Day 10 - 3/14/14 Emporia, VA to Home

Temp is 23 at just past 8 AM departure. Suns out. Heres a pic of the bikes prior to leaving the hotel.

As we start our bikes to leave the hotel I feel simething on my left floorboard. My brand new heel shifter fell off again! I throw it in the tourpak and Harley will deal with it. I think it needs the shaft into the tranny replaced. Thats what extended warantees are for! We gas up and head up 95. For some reason my XM radio says I need to update radio. Of course I have the traffic & weather options that don't work either. Couldn't figure out what was happening. About 10 miles up Mark says to pull over as he thinks he forgot to plug in his pants & socks. Sure enough he plugs them in and warth returns. We stop for gas just prior to Washington and have coffee. Temps are about 30 but the sun is gone. We get north of Washington on 395 and we hit a backup due to an accident. We lose about 1\2 hr in stop-n-go traffic. We stop for lunch a little after 2 on the Jersey pike about 120 miles from the GW bridge. We leave aboyt 2:40 knowing we're probably dead into Friday rush hour! We need to chose GW or Tappan Zee and my XM is dead so we use 880am and hear the GW, Cross Bronx & 95 into CT are ugly so we go Tappan Zee. My gps was set GW and when it recalculated it was 66 miles longer! I later found out it was taking me up 87 instead of 287 so it should of been about 38 miles longer. Amazing traffic is heavy but moving well. We get over the Tappan Zee and go for the Merritt as the radio says 95 North up to exit 14 is bad. About 5 miles into CT the Merritt is backed up. We spent the next hour maybe going 10 miles and pull into a rest/gas area. We gas up and decide to have a coffee and hang out as traffic is going no where fast. Mark needs about 5 more miles to get to route 8 exit. We check things out on our phone and see that Tom & I can take an exit a couple hundred yards up the has a side road that will take us across to 95 in Stratford. A little after 7 the traffic is finally starting to move so we say our good byes and take off. Mark up the Merritt, Tom & I cut to 95. 95 traffic was heavy but moving along. Tom broke off at exit 73 and I continued on and got home at 8:45! It was a long 613 mile day. The overall trip was 3597 miles. All the bikes ran fairly well with no major issues.

Day 9. - 3/13/14 Cocoa to Emporia, VA

AOB was supposed to be 7 but we were a liitle late. We ssid our good bye's and got gassed up and were on the road at 7:30. The TV weather told us that yesterdays rain front still had to finish coming through so even though is was sunny the winds were blowing between 20 -30 mph. The temp in Cocoa was about 55 when we left but kept dropping quick all day. We all started with chaps but only Tom had his electric liner on but not plugged in. About 20 miles up the road I call out over the CB to pull over as I want yo put on my liner. Both Mark and I add a layer But Mark put on a fleece not his Gerbing and we continue. The wind is in our face and at the first gas stop we knew it would be a long day. We had only gone 130 miles and Toms bike was nearly empty.  Tom had only got 28 mpg and Mark & I, 34 mpg. Over coffee/tea we figure we'll lower our crusing speed to 72ish from 78ish to see if we get better mileage and also decide to get a couple of Edible Arrangements delivered to IZ & Pete and Brooke & Joe as a Thank you. This proved to be more difficult than it should as Mark was on the phone for at least a half hour to accomplish it. So between coffee, getting on more gear to plug in and ordering the baskets our stop is over 45 minutes. By now the temp is barely 40 but the sun is out. We start grinding the miles.  At one point we get passed by the biggest livestock trailer Ive ever seen. We all comment about how much this truck bliws us around as he's moving at a good clip and the rig is long, tall and very low to the ground so he creates a hugr wind vortex. We don't stop fo0r lunch til after 3 and were back on the road about 3:45. We have a discussion about whether we're going to make this the last tank or go one more. Mark & I are definite one more and Tom says fine. We pick our speed back up a bit. Temps now in the low 30's and we've been dialing the heat up all day. We pull out of the last gas stop a little before 6 and I had put on my helmet liner and advised Mark & Tom to do likewise. I say lets ride til 7:30 as I'm hoping to get into Virgina. The grind & cold is wearing on Tom so I take the lead. We also decide that we don't care about mileage and set the cruise at 80. We pull into Emporia, VA at 7:30 pm after a 700 mile day all pretty beat. Tom is pretty chilled and it takes a while for him to stop swaying and shivering! His shot of JD with a coffee at dinner is what got him back to normal!!!!) It doesnt take us long to settle in and go to sleep. Tomorrow we should make it home.

