Four of us met this Saturday of the Memorial Day weekend and decided off-the-bat to not make any monumental decisions about Summer rides or other plans. The June ride is essentially the four day North Carolina camping trip. We'll meet again in June (6/29) and can then plan a mid July ride.
We did however have lively discussions about a number of topics, not the least being remote diagnosis of Richard's bike's electric problem(s) and his smoking lawn tractor.
Two videos spurred our interest and resulted in quite a bit of discussion. I'll include them here as they contain a lot of useful information:
Seven members attended our monthly meeting for April.
After viewing a video from The Lutheran Hour we jumped into a discussion of the ride planned for May. This ride to Suches will be on May 18th, the third Saturday in May rather than our more usual second Saturday to allow us to attend the Two-Stroke and Vintage Rally at TWO. We enjoyed our ride there in 2017, and hope this spring rally will be as well attended. Here's a video clip from the 2017 event: .be&t=171
We plan to take a route as shown here https://www.plotaroute.com/route/606093 This will allow for two ways to approach Suches; one the road route via SR 60, the other a route using forest service roads (not shown on map).
A major portion of discussion at the meeting centered on the current status of electric motorcycles. While they have evolved a great deal in the past few years it was the consensus of those attending that they still lacked sufficient range for the type of riding most of us enjoy. This shortcoming led to a discussion of the use of regenerative braking on full fledged motorcycles. While available on many electric cars and some electric bicycles we were not aware of its use yet on motorcycle. BMW has it on a model of their large scooter BMW C REVIEW
Our next meeting will be on May 25th (yes Memorial Day weekend but we can't meet earlier or later due to planned rides)
Eight riders (plus Presley) met this overcast, drizzly day. Dave received this month's "hero award" as he was the only one to brave the weather and come on two wheels.
The meeting opened with LHM's video that gave "the rest of the story" regarding David's encounter with Goliath.
We set March 9th for our March club ride with March 16th as back up in case of a rain cancellation on the 9th. The ride will be of intermediate length and include a stop at VanZantd's in Dial and lunch at TWO in Suches. A route map and additional details will follow as the ride date nears.
Larry has been working on specific destinations and a timeline for a 4 day three night ride currently scheduled for the first week of June. Larry will be e-mailing a chart to all TLCMC riders that roughly shows the details of each day of the ride. He is soliciting feedback from everyone that may be interested in going on the ride, and specifically, which 4 days in that first week in June would best fit your work/vacation schedule.
We wound up the meeting viewing and discussing lessons that included: why Phillips screwdrivers are not the best for Japanese bikes; the best way to break-in a new motor, the variety of sidecar rigs here and there and a segment of a trip video the showed what can happen when a mix of experienced and newbie riders go off-roading together.
If you've got some time on a rainy day take a look at the whole video: ( you may have to bleep the Ural rider's language at times. Sorry)
Nine of us, not counting Presley, met this cold Saturday morning to map out our plans for future rides and to take a look at Dave's recounting of his extended ride up north.
After a visit with the Pauline letters via LHM's "What They Didn't Teach You In Sunday School" we launched straight into Dave's slide presentation, for a day-by-day account of his 12 day 3,100 mile ride with his son Joe. Both rode Triumphs and followed a route that avoided four lane highways. While most of their ride was in the USA they did cross into Canada for part of two days riding in Ontario. They had a great time together and only had two days with rain. Thanks Dave.
Speaking of rain, our often rescheduled November ride is now scheduled for February 9th, More details as the ride date approaches.
Larry was asked when he thought the Spring Overnight would happen, and he figures June 7-8 would probably be best.
We looked at two possible destinations for Spring rides, one the Airborne Infantry Museum in Toccoa (think Band Of Brothers), the other a muzzle loading cannon competition in Pelham Tennessee.
No firm plans for either were made.
Since we are headed into our 10th year of riding together we took a look back at videos of past rides and recalled riders who were once very active but for health, family, business or other reasons have moved on. Think Jim B, Frank B, Steve G., Bob (the younger), Robert (the school principal), Melinda, Mark and Abby, Nelson, and possibly Tad, Al, Scott and Garrett, good folks all. Should their circumstances change we'd welcome them back in a heartbeat, to add to the fun, as they did in the past. Still, we've welcomed new riders and meetings and rides are well attended.
After a brief look at other video clips and a fine dancing exhibition by Presley, Dan's young daughter, we adjourned at 11:30
In spite of it being a cold and soggy Thanksgiving weekend seven of us drove in for our monthly meeting at Timothy. After an interesting lesson from the Lutheran Men's Network "Time To Take A Test" about Cerinthus' brand on Gnosticism, we moved on to discuss the calendar for December. We agreed to not have a meeting in December but have a short group ride on December 8th. In keeping with the discussion I plotted a route that is just short of 100 miles, that picks up a lot of scenic points north east of Canton. The ride includes a stop at the model plane area on Old Federal Highway and lunch at Amos's BBQ. Here's an approximation of the route: https://www.plotaroute.com/route/723853
We touched on a few motorcycle topics/videos but as usual got off on other topics. As an example of our wide ranging off topic discussion we homed in on "firefighters" and why some are assistants that aren't authorized to "lay water on a fire" while others are. This led to talk of water streaming techniques, which believe it or not sparked discussion of how toilet water drains above/below the equator. I promised a definitive answer on the latter subject. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_2407455035&feature=iv&src_vid=BiBrV4Q9NYE&v=mXaad0rsV38:
Our next meeting will be on January 26th, but don't forget the ride on December 8th.