ROMEOS

Guys - You asked for it and here it is! I overheard some of you grumbling last wednesday that we should have had the lunch ride further away since it was such a nice day and our riding days will be cut short in the quite near future what with the coming of cold weather and all. Well, this brand new destination should calm that sort of talk.
This new little place comes to me couresy of Randy Guild in Great Bend. He sniffed it out and said we would enjoy it so his wish has become my command.
Since we have never been either to the town or the new little place, we'll all be experiencing something new. Let's gather together all bundled up and show them who we are.
The temp for the day is supposed to be sunny and upper 60's. The little weather thingy for that day showed 69 degrees but I question just how accurate they can predict that far out. Anyway, it should be very nice riding weather.

Here's the time..............................................High Noon

Here's the place.............................................Circle Cafe
1108 W. Hwy 24
Osborne, Kansas 67473
785-346-9444
Brian Befort - Owner

As always..............................ride careful, ride safe and I'll see you in Osborne. Richard
http://mapq.st/1FGty7L
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Guys - We had an official turnout today of 29 ROMEO's from ten different locations. I was questioning whether some of you would check back on the site again after initially checking the time and destination I originally posted. There were over thirty that had initially checked the post before I changed it so I think most had gotten the word. I thank 'Big Jim' for his post early today about leaving from Spangles after tuesday morning coffee because I know some had arrived without forknowledge of the change and quickly retreated to home for their ROMEO shirt.
Sometimes I'm a bit too trusting of my weather guy because when I awoke and wheeled the bike outside, I was surprised by the overcast skies and low temperature. I had anticipated wearing my light air jacket with a liner but I ended up wearing my all temperature suitable for none jacket instead and shivered the entire way only to find on arrival that I had the liner in my saddlebag all the time. Same thing with my glove liners. I have too much stuff! Don't know where any of it is at any particular time. That was my idea behind my pull behind cycle trailer. I had planned on putting everything in it to be in one location but after I bought a cover for it to keep it pretty, it's too much of a hastle to get into it now so I don't use it as I had planned. Another story I could tell you sometime.....
Anyway, I arrived at Kaps on time this morning and Evan was filling up his Wing. I had filled my V-Star last night but I needed coffee and I was waiting on Harvey to arrive. Evan asked which way I thought about going and said I'll be at Lincoln waiting on 'ya and took off when Harv arrived. I headed up the interstate hoping to meet up with the guys at Spangles but the early posting didn't indicate a leave time from coffee but I thought if I went by and saw them We would file in line.
They were gone when I went up the Crawford up ramp and looked down the street to Spangles so we just went down the other side, got back onto the road and lit a path up to hwy 18. I was riding the wind and arrived at the highway exit way before I knew it and turned West and the wind turned a litle colder. I zipped the jacket to my neck and couldn't quit thinking about my cold hands, wishing a had better sense than to leave with only my light summer gloves. The thought of heated grips kept surfacing and I kept refocusing on a saying I once heard that you can have anything you want but you can't have everything you want. I use that a lot to prevent myself from overspending. Right now however, those heated grips would be really nice to have. Along with a pair of electric socks and heated pants and...........see how I get carried away. It has to stop somewhere and It stops at my hands. I'll just put up with frozen fingers. At least I can afford to by gas and eat!
We got to Osborne and I forgot where the cafe was located. I wandered all about the downtown area with Harv in tow and I couldn't find the place. Harv finally quit following me while I wandered about and when I headed west out of town on their main street, I spotted Louie, Duane and Gary coming into town so I followed them and acted like I was just exploring. We went past Harv who had given up on me and he fell in line as we heading up North right to the place. They must have used a GPS.
The parking lot was loaded with bikes already there and I was concerned nobody would show.......
Out of the 25 bikes on the lot, 6 were what you would call trikes. Several different versions...two in front, one in front, One way the heck out there and well one I can't even describe. That left 19 bikes of all varieties. Always a joy to see.
The buffet meal was delicious. So much so I had seconds. Well, Joyce wasn't there to stop me!
After lunch there was the required tire kicking and bantering before we headed for home.
Harv and I set out on a different path to find new ground to explore. We were doing fine until we hit Ellsworth. I thought I would take a trip thru downtown before heading back to Lindsborg. I hit the downtown stop light just as it turned red and we waited and waited. I noticed the little gas station right on that corner had gas for 1.99 and that was on my mind when the light turned green. I continued thinking about when was the last time I recall gas less then two dollars. I was practically to highway 14 when I took notice that Harv's headlight was nowhere to be seen. I pulled over and waited for what seemed an
etrnity but I'm quite certain it was not more than a minute or two. I backtracked down the road and completely thru town to find him at the little gas station on the corner bent over looking at his FLAT tire. BUMMER!
I pulled in and consoled Harv by telling him that I had a plug kit in my saddlebag. His eyes brightened 'till I told him that with his spoked wheels however, my kit couldn't help him. I could nearly see the rug as it was pulled out from under him!
Two heads are better than one the saying goes so I was searching about for someone who looked like they would know what to do in a situation like this. Unfortunately, they all looked busy so Harv and I developed a plan.
Fortunately, Joyce wasn't with me today so I had an empty back seat. Plan agreed to!
We requested the space to leave the bike parked and it went well. I topped off my coffee, ate a donut just for stamina you understand, and prepared for Harv to hop on!
Harv is, as you might inagine, a tad, 'er', more robust than Joyce is. I had never hauled, lifted, moved, 'er', ridden with such a large package attached to the tail end of this bike.
Did I have enough air! Is the rim cutting thru the sidewall!
Hold still! Don't move! Don't hold me there! Lean further back!
We got underway without incident and headed back up North to Old hwy 40 when who should we come upon but the three McPherson guys at the corner coming down onto it from up North. They stared as they turned and headed for Casey's on the corner to the West. I pulled in behind and said 'absolutely no pictures of this'.
A man has his limits!
Oh my, I almost forgot to tell you who won the high mileage of the day. Actually, it was a three way tie. Mark Unruh on his BMW, Bob Harmon riding a Yamaha Vtwin and Larry Smith on (in?) his home built trike with a US Mail truck engine, all from McPherson, each arrived reporting a total mileage one way count of 147 miles running away with the coveted prize.
As I sit here Wednesday evening posting this addition to yesterdays write-up, am I glad we didn't have the ride today!
It pays to listen to the weatherman.

