Sometimes you do because they asked you to.

Normally on a short hop ride I don't post a thing, but since my riding partner said he wanted to read about it...here goes.
First off, this has been an off year, as in off my bike, as most of you know Charlene is parked in the garage in need of electrical work and the money is and has been unavailable, so I have been riding Kurt (Doug) Young's StreetGlide. Not Doug Young but his son. 

This year has also been a year I seem to be hibernating, through don't know why, but my sleep hours are all over the place. Yesterday for instance I woke up a little before six in the morning, made coffee, washed some dishes, put a load of laundry thru the machines and fell asleep in the recliner, waking last night around 5:30 in a fog. Last night the nightmare (see earlier post) which I woke up from at 4am this morning and stayed up. 

But all that has nothing to do with today's ride, I find as I get older I either get side tracked easier or completely forget what I was doing in the first place. I'm sure you have gotten up out of a chair, walked out to your kitchen then couldn't remember what you went there for, I do that, but I also forget what I was doing before I got up to walk to the kitchen, but again...side tracked.

Friday I received a text from the Club President, let's not use any names here but you know who he is, but for now, let's call him Dan, which works out pretty good because that's his name. Anyway... he asked if I wanted to go for a ride on Sunday. Seems there are reports of snow coming our way in the near future and he wanted to get a ride in. I texted Pancake to see if he wanted to go. Pancake said he hadn't ridden the bike in a while and the battery may be dead, but if it starts he was in. He lied. He decided to do some construction work yesterday and spent Friday night and yesterday moving lumber, We will never know if his bike would start today because his back was not up for anything. 

Dan decided he would come over about noon, I decided to take the Street glide out for breakfast. At 8am the temperature was not conducive to comfortable riding but I headed to Mystic for pancakes (Not Doug, but the food) anyway. The Street-glide has no heated grips, and nowhere to plug in my Gerbing, so I arrived at the restaurant with frozen nuts. Texting Dan to tell him he may want thermals today he suggested that I put my nuts on an open fire and roast them, I explained that the nuts in question were in my groin not on my chest. 

By noon I was back home and Dan arrived, we started out going out 184 and down 27 to the Olde Mystick Village so he could run a chore, I ran to the store for cigarettes. meeting back up we headed out Coogan blvd, down Jerry Brown, across Deer Ridge to rte 234. We took that to Taugwonk only catching traffic about a mile before the Taugwonk/I-95 interchange, they went the other way and we cruised Taugwonk making a right onto Stoneybrook then across 184 through North Stonington center. I was already missing the heated grips. We took Wyassup road to Reutemann road. We hooked a left onto Hangman Hill road and headed for rte 49. The Street-glide I am sorry to say does not handle loose stones the way the Limited does, On Grindstone road I hit the centerline of the road which had loose stone, the bike drifted across the right tire track onto more loose stone, brakes on, trying to slow, and the bike still heading for the right side armco barrier, this brought a tad bit of a heart in the throat moment but it slowed enough. I indicated the loose stone to Dan by dragging my left foot, he hadn't hit the centerline so did not have the same wash out issue but he understood all the same. We arrived at 49 and my fingers were already becoming uncomfortable from the cold, we decided to make a loop back, so we cranked the throttles, ran up rte 49 hooking a left onto Wyassup and enjoyed a cruise through the corners until we hit the residential area where we picked up a local in front of us. We followed the cage back down the hill, hooked a right of Ryder then another on route 2. A right on Milltown, a right on Foxwoods blvd and a left onto 214. We ran on that to Shewville then a right on Town Farm. Up to Gallup Hill and down to Wendall Comrie, across to Lambtown and out onto 117. A left a short run and a left into Dunkin. Fingers were red inside the gloves. As we arrived there was a sport bike parked outside. After coffee and getting ready to leave, the sport bike had gone but two additional Street Glides were there and another Harley at the Pumps. We said our goodbyes and each headed home. 

It wasn't really a long ride, if it were Summer these would have been just the roads we use to get to roads to go somewhere, but it did feel good to turn some tires again.

 For now, I guess I'll just watch the weather through the windows and wait for that white shit to fall.


With rides in the summer being between 200 and 500 miles in one day (road trips), this one tallied out at a whopping 39.9 from meet to coffee. WOW.