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A couple of weekends ago I attended the fourth annual Boyer Memorial Ride. This is one of the bigger rides in the state and is very well choreographed and executed. There are usually in exess of 100 bikes on the ride and the sight of a few miles of bikes stretched out ahead of you is well worth it if you happen to be to the rear of the ride. I have attended every one of these rides and it has been well worth it, more about it can be seen at www.chrisboyermemorial.com , this year was no exception.
The day started out just a little cloudier than one would have liked to seen but was warm and only mildly breezy. After the signup and safety/rules meeting we lined up and hit the road. I wound up being about 3/4 of the way to the rear and so got another good look at the long line of bikes in front of me. I have several times tried to get a picture of that and have now got quite the collection of pictures of the sky, road shoulder, road, instrument panel and the gas tank. Maybe next year.
After a several mile run down the highway we turned off on the next leg which was about 30 miles of sweepers through the forest. I really was likeing this part of the cruise and had settled back to take in the scenery and enjoy the sweeping curves while still keeping a wary eye out for the possible road hazzard (antlerus scamperus aka Wisconsin speed bumps aka them #$%^%$#% deer) and was contentedly listening to that big engine snarling sweetly as it exhaled through the Jardines when a rain drop about the size of a cantelope sailed in over the windshield and nailed me right between the eyes!
This caused my eyesight to become very blurry and for a second or two, I though that perhaps I had succumbed to glaucoma or something more serious. Turned out to be just a lot of water on my sunglasses. That first raindrop turned out to be the baby of the family and the rest of them were chasing him. Very cold family too, and mean buggers, every one of them stung like a bee!
My theory on this (I was developing it as we went along) is that if one looks at a picture of a raindrop you can easily see that the front end is nice and round and soft, wouldn't hurt anyone. However the tail end is sharp and pointy. So if they start to sting, that means you are going too fast and rear ending the things.
We put up with this (what else could we do?) for the next twelve miles (about seven eternities) or so and then rode out into the sun again. We still had several miles to go to the first gas/rest stop and the road was still very wet and had a lot of puddles standing on it. I was about this time that I realized that through all of this that new ME880 front tire had been up there doing its job so industriously that I had not even noticed how much water we had been splashing through. We rode into the first stop in the sun but with water still standing everywhere. Although there was a lot of humerous gripeing and several people were drying out their socks and shoes in the sun there was NOT ONE serious complaint.
Here you can see part of the bunch of drowned rat imitators:
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Off to the far left of the picture you can see Poppa Smurf checking out his new mascot:
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Chester turned out to be fine, he had been riding along behind Poppa Smurfs passenger who was also fine because she had been riding along behind Poppa Smurf who is large enough to shade several acres of crops.
It was about three minutes before we had to leave this stop (this is a VERY carefully timed ride) someone came to me and informed me that they had noticed as we were coming into town that I did not have a headlight!!! Didn't leave me a lot of time to check it out. It was a new bulb and looked good, the fuse also looked good and I had no time to check out anything else at this point. I was hoping that something had just gotten wet and would dry out and would be OK. Turned out that I was wrong (there is a BIG imagine that) and it would not cure itself but that was not apparent until later. I just figured that I would ride in the middle of the pack and maybe no one would notice until it had healed up. Forgot that I was on road guard duty for the next section of the ride and had to run ahead and liason with five LEO's at that many controlled intersections. NOT EVEN ONE OF THEM noticed that I did not have a working headlight!!!!!!!!
Outside of that everything went smoothly until we were about eleven miles from the halfway point of the ride. At this point we came around a curve and topped a steep hill at the same time. Around that curve and JUST over the hill was- - - - you guessed it!- - - - - - - - - more rain!! We put up with that until we were about two miles from the halfway break stop. Then we came out into the sun again. Although we were at the stop and the sun was shining we were still splashing around in puddles:
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You can see how wet the concrete is there. During this stop I pulled the fuse out of the fuse block and although it looked good it must not have been because when I replaced it with a spare the headlight came right on as though there had never been a problem. This improved my soggy mood very much and it stayed that way until that evening when the headlight went out again - - - - - - - - in the dark - - - - - - - - two miles from home. Same problem, the fuse block is now living somewhere in the small green storage shed (aka, dumpster) beside my driveway. The ride to the last break/gas stop went smoothly, even including an expected detour due to road construction (Wisconsin only has two seasons in a year, winter and road construction).
More of the bikes lined up at the last stop:
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The rest of the day was filled with an excellent banquet, good conversations and listening to the band interspersed with the frequent prize drawings. I won an oh so nice quilt, several of which are hand made by an ancient lady who donates them to the event, and is now a constant companion to my other ride (aka recliner).
I forgot to mention that the second rainstorm was worse than the first and the roads in that area are much worse than in the first. Even given the fact that I was carrying a passenger during that portion of the ride, it did not give that Metzeler a seconds problem, bike drove like it was on rails. Don't want to turn this into a rant but, sorry Dunlop, I tried, you just got beat out!!!
