Lots of folks were elsewhere this Saturday: Steve, doing the Lord's work, Bob the younger camping in Lula, Flip digging up divots on a company golf outing,  Bob K. judging bikinis at Thunder Beach, etc. In spite of the thinned ranks six of us soldiered on.

After viewing and commenting on the second lesson of "Facing Disasters Like A Man" we moved on to planning the overnight trip to Maggie Valley. So far it looks as if we have six yeses (Larry, Dan, Dennis, Scott, Bob K. me) and one maybe (Steve). Anyone else finding they can make it please let me know. Dan showed us photos of his "cabin" in Morganton, and he certainly is taking a chance making such a nice place available to a rowdy motorcycle crew. But we do appreciate his offer.

The weather didn't cooperate but our monthly meeting went ahead anyhow, sans motorcycles.

For the first time we used one of the latest videos from LHM Men's Network for the Devotion:

http://www.lhmmen.com/studyvideo.asp?id=15037 

All agreed it was the way to go and we will continue the series at future meetings. We covered the causes of tire blow outs and discussed the best way to deal with them should it happen while at road speeds (don't brake the effected wheel). We went on to discuss helmets, how to clean the soft interior parts and when it's time to put down the dollars to replace the helmet entirely.

We watched a short video on safety put out by Geico Insurance a few years ago that had some good points to ponder:

From there we moved on to view two clips that show actual cases of high-siding and low-siding and discussed how to avoid both and how the conditions leading to a high-side might be corrected when sensed early on:

The Cherohala ride scheduled for April 9th was discussed and the weather conditions (Tellico Plains forecast of > 40% chance of rain) that might trigger a postponement to the following Saturday (hope not).

Dan gave the group an update on the latest web site options and after the meeting brought the Bobs up to speed on how to take advantage of some of the posting features.

Obviously there was no after-meeting ride but we hope for the best next month.

Remember, Ocoee-Cherohala April 9th, weather permitting. More details later.

We met this day at Timothy, and the meeting ran overtime because of the discussion we had when Bob K. went over the details of the trip he, his brother Tom, and a friend took out west last month. We heard of their 960 mile days with forced stops at 100 mile increments due to unexpected high fuel consumption at  their barely subsonic speeds in the wide open spaces. They encountered heavy winds in Wyoming causing leaned-over riding for hours, wind gusts pushing their bikes into adjacent lanes, and thunder storms that could be seen, but took hours to hit, then were gone. This, along with photos and description of visits to Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore as well as a week in Sturgis, camping with 20,000 among a total crowd of about 400,000 held everyone's interest. Quite an event and quite an adventure. 5000 miles in, if I recall correctly, 11 days. Thanks Bob for letting us "join you".

We wrapped up the month with a meeting at Timothy, attended by all not on vacation, out of town or otherwise committed.  The tale of a couple stranded while  riding the Trans America Trail (TAT) was the topic of a lively discussion about the safest way to tow a motorcycle. The couple used a foot-peg to foot-peg attachment which the group agreed was not the way to go (see two bikes, one dead in Duct Tape and Bailing Wire).  Foot-peg to a break-free attachment to the steering stem was our preferred approach. What's more we concluded they could have avoided a tow if they had swapped batteries, ran the one down, then swapped again etc. Our Safety discussion centered on Riding In The Rain and Riding In The Heat. An outline for both these discussions can be found in Weblinks under Training.