Floribama Riders

The late arriving contingent (Charles B., Susan J., Greg S., and I) managed to get a very late start.  I was originally planning to leave earlier with Mark C. but....  We left the Binder Garage in Leeds at 1:50 PM on Friday with Charles and Greg leading at various points.  We took some back roads while we had daylight--planning to slab it after dark.  It was peaceful and pretty and uneventful.  Most of the roads were low traffic and it was a nice ride up.  We finally hopped on the interstate and made better time.  When we got close we hit the side roads.  There were only 2 minor almost incidents.  We saw a deer off the side of the road, and, thankfully, it just watched us ride by.  About 20-30 minutes from the end a large fuzzy white dog appeared in the middle of the road and was too stunned to move.  Greg and Susan came the closest to it.  Again, no problem.

We did managed to get about 3 hours sleep before getting together with the rather large group for riding.  We left the hotel and got split into 2 groups by traffic.  Susan had a incident that could have been major except for her skill and a lot of luck.  I'll leave the details to her as she explains it better.  I saw 95% of it so I can verify all but 1 detail, which was confirmed, but that's another part of her story.  Whew!  After that we (Susan, Greg, and I) went back to the hotel to regroup.  Denise was shaken by all of this and went back too and was drinking heavily---Diet Pepsi!  Thanks to all who were concerned, excellent support!

After chilling a bit the 3 of us went out and explored.  Greg had ridden in the area and Susan used to live not too far away so we found some nice roads and had a fun time.  At one point we rode behind an older Ford pickup/sportbike.  He was a local good 'ol boy who knew the roads and drove the pace.  If he didn't brake, we didn't either.  He was an fine point man and I waved at him when we parted ways.  As for enforcement, we saw a fair number but we were careful and were not of interest to them.  We wound around and made it back to the hotel to meet up with everyone where the usual social fun ensued.  We do need to huddle around a campfire instead of a V- Strom though.  There were no other incidents to report except Calhoun's tire where we met the local dealer and they were real riders and friendly!  Great service too.  We invited them to the Barber track day in Sept.

The weather had held out until about 2 minutes before our departure, but it was just a sprinkle.  The 2 riding groups headed out about 9 AM local.  We followed Sue Galpin with Brett Cole added to our team.  Since the weather was suspect we took medium roads and had a nice ride, again, without incident.  Sue headed off at Chattanooga and we pointed back to Bham.  Many thanks to Charles and Greg for getting us there and back again.  And, surprisingly, the weather cooperated, mostly.

That was all I was part of, although there is a lot more to tell. I'll leave that to the ones with first-hand knowledge.  I had a great time and enjoyed seeing all my friends.  Glad we all made it back in one piece, bike parts not withstanding.  Take care to everyone!  B.