Day 8 - 3/12/14 Rest & Hang out day

Today is a down day. It's raining in the AM and continues off and on til mid aftetnoon. I did some laundry. We check the bikes as Tom had the same issue of the bike shutting down again yesterday and he found what he suspects is the problem of a faulty 3 wire connector that wasn't making good contact. He mentioned he had played with this back in October once when the bike wouldn't start. I put on a new front fender skirt that I've torn up with hitting the orange cones during practice over the last couple years.  We went to lunch in Cocoa Beach at a place called Mad Jacks that Pete said has the best Brisket sandwich ever. He was right! After lunch we go just down the street to the original location of Ron Jon Surf shop to check it out.

On the way home we rode in Joe's different kind of open top.

When got back Joe had Mark & I take a test ride on his 2014 Ultra Limited. All we can say is WOW! The differences betwwen our 07/08 Ultras is like our bikes compared to Old Red it's that remarkable and the water cooled upgrade is not the most noticeable which is really great not to deal with the roasting leg syndrome. In my opinion the new vented fairing is remarkable. You no longer are buffeted with any wind in your face. Absolutely none! To me this makes a huge difference on long trips to be less tiring. Good thing we didn't take the test ride at the dealer the other day.

As you can see Tom is ready to go home!!!

The weather for the trip home is looking good to hopefully make it back in 2 days but we have an extra day if something comes up. AOB tomorrow morning is 7 am.

Day 7 - 3/11/14 Visit Daytona Bike Week

We head out for Daytona about 9:30 am. It's about an hour north of Joe & Petes. We split into 2 groups as Pete wants to get a trailer hitch on his Valkeryie, so Pete, Tom & IZ go one way and Joe, Nick, Mark & I go together. We go straight to Rossmeyers Daytona Harley that is next door to JP Cycles and lots of vendors set up around them.

We walk around for a while and get lunch at Houligans. After lunch we check out more vendors & JP cycles. As Mark & I have never been to Daytona we want to ride down Main St. to see and be part of the show. In actuality Main St. was anticlimactic in that it was maybe only about 1/2 mile long and not a lot happening. I guess if you go on Friday or Sat. Night it's probably rocking. According to Joe & Nick its a very slow year as the crowds are not big. Probably a sign of the current economic climate. Rossmeyer who has previously been a top selling dealer, had another location in Fort Lauderdale they closed and combined it with Daytona.





It would be fun to get to Main St. early enough to get a parking space and just hang out at one the restaurants/bars and watch the show go by for a while but you'd probably have to get there by 6 am  and that isn't going to happen. Daytona is pretty much like every other rally you've been to with
vendors, t-shirts, etc. but for us New Englanders it gives you a chance to ride in the nice weather when we don't have it. We head back to Cocoa and Brooke & Joe (mostly Brooke!) have prepared another magnificent dinner for the 10 of us again. I can't say Thank you enough to the hospitality shown to us by IZ, Pete, Brooke & Joe. We keep telling them we're not leaving if they keep this up! Tomorrow is supposed to have some rain showers and will be a day to recharge & pack up as we head North Thurs, AM.

Day 6 - 3/10/14 R&R day

We slept in today. Had a leisurely breakfast and than hung out on the sun porch. About noon we head over to Pete's. We take a ride to Melbourne and have lunch on the Indian River at a place called Grilles.

