Subject: RE: Centauro meet.....NLFC
Author: Lannis
Date: Apr 11, 2005, 8:04 PM
Post ID: 1718686046
Tim Crump wrote:
Lannis wrote:
Well, then, you're a double masochist cuz you ride British iron, too!!!!! Tim Crump |
Tim -
That's true.
I can tell you, though, I wasn't quite so brash about it on Friday
evening about dusk.
Fay and I took off on Friday afternoon about 4:00 PM, after fooling
around with some new helmet radio-intercoms that we ended up not taking,
and me with a brand-new helmet I'd never worn (a Nolan N100E, and a very
nice one it is, too). The weather was sort of gray but not raining yet,
and we suited up and headed off East. We took mostly two-lane roads and
just sort of bimbled along at 60-65, there was almost no traffic. The
Centauro was pulling about 490 pounds but it does that like it was made
for it (which it was).
As we passed the halfway point, the sky got lower and lower. About 100
miles from our destination, the skies opened up and it just poured. It
was about 6:30 in the evening, about an hour before sunset, but it was
already dark.
The Hampton Roads area (comprising the cities of Norfolk, Suffolk,
Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, and Newport News) has what looks
like several million people and a bunch of big roads. We were soon on
urban interstate highways with huge trucks throwing waterfalls of gritty
spray, I couldn't see the markings on the roads, there was water all
over the inside of my faceshield and on both sides of my glasses, the
driving rain and spray was getting inside our riding suits, a front was
coming through and the wind was blowing about 35 mph�.and THEN I missed
a turn and had to find an exit, stop, and find my way back onto a road I
knew. I fell in behind a Honda Gold Wing that had about 10 lights on
the back and paced him, although he was running way faster than I wanted
to in that weather. I figured that if he hit a muffler or gator in the
road, I'd see his taillights jump and I could move aside.
Finally made it to downtown Portsmouth about 8:00 and found the Bier
Garden, where the others were waiting.......
Beautiful weather the rest of the weekend, but that was a LONG evening's
ride.....
Lannis