Another ride through the hills

365 Group

This morning’s weather was nice and cool. About 65 degrees and clear.
The weather channel said to expect light rain and a warm afternoon. I made it a whole four miles before the rain started. Riding in the rain really isn’t a big deal as long as you keep your head. Especially if the rain has just started. Roads with a light film of water on them are as slick as a politician. If it’s been coming down a while it has usually washed all the oil off to the point you can do pretty good as long as you don’t end up hydroplaning. Anyway, I eased over on to the rougher pavement and continued on hoping to ride out of it or find a place to get in the dry and put my rain gear on. Just about the time I started to look for a wide spot to pull off, it started to lighten up. Thinking that I’d get lucky I rode on. About two miles from Highway 412 I hit dry pavement. (Lucky)
Today was going to be a short ride through the hills to the US Forest Service recreation area Alum Cove or as the locals call it “Natural Bridge”. I had met Jim Dimacco and some other retirees and their wives from Michigan at Bikes, Blues & Barbeque and they had asked about the local areas and I had told them of the Natural bridge area and the roads and all. They were all excited at the time and to be honest I didn’t think I’d ever hear from them again. Proved wrong again here I was heading to meet up with them and lead them through the hills. From what I understood they were staying at The Hub or in the Harrison area and I had explained to them how to find Deer and I would meet them there and show them the area.
Traffic on 412 was light and I was seemly making good time until I got to the Marble area. For some reason I happened to look at my left boot and saw that it was covered with oil. Wet and dripping oil. Thinking that this cant be a good thing I pulled into a gas station at Marble. Looking everything over I saw that the oil was coming out of the front “D” seal at the top of the head. Thinking the worst I went in and got a cup of coffee and a can of carburetor cleaner. As I drank the coffee I washed the oil off with the carb cleaner and got a good look at nothing…everything looked normal. I took a rag and really scrubbed the “D” ring and surrounding area and couldn’t see anything that would explain the leak. I even took a wrench and checked for lose top end bolts. All were tight. Puzzled, I finished my coffee and ate a few Hushpuppies and let everything really cool down. NOTE: this little gas station along Hwy 412 has some of the best Hushpuppies I’ve eaten. I have found that anytime I’m in the area it never hurts to eat a dozen or so.
By the time I’d downed a d half dozen hushpuppies and a couple of cups of coffee my engine was cool enough that I could do some serious tinkering. Again I washed everything down and still couldn’t find anything that would explain the oil leak. After checking everything I could think of I checked the mail oil level. It showed to be full. Out of anything else to check I got prepared for the worst and fired the engine up. I let it idle for a good 5 minutes without seeing any oil. I revved the engine several times and still nothing. Now, really puzzled, I left it running and went for another cup of coffee. I let it idle and revved it up while I drank my coffee and couldn’t get it to leak any. I jumped on and tore around the building a couple of times and still nothing. After all this I gave up and went and bought a quart of oil just in case and took off again to meet the others for some sight seeing. As this oil leak to me was the makings of a bad thing. I stopped often and looked things over. I never had any more problems and am still wondering what caused this leak. Somehow I guess the leaking seal sealed itself??
The rest of my ride over to Deer was pretty much as usual…a great one.
I topped off my tank at Clayborns and waited on everyone to show up.
I didn’t have long to wait before I heard the “thump” of a road king approaching. Seven bikes showed up for this ride. As they topped off their tanks I explained where we were going and what the roads were like and what all I had sort of planned. As this was a bunch of retirees I didn’t plan on too much until I got a feel of their riding abilities.
At about ten we pulled out and headed down to the Natural Bridge. Once there I explained the walking involved and let them decide if they wanted to take the tour. All took off wandering around, leaving me with the bikes. Since it was close to noon I had planned a quick lunch. A couple of phone calls and I had everything going. Hot dogs and hamburgers and cokes. About 3 hours later they all huffed and puffed back to the parking lot and appeared to be in good sprits and seemed to be surprised to find lunch waiting. This really appeared to tickle everyone as breakfast was several hours ago and so no one turned it down. As we ate I asked if they thought they would be up for some riding through the hills on the back roads. All seemed to be up for it. After lunch and everyone had hit the restrooms we saddled up and rode back out to highway 16 and then over to Highway 7 and went south. Through Cowell and down to Lurton. At Lurton we took highway123 down all the twisty and curvy roads to Mt.Judea. Stopping at Sam’s Throne for some picture taking and general site seeing and then hit all the little spots like Vender and Hasty and finally took 74 back over to Jasper.
As we gassed up at Bob’s I noticed that everyone was starting to look a bit tired and that their talk centered around the motel. After everyone had topped off I pointed them down Highway 7 north and back to the Hub.
After all the exchanging of numbers and mailing addresses and thank you’s they headed out and I doubled back to Highway 74 and headed toward Lowgap and made my way back home. Later that evening I got a couple of calls from Jim and from Trudi, the wife of another of the group letting me know that they had made it back to the Hub and to tell me again that they had a great time and were already talking about coming back next year. Maybe spending more time. I told them to come on back anytime and we’d have lunch.
Hope to see ya on the road
Roughly 230 miles.