Well I've been on the road since wensday. I've clocked 2600km so far, and will clock another 1100km in the next 2 days. I'd do that in one run normally, but I've got a place to stay and lots of vacation time left.

Anyhow, set out wensday from Halifax and ran the 420km to fredricton. Knocked that down in 4 hours flat. Got in early enough to eat and have a good nights sleep. Nothing particularily eventfull, only a few minutes of rain.

Set out on thursday at about 6:30 am and ran from Fredricton, through Holton ME, down to MA on the 495. That was about 730 km. That took 8 hours, and 4 or 5 gas stops. Ate a sandwich and that was about it. Nice to have was my water bottle bungeed on. I had a gas station attendant throughtly baffled as I wrote down my mileage. She had no idea what I was doing, and had no idea why I was dressed in a space costume. Needless to say I explained it as I wanted to hear someone else talk for a minute. At that point I was pretty tired of what I had to say about this and that in my helmet.

Friday set off from Here (Currently in MA on the way home) down to NY, through the Green Mountains in Vermont and back up into NY through the 10. Fantastic roads in through there and in the ?600? kms we did only 50 had a straight part. I scrubbed in the sides of my tires in preparation for the weekend rally. I did one squidly thing - I got put in a position where I had to make an emergancy stop. I ended up locking up the rear tire for the last 10 feet of this stop, and had the front tire howling before that. I thoroughly impressed my ninja riding companions, and they had a good chuckle at this old UJM doing a amusing (after being successfull) panic stop.

We assembled a group of about 14 riders, a mix of ninjas, an R1, an CBR 600, a pacific coast, and a few VFRs. Saturday we ran 300km of really twisty roads. All went smoothly. The #10 is fantastic between oneonta and speculator. On the way through the amish area I ended up in another bad position and demonstrated an example of a very late turn entry. Once again the old UJM earned a few more points - how was this ancient bike keeping up with these sport bikes??? This lead to a switch-a-roo.

The whole weekend I'd been watching my tire waste away. On sunday I limped back to MA, riding at or below posted speed as my rear tire was starting to show cord in one spot and would very soon be unusable. On Friday I had ordered a rear tire to meet me here. We'll change it in the morning. If it gets done quickly I'll ride to Fredricton tommorow, if not I'll spend the day touring some of the roads.

Then I have some fishing planned, and a ride from Fredricton to Halifax will be the last leg of this little endevor.

If you aren't watching the IRB website that also kicks off tommorow - (Iron Butt) It's a very interesting read and makes my ride look like a walk in the park. The end goal for some riders is 11,000 MILES in 11 days - I'm going to only do 2000 miles in just under a week.

Anyhow - a long uninformative post to say: Rubber side down, and I hope to see you on the road.

Cheers,
woot.