ARKANSAS IN AUTUMN '07 - Mini Bash Report

[Boxer]

Here's an update on the injured Sparky leg. This morning, finally the swelling has gone down considerably, but the bruises are more apparent. It looks a lot worse than it is at this point.


And here's the other leg that Rob asked to see. Don't get any ideas Rob! I'll tell Ann. :-)

[OU812]

Click here

Phil, where do you get this stuff?

[duckdave]

Boxer's link was blocked by the airport sonic wall...thank god! There were a dozen folks looking over my shoulder. Have to wait until I return to the safety of my home.
-dd

[OU812]

Phil, when I look at the pics of Sparky's leg, I can't walk.

[DJ Downunder]

Nice legs..

DJ

[boxermania]

My appologies to all......I have been sneaking minutes away and composing my commentary to the recent ride, with the intention of publishing this week.

Unfortunately my work has kept me from doing so and a trip to the West Coast just materialized.......so I will not be able to oblige until the middle of next week.

So sorry....better late than never........

[boxermania]

Finally I have the time to share my commentary. I must warn those of you that don't know me that I tend to be overly jocular and enjoy a bit of levity in my comments. So don't take anything in the wrong context, it is just my humble way of expressing the good time I had both with the group and the individual participants.

First it was very nice to see some old faces, from prior Bashes, the Summa Cum Rectorial friend CycleRob, I love the guy.... and I love Hilary Clinton too, ask him, my counterpart and rum runner, Boxer Phil, Biff'R a very nice and full of energy young man and machew01 in his ever fast K bike.....I had not seen any of them in at least 2 1/2 years, since BBII.

Equally important were the rest of the attendees, Gypsy RR which took it upon herself to organize the event, a type A personality with endless energy and with the guts to loan her bike to CycleRob to play with, considering that was her ride home. Kudos to you Gypsy…..

The rest of the ladies, four of them, a first for one of the Bashes, Miss. Jenny, Boxer's better half, a very nice lady and a trouper in my book, if you know what she had to endure....no, I don't mean putting up with Boxer's company.

Then we have ladybeemer and mkomara, the first one very talented and sophisticated, as I managed to learn, actually I was embarrassed by her presence.....mkomara, quite an interesting character. I found, that being from different origins, it turned out that we had a lot in common, primarily via our travels.

Didn't get to know Miss Vickie, Mad1150 better half until Saturday night's festivities and the poor thing, kept winning prices for a BMW bike, while she rides a Star, I believe, to the chagrin of her husband.

On the guys corner we have NoRRmad, my hat goes off to him, rode all the way from NYC (1300 miles) and then was headed for the Gulf Coast.....now that's retirement. Rbrider hailing from Melbourne Fl and NC.....this fellow can ride, nice man too. Mad1150 and OU812 from Illinois......they labeled OU812 ride Light Truck (I had nothing to do with it…..) as he rides an LT.....he is a big guy and, I'm told, rides the devil out of that bike.

Closing the men, priapismic....he was kind enough to get and mark maps with several routes; hailing from Texas and the one that put Kelt's (the Irish Pub….in Arkansas!!!!!) on the map.....I owe you one. RidetoRed, from north Louisiana which, interestingly enough I had met for the first time at Barber in Birmingham a couple of years ago.....and he remembered me, I don’t know if for my bubbly personality or my marketing size....anyone, anyone. Buddy, with the GS, form BR and one of the guys I ride with and of course DuckDave from the Little of the Rocks that made a very short appearance and flew the coup.....not to be seen anymore. I did manage to round a couple of suspect pictures from him.....maybe we can see his face next time. BTW, the ugly one with the bad teeth is Boxer.....





While on the subject, even so I had a bike to ride, I elected not to so at the very last moment as a result of some unbreakable rules of mine, 1) Haven’t been riding actively (for me is 200 – 300 miles/wk) and 2) Will not ride unfamiliar bikes in unfamiliar roads……of course in my line of business you are required to have an executable (Plan B) and I did.

Now for the color.....