NOTICE - I posted this ride early thursday. At that time next Wednesdays weather pattern was different than what is now being shown.
Why am I telling you this....because the rain predicted for thursday has now moved forward a day into our scheduled lunch on wednesday.
This has happened before so it's not unusual to reschedule a day and that's what I'm doing here. I'm moving forward a day so be thinking Tuesday and tell your friends to go back to see that we really are having the ride on the best day of the week which is now.......TUESDAY.

GUYS,LETS JUST MEET AT SPANGLES ON CRAWFORD TUES.11-10-15 FOR OUR REGULAR COFFEE AND LEAVE FROM THERE FOR OUR RIDE TO OSBORNE.IN CASE SOME DIDNT GET THE WORD ABOUT IT BEING A TUES. RIDE. SEE YOU THERE BIG JIM

Ride safe - Ride with a smile. Mark

Monday was a particularly good day for Murphy and his legal team. I was working on an old Honda CB450 engine trying to set the cam timing, which is a task similar to and only slightly easier than herding cats. Having done this before I was well aware of the need to use bailing wire to keep from dropping the end of the cam chain into the bottom of the engine where it is irretrievable without at least pulling the head if not splitting the crank case. This operation requires lining up 3 timing marks. Exhaust cam, intake cam, and crankshaft. All of which must be properly aligned before joining the ends of the cam chain. Sounds easy. But while the intake cam lines up rather easily, the exhaust cam is working against one of the valve springs with the marks aligned, and the crankshaft is working against the charging system magnet trying to push it out of alignment. The upshot of this is that only an octopus could hold everything in place and join the ends of the cam chain. Just to throw a monkey wrench into the works they made it very easy to have the chain slip off to the side of the crankshaft sprocket and you think you have it all lined up only to find the crank isn't driving the cams. Back to square one. Well after the fifth attempt to get all the cats together the unthinkable happened, and Murphy makes his move. The bailing wire slipped off the chain and down went the chain into the abyss of the crankcase. This is the point where I'm trying my best not to go all “caveman” on this engine with a sledge hammer. I resigned myself to the inevitable and pulled the head and retrieved the chain. Now to the world wide search for the elusive head gasket so I can progress to the point I was at when I began this adventure.

