motorcycle posts 5–7

First, a little interlude. Last Thursday I happened to ride to work behind a Can-Am. This motorcycle is a three-wheeler, the front is the two-wheel part. It's made in Canada. I chatted with the owner a bit, but didn't get a name or any info about the vehicle except that it's as stable as a car on corners, and it has a trunk on the front. That Can-Am leads me to the next "post."

I ran into another Can-Am on Sunday when I visited the Montgomeryville Cycle Center with some friends from the Mid-Atlantic Riding Society. I got to talk to that fellow at length, and sit on the thing. Nice digital and analog dashboard, his engine has the same displacement as my bike (about 1000cc's), and it's a V-2. He says he accidentally did a wheelie once starting out hard in first. But the reason I visited MCC was to participate in a Guiness record attempt. We needed 242 beemers in parade formation to beat the current (still unofficial, as ours will be for a while) record of 141 held by a group in Missouri or someplace down south. We got 246! That's a lot of BMW riders, who tend to prefer riding alone. MCC was a wonderful host, and we pretty well filled his large parking lot, and consumed a lot of cookies and hot dogs. We went on a nice ride through the PA countryside after the official 2 miles on a road the police were kind enough to close for our benefit. I ended up being the proofreader for my good friend Jack Riepe, the official counter. He slipped up several times, and if I hadn't caught his extra numbers, we would have had some tension undoing them to see if the total was still over the mark. So hey—proofreaders are important!

The weather held out, too. It had sprinkled before I left that morning, and rain was in the forecast for the afternoon, but we finished the ride without a drop, except of sweat. It got pretty warm. Speaking of weather,

About those three guys who wanted to ride a saddlesore 1000 a week or so ago. They're postponing the ride. Their weather expert said the forecast for that day was for rain all along their route, and they had other options, so they have rescheduled for the twenty-something of May.

I hope you get another post before then.