 After lunch we head back to Space Coast Harley to get my heel shifter and Mark needs to get a new headset cable. I get my parts but they are out of the headsets. This is a huge dealer and is currently the #1 dealer in sales. They have an aggressive sales team and supposedly pricing.  Mark & I had been looking at Ultra Limiteds yesterday afternoon when the parts & service were closed and had been approached by a salesman who "would run some numbers" for us. We told him that there's 7 of us together on the way back from Key West and we had to come back tomorrow anyway to get some parts. He gave us his card and said come see me. Joe & his friend Nick had each recently bought new Ultra Limiteds from this dealer and used the same salesman but a different guy than we talked to the day before. Joe introduces us to his guy and then the other guy comes over. Mark & I tell him we don't need a dog & pony show all we want to know is our existing bikes and how much for a new
Limited out the door. They tell us they have a process and it takes between 45 - 90 minutes to do a quote and work up a trade in value. So we tell them we'll do an hour. Each salesman took one of us and had us pick a color and tell us we'll be riding our new bikes home today. They need our license & reg. then they start with what do you think your bikes worth? I say just tell me "my bike & how much" is all I want to know. I'm not interested in playing games. We'll after nearly 2 hours Mark & I leave with our existing bikes. They had aggressive pricing on the bike but the trade value was low and kept getting higher to try an sweeten the deal. They also have a huge processing/document fee of over $1500 that they use to sweeten the deal by duscounting it. In the end Mark & I had got about an identical deal with his bike a year newer but around 25k more miles. Probably the best thing we did was not take the test ride as Joe & Nick told us you'll buy it if you ride it. We'll take a test ride on Joe's bike tomorrow. After the dealer we head back to IZ & Pete's who are making a BBQ for dinner. Of course this part of the trip gives us a Tom adventure/misadventure story. We are about 4 miles from Pete & Joe's exit and my gas light comes on. Mark & I had been doing better than Tom on gas consumption at the higher speeds so I ask Tom about stopping fir gas as we get off as thete is a gas ststion right off the exit as you go to Petes. Tom answers back that we'll get gas in the am on the way to Daytona. We pull up to Petes complex and Pete has to open the gate to let us go through. You can go left or right after the gate to Petes so everyone except Tom goes right. The two roads come together a little ways down but Tom's not there and as we look back down the road we see Tom is pulled over on the side. Mark & I go over and assume he's out of gas. He trys to start the bike and no luck. He statts to push it Petes and I go to Petes to get a gas can. As I'm pulling out to bring the can Tom rides in as he got it started again. I follow him to the gas station and the bike only takes 4.2 gallons. So now we are unsure why the bike shutdow. Tom thinks maybe the ignition module got hot but not conclusive.
We also after nearly 6 years finally got to see some of the video Pete took from our Alaska trip especially the "off-road" episode! We had a good time reminiscing about Alaska and sharing some stories with our new riding friends Dick & Nick as well as Dicks wife Bernadette and Joes new special partner Brooke. Tomorrow we're going to Daytona.

3/9/14 Day 5 Key West to Cocoa

AOB was 8 am to go get the attached official pic with the club flag at the Southernmost buoy.

After the pucture we gassed up and started heading north. Friends of mine work at a campground on Sugarloaf  about 16 miles north of Key West and they had made breakfast reservations at a place called Mangrove Mamas for all of us. We met at 10 and ate at a leisurely pace. About 11:45 we left headed back to Cocoa. Just before we left Pete who now rides a Honda Valkeryie had to show Tom & I how smooth his bike runs compared to a Harley. See the attached video to be amazed.

By now the sun has warmed things up and its beautiful riding weather so sunscreen was needed. Going north we were pretty much able to maintain the speed limit as traffic kept moving and we were ahead of the mass exodus that probably occurs Sunday afternoon. I forgot to mention that after lunch on Friday when we left the restaurant for the last few miles to Pete's that when he put my heel down to shift into 2nd that my heel shifter was missing. I had noticed it was loose just before lunch but it obviously fell off just before lunch somewhere on 95! This happened once before but I was able to find it when I went back. The vibration wears a flat spot on the bolt enough to allow the shifter to slide off the shaft. So on the way back from Key West we planned to stop at Space Coast Harley in Melbourne which happens to be the top selling dealer in the country. The pic is they're showroom.

