| Author | Message | ||
     Jerry_haughton |
day two, Friday morning, seems as though no one is in jail, not the first pleasant surprise of the weekend. to Arrowhead H-D/Buell, muscle the Reactor out of the Tacoma and get the gear strapped on. finally (for me ‘n D, anyway), we’re going riding. cool dealership, supportive, friendly, pro-Buells. big turnout, varied bikes, mostly Buells. rider’s meeting, laughter, seriousness, laughter, let’s roll, off into the chaos that is the Phoenix suburbs. a while to get to the Good Stuff (Yarnell Pass, right Bart?), me ‘n D riding sweep (more likely HAVING to ride in the back...), until we started to climb, then time to see what the FNBago is made of. whoosh and whine and tuck and roll. sumbitch! first time riding the bike in anger, two-up and loaded no less, so aware of the mandatory learning (and leaning) curves. peg feelers hit often but predictable, rear shock cranked up to hard (not hard enough, but acceptable), brand-new Z6’s taking the abuse with no whimpers, Denise invisible on the back, the bike making the coolest nuke turbine noises, 5th most of the time, 4th on occasion, but gotta watch the cornering angles, those pesky peg feelers warning of the hard parts just beyond their reach. no worries, hold the line through the corner, change it at will, and spool up just on the other side of the apex. come back here, boys. gotcha. soon everyone doesn’t exist anymore, save for M1Combat on point, Carey slot two, me ‘n D number three. the rest of the gang may as well be back in Phoenix (ouch, sorry). good road, shoulda listened better at the rider’s meeting, lots o’ cops along here they said (again) later. if so, didn’t see them, had no time to admire any scenery except the road and the tach. later (the Spars?) made Carey disappear and aimed some energy at M1Combat Don, to no avail. could not get lock ( "Dammit, Jim!" ), had to abandon the mission and return to base, had very little to offer him, and decided a 2nd place trophy at the lunch break would suffice just fine. GREAT roads, Bart, very nicely ridden Don and Carey, thanks for showing the way. Denise, you are the best -- I could NOT sit still on the back and take that kind of abuse. lunch in old-town Prescott (say PRESCott, not presCOTT) at a brewery, but water and ice tea all around -- cool beans. effin’ A, what a ride. anybody got a smoke?  | ||
| Bartimus |
Smile, your on candid camera!  talk about your two fisted beer drinker! | ||
| Bartimus |
Denise? Is that you? I can't see !!!  I'm right here honey! | ||
| Bartimus |
To all you guys laughing at me...  | ||
| Bartimus |
Ferris is under there somewhere!  | ||
| Bartimus |
come on ferris! open them eyes!!!  | ||
| Unibear12r |
Thanks for the reminder on the tunes & temps FerrisSan.  That first bottle of "brain warp" became an empty in record time. Somehow wound up under Ferris's Nuclear Winnebago(which is GREAT to draft behind BTW,that is if you can catch em). Isn't that the infamous Show Low Bubble of Death behind Charley there? Did we or did we not flog some bikes this weekend? My favorite was Saturday morning even though my bike ultimately became the Splooge Machine. The Spars was a great place too. | ||
| Bartimus |
Don and AL, start going over the physics of jumping onto the pool dome...    | ||
| Bartimus |
 that is NOT a blank stare, merely an engineer deeply thinking about how to get on top of that pool dome! | ||
| Bartimus |
deep discussion about goldshlager and keeping your eyes open...  | ||
| Bartimus |
The dynamic duo  | ||
| Unibear12r |
OMG, WHEN DID I SIT ON JERRY'S LAP!!!!! I don't remember that at all. Wow that had to be a hell of a party.  | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
hmmmmm, it would appear that i am a HAPPY drunk... | ||
| Bartimus |
Well, that's the last of the party pics as I chose to go to bed at a reasonable hour, and leave the partying to the hardcore. I did hear the police had to show up not once, but twice to quiet things down. You guys are such Hooligans!!!    | ||
| Wyckedflesh |
You were a very HAPPY drunk oh Sensei YamamotoSAN! (Message edited by wyckedflesh on April 25, 2005) | ||
| Bartimus |
Jerry, you are ALWAYS happy!!! and with good reason, with the Beautiful Denise at your side, and the powerful Winnebago beneath you, what do you have to frown about? | ||
