June 2

Wednesday was another sunny morning albeit quite warm in Phoenix. I asked Mike when the last time he saw this many days of sunshine? He stood there for a moment and said that it was probably not since the first time he came to my house in Corona when I tricked him into going on this ride. That was about a year and a half ago! As we rode, the heat seemed non-existent and the morning was perfect for riding.

We left Phoenix and rode up towards Payson. On the way there, we stopped by a large Sahuaro (or Saguaro, depending on your spelling preference) for a photo. These plants can grow to over 50 feet tall and this one was over 25 feet in height. They are quite interesting and this one was blooming and had beautiful little flowers growing off of its -I’ll call them- branches. I have heard that they also have edible fruit that they bear in spring as well.

As we continued on Rt. 87 to cooler temperatures we came across an interesting sight just before Payson. In the Hamlet of Rye, a rare sight exists if your a motorcycle nut like Mike and I. "All Bikes" shows a sign that states it to be a museum for antique motorcycle’s and bicycle’s. In reality, I think it is better stated it to be one of the most elaborate cemeteries for just anything with wheels. If you ever had a bicycle or motorcycle, this place most likely has one sitting there!
We spent a couple of hours looking around and talking to the owner of the place.

We were shown an antique BSA bicycle as well as a bunch old toy pedal cars that Dave Lipka, a good friend of ours back in New York would most likely go nuts over!

To our amazement, we saw another bike made by the same manufacturer as the Lilac seen in Jerome just a couple of days earlier! We saw another model of the Marusho motorcycle. This one was a 500cc-opposed twin that had an engine that looked just like a BMW. The rest of the bike looked very similar to the one we saw in Jerome (mentioned in the May 31st write up).

We also saw a rare Honda that was not brought into the sates, a Moto-Comp. These little critters are rarely seen and this one was covered in wheels and tires. The owner of All Bikes was pretty protective of his yard and did not want us to touch anything so our picture taking was somewhat limited. He stated that folks have destroyed valuable items such as rare meters and fuel tanks by picking them up and dropping them by accident.

As we rode over the Mogollon Rim, Mike pulled over and thought we should take a picture of a road that one of his co-workers would like to ride on. This ones for you Paul, no curves!

We ended our day here in Holbrook Arizona. We were considering going further but were warned that unless we were willing to "sleep in a ditch" or ride an extra 150 miles, we better stay here. Tomorrow we have a long day planned with close to 300 miles and our first Honda HRCA chapter dealer visit in Farmington New Mexico.
We will also cross the 1000 mile barrier tomorrow morning as have accumulated 927 miles since the start of the ride in Torrance.
Mike installed a very precise digital bicycle speedometer on his bike prior to the start of the trip and even though both of our SuperHawk odometers show the exact mileage accumulation each day (this is truly amazing to me!), they are optimistic by about three miles per one hundred. Not too bad for 40+ year old components!

Finally for tonight, we have received a truly overwhelming number of e-mails through the website from folks all over the country. To say we appreciate it is an understatement (by the way Jeff, I SWEAR that I put that master link clip on correctly the first time!).
Thanks to all that have taken the time to wish us well, it gives us the extra drive to keep this up nightly! Tonight we are doing this on dial-up once again and knowing that folks are following our ride makes it worth the long nights! Keep on checking the site, we’ll keep putting more in!