Mikes Harley Davidson Pappy's poker Run

From all accounts the poker run seems to have been a success, there was a nice turnout of bikes (with people on them). The parking area at Mikes is sufficient to hold all the bikes that came plus probably double the amount. the registration began at 9am, the course was laid out fairly well, as in, here's your destination...get there how you want to. The stops were manned by members of the New London motorcycle Club and were located at New England Cycle Works (Honda) Route 184 and Buddington rd in Groton, Dunkin Donuts (parking lot) at routes 2 and 49 in Pawcatuck, Weidele's Pizza on 14 in Sterling, Hank's Ice Cream on route 12 in Plainfield then a return to Mikes Harley in New London. Food supplied was Barbecue Pulled Pork sandwiches, baked beans, pasta salad, potato salad, hot dogs and hamburgers and a Live Band played outside the Service area.

 New riding dress

A small group of members left Mikes heading for the first stop at New England Cycle, leaving there the group got a little bigger as a few more bikes joined the group. At Dunkin in Pawcatuck the group got downright large as other bikes joined in. It was here that the ride became a little more difficult. Leaving Dunkin we deployed two guards to hold 49 as the contingent pulled out, up the road single file was called and the road guards did not come forward. At the junction of 49, 165,138, and 49 and 165 guards were aging deployed including the VP because of the missing guards from 49. As the group passed the guards came up to the rear, it was here that the difficulty could be seen, while most of the riders have ridden in formation before and understand hand signals and the need to go single file, the rear 20 or so bikes didn't get it and continued to ride in formation blocking the lane for the guards to return. The Guards ended up blasting past the group using the opposite lane.

At Weidele's most of the additional bikes departed on their own as the Club hovered for a while. At this point I resigned my position as Road Guard for .... certain reasons and stayed behind to get something to eat and wait for john Daniels to leave, after which I dropped the rest of the Poker run and took 14a to 395 to Flanders. A light rain was encountered on the trip south. This rain was not bad except I would have liked to have had my jacket which was in the VP's saddlebag. Fortunately I again had my jacket when I ran into a downpour in Groton. I can tell you, that when you are moving along at a really good clip (spelled "above the limit") and you hit a downpour without a windshield, the shit stings, having a forehead that extends to the back of my neck does not help either.

All in all not a bad day, although truthfully I would have and always do prefer a less organized ride with at the most five other bikes.