5 days of mid-Atlantic, 26-30 June 2013

[Earl43P]

I had known about this upcoming ride for months. Got the new tires installed, changed the oil, brake pads, cleaning, etc.

Started having carb problems the week+ prior. Had replaced coils/wires, no joy.
Carb rack out, cleaned the slides, no joy.
Carb rack back out, cleaned the floats seats and rubber tips, test ride = meh.

Idling in the garage after the short test ride, wife pops in the personnel door as I'm pulling plug wires to isolate which cylinder is "missing".
Spark jumps wire, ignites pool of fuel (blissfully unaware!) on engine, flames are licking at the faux tank as I hit Kill and jump off to go after the extinguisher. Wife is in absolute panic, blocking my path to the extinguisher (which I calmly told her to grab) so I put the flames out with a rag and blowing hard (gloves still on!) No damage, fire was out in 5 seconds, tops. She did get the extinguisher out of its rack.

This is all occuring (Tues) the afternoon (4-ish) before I am supposed to leave for this trip (Wed).
Rack out again, clean floats/seats better, blowing cleaner back through the fuel inlet port this time.
Reinstall, fired it up for an idle / rev / leak check, all looks good, no more smoking/miss, it's 1030 pm. No check ride.

Work (from home) all day Wed, but did another idle/rev/leak check in early am, then a short ride (3 miles or so) at lunchtime. No miss, no sputter, no fuel leakage. Departed home at 3:30, bound for Fredericksburg, VA (190 miles). Flawless trip, took 17, 158, 460, 95 and Rt.1/208/612. Hit some rain.

Thursday, depart (group of 3: Brother 02 GW, me 82 GW, and Paul's 03 1800 VTX) Fredericksburg and go to Harrisonburg, VA via Rts 3, 29 and 33. Loved the 33 part! Gassed up and went south on Rt. 11 virtually all the way to Bristol. Loved the 11 and avoided Interstate 81 the entire day! (although we saw/crossed it a lot) We did hit rain several times, but never enough to stop and don.

Friday, left Bristol, skirted into TN for "minutes" and then took ? then Rt. 421 north into KY. I highly recommend this 421 road. Very little traffic, nice little towns, good mountain twisties. Made it to Richmond, KY, called my sister and rode 52/27/34/127 into Harrodsburg. Dined with her and my niece, and hoteled. No rain.

Sat, left Harrodsburg, met up with Rt. 60 and ran that (Parallels I-64) almost to Huntington, WV (ate and gassed in Ashland, KY). Picked up Hwy 23 and ran that upriver, eventually found 7N and ran that upriver for-seeming-ever to Marietta, crossed over, picked up Rt. 2 and ran that up to Wheeling, WV. Couldn't find a room (girl's softball tournament) so we slept in St. Clairsville, OH. No rain.

Sun, ran I-70E (booo!) to little Washington, ran National Pike Rt. 40 to Flat Rock, dropped Paul off, and had coffee at my Mother's in Markleysburg. Ran 42S to I-68 to Cumberland, then 51 through Paw Paw and onto 127 to 17S into Winchester. 17S, a little bit of 81 to 50/17, 17S (a little bit of I-66) through Warrenton to 29S to Brandy Station, 669 Stevensburg to Rt. 3E and 612S (Brock Rd) to my brother's. Left there about 4 and ran Brock Rd to 208 to Rt.1 to Doswell, Rt. 30 (parallels I-64 sort of) to I-64 to 664 to 17S at Deep Creek and on home 17S to Elizabeth City. No rain.

Just shy of 1700 miles.

Speedometer cable seized up near Winchester and took out the new $23 plastic gear in the snail that I had installed a few weeks ago. Both had been lithium greased. Speedo head is still good! Leaked oil on my left boot the whole trip, still fighting that rocker cover seal (it's not the bolts' seal anymore tho')! Added 1 full quart of oil in 1/2 qt increments. Had a GPS stuck to my tach face the whole trip, worked good. Brother uses an atlas at stops. We had no real agenda, just ride back roads / no Interstates. Made no hotel reservations, just dropped in! That worked good except for Moundsville / Wheeling.

Had two incidents with cagers; one very proud Obama supporter pulled out in front of me (I was leading) in KY at an intersection (she had the red light, went right on red anyway with barely a pause, no stop), no real danger, just hard on the brakes and plenty of time for a WTH hand salute (no finger).

A pickup almost got me on 208 going to 95 (solo) in Spotsylvania. I had another very respectful pickup behind me with his headlights on which must have been who they saw at the last second. They stopped short of my lane and backed back up. I credit the alert passenger. The guy behind me talked to me about that incident at the Rt.1 light, saying he thought I was a goner if they kept going. I had decided I was going gravel berm and/or into the right ditch if needed, but had it down from 50 to ~30 or so by the time they aborted and let me go by. Thank you Jesus, that one was close.

See you all at the Eastern Run! I'll be coming from CT.

[Werner]

Well the bike was going and you made it without a scrach. Must have enjoyed it.
Over here in S A we've got a action group called " THINK BIKE " . They encourage bikers to wear the right gear and all safty aspects etc. The allso run a campain to make motorists more aware of bikers and a lot of vehicles has a " THINK BIKE " sticker on the back. Any thing like that exist in the U S.