| Reindog |
Actually, all we did was party the entire weekend in hotel rooms. There was no ride. The motorcycle ride was abruptly canceled after Yamamoto-San noticed a small but noticeble smudge on his nuclear reactor caused by his cycle cover and he didn't want to be held responsible for irradiating northeastern Arizona. The few motorcycle pix already posted are Photoshopped and stolen from some back issue of EasyRider magazine. The motorcycle ride was a complete fabrication of someones demented mind. I repeat, it didn't happen, you can't prove a thing, and I'm sticking with my story. However, it WAS a great hallucination and I enjoyed sharing it with all of you. Remind me sometime to tell you the story of the "dinner" that Lighton, M1Combat, and Reindog partook of Saturday night back at the same restaurant that had presented the group with the GDP size bill the night before. | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
somehow we all made it to Show Low Friday night, with no road rash, infractions, citations, or foreclosures. we lost Unibear at least a couple of times (he lost us, actually, along with most everything on his person at one time or another), but the miracle/curse of the cell phone saved the day time and time again. about got took out by a pinhead with an attitude in a truck who tried to scare me (he succeeded), who then didn’t have the balls to back up his action with action. die a slow, miserable death at the hands of a well-hung, psychotic inmate lover, prick. no worries, it’s all good, ABS is good, Carey was on his game and gave us the necessary cushion, and soon our only concern was which state (New Mexico? Nevada?? Maine???) ol’ Wrong-Way Unibear was ultimately going to wind up in. did I mention we made it to Show Low? about dark by now, longgggg day in the saddle, but good. pretty sure we partied that night – Friday was SUCH a long time ago – but the details of the evening are sketchy, save for calling the management and the Show Low Police on the obnoxiously loud bachelorette party upstairs at about 3 a.m. imagine, drunk bikers calling the cops on innocent (albeit drunk) young girls. little did I know we were harshing Kobe’s gig when the cops finally asked the ladies to pack up and leave. (like, dude, next time don’t wait until three in the frikkin' morning to make your move. sheesh, kids these days.) am pretty sure i’m leaving out something; maybe i’ll get a flashback before i’m done and add a postscript or two. oh, yeah, it was the following night that EvAl KnievAl was scheduled to make his spectacular leap across the Great Black Void and onto the Show Low Bubble of Death, but he’ll be the first to admit (when his head stops hurting, that is), that the planning for this momentous event started shortly after checking into his room on Friday evening. will he make it? will M1Combat Don be there to keep him from crashing into the furniture? will Father Glenn talk him down? will Al's long-time confidant (and most trusted personal advisor) Reindog/Forger Tom continue to shout (with Foster's firmly in hand) "Go Al! Go Al! Go Al!" into the wee hours? will Al’s friends simply pick him up like an old Buell shirt and fling him onto the damn thing so he stops obsessing whether or not it can actually be done? Staintuned. | ||
| Bartimus |
ROFLMAO!!! | ||
| Azbueller |
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| Dino |
All good questions, FB. I have another. Did you purposely buy the Aerostich to color coordinate with your hair, or was that just a lucky coincidence? | ||
| Csg_inc |
FB has hair? I must have missed that part. Have you ever seen Gallagers hat thing? Now you know where he got the idea. LOL | ||
| Dino |
Well, Csg, I was trying to be (relatively...for me) tactful. But now that you mention it... | ||
| Jerry_haughton |