One unwritten rule at the Bashes (actually mine, as I made it up) is for some of the former attendees to surprise other attendees with unusual items. After CycleRob’s decarbonization at 50K miles, I had asked for one of his valves to look at some pitting on the valve face. So, I brought an infrared hand held thermometer (used) and he gave me the aforementioned valve. I looked at the item closely, being long and thin, while those present proceeded to suggest what I should do with it. I don’t think the group consensus was appropriate and in my best interest, so I went about in quest of a place to display such object so it could elicit questions and commentary……..see below…….as a result I have sworn not to ride in inclement weather. Thanks for the kind gift CycleRob!!!!!





The ride highlight of the trip, for me that is, came on Saturday when on the upper part of Hwy 23, North of Ozark I came upon one of the locals on a Hyundai that appeared to be on a leisurely Saturday morning ride……like many all of us have run into anywhere there are good roads to be ridden, but back to the story. I stayed behind him for what it seemed like an eternity, being very much respectful of the double yellow line. Upon checking my rearview mirror I see 4 esteemed members of the Bash posy that have caught up with us…..we proceeded at a snails pace until I found a bit of a clearing where I saw the opportunity to make a clean pass, albeit illegally. Dropped into second gear, whipped the wheel left and off to the races and noticed that two of the riders, that shall remain nameless to protect the innocent (R s’ffiB and obReclyC) took off after me, shifted into third, and fourth and didn’t let up as the road was made to be driven. I lost track of the riders in what seemed a fraction of a second, but I have never been good with times so who knows. Bless me again if in 5 or 6 miles down the road I run into three pickups in a caravan, not as slow as the earlier cage but slow none the less. A couple more curves and the riders finally catch up with us. We are now in the northern part of Hwy 23, more rolling like curves and TG with passing lines. I’m past the pickups with the prior individuals in hot pursuit…….well I’ve bored you enough with this endless tale of male ego. I have to praise their persistence and in their defense since they saw so very little of my posterior, I figured they probably stopped by the local constabulary to report two UFO sightings, when what they really saw was this…..for a very short time…..he, he, he.



To close the tale, on Friday evening, after leaving Kelt’s, I saw a figure asking for a ride, being that it was late I stopped to help the person out. I couldn’t see too well as the person was beaming an intense white light, upon opening the door and having the person take the seat…..I found out that it was a she and appeared to be a vision…..turned around to ask her name and she was gone just as fast as she had appeared. I sat there in awe for a few seconds and figured it was a figment of my imagination…..who knows. Strange…..

Well that is about all that I have.....had a great time and hopefully we can do it again amidst old and new faces.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. If I win the lottery you'll see me in a T-Rex......

[CycleRob]

Exchanging gifts? I wasn't ready for that and my pitted exhaust valve does NOT qualify as a gift. The IR thermometer works great and has been used to read my hot woodstove, the chimney stack, fan motors, refrigerator exterior, bedroom outside walls, outdoor fish pond, my 5 rainbarrels, the TV, my laptop PC, our Thanksgiving Turkey in the oven and various parts of my wife. All good numbers! Thank you much for your generosity and excellent choice of what to give the guy who has almost everything. I was contemplating buying one soon.

". . . . it was a she and appeared to be a vision"

Ahhh yes, the graceful, sensual, warm feminine magic some women just naturally possess. I guess I wasn't the only one. The pictures will not show all the wonderfully distracting qualities created by Estrogen. You need to be there. Not that there was any "contest", but, she unknowingly (until now) actually was the group favorite, so to speak, of most all the old happily married guys if/when the "girls" topic came up. When our group left the Inn Friday night after dining, I was across the street from the white 911, it looking very sharp under the warm beige incandescent street light. I was zipping up the riding gear and gloving on when I saw the large sized, gray haired old guy get in the driver's side and this slender young blond gracefully slink into the passenger seat. The engine starts, the sounds it makes gives even Ford & Chevy mechanics that knowing smile of appreciation. As it slowly motors away with that exotically distinctive sound, it's crystal clear that it's a 911 with a performance exhaust . . . . driven conservatively thru the dimly lit town. The lighting was Steven Spielberg perfect, the sounds echoing off the buildings as the RPM's slowly change speed. Wow. I was very disappointed that my camera (set for .avi movie) was nowhere near at the ready. I thought how what I had just seen and heard could so easily have been The best 911 commercial ever made. I know both those people, the why & where and was so glad I got to see it play out in such an awesome Kodak moment. For me, it's a great Bash memory. I teased Al later (paraphrasing) about the May/December impression of that moment that I believe only I had seen. He didn't think it was that funny.


