and told me where she was going to be for the next hour or so.

    Fortunately Dave agreed to ride up the North side of Lake George to go and pick Sharon up. ..and then he offered to let me ride his bike up there, he almost asked me to, said he wanted my opinion of his bike!! Lucky me! It felt even better than the fine Mike Acuff machine!! (Could have been partially due to the fact that I was on cloud nine, being able to go and meet my Biker Babe again!)

    Dave rode behind me on my bike. How cool it was to cruise through town on an attention getter. My riding experience and bike normally attract very little attention. Dave’s bike rode great! I love the Pirelli/lowered feel. We cruised up to Sharon’s Hotel at a good pace, I got to open it up some in a few curves. Just the sound was exhilarating. I down-shifted to a great V-8 sound, and pulled into the Hotel with a nice deep sharp turn, in great Hindle style. There was Sharon’s brother Jo, not quite so impressed. I was shaking, I had such fun. I shook for 5 minutes! Sharon, her friends, Dave and I rode into the Village for bike gauking and pizza. Ok pizza, great company.

    Sharon had to get back with her brother, so we said good night, and Dave and I went on to BS and find a bit of trouble. We had a good time wandering around town. When it was time to split, we both did burnouts at the curb, in out parking spots. Video cameras were being whipped out to record the cool scene. After that we agreed to meet in the morning, said good night, and took off in opposite directions rapidly, must have looked cool, felt cool anyhow.

    At the red light I had to stop at, I could see a cloud of smoke from Dave at the other end of the block! Very cool.

    June 6^th, Saturday: I helped the Staff organize the bike parade, went to the North end of town to block traffic with my bike, and helped set up the inflatable Metzeler elephant in the middle of the road. The parade rides through town, circles the big blue elephant and rides through town the other way. I had a good view, even if I did have to shovel police horse manure from the middle of the street first….

    I was a bit bummed, that no other VMOAers showed up for the ride I was going to lead to Mt Equinox, but oh well. Dave and I had a good time hanging out, and then he split for home. I was a bit bummed, as I’d hoped he’d stay for Saturday night and Sharon had to go home Saturday as well.

    Dave and I did get a short windy ride in before he had to split for home. Good fun.

    I went back to my Motel after he left and took a four hour "nap". More like I passed out from exhaustion. I got up around 8pm and went into town for food and people watching and found Alex! We had fun hanging out together, ended up parked next to three other V-Maxes, including the most radical and well detailed bike I’d ever seen, Fred Perkins’ killer blown Max. I guess Fred used to work with Civitello. It was once again fun to chat with another hard-core V-Max fan. He had an amazing bike.

    BTW, pictures will follow… I can’t get to my Mystic mailers yet, but they’ll put my film on disc for you all…

    On our way out of town, Alex did a great wheelie in-front of the two main Harley bars in town, another stellar exit from town.

    Alex S.----It was great meeting Colin. It is not very often I get to meet someone who rides even more than I do. I hope to someday ride out west and check out [Colin's] part of the country. Seeing that [Colin has] done it has given me even more enthusiasm for a cross country trip someday. Keep up the good riding.

    June 7^th, Sunday: Sunday at Americade there is a Staff breakfast at Roaring Brook Ranch. Usually I’m seated with people I barely knew. This year was quite different. I was really lucky to sit and have a really good time kidding around with: Dennis, George, Ernie, Lucky Barret, and several other clowns. As usual, I didn’t walk away with any of the cool door prizes, (I’m always hoping for one of the tire gift certificates) but I had a really good time.

    After the ..brunch.. we had a group picture taken and I rode off to Mom’s, an hour away, in Albany, NY.

    June 8^th, Monday: I visited the cool guys at PCW (518-346-7203) and chewed over what could be wrong with my charging system, we decided it was the battery. John suggested this on the phone when I talked to him from AR, but the dealer talked me into a rectifier, and we didn’t even check the battery with a hydrometer then. This day at PCW, was the day that Andy’s bike from Canada showed up. Even tho the guys were all really busy, they still took a bit of time to talk to me and help me figure out what was wrong. Very cool. I made an apt. to get my tires and steering head, changed and checked out the following Monday.

    Mom and I went out for some excellent sushi that night at Saso’s restaurant, on Central Ave, in Albany. I think that’s my favorite place to eat.

