North Central Kansas Weekly Ride 9/7/16

[Roadpounder]

Let's try it again this week. We're going in the other direction this time. This time its Russell and Meriday's Restaurant. Judging by their FB page it looks pretty good to me. It maps out to 71 miles from Salina, and weather providing it should be a good ride.

Our weekly summit was a resounding was a resounding success. We cured cancer and resolved the upcoming election. There's still that world peace thing though. We'll tackle that next week. Now for the important news. We will be meeting at Spangle's for the trip to Russell for a 10:00 departure. The weather looks good albeit a little breezy. See you there.


TIME....................11:30

Here it is.............. Meridy's Restaurant & Lounge
1220 S Fossil St
Russell, Kansas 67665
(785) 483-4300

Facebook page........ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Meridys- ... 7017939975

Web Page.............

Map site.............http://bit.ly/1uLkbOc

My new tires finally came so I cranked up all the ambition I could muster to re-shoe my noble steed. I got the rear wheel off and mounted the new tire, double and triple checking that I had the rotation right. I got the tire mounted and balanced and was pleasantly surprised to find that it took about ¼ of the weight to balance it than the last one. Reinstalling the wheel I tightened everything and pumped up the brakes. I went through the bolts and made sure they were all tight, just for peace of mind. The bell finally rang ending round 1, and I went inside to soak some AC and catch my breath. Next it was time for round 2, attacking the front wheel. Mounting and balancing went uneventfully and I re-installed the front wheel. Now one of the weak points on the early 21st century Guzzis is the speedo. One of my bikes is on it's 3rd speedo and the other one is non functional. Anticipating this I installed a bicycle speedo which is more accurate and reliable. Well having won the battle of the tires I decided to do a shake down run to Dillon's. I fired up and hit the street. I immediately noticed that the speedo said that I wasn't going anywhere. Using my superior powers of deductive reasoning, I realized that my feet were up, the engine was making noise and the houses were passing by. I reasoned that it has to be something to do with the speedo. I pulled over expecting to find a sensor detached from the fork leg. A quick examination found the sensor in place. That meant only one thing. Some idiot put the front wheel on backward. The tire was on the rim properly but the wheel was on the bike wrong. That's one of Guzzi's features that the others don't have. Most other bikes the wheel will only go on one way. Back up on the lift, turn the wheel around, and put the groceries away. The next ride was déjà vu all over again. No speedo! This time the sensor did come off. A little double sided foam tape and I was back in business. I hope that's all. What's next? A cylinder falls off?!?

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Thursday Duane called me suggesting a ride to Cassoday on Sunday. That sounded like a good idea to me, since I was thinking of going anyway. Now I have somebody to ride there with. Sunday rolls by and I get a call at 8:00. It's Duane wondering where I am. Well I'm thinking 8:30. I was just about to walk out of the door, so Duane said he'd wait. I arrived to find Duane waiting alone. We bantered back and forth each trying to take the the blame for the time mix up. We waited til 8:30 just in case anyone else showed up. 8:30 comes and we're on the road. We had plans to meet up with Duane's son on the way and as we chugged along I see Duane waving wildly at a bike coming the other way. It's his son Loren and his friend Mike. We pulled over and gave them time to turn around and catch up. Alitle later we pulled into a Casey's for a little leg stretcher and to get acquainted before pressing on to Cassoday. We arrived to a sea of chrome and color. A real good turnout. I even found another Guzzi rider. We chatted for a while and compared notes on our bikes. Wandering around there were a lot of good looking bikes, even a few new Indians, one of which had a particularly sweet sounding set of pipes. Some call that noise, I call it music. One of the vendors let me down a little though. They had a a huge cooler with Good Humor plastered all over the side. Ice cream sounded pretty good right about then so I headed that way. There was plenty of ice but the cream component was conspicuous by its absence. In it's place were various Coca Cola products. Hmmm, the old bait and switch. Since I didn't think that it rose to the level of informing the local constabulary I settled for a diet Coke and went on my way. I searched, albeit in vain for the 48 Indian chief that I'd seen there on previous visits. After strolling around the grounds admiring all the heavy iron we agreed it was time to head back. I knew I'd need gas before too long so we headed to Council grove. The first sign I saw said it was 37 miles. Just about that time my low fuel light comes on leaving me about 40 +- miles of range. It was going to be tight, but I gritted my teeth and pressed on. It wasn't long before my nervous meter started to climb. It seemed like an awful long way as we motored along. As the fuel level went down the nervous meter went up. At last I see a water tower off in the distance. They're a great indicator of civilization. We motored into Council Grove and into the gas station. I gassed up and took on an indicated 4.1 gallons. I have my doubts about that figure. The low fuel light comes with 1 gallon left out of 5. That means I only used .1 gallon in 37 miles?!? Na, I don't think so. I had just purchased a can of iced tea when it was suggested that we go to the DQ across the street. Looks like I'll get my ice cream after all. Save the tea for when I get home. We decided to go inside and soak up their AC and enjoy our ice cream. It finally came time to get back on the road. We bade farewell to Loren and Mike as they headed back toward Topeka and Duane and I headed for Salina. I needed to get back by 3:00 for a family picnic at Kanopolis lake. By this time I'm feeling like I just lost a head butting contest to a speeding freight train. My niece came to pick up Fritz and I told them to head out and I'll be along after I catch my breath. I really didn't want to go, but what the heck, its free food. After a couple hours of toddlers crawling all over me and a good meal we all headed back and I collapsed into my recliner, which is slowly succumbing to old age.

Wednesday finally got here and we gathered at Spangle's for the ride to Russell. There was a good turnout with 12 bikes leaving Spangle's. It was a pretty easy ride to Russell except for the two bridges that were out on 140. A minor annoyance. We rolled into Russell and I was a little surprised to see Meriday's was located just off I70. We pulled in to about a half full parking lot and we pretty well filled it. I got Leo settled and the outside shots. Inside I found the rest of the group in the back room and chowing down. I tried my best to stay out of the way of the staff who were scurrying about doing a great job of attending to everyone. We were treated to a great buffet which featured some great fried chicken and a roast beef thing that went perfectly with mashed potatoes, and one of my personal favorites, breaded deep fried cauliflower. All too soon we were filtering out all sporting satisfied miles. Leo once again hit the jackpot. In my next life I want to come back as a wiener dog of a ROMEO.

We had riders from Salina, Minneapolis, Hays, Russell, Great Bend, Denmark, Culver, McPherson, Lindsborg, and Canton, with Delbert Schriner reaching out the farthest at 114 miles.

We were riding Honda, Harley, Yamaha, Suzuki, BMW, CanAm, Kawasaki. And Moto Guzzi.

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