The Eclipse

For those that missed it... Me included..

This was taken by the Mesa Arizona GWRRA chapter D photographer, Chet Shupe..  Chet uses a Pentax DSLR that is as big as a house to carry around..  And he takes pictures with it while he rides a Honda Valkyrie...  He just holds it up and fires over the windshield..  Then he edits the pictures to be square and moving the subject to the middle...

I assume this was edited with the same software, but I have no idea what he uses...

Retired Rod

Its a Classic....!

Ok, since the cat seems to be out of the bag over on facebook, its time to introduce this little addition to the stable here in Kansas City....  As you can see it was for sale at a body shop along the frontage road that is visible from I 35 here in Olathe, Ks.

A week ago on Saturday, I was riding along on the motorcycle over in the old part of Olathe, when I came across this little gem sitting beside the interstate..    You can see the highway out in front of the truck.   I stopped to investigate...  Its a 1948...  And went on sale in October of 1947...  I was born in November of that same year...

As we ride all over Kansas, I am always looking at farm places to see what kind of old vehicles are out in the groves around farm places...  Hoping to find an Advanced Design Chevy pickup...  Advanced Design was the first post world war II pickup to be built once the war was over..  They started in June of 1947 and were made as 47s for four or five months, and then became 1948s.  They were made up thru 1954 when they were redesigned into a more modern vehicle called the task force..

This is not a kit vehicle, it has a 1948 vin id number and has been registered since then... But I don't know its history which might be interesting to try and find out...  The vin number has only 9 digits, as compared to the 17 digit numbers on modern vehicles...  This is a 3100 which is the half ton truck it was also a short bed..  And I have learned that there were some long bed models back then as well.

But there isn't much of the old truck left...  The actual frame and the cab you sit in with its old doors..  Some of the dash but not the instruments..  Mostly it has been redone..  Since some time in 2013 a fellow that lives in Merriam that I haven't met, has constructed what you see here...  He purchased a modern day wrecked chevy truck and has harvested the engine and transmission..  A 5.3 liter V8 and an automatic 4L60 Tranny..  That gave us power steering and power brakes.   The front axle is designed after a Ford Mustang II with rack and pinion steering..

Oh, and you have to love that vintage air conditioning unit there on the top of the motor...

After finding the truck on Saturday, I went back by in the car on Sunday only to find the truck gone from the lot....  My heart sank..........!  But maybe it just went to a car show or something.....  I reasoned to myself..  But at 9 AM on Monday it was back...  By 10:30, we were inside the shop leaning on the fender of another classic Ford that didn't have an engine yet, but was painted a beautiful plum purple..  I finally asked the guy what his bottom dollar would be if he had the money in the next couple of hours..........  He threw out a number, and I just shook his hand, saying Deal!!  Did I pay too much....  probably..  But remember he thinks he sold it too cheap...

I keep wondering if Loyce would have let me be so frivolous to buy such a thing on the spur of a moment...  But then I think the look on my grand kids face as they rode by their house says it all about whether they like it... Don't you....?

Retired Rod

More new shoes.........

Last winter I decided that my motorhome tires were out of date and the front ones weren't balanced any more either....    They still had some tread left but they were dated in 2007 and that is 8 years old...    But the things are expensive....

So I went over to the tire company in Mesa and bought two Toyo tires for the front axle..  Steer tires as they are called, but that was just to tide me over while I drove home....  And they did drive home much better than the old original equipment Goodyears..

So I priced some more Toyos last week and they were much cheaper here in Kansas than they were out in Mesa  about $350 a tire...  Mesa charged $450 or so...  I didn't find the original bill..  But then I didn't make up my mind and while I snoozed, the Toyos all sold out....  None in KC anywhere...  Snow birds getting ready to go South....

So what to do..  Double Coin are Chinese but some truckers are running them and think they get better mileage..  Cost more than Toyos.........  Looked up Hercules but didn't find very good reviews.. Again Chinese but stories about sidewall cracking at two years old...

The Coach came with G670 RV Goodyears, but the darned things are almost a grand a wheel..  So my tire guy said let's try some G661s which are Commercial Truck Tires and are back in the $600 a wheel price range...  They might ride a tad stiffer, but I'm the only one riding in there anyway..  Besides these were made in the USA...

