Ride With Tank

Since this was my last full day here until next spring, I forced myself out of bed early and got underway to the overlook well before sunrise.  It was very cold and windy this morning, but there were several other bikes out before sunrise.  Robert eventually joined me at the Overlook getting one last ride in before he left for home.

Robert, Keisha, and I had a sad breakfast together.  They were not ready to go home, but had no choice.  It seems that I am always the last one to leave, and every time somebody heads for home it is sad.  First to go was Dan, then Mark and his squid buddies, now Robert and Keisha.

i spent the day riding back and forth and hanging out with lots of different folks.  The place was absolutely packed.  As can be expected when you have a crowd that large, many had no clue about letting faster traffic by and parades of epic proportions were formed as a result.  Several lane crossers invaded my side of the road, but I managed to not hit any of them.

Towards evening there was a tragic accident when a well respected local lost the front end and went down hard.  He was flown out with a suspected broken back.

I still don’t know when I will leave tomorrow or where I will spend the night tomorrow.  I am just going to play it by ear and try to work around the weather.

Today was the best day of my trip so far.

I started it with a true sunrise ride.  When I got to the overlook I found fog that filled the entire valley.

I have never seen it like this before, but it did not last long.  A very small breeze kicked up and started blowing the fog over the overlook.

Once my coffee was gone I went to Calderwood and saw the usual turkeys and deer.  As expected it was very foggy down there.

On the way back to the store I found another flock of turkeys along the road.  I slowly rolled up to them, and once I was close I hit my horn which caused them all to go crazy.  It was pure turkey chaos, and it was funny.

Robert spent most of the day playing with some motards and had a really great time.

By far my personal highlight of the day, and probably the week, was this guy:

I was lucky enough to get to see him wage an epic battle racing a Harley down the Gap.  The Harley passed him, then he turned on the speed!  He came close many times to passing him, but just never had quite enough room.  The Harley would pull away in the straights, then the bike would catch up in the turns.  Eventually, the bicycle guy just got too tired and gave it up.

I spent the next several miles stuck behind the same Harley.  I checked my mirrors as I entered Shadetree and the bicycle was right behind me, so I pulled over so the battle could continue!  This was more exciting than any MotoGP race I have ever seen.  Eventually, I remembered that I had a video camera mounted up, and I got the last minutes of the battle on video.

i