Holy Cow Tractor Pulling Team

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Curve Cowboy Reunion
The Curve Cowboy Reunion is a motorcycle rally specifically for BMW K1200LT's. Most motorcycle rallys tend to be camping affairs, but since the K1200LT is marketed to a more affluent crowd, the owners are not always into a camping trip. So, this rally was to take place at the Chateau Elan, a winery resort, in Brassleton, GA, just outside of Atlanta. Our plan was to take two days to ride down, spend the four days at the rally, and take two days to ride back. My fried from college, Butch, moved to Tennessee, and we planned to add another day to spend time with him and his wife on the way down. Also, the plan was not to travel on interstates, except when bypassing major cities, and to concentrate on state routes and some US highways.

I really wanted to provide a detail account of our trip, but time just doesn't permit.

In summary, the trip was 1855 miles total. We traveled most of the time towing a trailer with all of our stuff. On the way down we camped at Red River Gorge campground in Kentucky, and that is a really funny story there. On the way home, we camped at Standing Stone State Park in Tennessee. We had a great time visiting with Butch and took a brief trip to Gatlinburg and Cades Cove and even saw some bears while there.

The rally itself was very nice. We met a lot of really nice people and took short rides every day. We visited the 2nd largest mall in America and went to Stone Mountain.

Overall the weather on the way down very hot and humid. While in Georgia, we were lucky to have not received any ill effects from hurricane Ernesto that was passing us to the east. The trip home was much more pleasant as the temperatures dropped. We did get rained on a little both ways, but overall a very good ride.

Friday, August 18, 2006

For the Birds.
I can't remember the last time I hit and killed a bird in a vehicle, but I got 4 this week on my daily commute to work. It was either Monday or Tuesday, I got one with the Bonneville. Then on Wednesday, I nailed on square on the hood with the F-150. Yesterday, I rode the bike with my new tire and one dove down in front and smashed into my left foot. This morning, I was riding and thinking to myself, wow, I killed a bird with every vehicle I own and not 10 seconds later, one flew out of the side ditch and smashed right into the headlight.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Close call on the BMW
I normally ride my motorcycle to my Bosses house in the morning and then ride in to the shop or job site with him. Last Friday was no exception. Since he was getting married at his house the next day, we worked there working on various "Honey Do" projects. Stacey showed up as well helping out with decorations. I "clocked out" about 4 and went to look at a motorcycle helmet at a nearby motorcycle dealer and Stacey went with the girls to Kokomo to get last minute supplies. I ran by their house on the way home and saw that Stacey wasn't back, so I decided to stay and help out some more. Stacey and the girls didn't get back until 7:30 or so and we were all hungry, so we found some steaks, and baked some potatoes and grilled freshly picked sweet corn. By the time we ate and got cleaned up, it was 10:30 and we were beat, but still had more stuff to do. Stacey and I left, me on the bike and her following in the car. I went about 5 miles and made a turn heading south towards out house.

I noticed an odd shimming in the rear end of the bike. I gave a couple of quick swerves to see if it was really there or I had just imagined it. Yep, I had a problem. I saw a driveway up ahead and decided to pull in there to investigate. Just then, the tire bead broke free of the rim and the motorcycle started to violently shake. I knew I had a flat rear tire. My first though was "I am going down". I was slowing down, but was still probably going 40 mph. I eased on the front brake and just tried to keep the bike up. I couldn't really steer the bike, it just wanted to head towards the left had ditch. My thought was that if I was going to wreck, I would rather be in grass than on pavement. Also, if I got hurt, I would rather be laying off the road that on it since I was smack dab in the middle of nowhere on a dark, but popular country road. As luck would have it, I kept the bike up and came to a stop just off the pavement on the left side of the road. I rolled forward to the driveway and stopped and got off. Stacey pulled up shortly there after. She was a 1/4 mile or so behind me and didn't see the "festivities" but could see from the expression on my face that I had just been through an ordeal.

She called Allen, whose house we just left, and he and his future father-in-law would be there in a few minutes with his daughter's snow mobile trailer.

Both cars that went by stopped as asked if we needed help. That is the kind of genuine good people that live in the country. We declined since we already had help on the way. We could see the lady in the house on the phone. We assumed she saw that we had problems as was probably calling the police. She finally came out and he first words were "You better not have screwed up my drive way, I just paid a lot of money to have it done." A gravel driveway I might add. She got Stacey's license plate number and shone her flashlight on the Bobcat tracks in her driveway. She said she had called the police and against emphasized that she just had he driveway done. What a Bitch. I think she must be related to my next door neighbor. How in the hell do you mess up a gravel driveway, short of cutting a trench through it with a tile machine?

Anyway, Allen showed up and parked in front of my bike and had Stacey move here car behind us so we didn't get hit. As soon as Stacey was parked, we saw the red and blue flashes of a police car. As a coincidence, the cop that showed up as Pam's 1st ex-husband. He knew Allen and obviously knew Dave, because he used to be his father-in-law. So, I think the witch in the house was hoping we would get in trouble and was probably upset when it turned out to be a family reunion.

OK, so new we need to load the bike in the trailer. Well, the bike is too tall to fit under the clam shell top, so we unbolted the rear struts to lift it up taller. The trailer had a tilt base, so I drove up the bottom, while ducking under the clam shell top, and into the trailer. This was a problem because the rim wanted to spin in the tire, so I really couldn't transmit that much power to the ground. Anyway, I got the bike in there. I didn't see any place to tie it do, and it really didn't matter, because all of his straps were in use securing tile to his big trailer, which was at the shop. So, we put it on the center stand and secured the front rim with the bar that clamps the skis down. Allen said it would be OK, but I was sure it was not. I staid I was "ride" the bike back, so I could keep it upright and use the brakes to keep it from rolling. The cops left at this point because "they didn't want to know about anything like that" since it is illegal. We thanked them for their help.

Allen said we would only go 30 and I suggested only going 20. Most of the trip was uneventful, but the bike would have tipped over if I wasn't on it. We got the bike back to his place and unloaded it and parked it. My legs were burning from holding the bike up.

I just decided to remove the rear wheel, fix the tire at home, and bring the wheel back and install it there, that we I didn't need to trailer the bike again. Once I got the wheel off, I found a nail hole. I assume I picked up a nail somewhere, but it didn't leak. Then, spit the nail out on the trip home, where the tire rapidly lost air and eventually unseated the beads.

It was after midnight when we got home, but we did get home safely. The next day, the weather was great, and the wedding was beautiful. Even my bike attended, though stored in a barn and short a rear wheel.

I have a new tire on order, but probably won't get to ride again until Wednesday.

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