Today, our trip took us on a relatively short ride to Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Phoenix, but, the day was very long!

My day started at 4:45 in the morning when my cell phone went off. I had set the alarm in it to go off at 6:30 so I thought when it went off that I made a mistake. I hit what I thought was snooze. As I sat up in bed half asleep wondering why it went off so early, the darn thing did it again. I quickly hit the stop button before I realized that someone was trying to call us! Turns out it was Beth, Mikes sister who had packed up an exhaust pipe and had it ready to ship if needed. Mike called Brenda the night before and asked her to dig out one his spares out of the barn just in case we needed it. As mentioned in yesterday’s report, the pipe had started to crack quite badly.  Since I was up and Mike was snoring away, I went out to the bike to further investigate the damage to the pipe and decided to put some High Temp Silicone sealant over it to see if it was getting any worse as we rode to Phoenix. We knew that this was a priority repair needed before we could continue on. 

As we were leaving Sedona, it was difficult to just ride away. The sights are magnificent to say the least, and Mike decided to pull over to take a few more shots before we headed to the heat of Phoenix.

The ride today was just 102 miles from our stopover in Sedona. MMI has over 2200 students enrolled, most all are looking for careers in the motorcycle industry. The folks at MMI had prepared to hold an Open house for the Hontech Department. The Hontech course at MMI is a 12-week Honda specific class that helps students to prepare to work on Honda Products at American Honda dealerships. We met up with Terry Emig at MMI and did a talk with a great bunch of of over 100 MMI students and answered questions about our trip, American Honda History, the Honda Riders Club and the motorcycle industry in general.

Also attending the open house were a couple of HRCA members from the area that saw our articles in the Red Rider Magazine and decided to come to see the school and visit with us.

Mike Evans from Casa Grande, which is about 60 miles from MMI, rode his original and un-restored CA77 305 Dream. He purchased the bike and had not needed to touch it. It was obvious that the previous owner kept it up well! He also has numerous other vintage Honda’s in his stable including a Z-50 Mini-Trail, SL70 and C200. Come to find out, Mr. Evans had purchased parts from Mike’s business, Northeast Vintage Cycle on various occasions!

Dan Snelling rode his 919 in from just up the street in Phoenix. He explained that he once owned a CB77 SuperHawk “When is was still a current model!” His SuperHawk was not a stocker but instead had megaphones and rejetted carbs. “It was as fast as anything out there in its time” he told us.

After we were done with the talks with students and guests, we started working on the bikes to do a full service. We changed the oil and needed to adjust only one valve that was just a tad loose. We also topped off the batteries with some distilled water and Mike adjusted his chain.

Speaking of chain, We replaced the makeshift master link clip with one provided by the folks in HonTech on my bike.

The big repair was done on my bike where the exhaust pipe had started to crack as mentioned earlier. Jim Wagnon from MMI was kind enough to take the exhaust to his shop and weld the pipe up. His assistance was a lifesaver! Now we have a replacement ready to send if needed and will check on it as we ride on.

After dinner, we went back to talk with the HonTech evening class and had a great discussion with an additional 30 or so students. Mike and I said goodbye to everyone and went to the hotel to prepare for tomorrow's ride and update the web-site.

After todays ride, we are 733 miles into the trip.      

Tomorrow we travel North through Payson and Holbrook Arizona to get out of this 110 degree heat!