When we were changing them out, they looked just like the tires we were taking off..  But I am certain the tire compounds are different...  But we never wear out the tires on motorhomes anyway, they rot out from sitting around.   By the way it took two of those blue jacks just to pick up one of the motorhome's wheels...

Well anyway, that is one of the Toyos leaning up against the building and we put the new Goodyears on the outside of the rears and hid the Toyos on the inside...  Then put the other two of the new Goodyears up front on the steer wheels....  So from just walking up to the coach it looks like they are all Goodyears..  Ha ha...  Surprise...

We used bags of balancing beads inside the tires rather than use wheel weights...  The little ceramic beads spin around inside the tires and find the right spot to balance things up..  When you start up they are in the bottom of the tire but spin out centrifically and find the right spot to balance things out..  That happens every time you start from a stop...  Neat..

I first used the beads in my motorcycle tires, and there you can really feel them working in the handle bars..  At first you might get a little bit of shake, but then like a miracle, its gone... Heavy wheel weights are easy to throw off of a truck wheel, but the beads can't get out of a tire...  Balanced for life..

I'm not sure your are supposed to put different tires on duallys like we did, but we'll know fairly quickly if they wear differently...

I drove about 10 miles on a divided highway North of Olathe and the new tires were smooth as glass...  But my bank account is screaming in pain though...

Retired Rod

Close of the Show, and the ride home.

Things here have been hectic, so I didn't get to write more about the wing ding convention until now...

Basically all we had left was the Saturday night final dinner. It was held in the Ice Arena that was part of the convention center there in Huntsville, Alabama...  It is a fairly new facility and hold lots of people....   The web site says 10,000 but that would be all of the arena seating for an event including the floor...

We were having a sit down banquet, so I have no idea how many folks were there, but I would guess somewhere around a 1500  sitting at round 10 person banquet tables...  I know the tickets were limited, and had to be purchased in advance...  Several folks said they couldn't get tickets..

It was a barbecue and was as good a rendition as could be expected from chafing dishes.  We all lined up in the hallways of the convention hall, and it was somewhat overwhelming as the line seemed several blocks long...  We only came a half hour before the event, and found ourselves way at the back of the line...

But when the doors opened, it went really quickly..  They had about 10 serving lines, but as luck would have it, since we were at the back of the line, most of the food had already been eaten....  I managed to get a couple of rolls and a gob of pulled pork with a really small ear of corn...  The salad was completely gone as were most of the condiments...

They were selling raffle tickets for the drawing....   Products were donated by JM headsets that were drawn randomly from a big barrel...  Some of the items were really pricey give aways... The money from the tickets was donated to a charity.

This picture was inside the arena as I waited to go thru the food line...  There was live entertainment that was overwhelmingly loud...  My cell phone doesn't do a good job with my very shaky arms holding it high above my head, so the focus is quite soft.

And with that, the party was over....   The vendors were open on Sunday, but we were out of there..

We rode from Huntsville across Northern Alabama and then up into Tennessee..  It was overly hot that afternoon, so we stopped often for drinks and air conditioning.  We stuck mostly to back two lane roads.  Having a sit down lunch at Chili's in Florence, Alabama...  From there we rode to  Savannah, Tennessee, and then to Dyersburg, Tennessee...   Stopping about 4:30 in the afternoon sun I was really glad to get off of the trike...   The heat index had to be in the 110 area... Sunday was 225 miles.

We again stopped at another Hampton Inn, but this one was an older property that was converted from a different motel...  It was more of a Motel format with interior doors..  The heat and humidity was causing low voltage in the electrical grid there in town, and we couldn't get our computer and cell phone devices to charge..  I had a meter in my top case and measured the voltage at barely 100 volts...  But as the night pressed on the ACs came back to full power and our items finally charged..

We were up at 5 on Monday, labor day...  Rolling by 6:30, we were out to beat the heat of the day..  Crossing the Mississippi river at about daybreak we headed off into rural Missouri on the small lettered roads...  We were in the boot heal and ran into several closed highways... We weren't really lost because we were heading North and West but you just couldn't get there from here..   Somehow we ended up in Poplar Bluff....  From there US 60 brought us across southern Missouri...

