TIME....................12:00
Here it is.............. Ike's Place
100 Northwest 14th Street
Abilene, Kansas 67410
785-200-6278
It looks like the heat won't be quite as brutal as it has been lately. Encouraging for a good ride tomorrow. The Salina group will be leaving from the Caesy's on 9th and Ohio at 11:00. Looking forward to a good ride. See ya tomorrow.
Facebook page........https://www.facebook.com/ikesabilene/?fref=ts
Web Page.............
Map site.............http://bit.ly/1uLkbOc
7/27/16 It seems there was a grievous error made in the announcement of the meeting place for our departure to Ike's Place. My ability to join this ride was thrown into doubt by a summons to jury duty. I had to report on Tuesday morning which left me little time to pass off the sign in book off to someone else. I couldn't be there for the final determination of the meeting place and time. As it turned out the case that I was a juror on was just a one day event. An assumption was made as to the time and place and was put on the web as 11:00 at Casey's on 9th and Ohio. Well after replacing the broken springs on my kickstand and loading Leo I cruised up and down 9th street looking for the intersection. All to no avail. I finally took a shot at the Casey's at Ohio and Iron where I found Delbert and I figured that was the right place. Now there was the question of the time. I heard that some folks were told 11:30 so I managed to get the gang to wait til then before we left. All told we had 15 bikes leave from Casey's at 11:30. I might start a petition to get the fool that gave the bad info fired.
11:30 rolled bye and Big Jim launched like a rocket. We all scrambled to our bikes and launched off in pursuit. The route we took wasn't what I expected but it was familiar. We followed Country Club road to K15. It brought a flood of memories. Several years ago I broke down at the intersection of Country club and K15. I pulled up to the stop sign and the bike just quit running. Hitting the starter produced negative results. The engine cranked but no fire. I popped the gas cap and turned the ignition on. The pump went through the test cycle and peering into the tank I could see the gas roiling around. I knew instantly what the problem was. The hose between the pump and the fuel filter had come off and the pump was just dumping the fuel back into the tank. The bike was going nowhere under it's own power. Fortunately a member of the local constabulary happened by and let me use his cell phone to send out a distress signal. I still had two weeks of warranty left and as a result two weeks of Guzzi Roadside assistance. That was good for $100 toward getting the bike to some help. Even with that I still had to cough up $85 to get the bike towed home.
We turned north and proceeded to Abilene. By the time we got to town we had spread out enough that some of us got separated by traffic lights. Being near the lead of one of these groups I was asked if I knew where the place was. Of course I had no clue. I had heard someone mention that it was near Sonic. Sonic came into view and that inspired hope. I saw a few bikes turn left so I followed suit. My eyes fell on the sight of a sea of motorcycles conjuring thoughts of being at Cassoday. We had quite a turnout. I told the restaurant to expect between 30 and 40. After I got Leo settled and started taking pictures I counted 53 bikes and found several who came in 2 up. Several were surprised to see me. I guess they didn't hear that my jury duty only lasted one day.
Inside we had the placed jumping. The staff was scurrying around doing their best to keep with the unexpectedly large crowd. I stumbled around doing the best I could to stay out of the way, while the waitresses kept the food coming. After I got all the shots I joined Big and Little Jim and finally got my order in. We must have overwhelmed them since it took quite a while for the Jims to get their orders. Mine came and I pretty well finished it before they got theirs. There were a couple times I had to fend Big Jim off and withstand his bribes to get my meal. Eventually all were fed and I settled up and went out to give Leo his share of my chicken fried steak. The old familiar feeling of forgetting something started to overcome me and while I was outside feeding Leo, Bruce Shields came up to me and handed me my camera which I left on the table. I've got to watch that before I have to buy yet another one. With Leo's belly full I loaded up and headed out. About a block down the road I came to the realization that I had left the sign in book on the porch at the restaurant. So I turned back and made a hasty retreat to retrieve the wayward document. Big Jim was kind enough to retrieve it for me so I didn't have to struggle off the bike again. It appears that my head wasn't running on all cylinders that day. Several of the guys were going to stop at Russel Stover's on the way back but I opted to head straight home lest a more dire fate should befall me. All in all it was a good ride and a much larger than expected turnout. I managed to get back home with no further incident and collapsed in a heap in my recliner.
Our total head count was a huge 68. The most I've ever seen for a non joint ride. We had riders from Salina, Minneapolis, Chapman, Cuba, Junction City, Denmark, Russel, Newton, Oxford, Carlton, Kasnopolis, Abilene, Florida, Hutchenson, Galva, Moundridge, Culver, McPherson, Lindsborg, and Canton. Our high milers were up here visiting from Florida came 1700 miles and our high miler local was Jr. and Shirley Wege from Qxford at 151 miles.
We were riding Honda, Harley, Yamaha, Suzuki, BMW, Kawasaki, Custom Trike, And Moto Guzzi.
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