    P.S... 6-29-99 Tue:   After looking in many places in CT, NY, NM and TX, and then coming back to Saso's, I'm sure it's my favorite restaurant.

    June 9^th, Tuesday: Off for Boston. Monday night I called a bunch of folks and asked them out to dinner for tonight. They said sure, where? I told them all, "I’ll get in to Boston before 4:30pm, pick a place, and change the voice message on my pager to tell you then."

    Before I left Albany, I called Paul B (YES!! The one and only!!) and we made plans to meet in Marlboro, MA, for lunch!

    Again, it was cool to meet Paul. We talked for a couple of hours, and had a really fun lunch.

    Even tho the pager scheme was a bit crazy, it worked! They all called my pager after 5pm, and found out about dinner at John Harvard’s Brew Pub in Harvard Square, in Cambridge, at 6pm! I got to see my friends: Dee, Chris, and Christine; Henry; Sue; Matt; and my family: Aunt Camilla, cousins Lee and Kara, and Kara’s new boyfriend. It was a great dinner! Thanks to you all for driving so far to see me on such short notice!!!

    After that cool dinner, I rode out to Waltham to meet my old friends Jo and Ro. We had desert and enjoyed catching up.

    June 10^th-13^th, Wed-Sat: I had an amazing visit to Danbury, CT.

    Late Saturday morning I headed back up to Albany, and Mom and I hung out for the afternoon.

    June 14^th, Sunday: Mom and I talked some more, even spending a bunch of time sewing together. My shorts’ velcro needed sewing up, and my Deal’s Gap shirt was coming apart at the end of the sleeves.

    We had a superb dinner with Sharon.

    June 15^th, Monday: Another cool day at PCW. They repaired my steering head and changed my tires in no time. I got less than 4000 miles out of that Dunlop 591 rear. I changed it just before I left Albuquerque! I had a long talk with the Metzeler folks at Americade, and they had persuaded me to try an ML2 on the rear. I’ve liked the ME33 Laser on the front for a long time. They said that the ML2 should give me more miles for the dollar than the cheap 591. I hope they’re right, that’s three tires so far this year.

    Scott W. at PCW found that my steering head bearings had mushroomed my races so that the bearing cages were rubbing on the races, not good. They said it was just caused by a bunch of miles, but I suspect that my steering head tightening experimentation was at fault….

    In the evening, Mike and Angie cooked me a nice dinner…good friends for a few years, they met each other when I knew them, and now they’re engaged!! I hate it when people around me grow up and become adults….

    June 16^th, Tuesday: Off for Kansas City, 1400 miles to cover in two days. I thought I was going to be fried by lightening a few times, I went past and through some really dark storms, with lots of lightening and thunder. I had to ride in the rain a few times, but it wasn’t as bad as it was always threatening to be. Not great for the psyche, I really didn’t want to pitch my tent in the rain. Fortunately, it stopped raining in the evening, so I bought more canned stew and Budweiser and headed for a State Park near Springfield, OH.

    Sorry Ohio folks, I wished I hadn’t of been kicked out of the place I was living just before I left Albuquerque, or I would have made some plans with you all. As it was, I had a really tough three weeks before I departed.

    The Park was nice. They tried to stick me in the mud, in the back, but I wasn’t having it. The only non-powered sites in the park were well used, a bit muddy, enclosed by trees, and a ways from the bathrooms. I paid for one of those, and set up in a more expensive electric site, with nice fresh grass, and a short walk to the can. Joke ‘em if they can’t take a ____!

    June 17^th, Wednesday: The ride through Indiana was uneventful. I was a bit tired of the highway tho, not my kind of riding, I was missing Deal’s Gap. Then I crossed the Illinois border! "Damn! I didn’t know I was going to cross Illinois! Did I take a wrong turn?!? How many hours have I been riding in the wrong direction!?!?!?" Turned out ok, but I was worried for a minute.

    120 miles from Kansas City, I tried calling my Uncle Scott again and finally got through to him. I hadn’t talked to him in about 12 years. "Scott, how ya doin’? What are you up to tonight?" I guess it would have been a good idea to let him know that I was coming a bit more in advance, but better late than never, right? I covered that 120 miles in an hour and a half, good time considering I had to fight a bunch of Kansas City traffic to find Scott’s house. We went out for BBQ and beer and had a good time catching up with each-other’s lives.