Saturday was serious. serious headaches. serious memory loss. serious riding to do. Unibear, believe it or don’t, was actually present and accounted for. great, no need to burn anymore minutes on my calling plan. breakfast was all lies, just like the entire weekend, just like Reindog so eloquently, well, proclamated above. food, fuel, pee, and go. what time is it, Bartimus? time to effin’ ride. sun, clear, a mass of loud motorcycles (well, not counting that reactor thing...), and a Blue Light Special of a ride laid out by the infamous Bad William. lessee, where did we go...ok, I remember, we headed east to Springerville (yes, as a matter of fact, Jay WAS born here), and then more east, into and through Looney (that’s what Bart calls it, anyway), New Mexico. Glenn? Unibear? you here yet? any idea where your wallet is??? oh, almost forgot, back in Alpine was where i mounted Tom, shown in disturbingly graphic detail several pix above. looking at the map i see that we were just about to violate the San Francisco Mountains. coincidence? i think not. south on 180 along the NM/AZ border it was, then, at what I believe were breakneck speeds. can’t remember if we got lit up along here. prolly so; it seemed we couldn’t go an hour without some LEO wanting to show off his fancy-schmancy light bar. however, “Carry on!” they always seemed to say. (must be an incredible amount of work to u-turn and then overhaul a baker’s dozen or so high-perf sport-bikes that just augered by you the other direction at well over a ton-plus.) me, I was innocent. I simply continued to let Bart lead by shining example, figuring that if it worked for him, it’d work for me. so far, so good. group stop, then a right onto 78 for the run to Daryl’s memorial. lots of frivolity in the air, yet we all knew what we were here to see (besides the awesome road), and level heads and recognition of the risks were the order of the morning. say, is riding two-up at 130 or so considered being of “level head”? as long as your bike will do it, it’s prolly okay I guess. EvAl and R/FT launched first, knowing they’d be passed soon enough. the clock on the wall said it was 122 (and climbing) when me ‘n D went by them (with plenty of room to spare, of course), so I snicked the Reactor into 5th gear and set my sights on Carey and Kobe. I rolled by Carey off the boost but still with an impressive rate of closure, and then got the snot pummeled out me by Kobe. well, by the gumballs he’s running on his Aprilia, actually, sticky bizatches that they are, tossing every manner of stick and stone our direction. the worst one I never saw, although it hit my (brand-new) Arai shield right between my eyes. sounded like i’d been shot. rat bastard, fight fair. (upon later inspection the shield is as badly rock-dinged as i’ve even seen.) rat bastard! i gave him some quarter until we got out of the marbles, then glued myself to his can and we proceeded to make 78 our own. not insane, mind you, but certainly engrossing, and i had several opportunities to work on the peg feelers a little more. oh, oh, here we are. wow, my emotions are right on the surface. hi Daryl. you don’t know us yet, but i’m Ferris and this is my friend Denise, and some other folks that you may or will know. would you mind if we hung around and visited for a few minutes? that's very cool bro, thanks. | ||
| Bartimus |
Despite the somber mood of the group as we wheeled into the pullout at Daryl's memorial, we couldn't help but take in the beauty of the spot. A vista, as far as the eye can see is there to greet you. Hwy78 is certainly a road of many contrasts. Triple digits are attained on the far eastern side, while low speeds are needed to negotiate the tight hairpins leading up to the overlook. The western is more of the same, tight twists leading you down ever further into the valley below, slowly opening up into wonderful sweepers that make you giggle with delight as the needle climbs farther and farther, closer to it's limits. Is there no end to this orgasmic ride? OH YEA! But be ready, for HWY191 awaits, and it is not for the faint of heart. | ||
| Bartimus |
Sunday morning, to say the least, was a rough day. besides the many hangovers, there was the cold, wet, rain. But hey! At least the rain stopped when the Hail started!!!  | ||
| Bartimus |
Am I still drunk, or is that a crow duct taped to the top of that van over there?    YOU KNOW YOUR A REDNECK IF:  YOU'VE GOT A CROW DUCT TAPED TO THE TOP OF YOUR VAN!!! | ||
| Bartimus |
Hmmm, that pool Dome still looks enticing, I bet AL could have made it, if there had just been a little more Goldshlager!  | ||
| Bartimus |
Looks like the Winnebago was thirsty Saturday night also! Is that what that thing runs on?  | ||
| Bartimus |
Some folks opted not to ride in the cold rain.  |