 We got there about 5:40 and parts & service were closed but sales were going strong. We hung out for a short while admiring the new bikes except for Tom who doesn't believe in bikes that aren't simple that he can work on. Mark & I have noticed that he likes the cruise control and we have averaged 75 mph plus. "Old Red" couldn't do those things!!! We opted to come back tomorrow to get
my parts and Mark's headset cable needs replacement. We leave for the last 30 miles back to Cocoa
and stop for dinner on the way back. We get to Pete & Joe's about 9:30. It about a 375 mile day and I'm over 2000k for the trip. Tomorrow will be a rest day. We're keeping and eye on the weather at home as we hear there may be a storm brewing!

3/8/14 Day 4 Cocoa to Key West

AOB was 8 AM at IZ & Pete's. Mark & I had stayed at Joe's house while Tom was at Pete's. There are 7 of us going as Joe & Pete's neighbors Nick & Dick are coming along. We pull out a touch after 8 am. The temp is 59 and part sun so no one needs heat but we have chaps on for the start. We head south on 95 about 60 or 70 miles to Ft. Pierce and get on the FL Turnpike. FL has there own SunPass as EZ-Pass is not accepted but supposedly FL uses plate recognition and mails you a bill and only charges you an extra 8 cents! So only Joe has the SunPass and the rest of us go through the SunPass lanes as well instead of getting a ticket and expect to be billed. At the gas stop a few of us comment that we had noticed signs around the Sunpass lanes saying there is a $100 penalty for illegal use and discussion ensues about our understanding of how it works. We proceed with the understanding that you get a bill in the mail for the toll plus 8 cents. We get back on the road and notice that most exits are SunPass only so we feel better that our ASSumption is correct. We go further down the road and we find the road divides and has 2 choices, SunPass or standard toll booth but no exit! We go through the SunPass lanes and again we see the large $100 penalty signs! When we get to the next similar toll all of us but Joe go to the pay lanes. We then get on the Turnpike extension and the signs now specifically say that this part uses plate recognition for an extra 8 cents or you can stop and pay. I think most of us will get a bill for the toll cost on the previous section, maybe for the entire length of the Turnpike plus a $100! I had my EZPass with me and I'll plead ignorance saying I thought it was acceptable!!!!!!! I don't understand why in this day and age it's not one system. We stop again about 11:30 and decide to grab a quick lunch. By this time the chaps & heavy jackets are off as the weather is sunny and 70's. We come to the end of the turnpike and the road is packed with traffic moving at a snails pace trying to merge into 1 lane. This continues for a while with an occasional turn lane to mess things up. A woman coming out of a side road trying to cut into traffic mentions to us that there's a parallel local road to avoid the traffic so we decide we have nothing to lose and try it out. Sure enough we are moving along and can occasionally see the backed up traffic on the main road at the connecting side streets. We probably leap frog 3-4 miles before we have to get back on the main road. After that merge the traffic finally keeps moving but we've lost nearly 1-1/2 hrs! We still have about 100 miles to go. The road through the Keys is generally one lane each direction except through some of the bigger Islands where it's developed you'll have 2 lanes but more congestion. There are numerous bridges obviously and one that's 7 miles long. We get to our hotel about 5:30 and have happy hour around the pool.

After happy hour we start what the locals call the Duvall Crawl! Duvall is the main Key West street with tons of bars, restaurants & sovenier shops. It happens to be spring break time as well. Surprisingly for a Sat. night its not that busy. Its crowded but not jammed. Most bars & restaurants have imediate seating except for The Hogs Breath which had a half hour wait. We're trying to get to Mallory docks for the sunset where they have free street acts that are performing with the sunset as the backdrop!! Unfortunately we spent to much time at Happy hour and by the time we got to the docks things were wrapping up. We walked some more and ended of having dinner on a pier. After dinner we crawled Duvall some more and Dick says we should go see the Drag Queen show!! So
everyone except Tom goes to the show as he decides to go back to the hotel. As we all know Tom just wants to ride to the destination turn around and go back! The rest of us like to smell the roses along
the way!!! After the show we crawl Duvall some more, stop for ice cream and then turn in for the night.

