Well day 1 is in the book. Today's goal was just to put some miles on and get to Youngstown near Cleveland for tomorrow's trip to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.Left my house at 5:30 am to meet the rest of the crew at 6:30 at exit 9 on route 9 in Higginum, CT. I was early so I grabbed a coffee at the DD by the bridge over the CT river near the Goodspeed Opera house. I stll got to the meeting spot first as I was 15 minuteearly. About 2 minutes later Mike & Annie showed up. Steve/Sue/Smurph showed promptly at 6:30. We headed out to meet Mark (Mark did the Alaska trip with me) in Prospect off of exit 26 on route 84and arrived at 7 am. Today's pic is were we met Mark and shows everyone except Smurph who took the pic. After a few minutes of BSing we took off. Our planed route was 84 west to Scranton then 81 south to 80 west to Youngstown. Steve was our leader, setting a brisk pace, and I rode sweep. We have decided to burn a tank of fuel before we eat breakfast most days so we ended up at the NY/PA border for our stop a little before 9. Things were pretty uneventful through lunch with the exception of the split coming into Scranton PA where 380/84 merge. A van with a bunch of ladders on top pulling an enclosed trailer started drifting into our lane where Sue was riding. She alertly moved left as the driver realized what he was doing and fortunately he got back to his lane but provided for a tense moment. We chose our lunch stop so that we could make Youngstown without having to gas again and left ourselves about 190 miles to get there. We had stayed dry through lunch. The weather radar had been showing that we had been fortunate to have been just south of the rain all day and we left after lunch in the bright sun. Well we got about 60 more miles in and it started lightly raining so at the next exit we got off and put our rain gear on. For about the last 100 plus miles we had some pretty good rain making it tough to see. Basically we were following the tail lights of the bike in front of you and Steve was trying to see the pavement markings and hopefully any vehicles. All of a sudden Steve comes over the CB and yells accident! Fortunately we had spaced ourselves out more due to the conditions. As best we could figure was that a pickup truck in front of us lost a bicycle from his truck and the car behind him, in attempting to miss the bike spun out and went off the left side of the highway throwing mud back on the road. What was left of the bicycle was in our lane and we had to maneuver around it. Fortunately we all reacted quick enough to get through with no issues other than a little elevated heart rate!!! We arrived at the hotel about 4:30. After unloading and getting dried off we had our own little happy hour to celebrate a successful first day and unwind before going to dinner. Today was a 540 mile day with about 130 in the rain, 3 gas stops enroute. At lunch Smurph had a concern that his rear brake pedal had a lot of travel but could get a pedal if he pumped it. When we got to the hotel and checked in he asked if there was a Harley dealer nearby. Turns out it was just down the street in site of the hotel. He shot over there just before 5 pm as they were closing and explained his issue that he was from CT on his way to Sturgis. They took him in and a couple of mechanics jumped right on it. They found a pinhole in the brake line, replaced and bled the system and had him all set in about 45 minutes. Turns out they didn't have a new line and gave him a take off from another bike. When he asked how much he owed them they told him no charge! When he offered the mechanic a tip he said no thanks but told Smurph it was the junior mechanic's birthday and he'd be happy to get something. Nice to know they helped him out instead of telling to come back on Monday. Had dinner next door to the hotel at a place called Quaker Steak & Lube. It's owned by Quaker State motor oil and was pretty good. A lube is a 4' tall x 4" round dispenser that they fill with your favorite beverage! Time to get some rest!
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