There is quite a windy road from Mountain Grove thru the forest to Lebanon, Mo.   This is somewhat like the dragon in Deals Gap, North Carolina..  It isn't labeled as a motorcycle run as it goes thru Ft Leonard Wood Forrest, but seems to have just as many curves and hills..  Its more like 40 miles long not 11 like the dragon... We zoomed right thru this stretch  (fun)..  Never seeing too many cars or police anywhere...  I think there was one gas station and it was a ma and pa gravel drive place..  We had filled back at the Wal Mart in Mountain Grove..

Of course, since we had enjoyed wonderful sunny weather up to this point, the clouds threatened all the way to Lebanon...  And stopping at a Wendy's in Lebanon for a quick coffee and bathroom, gave the storm time to catch us... So now it was rain suits for the rest of the ride into Lake Ozark...

Lake Ozark, meant we could stop at the lake cabin and save a night of Motel...  Also the restaurants are now familiar and it seems like home...  Monday was 310 miles.

On Tuesday it was on home after the morning pancake inn breakfast...  And the rains never stopped until we were withing sight of KC...  Another 160 miles.  8 days on the road!   The hot days were taxing with exhaustion and we walked a million miles in the show...   All and all another adventure.

Retired Rod

More on the Rally

Thursday   The official start of the show...  There was a breakfast, but I never signed up for that as I am not much on listening to the key note speaker....   But folks were there way early, while I was back at that Hampton Inn soaking up scrambled eggs and sausages...   Hampton does a nice job with their included continental breakfast...

But when we did get downtown about 9 AM we found everything parked full....   Streets were cordoned off and small alley ways were set up that only motorcycles can get thru...   This was a convention center with an Ice arena and many large meeting rooms as well as a commercial show floor...

We were having  much fun looking at all the motorcycles...  There must have be 6 or 7 thousand of them...  The had blocked off the parking ramp so only bikes could get in...  It was quite full and I had to park outside the first day...   There were three floors of these bikes...

As far as you could see in the parking garage.....  Goldwings...

These utility trailers that look to be something else are cute and were quite the rage a few years ago..

I'm not certain how that opens up, but you can probably put a lot of stuff inside....  But the corners aren't square so it might present a challenge....

While cute, the corvette seemed too small to be practical...  That's my black trike parked next to the trailer...  I had put my helmet on the back rack, but when I came back I found it knocked down on the paint...  I hope it was just the wind...  

We went to the commercial vendor show every day for three days in a row....  Not that we bought that much, but we seemed to be looking at everything presented...  We dug thru racks of accessories looking for just the right half cover to go over my bike when it is parked outside of a motel...  And I tried on almost every helmet in the place looking for one that fits my big head......   No snickering...!

I appear to have taken a picture of myself taking a picture...  In the rear view mirror...  But this is the line up to go on the parade on Saturday Morning....  They counted the rows of bikes and said there were over 2500 on this street they blocked off...

Even behind where I was staged, they started to make another group....  This was mostly full by the time we started out....   We were four bikes wide but they sent us off single file.  It took quite a while to just get us rolling...  The police had every unit at every corner while we went thru town and then left for the mountain to the East of the town...  We wound around on the top of the mountain and then came back down thru the really oldest part of town...  There were really big stately homes that were in mint condition of repair...   Everywhere folks were out along the parade route  with their kids watching us go by and waving...  My arm was really sore when we got back to the parking garage...

This is kind of cheesy but its what you do in order not to have the atmosphere created by Sturgis type of rally...  For the most part the bikes were parked and people walked around during the event....  There was no endless driving up and down the main streets thru town like the Daytona or Sturgis events..  There were no big bars or drunken folks..  The evening events were dry...

On Thursday evening they had a bike light show...  It was after dark and folks did parade thru the pre arranged course with all their bikes lit up...   This is a big deal to some of there folks as they cover their bikes is lights.....  And now that we have LEDs, the bikes are covered in all colors on every inch..  These are hot sales items inside the commercial area....

I include this picture as it was taken in the commercial area of the show...  This is a new modern Indian motorcycle that has been triked by Roadsmith...  It seems we were so busy talking to everyone and looking at all the neat stuff that we didn't bother taking many pictures inside....  The pictures were taken by my friend Al with his Iphone...

