Post
by husabob » Sun Feb 20, 2011 7:06 pm
All,
The first leg of the Midnight Run was cancelled due to road closures from the high winds knocking trees down. The riders rode in several groups from the start in Yonkers up to the layover in Carmel, where we were to run the second leg of the course back to the start. My 305 ran fine, cruising in the mid '50's, but the headlight was worse than marginal. Fortunately, I was surrounded by bikes with plenty of candlepower. The roads were clear and my trials tires stuck like glue in the sharper corners. It was fun. We encountered several closed roads, but rode around the barricades, and ducked under low wires. Several poles were broken near the top, and the full moon provided an eerie ullimination. Many traffic lights were not working. At one point, we threaded through a bunch of Power Company trucks, and they just looked at us and shook their heads! Fortunately for us, there was no Law Enforcement present.
About 5 miles from Carmel, my 305 started missing on one cylinder, then that cylinder dropped completely. I limped it to Carmel, where I had roughly 2 hours to work on it. The temps were in the low teens, with strong gusting winds. I could not get it to fire consistantly on both cylinders, so I decided to call it quits. My mom, my daughter Beverly and my brother Gerry showed up at the layover, so I had options rather than trying to limp back to Yonkers. I ended up hitching a ride with a course worker back to Yonkers, and Bev came along to keep me company on the ride back. On the drive to Carmel to recover my 305, I gambled and took the more direct parkways with my trailer, which is illegal in NY. We stopped for a rollover on the Taconic caused by the driver falling asleep. The occupants were unhurt, and other people were already assisting, so rather than risk a Trooper showing up and hassling me about my trailer, we split.
I found out later the second leg had to be rerouted due to more road closures, and the last I heard, the entire event was scrapped. Bummer. There's always next year!
Bob B
