36 Hours To Make A 6 Hour Ride!

Yep, you read that right, we left Thursday morning to head out to the Bastard Bash at Deal's Gap Resort and didn't get there until late Friday. In between Thursday morning and Friday evening we had a lot of adventures as you'll see. Thursday started out great, I met Loaf at the McDonalds in Pelham, He had ridden up from Montgomery, AL already and his bike was running fine. Ed called me and said he would meet us in Attalla on the way up to Chattanooga. We proceeded to eat some breakfast and get on the road. The plan was to ride Hwy 11 to Chattanooga and then other roads from that point on.

Our bikes outside McDonalds before we left.

We got to Trussville and already Loaf needed to adjust his clutch. That done we headed out again and made it all the way to Ashville, AL at the same crossroads where David's bike broke on the way back from BMR. This corner is cursed because Loaf's clutch let go right there. Luckily it was an easy fix (damned Ironhead clutch ramps), but it took an hour.

The cursed intersection and the tree we worked under

Loaf's pretty new clutch and the scars left by the ironhead clutch ramp.

Back on the road we go until we met up with Chopper Ed and continued on our way. We stopped for lunch in Ft. Payne and when we were ready to leave my battery was low. I figured I must have had a loose wire or something so we push started the bike and took off. About 10 or 12 miles later I hear a couple of bangs and pops and the motor dies. I went ahead and just pulled over because I knew the battery was gone. I was HOPING it was just a screwed battery so I decided to call Michael Lewis since he owns Violent Choppers and has a shop there in Ft. Payne. Luckily he answered, said he had a battery and came to my rescue. We replaced the battery and decided to check the charging system and as we feared the stator was dead. We called around and no one had a stator not even Micheal's Dad Rick at Rick's Cycle Parts. If Rick doesn't have one NO one does. I called back down to Pelham and Heart of Dixie HD had one in stock, but that was a hundred miles away. SO we loaded up the bike and headed for Micheal's shop.

Outside the Jack's restaurant in Ft. Payne, AL where we had lunch
The are no pics of when I broke because I was scrambling to get stuff worked out. I'll have a post just about Violent Choppers later this week so you can see the pics I took there.

It was then decided that we could borrow the shop truck and take the bike back to B'ham to fix it. We left Loaf's bike at Violent Choppers and hit the road. Of course it was too late to get the parts that day so we went to my house, ate some pizza, drank a few beers and watched old Biker movies on Netflix. Next morning we were at HD to get the stuff and went on over to Garage Company Customs where Larry came through and let me borrow a lift and tools to do the work. Since I have never replaced a stator I drove Spenser and Mundy nuts with questions but we finally got it done, loaded in the truck and on  our way back to Ft. Payne.

Violent Choppers in Ft. Payne, AL, home of my rescuer Micheal.

Once there we dropped off the truck, picked up Loaf's bike and were back on the road. Since we were already behind we took the interstate and made good time except we ended up going up and around to come down the Dragon on the way in instead of from the South like we did last year. About 3 or 4 o'clock we headed down 129 and even got our pictures taken by one of the photo websites. Once we got there after our 36 hour 6 hour ride we find out that all kinds of stuff has been happening and our story isn't even that impressive anymore ;-) That's OK, we had a great time and I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.

Our group photo around our passed out friend Justin from Canada Friday night.

I need to thank some GREAT people who made the story so far happen. Micheal from Violent Choppers is good people and knows what this lifestyle is all about. If he hadn't rescued me then let me borrow his truck this story would not be continuing. Larry and the guys at GarCo as usual came through for me and let me use all of their stuff. And Loaf, my new best riding partner and damn good friend. We went through a ton of crap and still had the time of our lives.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story......