3/7/14 Day 3 Savannah to Cocoa, FL

Yesterday's rains have blown through but from the radar map it shows not by much as it's still raining in the Carolinas. Weather this am is 40 cloudy & windy. With the wind chill its 33. Better than the 4 degrees at home! We have breakfast in the hotel again and were taking our time as we have less than 300 miles to get to IZ & Petes. Packing took a while

longer as we had all our wet stuff laid out all over the room and Mark had engineered the hair dryer to be a clothes dryer! We left the hotel at 8:45 and jumped back on 95. The roads are still damp and traffic is throwing a mist. The temps didn't come up until we got to Daytona and it was only about low 50's. We only needed 1 gas stop today in Jacksonville, FL. As we're not pressed for time today we include a coffee break. We also stop for lunch in Daytona and arrive in Cocoa a little before 3 pm after an easy 290 miles. Surprisingly we only saw a handful of bikes (Maybe 10) heading into Daytona but dozens of trailers. Cocoa which is about 60 miles south of Daytona was up around 68 & sunny. Nice to finally have some warmer temps. Key West bound tomorrow! ! Today's pic is our afternoon happy hour at IZ & Petes.

3/614 Day 2 Wilson, SC to Savannah, GA

Had breakfast in the hotel and loaded the bikes and left about 8 AM. The temp was about 30 and the sun was out. The forecast showed we'd be driving into rain so we all put our rain pants on prior to departure. We gassed up and got on the road about 8:15. Our goal was Cocoa, FL and per the GPS about 616 miles. We had about about 120 miles to the SC border and the ride to the first gas stop in Florence, SC was smooth but the sun quickly disappeared and clouds took over. We grabbed coffee with the gas stop to warm up bit and checked the weather radar and saw rain was close by. We put the balance of our rain gear on and headed out. About 10 miles later the rains came and got heavier & heavier as we  went south. Heated gear is nice but wet soaked heated gloves don't provide any heat. My hands were numb by the time we stopped for gas again just north of the Georgia border. The temp was barely above freezing and I thought we had hit a patch of sleet. We decided to have lunch and felt we should just be safe and finish the ride tomorrow. We met a trucker at the restaurant from the area and he recommended we go a few exits south into Georgia and get off near the Savannah airport and there would be a good selection of hotels and places to eat so we suited up and went about another15 miles to a hotel. We pulled in at 3:30 and called it a day. Only about 320 miles but more then half was in a bitter cold rain.We saw 1 group of 3 other bikes riding today and that has been it. We did see dozens of trailered bikes heading down. They were probably laughing at us but they got it backwards!!!!!

