A good ride

365 Group


Last night some friends were having a graduation party for their younger brother and sister.
I got off work and rode to the house to change clothes and feed my pups. The holiday weekend was already starting for some as the traffic was bordering on the stupid. I really felt that I was riding around with a target on me and my bike as I headed out of town.
Once I made it out of town things kind of opened up and didn't seem as intense. My ride home was a good one for the most part. Around eighty degrees, sunny and clear. What more could you ask for?
The pups were glad to get out and I hurried through feeding them and getting ready to take off.
Back on the road I eased down to the gas station and noticed that gas had gone up again. $2.35 a gallon. As I was topping off I wondered what it would be by the end of the weekend. After gas I kicked to life and headed back toward town and the madness associated with getting off work on a Holiday weekend Friday.
I picked a route through Springdale that was, I hoped, less traveled this time of day. I made my way around the spur and there didn't seem to be as much traffic but it was slow going. Everything seemed to be clicking right along and I thought that this would be a good ride. I poked my way through town to Hwy 71 and started North. As I came up on the street I was looking for, at the intersection by the A.Q. Chicken Restaurant, traffic was heavy and bunched up waiting for the light to change. I eased into the left turn lane and waited. When the light changed my bike kind of coughed and died. Humm..? Setting on a down hill run with a dead bike and cars backed up behind me. Not pretty. I motioned traffic around and started kicking. After the light changed it finally roared back to life. Not sure what caused it to die unless it was over heated. I finally got through the light and started looking for the cross street I needed. As I made all the cross streets and was pulling up to the last stop sign, with my destination in sight, the bike coughed again and died. I rolled over and got out of the street as much as I could and started kicking. After about a dozen kicks she fired up and all seemed well. I still haven't figured out what the problem was unless it was all the slow poking along through town.
The party was a blast. The food, grilled burgers hot dogs and chicken, really hit the spot. Everything was good.
About nine everyone started drifting off. I shot the breeze with my host for a few minutes telling him I would call if my bike took a dive. The bike started up like normal and I warmed up a little then took off. I had a good ride back to the house, no problems anywhere. I made my trip back the reverse of the one over and it was much more bumpy. Running with a headlight from the seventies you can't see those little imperfections in the road like you do in daylight. The only thing I can come up with so far on the motor is maybe it was overheating? Aw, well, tomorrow I'll check into it .Tonight was a keeper.
Catch ya on the road.

mail: bikin_ridin@yahoo.com