A Little Nippy!

I woke up this morning to 31 degrees and wondered if it would be too cold to ride today.  Luckily, it warmed up nicely by 10:00AM and so off I rode to the Outpost Restaurant.  After we ate lunch at The Outpost, seven of us rode off west and north to Converse where Charley split off and went home.  Six of us rode over west to U.S. 31 where two more split off and rode home (had a meeting to attend) .  We are down to four riders, but we rode on anyway! :)

Merle took us over to Monticello, Indiana and we rode north past Indiana Beach:

 Not very busy this time of year. It opens the first day in May, this Saturday.  Here's a link:

http://www.indianabeach.com/


Looking at Lake Shafer from the bridge that crosses it up north

We left Lake Shafer and rode up north to Buffalo, Indiana.  East on Ind. 16 back to U.S. 31 and south to home.

I saw this field of Canola just west of Converse and we stopped to take a picture.  It sure is a pretty sight:

A link to Canola: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola

A track of our ride:

(Click map to make larger)

I got home about 5:00 PM and rode 187 miles.  Nice day and it warmed up to 63 degrees for most of the ride.

A special thanks to Merle for leading us.

Dinner Bell

We rode over to Burlington, Indiana for lunch this Wednesday.  Nine of us rode over and eight of us rode on down toward Indianapolis.  The "famous" Dinner Bell Restaurant at Burlington:

Old men getting off our motorcycles:

 

Inside The Dinner Bell:

 

We rode south on Indiana 29 until it turned into US 421 and then on south to 71st Street in Indianapolis.

By this time, traffic was getting heavy, so our intrepid leader, Merle, turned west to get us out of the traffic.  I breathed a sigh of relief as the traffic in Indianapolis is hard to deal with when you try to get eight motorcycles together through all the stop lights.  We were separated a few times and had to wait until all the bikes were back together.

We turned north off of 71st St. onto Lafayette Road up to 116th St. and then east to U.S. 421 and then back north to 176th street, back east to U.S. 31, and north to home.

 

Very nice ride with perfect weather.  I rode 193 miles and didn't get tired at all.  In fact, I mowed our yard when I got home.  I hope we have many more days like today!

Warm Weather is Back!

We got very warm riding yesterday.  Eighty two degrees was the maximum temperature.

Ten of us rode down to Richards Restaurant at Elwood for lunch, yesterday.   After lunch, we rode over to Attica, Indiana and ate ice cream at The McDonald's there.  After ice cream we rode along the Wabash River back to West Lafayette.  We rode through the Purdue Campus and over into Lafayette.  After a quick stop for gas it was on home.

 

Stopping for gas in Frankfort, Indiana on the way over to Attica, Indiana.

Max Pitts

Three rode Saturday.  We ate lunch at The Outpost and then rode over to Max Pitts near Peru, In.  Not much at the store anymore.  Just a few used bikes and scooters.  We then rode along the Wabash River from Peru to Wabash and then home.  I was tired from the Friday ride so a short ride, Saturday, was all I wanted.

Boggstown, Indiana

Six of us rode down to Bikes-N-Trikes, Friday,  just northeast of Boggstown, Indiana to see if they could repair Merle's trike reverse problem.

Website is here: http://www.bikes-n-trikes.com/Scripts/default.asp

See Store Here: http://www.tinyurl.com/y37h8wb


We rode over to Interstate 65, where there was a Pilot truck stop/McDonald restaurant, for lunch, while they worked on the trike.  After we got back, and several hours later, they got reverse working.  Since some of the guys needed to be home by six o'clock, three riders went back home and two riders stayed with Merle.  After they got the trike back together, Bill, Merle, and I rode on back home.

I got home at 7:45 PM and rode 211 miles.

Nice ride and I got to see places I'd never been before.  We rode through a wooded place near Boggstown that was like a primeval forest.  I'd never seen anything like that before.

Three houses east of Bikes-N-Trikes is the house Marjorie Main (real name Mary Tomlinson) was born in.
Marjorie played Ma Kettle in the movies.  See Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_and_Pa_Kettle


Nice day and nice weather.  Good to be alive!

Eleven Ate, Five Rode

We had eleven show up for lunch at The Outpost, today, and five of us took a short ride before the rain got too heavy.  We just got sprinkled on.  A few of us are going to ride down to Boggstown, Indiana, Friday, with Merle to get his trike reverse gear situation resolved.  I'll report on that afterward.  Ride safe!

Rain, rain, go away!

I rode to the Saturday meeting in the rain,  The only one to ride, of course.  I don't mind riding in the rain and with the new Dunlop Elite 3 tires I had put on, feel safe.  I had to stop fast, once, and the ABS kicked in on the rear tire and kept me from skiding.  I don't think I'd buy a new bike without ABS--it's that good.

Eight of us showed up for lunch as Charlie Thomas is back from wintering in Florida and was there.  David Payne made an appearance for the first time this year.

An elderly looking gentleman walked over to our table and started talking to Phil Smith.  Turns out his name is George Segal, (same as the movie actor), and had ridden with our group back before I started riding with the group.  Mr. Segal is ninety years old and rode a Honda 150 scooter until he was eighty five.  It's like they say, "You don't stop riding because you get old, you get old because you stop riding."

Return of Warm Weather

Ten of us ate at Chism's Corner (corner of US 35 and IN 13) after meeting at The Outpost.  Nine of us then "rode the reservoirs" including The Mississinewa Reservoir and The Salomone Reservoir.  We stopped for coffee in Huntington at The Country Post Inn.  I rode back to John Nave's house, in Fairmount, so he could help me increase the bend in my riders's backrest post.  My back rest kept pushing me forward.  Mission accomplished!


Today's ride:

(Click to make larger)

I rode 149 miles today.

Pin Striping

I rode up to Bluffton, Tuesday, and had Steve Baller pinstripe my bike.  I rode through dense fog and chilly temperatures (37 degrees F) to get there.  It took him about three hours to do the job:

It turned out nice.