The Ride West

At last.... a good number of us had just finished up bikes and a trip to Des Moines for the Dice/COC Party was a good way to find the weak points and flaws in our new creations. The number of guys that were to come was surprisingly large but naturally dropped of at the last minute do to work, wifes, missing parts or being locked in a jail cell. Mitch, Brian, Joe and Eugene were coming from the city and Warren was headed down from Milwaukee. It was a good thing everyone met up at my ol' man's shop because a number of things needed to be addressed before leaving for Iowa. I got a call from Warren.... He said he was out of gas so I brought him a bit of fuel but it only got him a few miles down the road so I pegged him 5 miles to the gas station. When the City boys arrived Brian needed new bearings for his spool hub, Mitch needed a head light and Eugene needed some valve adjustment. We hit the road a bit late but it worked out in the end because we rode into the most amazing sunset. We planned on camping at a state park but it was closed to campers do to all of the rain. We were directed to a bar called Poopys in Savanna IL. where we could drink all night long and crash behind the bar.... so that is what we did.

The next morning I found that my battery was fried so we jumped it and hit the road. I had just finished a new tank for the trip to give me added fuel capacity but found that my bike likes to eat a lot of gas and ended up running out of gas 5 different times on the trip. The super B is about to find it's way into the garbage can. We took smaller highways to get to our destination. We were about 50 miles away from Des Moines when I sheared all of the rivets holding my sprocket to my drum. It wasn't looking good... the sun was setting and all we could think about were 1 dollar Hamms and Tacos. Eugene headed back into town to find some one that may have had a welder. He ran into an older gentleman named Richard who said that his Son and law Eugene had a welder and that he would lead us to his Garage. Warren and Brian pegged me back into town and into Eugene's garage where he was kind enough to weld my sprocket to my drum. I couldn't believe it.... what could have been a day ender turned into 30 minutes of down time and two new friends. We rolled into the Kung Fu Tap and Taco just as the sun was setting. We couldn't have asked for a better ride.

Brian's spacer ate up his bearing

Eugene adjusting push rods

Pounding out the old bearings but all I had were 5/8 I.D. bearings so we shaved his axle down on the Lathe.

A weird mushroom trip.

Warren on old faithful

No Gas and No Power

Watching my bike not start.

Joe

Brian

quick fix

Mitch is a snake charmer in his spare time.

Getting pegged back to civilization

Eugene was kind enough to weld up my sprocket for me

Eugene, myself and Richard. I can't thank these two guys enough.