Bonneville America Forums Forums General Motorcycle Forums Rides, Rallies, & Events Seattle meet n greet II

Hey everybody,

Looks like I won't be able to make this one. I've been out of work for the last week due to the flu and need some R&R this weekend. Hope you all have a good time and I'll definitely be in for the next one.

Sorry Kirk that you won't be there. Drink lots of juice, get some sleep and get well for the next get together.

aww...man up and get your sorry .... never mind. I know the feeling all to well! Get well soon!

You know...you could let your girl take the bike and go for a ride with us. We probably wouldnt give her too much crap about wearing the girlie lid

plan to meet all for breakfast..got my reflective tape(thanks again Soren)..placed the tape on my helmets(plural) and the one sheet 6 strips just finished mine..sorry Kirk but you will need to order your own..one sheet did all 3 helmets(scorpion100,200,and 700).Probably wear 700 tomorrow if cold n wet.See eveyone there...Meeting Steve at 800 am at Winco for twosome ride..any other riders on site wish to join????PS.one year ago on March 8th I purchased my america!!Come help celebrate an anniversary of sorts!!

Enjoy guys, wish I could make it tomorrow. I will be in Renton Sunday evening though.

Soren

Sorry guys ,couldnt make it ,got called out to work in the middle of the night and just got home a wee while ago(a bit to tired to ride down there) . hope the weather is better down there than up here. Next time hopefully. cheers.

How was the ride?

I met with the group(Karen,"Z",Steve and Larry,the newcomer from Everett)at 900 am in Snohomish.Steve and I rode up side by side from Kent and was passed by Kawasaki with that new luggage from Glad ..Steve is considering a trip to Costco to check on availability ..I am disappointed that I spent so much for mine(leather and all!) I left after lunch and headed back home to honor prior committments..they headed north and have not been heard from since!! :

Most of us departed about 8am to meet up at 9am at Piccadilly Circus in Snohomish.
Karen and I arrived about 8:45 and the owner (Jeff … I think) and a very cheery server whose name I can not recall. I think Bob was putting the moves on her so maybe he knows.
odatbob (Bob) and Conwy (Steve…BTW…it’s pronounced Con-Wee) arrived. A few minutes later we heard a nice rumble and low and behold…oilleak (Larry) arrived. Looked like we had a well rounded riding group for the day. We got some tables together and ordered. All of us had the English breakfast (Eggs, English sausage, baked beans, fried tomatoes and toast) except kford (Karen) who had an omelet…

Bob couldn’t make the rest of the ride (see his post above) so about 10:30ish we saddled up and headed out. The day was looking to be as expected. No more rain and a good ride. Gassed up and rolled out, North thru Snohomish, onto SR9 and what a sight we must have been. A group of bikers on….TRIUMPHS! Yeah baby.

Well…I know it was before we hit Arlington that some sprinkling started happening. No big deal…then the sprinkled got bigger and turned into rain. To top it off you could clearly see a nice oil slick in the middle of the road that went on for miles. Yes…we had just arrived at the first part of the two lanes that narrowed and started to get twisty. WTF! It was after 10am and the rain was supposed to be done by 8am.

Steve said it best…”where else can you get paid that much money to be wrong about the weather”. He made this comment after we pulled off at a mini mart due to what seemed to be something bad happening. It seemed that Steve experienced some vapor lock. I tell you…when you’re looking in your side mirrors and you see three sets of headlights and a few minutes later there’s none you get real worried real quick. So we re-grouped, let the water soak in and moved on.

It was a short while after that that my bike started sputtering and spitting and “oh wait…vapor lock”. Unscrew the cap but she’s dead. We pulled over…I spun the cap and she fired…WTF! Ok…at least it wasn’t the CDI or something bad. We fired em up and rolled on again only to have the same thing happen to ME again! This time I’m leaving the cap a little loose.

The weather started clearing up when we reached the Clear Lake area and things were looking up. We missed some great road and scenery but we still had the lake ride along Lake Whatcom. Made the left turn onto Post Rd and enjoyed the remaining ride to Bellingham. The twisties there were easy and the scenery was awesome!

We arrived at Champion Cycle about 1pm. We pried ourselves from our seats and proceeded to abuse Howard’s (Owner Champion Cycle) bathroom. We browsed, drooled, took a few pics and headed to Starbucks for a warm cup o brown juice. Gas and on to Chuckanut (SR11). We spotted a group of Minis (the real ones not those new BMW minis) gassing up. I gave a honk and a wave but they probably didn’t realize we were on Triumphs. We took a slight detour due to a wrong turn up a “logging road”, made a turn after a suitable location was spotted to stop and turn and we were on track again on SR11. Another nice twisty and scenic road, we pulled off and took a few more pics. While chatting it up the Minis passed us and a few minutes later a really awesome red and silver bike came by. It was one of those Triumphs…did you know they still made those?

Anyway…back on the road and some sunshine and straight road was a welcome sight. Folks were out having a good time in the good weather. Those parachute things with the seats and motors were out. That looks like fun. Some folks were out getting their hang gliders ready to go as well. Another wrong turn (I don’t know that anyone but me knew it but it was a wrong turn) and a short while later we arrived at Conway Pub. Another rest, some food and beverages and we decided to slab it back. Karen and I turned off in Marysville and Steve and Larry kept on the slab.

Pictures to follow!

