Two Days in One!!

May 5, 2006

Happy Cinco De Mayo!!

For an extra special gift, I will condense two days into one. The first day was not much of a trip, it was my Wednesday, May 4th trek to work. Nothing special on the way in, nothing too special at work, either.

On the way home, I took my usual route, and was headed along New York Street. If you hadn't read before, I like this street because it is one way going east, and if I see west bound traffic, I know we have a problem. While driving along, and young man, probably about 22, pulls up along side me on one of those scooter things. I though the police had busted down on those, but I guess they gave up? Anyway, he had a funny looking grin on his face, like he was out racing me or something. When we got to Emerson, we both stopped at the light, and we were side by side. It was nearly 80 degrees, and I had the shield on my helmet tipped up, to enjoy the cool air. I revved the throttle a little. He turned to look over, still grinning.
"Hey, you want to race?" I asked. Okay, I was joking, I would never race, or break any traffic law, no matter how much fun it might be.
"What size engine does that thing have? He replied.
"One that is about 36 times the size of yours," I answered. Lets see, most of those scooters are 49 cc's, I am sitting on top of 1800 cc's, yeah, that seems right, about 36 times. I know I have 97 horsepower, as the bike is stock, I am guessing that the scooter sits about 3 or 4 hp. I have him there. Of course, I don't think the scooter weighs in at 750 pounds.
Either way, he wasn't going to be able to race with his jaw on the ground. The light turned green, and I eased into the throttle as I eased out the clutch. I sped up heading toward one of my favorite turns. A guy on another motorcycle was waiting to pull into traffic, and I had jack rabbited enough that he could pull in behind me. The distance behind grew larger. I drug my floorboard pretty much through the entire left hand corner.
Not sure what happened to the scooter, but the other bike trailed behind me until Arlington. I snaked along Pleasant Run Parkway some more, and then on to home, passing another kickball game. The women and children seemed very afraid of the big chrome pipe!

Thursday Morning I took off for work once again. I had box strapped to the bike that contained the old GPS that I had sold on ebay. I was going to have to make a run to the post office to get it shipped off to its new home in Canada. Nothing surprising happened on the trip.

Nothing really much happened on the trip to the post office either. I was able to see quite a bit of progress on the new Lucas Oil Stadium. It is amazing how fast a building can start to go up. I also got to see how Mount Indy was doing. Apparently, they had to remove more soil than they thought, and they are backed up in getting it off site. So, at the south end, is large pile of dirt. Has to be the tallest point in Indy right now!

So after work, I hop on the bike, and west to McGilvery's in Speedway. Speedway is a little town that is part of Indianapolis. I guess they are allowed to stay kind of separate because they have some big event there two or three times a year?

I am being sarcastic, and I did pass the famed oval on my way to the monthly meeting of the Indianapolis Cruiser Club. I drove by first, as I was headed to a gas station to fuel up, so I wouldn't have to do it later that night, or in the morning before I headed to work. When I first went by, there were no bikes parked in the lot, but when I returned, I could see Reed's Valkyrie parked along the patio area. I pulled in, around back, made a u-turn and headed back out to the side of the patio. I backed my bike in against the patio fence.

It wasn't long before more people started pouring in. First was Mike and Cindy, then my father, brother, and Duncan - driving his car. Another rider to show up was Ed. I hadn't seen or heard anything out of Ed since last fall, and I thought he had fallenout of the group, but he was back. I like Ed for two major reasons, first, he seems like a really great guy, and I could see us gong on a trip together sometime, and second, he lives on the eastside, so it give me a partner to ride home with aftet the meetings. Easyrider Jim was in Cario, Egypt, and Shooter Jim was in PA saving his company some money. My brother had hobbled in with the use of a cane.

Since we didin't have too many of the riders of the group, and the ones that were there seemed damaged, we didn't talk too much about upcoming rides. I spoke about my Soup Run that I will doing again this year, for more info, click here.

Ed and I rode home most of the way together. He is a little further out east then am I, so I parted his company at 465, while he contined on I-70. It was late, about 9, when I got home.

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