For those that don't know, we bought Patti and Rays Goldwing back in January. We got it set up for LD rally riding and rode it in this rally. We had a mechanical failure in the final drive. The seals started leaking on day 5 of the rally. I'll do a postmortem on the final drive once the bike gets back home. There were actually 2 Honda Goldwing final drive failures in this rally. Not something I would have ever predicted.
Our rally was a blast. Paul Tong and staff put together an amazing puzzle. The theme was founding fathers. The first leg used George Washington statues as a means of adding points to other bonuses. The second leg used Abreham Lincoln statues as a multiplier to increase the value of non-Lincoln bonuses. The catch was you had to get a non-Lincoln bonus in between the Lincoln ones to bump the bonus up. On the third day of the leg, you could have a multiplier of 17 for every non-Lincoln bonus obtained.
At the first checkpoint we had just over 42K points, well above the minimum target of 32K to be on track to finish. The second leg was going great, we had 5 or 6 of the Lincoln multipliers under our belt and were making good progress on our planned route. Then the wheels came off. We stopped for a bonus in Richmond, Kentucky. Took the picture and coming back to the bike a smelled gear oil. Looked down and sure enough the whole left side of the tire was coated in gear oil.
Luckily there was a Honda dealer 2 miles from where we were. Contacted them, went over and they looked for parts. At least three days from Honda to get them. Unfortunately, this meant our Rally was over. They agreed to store the bike until a motorcycle shipper can pick it up after the 4th. Got shipping arranged, and a rental car to drive back to the finish of the rally in Cheyenne.