Here are the pics
at Piccadilly Circus
Bob, Karen, Z, Steve and Larry


in front of Piccadilly


Bobs girl...


At Champion Cycle


The View


The Rabbit


The Riders w/ rides

Yep, yep, yep...it was a great ride and quite the adventure for l'il ol'me. It was my first real time riding with a group and I couldn't ask for a better group of people to ride with. No one was out to outride the others, break land speed records or try to impress the general public with their awesome riding skills. It was just a group of people out having fun, all on Triumph Americas. The best part was the beautiful sound of the exhaust of the different bikes. We had TOR, Bubs, Specialty Spares and Thunderbike all represented.

Had a scoot up to Snohomish with Bob. We ran into some drizzle in Bellevue, just to remind us that we were riding British bikes. The aftermarket luggage on that old Kawa was definitely more in my price range, althought appearance-wise, strapping a big old black plastic bag behind you is not really going to impress the ladies.

We had a great time at Picadilly Circus. Unfortunately, Kirk decided the flu was more important than the ride. However, we did honor Kirk, by admiring a lovely fern in a pot, and thinking how much it reminded us of his lid. Hope you're feeling better Kirk.

After breakfast, Bob headed south and we followed our fearless Ride Captain, Z. Z is a tech geek and has one of those cool little GPS mapping thingies on his bike. You know, you enter a destination and it tells you how to get there. You ask it where the nearest Starbucks is and it will tell you and give you the directions, even if it's in a grocery store!!

Anyway, off we go. Z, leading the pack north, on his motorized, Freaked, lowered, and well oiled divining rod. Off to the west, I see blue skies and bright sun, north..well...clouds and lots of them. Personally, I would have preferred riding west, but I think Z had programmed "Rain" into his little GPS gizmo. Sure enough, his mechanized divining rod found rain and lots of it!

For a while, we followed a H-D biker. It was fun at the stop lights, watching his bike shake. I couldn't resist having some fun, at his expense, although I didn't want to be too obvious. I think he was a little bothered that he couldn't get away from us. And we sounded so ****** good!!

Coming around one turn, I twisted the throttle and felt my bike sputter and lose power. I checked my fuel petcock, knowing that I had filled up ~25 miles earlier, but she still sputtered and slowed down. I pulled over, onto some soggy dirt (yeah, not the smartest thing to do with a 500 lb bike). I then remember, reading on another thread here, about someone losing power whilst riding in the rain. Someone mentioned vapor lock and to loosen the gas fill cap. By the way, I've never pulled off my tank or messed around with the carbs. As soon as I loosened the cap, she fired back up and the sweet sound of my Bubs filled my ears. Fortunately, Larry was behind me and Z came circling back looking for us. We then continued on but later on I had the same problem. This time, I just loosened the gas cap and kept riding.
Then,as Z has mentioned, he had similar problems with vapor lock. It was a first for both of us and must have been something with the rain or mist blocking the vent tube.

Anyway, we rode on, in search of more rain and finding it. Toss in the very extended oil slick in the middle of a narrow road, as Z mentioned, and it was quite interesting.

Eventually, we turned off towards Whatcom Lake. And things finally started to dry out. It was beautiful over by the lake. We did cruise by some house/bar with a large amount of H-D bikes out front.

Entering Bellingham, we saw other bikers going in the oposite direction, including Mr. Death!! You had to see this guy to believe it. It was some huge guy, all in black. Didn't wave or anything.

We get to the Bike shop, definitely a guy's hangout. And time to dewater all the coffee I drank at Picadilly Circus. We checked out the new TBA's, still don't like the fatter tank, the Rocket Touring (maybe one day) and the other Triumphs on hand. Seems this guy does alot of business, just not sure where are these people. We could have a heck of a crowd if they joined us for a ride.

After that, we followed Z and his electronic magical water hunting compass to all kinds of interesting places. Seems we back tracked a few times or had to make sudden right turns at a light (when you are in the middle lane and cars are coming up behind you on the right). Eventually we ended up on Chuckanut Drive and enjoyed the great views. Some of Chuckanut reminded me of riding around Mt. Rainier, so we'll have to do that later this year. It's easier to, not so many roads to get mis-directed down to.

We enjoyed some grub at Conway Tavern and decided, given the time of day, it would be best to slab it down I-5 (south) to our respective destinations. Onto I-5 we roared, twisting the throttles and opening the bikes up. I got stuck behind some cars and the others got a head of me. I was able to get back up to them just before a speed trap, fortunately none of us were stopped.

As Z said, they got off on their exit and Larry and I kept going. Larry peeled off on his and I just kept my baby southbound. Picked up 405 S and eventually got home at 7 PM. I was wiped out. It was a fun day and hope we can do it again soon. Celt, I'm sorry you had to work and couldn't make it.

Yes, I did wash my bike today!! She needed it big time!

The ride was so much fun. Great group... too bad Bob couldn't join for whole ride... Kirk, I hope you feel better. Celt, I hope your job doesn't get in the way of your fun the next we have a ride planned.
I hope we "ALL" can get together soon for another adventure.

Hopefully I can make it to the next one!

Soren

Sounds like you all had a great time, I really missed riding with you all on Saturday. At least my flu has gone by the wayside and am feeling a lot better.

Looking forward to the next ride!

Soren...that would be awesome if you were able to make it for a ride up here. Its about time to hear those fishtails again!