I put the 450 aside and went back to my “whack a mole” Silverwing. Missing oil seals and bad bearings required the dis-assembly of the final drive gear case. Upon close inspection I found the big, and expensive, bearing to be in good shape. The smaller bearing not so much. Pieces of roller cage were scattered hither and yon. This bearing being pressed in I figured my handy dandy slide hammer bearing puller should make quick work of extracting the offending part. About 5 good whacks with the slide hammer yielded no discernible result. But it looked so easy in the video! I turned the puller horizontal and gave it a few more whacks and it popped out with balls flying in all directions like buckshot. Just the inner bearing race came out with the balls. Murphy rears his ugly head again. I was able to gather up all the balls and the inner race, but the outer race was still firmly ensconced in the gear case. I'd swear I heard it laughing at me. Now there is no way that I have to get a good bite on the race in order to pull it out. I had to think a little further outside the box. A sledge hammer would extract the race (caveman technique) but would leave the gear case a little worse for the wear. I decided on a less violent but more forceful approach. So I slathered a bunch of grease in the outer race to hold the balls in place until I could get the inner race re-installed. Then I spaced the balls around the races so the inner race wouldn't fall out. Using the bearing puller without the slide hammer I went to my 20 ton press. With a 6” socket extension through the axle hole I started pumping the press down. Lo and behold the race slid out with seemingly no effort. Now it's down to waiting for the replacement parts to arrive. Murphy may have gotten a few good licks in. But I eventually whipped his butt! That should be good for a King Kong chest thump.

Tuesday came with cloudy skies and cool temperatures. Any cooler and Leo would have to sit it out. We had a good turnout at Spangle's but as happens all too often we got so spread out that about half of us lost sight of the others and took another route. It was about a 100 mile ride from Salina to Osborn so we just left after our usual Tuesday coffee get together. I got a little distracted and didn't get any shots at Spangle's. I was number 4 in line with Terry Powell in the lead. All was going well until we got to the town of Hunter where Big Jim needed to stop for gas, so we all decided to stretch our legs. While we were there we saw some of the others come into town from another direction. Tanned rested and ready to go we mounted up and headed out. It didn't take too long before we arrived in Osborn. About 10 miles out the clouds parted and the sun came out. It warmed up nicely for the rest of the ride. We arrived to what appeared to be a relatively modern and homey restaurant. There were quite a few bikes there already and we were early enough to do a little tire kicking. With Leo in tow I set out to do my photog thing before setting Leo up with his water and leash. Entering I was immediately confronted by a small but spectacular looking buffet. I set about getting all my indoor shots and then went to fill a plate. Seating was a bit, shall we say, cozy. It was a little challenging for someone of my magnitude to slither between the tables, but I managed. The food was excellent and homey with fried chicken worth writing home about. Even the iced tea was quite good. Often a weak spot in a lot of the places we've been. The staff did a great job of serving us. After doing as much damage to the chicken and meat balls as I could I settled up and gave Leo his share. A little more tire kicking and a few of us decided to gas up at the local gas station. Several of us headed back to Salina with Big Jim in the lead. Rolling into Ellsworth we stopped in at Casey's to find others from the crowd already there. After a short break we headed back home. I sat down to relax and unwind from the ride for about an hour when the phone rang. It was Terry Powell telling me that John Crandall was broke down on the road. He gave me a rather sketchy description of where he was. I said I'd be there with my truck if I could get it started. I really don't drive it enough. When I hit the starter it complained and barely turned the engine over but finally the engine caught. Leaving it running I loaded the ramps, winch and air tanks and headed out to find John. After passing where I thought he was I called him to find he was on the entrance ramp to I135 off Crawford. I arrived to find Terry and Louie there with him. We assessed the situation to find the valve stem in the front wheel torn and leaking. We all knew it wouldn't hold air so it was decided to load the bike on my truck and haul it to Johns house. The only issue was if the bike would make it over the hump where the ramp met the tailgate. Ground clearance in pretty limited on a Goldwing. Louie, Terry and John had to lift the bike a little to get it over the hump, but we got it on board. The winch really helped by supplying the muscle to pull the bike up the ramp. Fortunately Johns driveway had a slight slope that eliminated the issue of the hump when unloading the bike. We unloaded the bike and I returned home. Mission accomplished.