Today is the first day in two weeks that we won't be riding our bikes. We will do some maintenance and taking a day to relax. Also in this day, many years ago, I stood by Mike as his Best Man when he got married to his wonderful wife Brenda. Yes, today is Mike and Brenda's Anniversary and as he was talking her this morning I yelled out that I was sick of him and wanted to give him back. She responded with “Try living with him for 17 years!” I told her that she was obviously an angel to deal with this guy for such a period of time! We started our work for the day doing laundry and Mike finally got someone to help him fold his clothes. Eric gave him (OK, us) a lesson on folding shirts and pants. Sure it cost Mike a few bucks but it was worth it! Mike was extremely proud of himself and I am sure that Brenda will no longer need to take care of his clothes after the end of this trip. Of course, he still has issues with the washing and drying but he’ll get that down sooner or later.  

I found that Eric has the same sickness as Mike when it comes to morning rituals. Mike shouted “See, it’s not just me! It’s you that aren’t normal!” I am convinced that these two guys are just plain sick and need to see a Doctor about what goes through their large intestines. Mike has to test the bathrooms that he visits with what he calls a “courtesy flush” after he does his daily duty. It may sound sad and sick but hey, I have to deal with it every day, you only have to read about it once!

As far as the bikes go, we actually changed the rear tires Friday evening when we got to Eric’s house. There was no way Mike could ride his bike another mile and my rear tire was just about in the same shape. Mike felt he had at least another 20 or 30 miles before the cords of the tire were showing. Tire wear was a total unknown to us on this trip, as we could not get top quality brand name rubber. You just cannot get 2.75x18 front and 3.00x18 rear tires here in the US. We put about 500 miles on the tires before the trip and that is about the distance we went over what we should have. We are carrying about 65-70 pounds of gear on each bike along with our big butts. The tires we have (Cheng Shin) actually work great. They grip very well and feel fine in all conditions but the rubber is very soft (which is not a bad thing!) and we just had no idea what to expect for mileage from them. The front tires are wearing much better and will most likely make the complete trip with no issues.  

We did a full maintanence on the bikes including an oil change using Pro Honda GN4 oil. We checked the valves and cam chain tension and both bikes were just about perfect and needed only minor attention. The chains appear to be wearing OK and have stretched slightly as expected since we installed them new in Topeka. I took my fuel tank off for inspection of the coils and wiring and all was fine. Mike had to repair his chain guard as it cracked in the normal spot that these bikes have an issue with from time and vibration. Eric is a very good welder and he handled the welding duties after Mike prepped the part. I had repaired mine before the ride and have not had any problems in that area.  

Eric lives in a neighborhood very close to Indianapolis Raceway Park, which is a very popular location for drag racing as well as circle track. You can actually feel the ground vibrate when a Top Fuel dragster runs through the quarter mile at Eric’s place, which is about a mile away. The top fuel cars have up to 7000 horsepower!

Here are some interesting facts about top fuel cars:

- One top fuel dragster, with a 500 cubic inch hemi engine makes more horsepower than the first four rows of the Daytona 500.

- Under fuel throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 ½ gallons of nito-methane per second. In comparison, a fully loaded 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate with 25% less energy being produced.

- From light to light under load, on a quarter mile drag strip, a top fuel engine turns a mere 540 revolutions. For those that are not to up on engines, that ain’t many.

- Dragsters reach speeds over 300 miles per hour before you have completed reading this sentence.

Many of his neighbors are involved in various forms of racing including drag bikes, Top Fuel, IRL as others as well. We stopped over to meet one of Eric’s friends Roger Crawford and his wife Linda. Roger has several motorcycles in his garage and has been involved in Top Fuel Drag Bike racing as a builder and rider. We sat and had a couple of beers while watching various racing on TV and chatted about the ride and Honda. Roger rides Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycles, but has a thorough knowledge of the history of Honda. We chatted about stories on Soichiro Honda and the company that he built.    

During our visit with Roger and Linda, another neighbor of Eric’s Jim Gatlin stopped over to say hello. Jim races go-carts and we went over to his place before went back to Eric’s. Jim’s 7-year old son JR has just started racing and he came out to talk it up with us. He has so far has finished 6^th, 5^th and 4^th. When I asked him what he plans on getting the next time out he responded with confidence in his voice “Don’t know, don’t care, just gonna do the best I can”. Who knows, we could have been talking to the next Tony Stewart or Jeff Gordon!

We came back to Eric’s and he had to get ready to leave for his evening shift of work after preparing a full course meal for us (we thought it was the least he could do!). Eric has been way to good to the two bums that have intruded on his home and we more than appreciate his hospitality. We tried to get him a wife while we were here but were unsuccessful in the short time that we had to work with. I suppose that our decision to create a side business called “The Ride to Remember Dating Service” wont be as successful as we first thought. Besides, we probably aren’t the right guys to help him in this area as we have both been lucky enough to trick our own wives into thinking we would be good catches. Now that they know better it’s too late! Anyway, if any of you single females are looking for a good guy that has his own 5000+ square foot home, give us a shout and we’ll get you his email address!  Carin and Brenda, don’t even think about it, you’re stuck with us!

Well, tomorrow we will travel to a couple of destinations that we have not discussed in the routing of the trip. We plan on stopping at The Honda Training Center in Troy Ohio to say hello to Tosh Konya who is in charge of the Rider Education Center at that location, and then stopping by HAM in Marysville to say hello to the folks there.

We did not ride at all today so I am not yet sure if that is a good thing or not. Maybe it was good to let our butts rest for a day or maybe our rear ends will reject the seats of the Superhawks. We’ll see bright and early in the morning!

Till next time…