MY RIDE REPORT 2000

First ride of the year.New Years Day, on out to the Wolverine Bar in Chelsea with Chris and his 95 900RR. 50 degrees out, not bad.

The second ride of the year was on my new CBRF4. I bought it in the beginning of Feburary, but due to the winter weather I didn't get to ride till the tail end of Feb.

The first sort of big ride of the year was Teddy's BBQ ride in the beginning of April. It was actually snowing out when we left that morning.& It was also in a snow squall that a bunch of deer ran out in front of us that we could barely see. Somewhere out near Portage Lake, My buddies front wheel bearings went bad. So that ended that ride for us. Just as well it was a wee bit cold out. On the way to the BBQ we stopped at Banfields both us had two double shots of Makers Mark. I was half in the bag, when we got there.

The next ride was to Grattan for Sylvania Superbike track day on a Sunday in April. Chris's RR was still down so we took turns riding both of my bikes. It was kind of a overcast windy cool day.

The Betsie River Trout Out was reason for my next big motorcycle ride at the end of April. The Trout Out starts the opening of trout fishing season the last Saturday in April, here in Michigan. The Betsie River is located SSW of Traverse City, Michigan about thirty miles or so. We stay at a friends near Copemish/Thompsonville/Crystal Mt. on M-115/Betsie river. I started out going North on RT. 669 to M-31 west. To Honor and then Rt. 667 North. Up to and around Glen Lake/Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore to M-22 north and followed that around up the Leelanau Peninsula through Leland and Northport. Then North up Rt. 201 to the Grand Traverse Point Lighthouse on Rt. 629 . Came back down and stopped at the Woolsey Memorial Airport. It features a grass runway and a stone built observation deck. Went down Rt. 631 to Suttons Bay and then cut across on Rt. 614 to Rt. 616 through Cedar and Maple City and around the southern part of Glen Lake and back to M-22 south through Empire by Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore. Down I went till I got to Rt. 704 along the north shore of Crystal Lake to M-31 and then M-115 to Copemish. It was about a 170 some mile trip. A little bit on the chilly side and windy. This area is just as fine as any in the midwest for some nice riding. In some ways better. Lots of everything.

Grand Traverse Lighthouse

Woolsey airstrip/observation deck

The next big event was Suzy's Spring Classic on May 7th which was a late one this year and the weather was great. Thousands turned out and we had a pretty big group ourselves. It did rain a little bit later in the day. I've known Suzy for quite awhile and this event is really getting to be huge. I make sure she doesn't have to bake bread anymore. Yes, I am The Breadman.

The next big ride was to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Site of the Road America racetrack and the AMA Superbike races. A friend of mine and I left real early in the morning Friday to catch the ferry from Ludington, Mi. to Manitowoc, Wi. Well we stopped for gas with about a hour to go. After we fill up, my buddies bike would not start, backfiring and smoke. Strange it was running fine before. I told him to open his gas tank to see if it was vapor lock and when he did it smelled strange not like gas and it looked YELLOW. I asked him what pump he used. We walked over and we both looked at each other and looked at the pump that shown DIESEL. Dad blast it, is what we said. Ha! So we took the #%&@# tank off and poured the #%&@# Diesel out. Put fresh gas in and we were too #%@# late for the #%@# ferry so we had to go through #%@# Chicago, I mean #%@# Chicago, with a capital # way to get there. We finally made it for the annual beer in Cleveland, Wi. and then we met our buds over at the Plymouth Rock campground. Last year the weather sucked. This year it had been great so far. We went to track for the practices and then had dinner at the Siebkens Inn. We then went out for a little ride to the west at first following  a group then realizing that they were just going farther and farther away. So we turned off and took some side roads, hell knows where. But we did get on this road I think it was called Seven Hills road. and it was a blast. It was like the back of a huge serpent. We finally came to stop and we were having so much fun that we were laughing like hyenas. If I had a map I'm sure I could find it again. We made it back to camp and conked out. The whole weekend was great we ran into the Grand Rapids group and went for a awesome ride into the Kettle Moraine area. Mark who led it, was born in the area and knew it like the back of his hand. Nicky Hayden won both Superbike races and Kurtis Roberts won the Extreme race.

We went out to dinner at the Depot in Plymouth, Wi and just about ate the whole cow. Sunday night we partied with the race crews up at Siebkens.

On Monday it rained almost all the way back to Ann Arbor.

For the second time in two years I received the business end of a bumble bee on my chest. I was taking a friend out for a ride and I saw this black thing heading straight for my face and it hit my face shield. Just about two minutes later I felt this sharp pain in my chest. I knew exactly what had happened. Medication for this incident is a shot of Crown Royal The Stockbridge Bowling Alley became the infirmary. Oh yeah, you take your finger dip into the liquor and soothe onto the afflicted area. It works. Then look both ways make sure no ones looking and down the shot and then order another. Good as new.

Next up was trip to Perry Sound, Ontario, Canada for the International Sportbike Rally July 7-8.We stayed at the Sunny Pointe Resort which was nice but quite a spell from the events. Another record turnout and the weather was pretty nice except for on the way home. You have to do this one once at least. Lots of great times and people. This year I got to test ride a RC-51 and a Valkyrie. Talk about two different bikes. The RC was like a roller coaster ride and the Valk was like sitting behind a desk. Oh yeah on one of our rides, we went and got lost and got stubborn, ended up on this dirt road that went for about 15 miles. Dusty would have been proud. There were several times out riding, were I thought I was coming close to my limits. Then we saw a guy in front of us go flying off into a ditch. That was good enough for me to slow down.

Mid-Ohio Superbikes was the next event. I can't remember why but I didn't go down for the whole weekend. Maybe it was the weather and maybe it is losing its luster on me. But I did go down for Sundays races. And as long as I can remember it may have been the first time ever that I went riding with someone with pretty much the exact same bike as mine in the thirty years of riding. Pretty exciting racing. The funny thing was riding back I saw this guy up ahead and it looked like my friend Dan on his VTR. I pulled up along side him and he didn't see me and I was just staring at him for what seemed like miles until he finally looked over. Geez.

Los Paranoia's out west trip two weeks BABY

Well, everything after that was pretty much uneventful understandably. All local rides. Arcadia Brewery Ride, Ann Arbor Bike Nights, Bakers Loaf, Suzy's Fall Classic, Clarkston Union/ Yates Cider Mill Ride were the most notable.

Last Big Ride of the Year Ride I started off the day real early and went to my first HSTA meeting run by this guy wearing tights. Whew, its like I'm pretty sure I left Ann Arbor. Seemed like a pretty good group of people, some that I have met before here and there. From the meeting I went to Southgate for a youth football game, Boy, that was fun. And then from there I went home and warmed up and headed North up to Evert, Mi. for Oktoberfest Party and camp out that some of my fellow co- workers from Caseys Tavern in Ann Arbor. Its about a two and a half hour drive. Got up there just before sundown. Lots of good food, good people and good beer and they had speakers hanging from the trees ala the Merry Pranksters. The ride up was cool as in cold. In this case its more the destination then the ride. But you do get some of those wood burning, fireplace, cooking, smells along the way that put a smile on your face. We were presented with one awesome display of the Northern lights that went half way across the sky, the other half was a blazing with stars. The ride back in the morning I never thawed out, it was cold. I think that's it for me this year. Order up some new tires and some doo dads. Take a trip out west early next year, make sure Whitey gets some attention. W.O.W.

The year 2000 was a pretty good year all in all. With my busy schedule in life I was still able to get some good quality riding in, about 12 to 13 thousand miles.

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