    …I am planning a trip (on the Royale, of course) to San Francisco in August…

    June 18^th, Thursday: Now I should be able to have some fun, 700 miles to Denver, and two days to do it. Can’t be that bad right? Everyone told me, "Just stay on the highway in Kansas, it’s too boring on the side roads." I had to find out for myself. The side wind was beating the hell out of me on the highway anyhow. They were right. Kansas isn’t as ugly as a few had said, but it got a bit monotonous. Really nice farmland, but too much of it!! …and the wind was even bad at a slow 50 or 60 mph! In case anyone wonders, I usually cruised around 80. The officer in NY didn’t like it much, but I passed a bunch of other cops, and a few speed traps, and just barely scraped by without a ticket. No hour went without a few 100+ sprints, so I was really lucky.

    Finally I found the road to the Park I planned on setting up camp at. Dirt. Normally I don’t mind dirt, but this 6 or 7 mile long stretch was a bit too challenging. I hit some soft sand at one point, and my arms (I don’t think there was anything going on in my head but "Oh Sh_t!!!") rapidly pulled the handlebars from lock to lock a few times, settled down, and I made it! I don’t like plowing through the soft stuff like that.

    Nice camp site. When I first pulled into it, under a concrete over-hang, I panicked and fled quickly after noticing a big hornet buzzing around hive looking things, a few feet from me, in the peak of the roof. Turned out it was the only one, and the hive looking things were the nests of a bird like a sparrow. After patient inspection, I parked back under the roof and set up camp. The showers were funny, made you feel like you were standing out-side naked. The roof didn’t cover the whole thing—was kind of cool.

    June 19^th, Friday: I finally remembered I should call John F, just after Breakfast. Couldn’t get through to him…bummer. The ride to Denver wasn’t bad. Fighting Denver traffic was a bear tho. I finally found John’s place, and his daughter hadn’t heard a word about me. I left John a love note, and went out to find a G. Love CD and dinner. Just as my dinner was being put on the counter, John paged me, Murphy’s Law.

    John, Justin and I had a blast in Denver that night. We stayed out until the bars closed. Good place to visit. John and Justin did a few outrageous burnouts, good fun was had by all.

    June 20^th, Saturday: After a long morning, (hungover? No….) John, Justin, and I headed for Breckenridge, CO, to visit John’s friends Jeff and Chris. We had a great ride over one mountain pass. I got to ramble on a bit about what makes mountain curves a bit easier to navigate. For some reason they feigned interest for several minutes before telling me to shut up. Great views tho.

    Jeff and Chris live in a great round house on the edge of Breckenridge village. Talk about a cool view, and a hot tub to boot! We rode into town for a few, listened to a bit of Blue Oyster Cult playing live. Justin and I had great burgers at the local brewery. John and Jeff found us and we headed to another bar that had a good band. We played pool until the bouncers had emptied the place around us. Another cool night out with John.

    June 21^st, Sunday: The worst day of the trip. I didn’t want it to end. John and Justin took off. It was fun hanging with John again, and it was good to meet Justin.

    I headed South. I rode for a straight 130 miles. I usually have to stop. (Sorry Mike S.)(He doesn’t like getting off his bike.) But the roads were really cool. I blasted through some flatlands, and hammered out some great curves. I think I was following the Arkansas River for a while. There were great opportunities to pass in the left lane, in the middle of a big left-hander, rock face on the right, and water on the left. I like passing. Just South of Breck, a Subaru station-wagon pulled out next to me while I was going around him. I gunned it and squeezed through the last foot of open pavement before the dope noticed I was there. That was the closest call of the trip.

    I came back out to I-25 South near Pueblo, CO. The rest of the day was an emotional pit. Trip over, boring monotonous flat brown scenery, hours of super slab to go, and I really didn’t have a home to return to. I move into my next apt. at the end of August. I’m staying with friends for a few weeks and then going to a National Guard School in Texas for six weeks.

    This has been an amazing trip. I was continually surprised and flattered by the great numbers of genuinely friendly people that welcomed me into their lives. Special thanks to Rusty & his wife, Mike, Dan, JoAnn, Scott, June, Jeff & Chris, and Mike, for welcoming me into their homes.

I hope I haven’t bored you all to tears, Take Care, Colin.