I remember our ride starting out one morning when we came upon this white 911 with a rear whale tail, in front of us, being held up by traffic. I thought . . . . . Gee, how many 1980's white Porsche's ARE there in Arkansas? It HAD to be BoxerMania !! Sure enough, the large diameter dual exhaust pipes confirmed it was him. The road is a hilly, somewhat curvy country state road with too many double yellow lines. The gold paintjob and protruding cylinderheads of my bike had to be visible in his rearview mirror and I just KNEW he was going to pass at any time. When I heard the 911's RPM's rev up and cruise in a lower gear, ready to pass, I did the same, methodically clutching and clicking into 3rd gear, on the ready to blast it.

Then he HITS it and whips out to pass. The nice country air turns to a mega dose of hydrocarbons coming at me. Cool!! A little over a second later I hit it and easily out accelerate the white sports car. Surprisingly, I had to back off. 5th gear would have done it. Quickly I remembered, what car can do zero-to-sixty (96.5kph) in 3.84 seconds?? None!! Back to the pass . . . . the 911 kept accelerating until we were cruising at least 90 (145kph). I decided that was way too much for a country road and I wasn't in that much of a hurry to get arrested or kill Bambi. We chopped the throttle, shutting down to normal speed. The white sports car driver I'm sure was only looking ahead and kept on going. Several minutes later we caught up to the 911 again, being held up by traffic. Then the leader made a risky "barely room enough for me" 1 vehicle only pass and because of the blind curves and no passing zones we could not follow. We were also not that highly motivated to play that game this early in the morning. We were on our way to Breakfast some 80 miles away (129km) from the Motel. I don't recall seeing the 911 again until that evening. I just know he had a blast reving, shifting, steering hard and thought he blew us off, but . . . . . . .


.

[RBrider]

Yeah, I mentioned something to Boxermania about that "just (barely) room for me" pass. Otherwise known as the "Hail Mary" pass. You know, the one where you go for broke, all or nothing, etc, etc.

BM said, "I knew exactly what I was doing, I timed it perfectly, with room to spare."

I told him maybe he did know just what he was doing, but those of us that were following him weren't so sure.....

I can tell you, it scared the cxxxx outta me, for BM that is. I thought him and that pickup were gonna meet up close and personal.

But, all's well that ends well, I guess.


RB

[GypsyRR]

after test driving a Porsche 911 the other day, I'd say the car probably has supernatural capabilities!! Is it going overseas with you, Al?

[boxermania]

CycleRob.....I can never match your story telling ability nor the way it flows onto the paper, providing the reader with a first account as if they had been there.

Nevertheless, I must re-state my earlier comment to you and Rbrider, in response to the well intentioned comment regarding my second pass. I had ample time to clear.......your perception was affected by the depth of field.

My grandfather had a saying "The devil knows more not because he is the devil but because he is old" and I certainly don't need a clone.

I would however fully agree and attest to:

a) The first pass was done over a double yellow and prior to a curve.
b) The GPS recorded 106 mph on that first exhilarating run
c) The second pass was done legally
d) My driving, as viewed by the constabulary, would have landed by fat rubbery arse in the clink......pronto and with a fine commensurate with my weight in gold.

But sometimes you have to allow that adrenaline to flow.....as the ladies would say.....boys will always be boys.

Thank you both for your presence of mind and kind comments.

[boxermania]

GypsyRR

Sorry for the delayed response, as I had missed your post and just came upon it.

No, the car will not be going with me overseas, if I't happens. As a matter of fact, I will probably be selling it in the immediate future as I'm building a "motor" for the yellow one.....which BTW is a '77.





I guess know it will be easy to understand why I chose "boxermania" as my handle. Like I said before, I don't lack projects....what I lack is time.

Sorry about hijacking the thread....it will not happen again....maybe.

[Biff's R]

Nice yellow one, Al, but don't you know that the white is the most visible.