All in all, this is one superb ride and if you have the inclination to get to one, it is worth you while.
The day started out just a little cloudier than one would have liked to seen but was warm and only mildly breezy. After the signup and safety/rules meeting we lined up and hit the road. I wound up being about 3/4 of the way to the rear and so got another good look at the long line of bikes in front of me. I have several times tried to get a picture of that and have now got quite the collection of pictures of the sky, road shoulder, road, instrument panel and the gas tank. Maybe next year.
After a several mile run down the highway we turned off on the next leg which was about 30 miles of sweepers through the forest. I really was likeing this part of the cruise and had settled back to take in the scenery and enjoy the sweeping curves while still keeping a wary eye out for the possible road hazzard (antlerus scamperus aka Wisconsin speed bumps aka them #$%^%$#% deer) and was contentedly listening to that big engine snarling sweetly as it exhaled through the Jardines when a rain drop about the size of a cantelope sailed in over the windshield and nailed me right between the eyes!
This caused my eyesight to become very blurry and for a second or two, I though that perhaps I had succumbed to glaucoma or something more serious. Turned out to be just a lot of water on my sunglasses. That first raindrop turned out to be the baby of the family and the rest of them were chasing him. Very cold family too, and mean buggers, every one of them stung like a bee!
My theory on this (I was developing it as we went along) is that if one looks at a picture of a raindrop you can easily see that the front end is nice and round and soft, wouldn't hurt anyone. However the tail end is sharp and pointy. So if they start to sting, that means you are going too fast and rear ending the things.
We put up with this (what else could we do?) for the next twelve miles (about seven eternities) or so and then rode out into the sun again. We still had several miles to go to the first gas/rest stop and the road was still very wet and had a lot of puddles standing on it. I was about this time that I realized that through all of this that new ME880 front tire had been up there doing its job so industriously that I had not even noticed how much water we had been splashing through. We rode into the first stop in the sun but with water still standing everywhere. Although there was a lot of humerous gripeing and several people were drying out their socks and shoes in the sun there was NOT ONE serious complaint.
Here you can see part of the bunch of drowned rat imitators:
[IMG]
[/IMG]Off to the far left of the picture you can see Poppa Smurf checking out his new mascot:
[IMG]
[/IMG]Chester turned out to be fine, he had been riding along behind Poppa Smurfs passenger who was also fine because she had been riding along behind Poppa Smurf who is large enough to shade several acres of crops.
It was about three minutes before we had to leave this stop (this is a VERY carefully timed ride) someone came to me and informed me that they had noticed as we were coming into town that I did not have a headlight!!! Didn't leave me a lot of time to check it out. It was a new bulb and looked good, the fuse also looked good and I had no time to check out anything else at this point. I was hoping that something had just gotten wet and would dry out and would be OK. Turned out that I was wrong (there is a BIG imagine that) and it would not cure itself but that was not apparent until later. I just figured that I would ride in the middle of the pack and maybe no one would notice until it had healed up. Forgot that I was on road guard duty for the next section of the ride and had to run ahead and liason with five LEO's at that many controlled intersections. NOT EVEN ONE OF THEM noticed that I did not have a working headlight!!!!!!!!
Outside of that everything went smoothly until we were about eleven miles from the halfway point of the ride. At this point we came around a curve and topped a steep hill at the same time. Around that curve and JUST over the hill was- - - - you guessed it!- - - - - - - - - more rain!! We put up with that until we were about two miles from the halfway break stop. Then we came out into the sun again. Although we were at the stop and the sun was shining we were still splashing around in puddles:
[IMG]
[/IMG]You can see how wet the concrete is there. During this stop I pulled the fuse out of the fuse block and although it looked good it must not have been because when I replaced it with a spare the headlight came right on as though there had never been a problem. This improved my soggy mood very much and it stayed that way until that evening when the headlight went out again - - - - - - - - in the dark - - - - - - - - two miles from home. Same problem, the fuse block is now living somewhere in the small green storage shed (aka, dumpster) beside my driveway. The ride to the last break/gas stop went smoothly, even including an expected detour due to road construction (Wisconsin only has two seasons in a year, winter and road construction).
More of the bikes lined up at the last stop:
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[/IMG]The rest of the day was filled with an excellent banquet, good conversations and listening to the band interspersed with the frequent prize drawings. I won an oh so nice quilt, several of which are hand made by an ancient lady who donates them to the event, and is now a constant companion to my other ride (aka recliner).
I forgot to mention that the second rainstorm was worse than the first and the roads in that area are much worse than in the first. Even given the fact that I was carrying a passenger during that portion of the ride, it did not give that Metzeler a seconds problem, bike drove like it was on rails. Don't want to turn this into a rant but, sorry Dunlop, I tried, you just got beat out!!!
All in all, this is one superb ride and if you have the inclination to get to one, it is worth you while.