Ride With Tank

This is always the first motorcycle related event of the year and it is something I always look forward to. It is usually my first chance to take a look at all the new models each year. There are always some customs mixed in as well as many historical bikes. All in all it is an excellent way to spend a cold winter day.

Above is one of the customs at the show. Now for me I would never really want to ride a bike like this, and I guess nobody really rides bikes like this. You do have to be impressed with it. It just sparkled like a diamond and the paint job was very complex and well done. Not really my cup of tea, but still an impressive motorcycle.

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Before I get into too much discussion about this ride, I have to give a disclaimer that I really wasn’t there for most of the ride, due to unforeseen mechanical difficulties.  My mental state has been pretty bad the last couple of days and I acquired some pictures from the ride, so I have decided to pretend that I was able to complete this ride.  I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of the statements I make in this report, because I wasn’t actually there so I am really just speculating what may have been occurring in the following photographs.  While the events depicted and described on these pages may not be real, the names have not been changed because I really have no interest in protecting the innocent.

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I made this trip down by myself.  Since there was nobody else to talk sense into me, I decided to leave home at 4:00AM.  Normally I have no problem waking up for a motorcycle trip, but I sure was tired this time.  I did not actually get out of the driveway until 4:15, so I started the trip out 15 minutes behind schedule. 

I made great time on the way down.  No traffic, great weather.  There sure were a lot of police out in Ohio for the Labor Day weekend, but somehow I managed to avoid their radar.  Many others were not so lucky.  All was well until I got half way through Kentucky.  This is where I ran into a massive traffic jam.  There was a terrible wreck that just destroyed a big truck, and it really tied up traffic bad.  Even with the wreck I managed to arrive at the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort around 3:30PM so I still managed to make the trip pretty fast.

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On the evening of September 1, 2007 there was a crash on Deals Gap. They flew in the life flight helicopter to take the rider to the hospital and I took this video of the helicopter landing and taking off from the bridge at Fugitive Dam in the dark.

The kids had a good time hanging out on the pull offs pretending to be Killboy.  Their consumer grade cameras were unable to attain a fast enough shutter speed to get a sharp image of the Tankster.

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