Well, even with the 3 hour delay, we made Jackson TN, which isn't far from our orginal goal. We were able to ride more miles between stops as the altitude has lowered. Now that Vulcan is running close to 140 miles on a tank. Lol...I'm getting 47mpg at these speeds. Lesse...47x6.6=310. I could comfortably ride 290 miles if we keep this up. That's never happened on a trip.
So, regarding the Harleys, neither of them are obnoxiously loud, and the two guys riding them are decent riders. The one on the Screaming Eagle that needed repaired is a VERY good rider, and a super cool guy. What's funny, is we were all in the Traffic unit at some point in our careers. Two of us rode motors, and two didn't. That guy was the Traffic/Motors Sergeant up until about 6 months ago.
Either way, we got back on the road in a decent amount of time, which I thought was amazing. I couldn't believe they had the parts on-hand, and they dropped what they were doing to get us going again. Nice. Those guys gave me AR riding map books, which I haven't read yet. They look interesting though.
It was all straight boring freeway today, so nothing great about the ride to report. However, I did have an interesting conversation with an old guy at a gas stop. Obviously I was parked with the guys, and he was talking their heads off when I walked in the store. When I came back out, it was my turn. So, "H" = him and "M" = me and the () are just my thoughts:
H: So, you having a hard time keeping up with these guys?
M: No, actually, I'm really off the throttle and just riding in back. I normally ride faster for longer periods, but we're just taking it easy.
H: Well, I mean, this seat you have (I have a Spencers with a smuggler in back). It can't be very comfortable, and those bikes are the king of the road, so you gotta be having a hard time.
M: Actually, no, that's a custom seat (I fibbed a little) and is very comfortable. I normally ride 800 to 900 mile days, with some going over 1000 miles, and one trip where I rode 1400 miles in 23 hours straight. I'm not having any problems keeping up. In fact, one of those guys had to buy an air cushion because his butt was killing him.
H: Oh, well, are you running tubes in your tires, or tubeless?
M: Tubeless radials.
H: Are you sure?
M: I have 70k miles on this bike, and I installed those tires, so, yes, I'm sure.
H: Well, do you check the air?
M: (WTF...YES, mother) Yes, I checked them this morning. They were good. I check them every day.
H: That's good, because if you have a tire with tubes in it, and it gets about 10° hotter they'll pop and you'll need the whole freeway to slide that bike around under your ***. Happened to me once. You see, radial tires won't pop, they'll just slow leak, where a tube will pop, because you can't see what it's doing in there.
M: (Now, just looking for an out.) Yup, that's why I run radials. I don't need my tires blowing me up. Haha...You have a good day sir.
Then he got I his truck and left. Hahahaha...I think he was just tying to be nice. I'll say, in all my times through AR and TN, I've never met a jerk. People always just want to talk, including the truck driver from Alaska at the same stop. He said something about getting home once and his wife had her boyfriend's boxers on her head. I couldn't help but laugh, so I chalked that one up to "information I didn't need to know."
That was it. Rest of the day was easy, just droning along, listening to music. Tomorrow will be more of the same. Haha...We're like 680 miles from DC, so I'm betting we don't get all the way there, but we'll see. Maybe they'll surprise me.
I'll do an update tomorrow...