3/5/14 Day 1 Griswold, CT to Wilson, NC

I left my house a little after 8am to meet Tom at Flanders McDonald's for 9.  I pull in about 8:50 and Tom comes out with Dan Dunn who came to see us off. We leave right at 9. As planned I met Tom in the McDonalds East Lyme parking lot about 8:50. The temp was around the mid 20's  when we took off. We had called Mark just prior to leaving so he could leave his house in Prospect and meet us at the rest area on 95S just past Route 8 near Bridgeport. We figured about 1 hour to meet Mark and as we came upon the rest area we saw it was closed for construction with a sign that the next one is in 14 miles so we continued on. A few minutes later Tom says I think I see Mark is a few cars ahead as there is another motorcycle and chances are it could only be Mark. Sure enough it's Mark and we catch him and he falls in and we continue on our way. We debated wether to go either the Tappan Zee or GW bridge which I prefer as it's faster & shorter but can be trouble getting across the cross Bronx Expressway which generally has traffic issues. We listen to the traffic channel and it didn't sound like any major problems so we chose the GW. It turned out to be pretty good with only about an overall 5 minute delay for a short period of heavy traffic. One of the added things to watch out for this time of year and especially this harsh winter is potholes. Some can be big enough to swallow your bike! Surprisingly we didn't encounter any huge ones but they were quite a few smaller ones to be aware of although on one section of the Cross Bronx the seam between lanes was consistently about 6" wide & 6" deep. We all have EZ-pass so that made it nice once on Jersey Pike. We stopped at the second rest area on the Jersey Pike for our 1st gas around 11ish. This is where we saw our 1st and only other biker riding. We did see several trailered bikes. We decide to eat a small lunch now quickly and get back on the road quickly to try and get through Washington before rush hour. So off we go. Fortunately Tom took the Queen instead of Old Red and we were cruising 75+. We got into and through Washington about 3:30 but once on the south side heading into Virginia we got jammed up for over an hour in a bumper to bumper mess. I could never understand why one minute your standing still part of the time, then you'll go up to normal speed for a 1/2 mile, then slow down or stop then go a steady 20, then something else, then repeat!!! I took a civil engineering course in traffic back in college to try an understand the cause of traffic and there is no understanding it!!!!!! After we finally get moving again we had our
2nd gas stop in Virginia. We take back off and Mark realizes he didn't clip his helmet. He tells Tom & I to continue slow and he'll pull over and catch up. We continue on in the right lane about 50 and in a few minutes Mark radios for us to get over to the left lane as he coming up. We get back in line in the left lane and all of a sudden we see a giant dust storm from the other side of the highway just in front of us as from a crash on the other a mini van comes crashing into the Jersey barrier and comes partially over spraying debris and car parts into our lane. Fortunately it was over before we realized what happened and the stuff in our lane was not any bigger than someone fist. If we were 5 seconds earlier we would of been in the debris spray!! After this excitement we keep heading south down I-95. We pull in for our 3rd gas stop about 5:30. As we gas up we feel it getting colder as the sun is going down. Our goal is Wilson, SC and we call ahead an book a hotel room. We head out for the last 150ish miles and after 50 miles we're all getting whipped from the cold & wind we've been battling all day and that last 100 miles seemed to never end. We pulled in to the hotel about 8:20 for a 12 hour saddle day and about 650 miles. We had a quick dinner at the Cracker Barrel next door and crashed for the night.  More to come!

Initiate Launch Sequence

Good Morning Folks,
At the last minute I decided (thanks for the push Sue D.) to do another blog for our Daytona/Key West trip. We will stop and visit The Lodi brothers & IZ in Cocoa and hit opening day of Daytona Bike week. Then we head to Key West for the weekend with Pete, Joe and maybe 2 of their friends. Also going to visit some friends that manage a campground in the Keys. Then we head up the west coast to visit my brother/sister in law and stop for a meeting in the Port Charlotte chapter with Craig. Then we head back north possibly hitting the Tail of the Dragon on the way to be home on the 15th. We are a day late leaving due to the road conditions expected yesterday in the mid Atlantic area (they got up to 10" of snow) as well as the bitter cold yesterday AM but Mark, Tom & I are departing in a couple hours. I was disappointed about delaying a day and pushed to go yesterday but as it turned out I now concede it was the right thing to do. Tom & I will meet at 9 in Flanders and pick up Mark around 10 at the rest area on 95 south of Route 8 around Bridgeport. At least this AM it's a balmy 22 at my house vs, yesterdays 1!!!! There's an unconfirmed rumor that Tom & Marks cousin Tony may be joining us but no hard confirmation as of last night. If he comes I believe we'll meet him along the Jersey pike some where as he is from upstate NY. Todays goal is to get around Wilson. NC about 600 miles but we'll have to see what the road brings us! I'm also going to miss my Gerbing heated pants that seemed to have disappeared in our house move this summer. Chaps & long johns for me today. Until the next post Ride Safe!