Despite the heat, MTR had a great turnout for our ride up into the Blue Grass last Saturday. We met at Bob Evans Restaurant out near the Mall and as the clocked ticked closer to our departure time it was beginning to look like a poor turnout. But after paying our tab and walking outside I was very pleased to see most all of our group had opted to wait in the parking lot. The count was ten motorcycles and seventeen souls and that included guests Rick and Donna, friends of Buck and Chat and Linda friends of David and I. Charlie Gibson, who had been rear ended on his Venture earlier in the week, was also along in a Porche Boxter loaner graciously supplied by his better half, Darnel.
We left at 8:00 sharp and had a great ride to Murray where we visited the Hannigan Trike showroom at the Hannigan factory. They have a very nice place up there with a lot of beautiful trikes plus a smattering of weird bikes as well. One in particular, the reverse trike, was very odd and puzzling. I liked it but I didn't like it either...I just simply couldn't get a grip on the thing.
Afterwards, we had dinner at the Cracker Barrel in Murray then backtracked to the town of Hazel. Hazel straddles the Kentucky/Tennessee border and back in the day I'm sure this little hamlet was a thriving community but now it's mostly a collection of boutique shops with a restaurant and gas station thrown in for good measure.. The most popular business seemed to be the one with the Ice Cream parlor and that's where we set up headquarters while the ladies shopped.
We left around two-thirty and made our way towards home via Brownsville where we couldn't resist and stopped off at the Dairy Queen for one more frozen concoction to get us home. Motorcycle run on gas and motorcyclist run on Ice Cream. Along the way Danny and Lori's bike began to run a bit ragged but despite their aggravation it did get them home and that's what counts. We had a great time and the heat, even though it reached a high of 97 degrees, was not unbearable.
A few interesting TRIP stats: We rode a total of 287.4 miles, saddle time was 5 hours and 43 minutes. Average speed was 50.1 MPH and our maximum speed was 81.2 MPH. On another note, Danny and Lori's bike turned out to be a computer hiccup and after the ECM was re-booted the bike was back up to snuff...And make welcome to Chat and Linda Lofton, the two newest members of MTR. They joined up Monday.
bj
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