Author Archives: Pat

2007 Road Trip Day 3

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Today was a play day, with my only plans being to ride Deal’s Gap and the Cherohala Skyway. I’ve ridden the dragon before, when I was out in 2005, and it was just as much fun as before. Despite the heavy police presence discussed everywhere, I only saw two cops. The first was writing a ticket at one of the turnouts at the start of the Tennessee side and the other was slowing everyone down and warning them about the semi he was leading through. I really wish that we could get the word out that the road’s no good for 18 wheelers, but I guess that’s just wishful thinking.

Stopped for lunch at Deal’s Gap Motorcycle Resort and picked up a book that has some nice routes throughout the southeast.

After lunch I headed deeper into North Carolina to pick up the Cherohala Skyway, which turned out to be one of the best routing decisions I made on this trip. It was absolutely beautiful, winding its way along the border with great views of the Smoky Mountains. It was a little on the rainy side so the mountains were a bit obscured but it still made for some great photography. I got a little wet riding through the sprinkles up there, and I had to keep the speed down because of the wet roads, but it was well worth the trip. Total riding time was around 6 hours to cover around 160 miles.

2007 Road Trip Day 2

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Leaving Jackson this morning on the way to Chattanooga, TN, I ran in to a spot of trouble. About 20 miles outside Meridian, MS the engine just died, like hitting the kill switch, at about 75 miles per hour. After about 5 minutes on the side of the road fiddling with every connection I could find it just cleared itself up and started. I rode cautiously the rest of the way in to Meridian and had it happen once more, but it was a momentary blip, just an off-on instead of staying off.

Pulled in to the dealer in Meridian and they had the bike on the lift in less than 10 minutes. The diagnosis was a bad circuit breaker on the ignition circuit. Since they didn’t have one in stock we swapped the one for the accessory circuit and I was back down the road.

I stopped for lunch in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and called ahead to the dealer in Birmingham. They happened to have one in stock and put it aside with my name on it. When I got there it was waiting for me and along with a shirt and a new rear turn signal bulb it went in the luggage to be worked on when I stopped.

Since I was making such good time, even with the problems, I called ahead and told the Knoxville crew that I’d be in late tonight. It didn’t seem to make much sense to pay for a hotel room in Chattanooga when I only had about 110 more miles to ride.

I arrived at around 9:30 PM a little tired but done with that leg of the trip.

2007 Road Trip Day 1

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Today was a pretty uneventful ride. I left Dallas at around 8:30 AM and headed around the city to I-20 eastbound, taking me through Louisiana, stopping for lunch just outside of Shreveport. After that I headed through Monroe to Vicksburg, MS and my stopping place for the night, Jackson, MS. The bike was running fine, no problems to report.

Rush: Snakes and Arrows

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Despite the hot weather, tonight’s Rush concert was amazing. They were really in to the crowd, the crowd was really in to them, and the attitudes were kept under control. Of the Rush concerts I’ve been to, this one was the best ever. They played tracks that I’ve never heard on the XM, never mind the radio. It was amazing to hear them play Witch Hunt, Entre Nous, and Natural Science, as well as the classics like Tom Sawyer and Subdivisions and some tracks off of Snakes and Arrows.

Stardust

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I got out to see Stardust tonight and really enjoyed it. It’s too bad that it came out up against the Bourne film, the Simpsons movie, and others because it’s a really good film. I’ve been a fan of Neil Gaiman’s work for a while now and will have to pick up the book this one’s based on.

The movie is a classic epic fantasy/fairy tale story with a good amount of humor added in. It centers around a young man’s quest to find a fallen star in order to win the hand of the woman he loves. Through his journey he does a lot of learning and growning and emerges a completely different person.

There were a number of memorable scenes, including some that had me laughing out loud. Robert Di Nero’s character was absolutely hilarious and it was great to see him in a different type of role.

Definitely a good movie and one that you should go out and see if you liked movies like Willow, The Princess Bride, etc.

Curing The Oil Leak

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I’ve been trying to find the source of a really annoying oil leak that looks like it’s coming from the T where the oil drain hose meets up with the feed line from the oil tank and the line to the pump. Turns out that the cheap one time use hose clamps that Harley used in the assembly of the bike have a service life. They’d come loose and were the source of the leak. Since I was already doing an oil change I cut all three of them off and replaced them with normal hose clamps. Amazingly enough it looks like the leak’s gone.

Pie/Dr. Pepper Ride

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The day started out nice, if a little bit humid because of all of the tropical moisture that the remnants of Erin brought up this way.

We headed down to the starting point without anything eventful happening, got some breakfast, met up with the rest of the group, and hit the road 9 bikes strong.

The ride down to Hico was fun, no major issues, other than the bike eating pot hold just before we turned on to US-67. The roads were good, with a few sweepers to liven things up.

We arrived at the Koffee Kup at around 11:30 or so, got a couple tables for the group which had now grown by a few more thanks to some of the Austin netscum who rode up to meet us. Food, and more importantly pie, was had by all.

Afterwards the group split into two smaller groups with me leading the one over to Dublin for some real Dr. Pepper. The other group decided to go find some twisties to play with. A fateful decision as we’d find out later…

Old Doc’s was pretty interesting and the Dr. Pepper was delicious. In case you didn’t know, Dublin, TX is the only Dr. Pepper bottling company that still uses the original recipe, including the cane sugar instead of corn syrup.

After we finished up there we headed up US-377 for home. When all was said and done it was around 230 miles round trip and quite an enjoyable ride both due to the company and the roads.

The only bad part was that one of our riders went down. Details are sketchy right now, but it looks like he’s going to be OK. Some lacerations and bruises, maybe a concussion, and the bike’s a bit messed up. He’s OK, which is the important part. We’ll worry about his bike later.

Pie/Dr. Pepper Ride: The Test Run

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We’ve been talking about doing a run like this for a while so I finally got around to setting up a route and took it today to test it out. The bike ran really well, except that I couldn’t always find the 93 octane that the high compression engine really requires.

The only problem with the route was the street name for FM-1187, it’s actually Debbie Ln.

The Koffee Kup had some really good fresh strawberry pie, and was a perfect stopping point.

I skipped going in to Old Docs, choosing instead to head back home.

The ride is on the 18th and you can find more info on it over at Where’s The Ride At.

New Saddlebags

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I had some reward points saved up, plus some cash I’d been stashing away, so I treated myself to some new saddlebags in preparation for the Deal’s Gap run in September. Unfortunately they didn’t have the turn signal relocation kit in stock so I’ve got to wait to install them…

Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad

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And the finale in the five book series that started out as the Avatar Trilogy. Cyric’s been infected by the book he was trying to use to convert everyone over to his worship and Mystra and Kelemvor, the new god of death are trying to stop it. It’s told from an interesting, almost third party narrative perspective, and really wrapped up the loose ends well. By the end everything’s been resolved, more or less, with the pantheon returning to their roles, and the normal friction between them restored. It’s been a while since I read the original trilogy and it was a treat to finish off these last two books.