The format of the commercial area is half for people that actually work on your bike and the other half of the floor is for vendors that sell smaller stuff or just display their trailers and stuff...  There are quite a few fair like vendors hawking pots and pans and massage chairs too...   Jewelry and T shirts and the ever proverbial wonder cleaner guys........

If you purchased something to be installed on your bike, you could bring it in for the vendor to work on....  This is controlled with armed guards... Well strong arm anyway..   Our ride leader from the Arizona club is one of the guards that polices this...  I found him outside behind the building with a walkie talkie..  Lining people up in the sun to wait their turn.

You buy your accessory, and get a pass with a specific time on it...  Then you go thru a gate with a guard house and show your pass about 15 minutes before your time...  Then you wait in the dreaded line up behind the building...  They call your vendor to see when he is ready...  Then when its time, your are admitted to the show floor at walking speed as you make you way thru the people in the aisles...  Everyone in the show knows how this works so they make way for the guys on bikes going to a specific booth...  Many of the booths are pen stripers so don't touch the paint is another common thing to be heard...

I wondered how this procedure would work, but it seemed orderly and to my knowledge no one was hit or hurt....  

This is getting too long so more tomorrow...

Retired Rod

Road Trip (Wing Ding)

A lot of folks were out and about for the Labor Day weekend....   I'm sure campgrounds were jamb packed...  But my motorhome sat at home...   Forlorn...  And no I didn't go to the lake of the Ozarks either...  Although the kids and grand kids did...

I am a member of the Goldwing Road Riders Assn and they have an annual convention, they call Wing Ding...  It was moved to Labor Day this year from the fourth of July...  So I convinced Al to go with me to Huntsville, Alabama...  Its 675 miles from us here in KC.....   Road Trip....!

We left here on Tuesday before the big weekend...  It was really early in the morning, before daylight, so we watched the sun come up as we were riding on the Missouri side of our state line here South of KC.  By mid morning we were gassing up in Springfield, Mo.

As the day progressed we were in Mountain Grove on highway 60 at a McDonalds for lunch.  But only rested and got coffee..  Onward as it became afternoon we arrived in West Plains, Mo in the South Eastern part of Missouri...  There we stopped at a Wendy's (of course) and did get lunch...

It was starting to get hotter, as it was now above 90 in the afternoon sun...  Next it was the twisties of the Northern Arkansas, Eastern Ozarks... We were still pumped up because it was our first day out so we raced thru the Arkansas Hills....  Al lot of it is 30 and 40 mph corners, but we didn't slow up much from the speed limit and traffic didn't cause much trouble either..

By about 4 PM we stopped at a Super 8 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, that I had made a reservation for on Hotels.com...  Place was a dump...  We had ridden 378 miles...   The first room didn't have a working air conditioner, and we really needed that after the hot ride...  But the second room was on the North side of the building and did have a better AC...  We had a nice evening meal in a family restaurant next door and crashed for the night...

Wednesday....    We were off after a quick breakfast in the hotel's breakfast room at about 8:30 AM and rode straight for Memphis...  The road becomes 4 lane interstate once 63 merges with I 55 North of Memphis and we rode right thru the town on the perimeter bypass highways...  I 55 is jammed with traffic mostly trucks, so we were glad to have Memphis in our rear view mirrors...

The rest of the day we rode across Mississippi and Alabama... The traffic was fairly light and tolerable,  That is until we arrived at Decatur, Alabama...  There we ran into a traffic jam...   You cross the Tennessee river there, and it was solid construction zone on the South side of the bridge..  Traffic was at a standstill...   We had to take off our riding jackets because of the heat from the stopped vehicles..  It took about 45 minutes to get about 2 miles to and over the bridge...  Enduring  riding a motorcycle in the summer requires you to keep moving to allow the wind to cool you off, so getting trapped like that isn't fun...

Once in Huntsville, we found our way across town and back out a small highway to the South where I had reservations in a Hampton Inn... It was in a valley between two of the mountain ridges.  Everything was lush green and it was much cooler up in the mountains above town.. It was as nice, and the previous nights room was bad...  Think warm chocolate chip cookies on check in!   We made an additional 300 miles on Wednesday....

More in the next post....

Retired Rod