Alright, alright...
Began ride preparations Friday evening, 3/8/13. GZ and logbook:
Check!
Left hand-grip had been working loose... headed out for some adhesive (hair spray) and to top off the bike with fuel. Made it halfway to the gas station and RAN OUT OF GAS! Quite the noob mistake for a twenty-eight year veteran with this bike. A call to the neighbor got me half a gallon of lawn mower gas and back on my way! Loaded up with petrol and grip grip, then back to the house. Sprayed the handlebar and inside of the grip liberally with hairspray, taped it in place, then off to bed... big day tomorrow!
Up bright and early Saturday, (3/9) to discover the hairspray failed to "hold" anything, despite being "extra hold"! Holy crap, clock is ticking, time for plan "B"! Fortunately, the Kuryakyn grips I'm using:
permit the removal of the inner rubber from the outer metal shell. The inner rubber is two seperate halves, so full access was granted for complete removal of all traces of old adhesives. Closing in on mid-morning and I'm still fiddling with the left-hand grip! Reached for the two-part 30 minute epoxy, since known cure time is the ticket here... these grips are so good at quenching vibrations that I don't plan to replace them anyway...
Finished loading and prepping gear while the epoxy cures, less than an hour later finally off to Daytona!
Quick spin around the infield, quick stroll through the vendor displays outside the speedway:
Sunrise Flake Orange?
I really like the Valkyrie:
Some guys never outgrew their "Big Wheel"... and they were well represented!:
Cool trike:
I really like flames:
Recieve a call from my fishing buddies wife just as I'm about to leave the speedway and she is flat freaking out... seems my fishing buddy was launching his boat (not far from the house) and forgot to unstrap the boat from the trailer! He just kept backing up, since the boat wasn't coming off the trailer, until the boat floated both the trailer AND the back tires of his wifes Ford Explorer! Now the back tires are off the ground and he can't pull forward (2WD)! The parking brake is useless too! Can't help, I'm two hours away! He had to sit waist deep in water, IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT, with his foot on the brake pedal (the front tires hadn't floated yet) until someone pulled him out... I'm going to razz him about that for a very long time!
Well, finally off to the Iron Horse in Ormond Beach for lunch, where they happen to have the absolute best steak tip sandwich EVER!:
Kept the lunch break short, only ninety miles covered, two hundred and sixty more to go! Ran the superslab up to Jaxsonville, then US 1 up through the Okeephenokie Swamp towards Waycross. Each fuel stop requires adding another layer as the sun drops further towards the horizon. Arrived in Hazlehurst a little before 7:00p.m., which was none too soon because I was running out of layers! Turns out Hazlehurst is in a dry county, so after procurring a room for the night I had to keep riding to the "county line package store" for refreshments. Letting GZ 2.0 tag along was almost a bad move, since they ended up fighting over the last shot!
After a sleep-over in Hazlehurst, finally met-up with Bluto, bluezboy, rocker, and fivestring for lunch at Sisters Country Kitchen:
Rode with fivestring back to Tifton, GA. Here's fivestring's ride
Bluto's:
Rocker and bluezboy's:
Over lunch we met the absolutle chattiest resident of Hazlehurst! He could talk at length about any topic... or at least change the subject to something he could talk about at length! After some good food and even better company, we parted ways, with Bluto, Rocker, bluezboy, and GZ3.0 headed for Atlanta, with myself and fivestring headed for Tifton. Parted ways with fivestring in Tifton and superslabbed the rest of my 350 mile ride back to Saint Cloud.
I know you Atlanta guys took some picts, now put together a ride report and post some picts!
