Well after the last two days of some pretty tough riding, testing the limits of rider and machine, we spent the morning doing some much needed maintenance. I had broken both of my mirrors over the last 2 days, and went down to the local truck stop and bought some convex truckers stick on mirrors and a tube of silicon. I concocted a a couple of mirrors that will get me home. The entire Martin Gang, tore into their bikes right at the front door. Everyone lubed chains and cleaned/oiled our very dirty air filters. I also, reduced the preload on Jenn and my front forks. Jeff, spent the morning re-attaching and securing some of the parts that were abused during his Warloop ride. Although we started around 7 AM, it was after 9 before we rolled our for the TAT. The riding wasn't nearly as technical as the prior 2 days, but we drove miles of 6 inch deep fresh gravel. It was really a lot like riding in deep sand, as the front wheel really had to plow a path, which required us to really plant the front wheel, and get used to the back wheel skittering around for miles at a time. Although there were a number of close calls, nobody fell! We spent the morning driving a section of the Ozarks, and then settled into a some long, boring, extremely dusty roads. Again, I spent most of the day only only being able to see about 10-15 yards around me, which didn't make for a very enjoyable ride, but then some excitement. Jenn's rear tire quickly went completely flat! We pulled off into someone's driveway and went to work. Daniel could see that I was struggling with what I believe to be cracked ribs from my first fall yesterday down that 2 foot rock drop, and he jumped in and swapped out Jenn's tube. It wasn't repairable as it had a 6 inch tear in it, but that is why we cary a spare. Man, Daniel can change a tube faster than anyone I have ever seen! I know that after we had the wheel off, he had the new tube installed in less than 5 minutes. We aired her tire up with a Slime Pump, and we were again off into the 95 degree heat! After a section of particularly deep gravel of about 2 miles, we stopped again to get a drink, and to see if everyone was as struggling, and we all were. We were saying we were starting to see mirages of pavement, and Russ said he was having visions of bikini clad women holding cold beer! We talked about how much more deep fresh gravel we would have to endure before we reached pavement again. Jeff said it would be cool to record us all bouncing around up to the next turn, so he stayed back and ran the camera. Guess what, the next turn was the hardtop. We had a good laugh, and saddled up and started down the road again. We had gone about 5 miles, and Jeff's bike suddenly lost power. We pulled off the road, and he went to cleaning his carb, thinking that he might have a clogged jet. He tried again, and the problem wasn't corrected. At this point, Daniel and Jenn decided to go ahead and get some rooms booked for the night, while Russ and I stayed back to make sure Jeff was OK. After another couple of attempts, we decided to limb over the 15 miles to the hotel at around 30 miles an hour with our blinkers running. Wouldn't you know it, a thunderstorm came up on the way, but we welcomed the rain, but not the lightening. However, we made it safely to the hotel even though we had to run a 9 mile streatch on the expressway on the shoulder. We slowly rolled into the parking lot, and after a thorough cleaning of the carb by Jeff and Russ, a chunk of junk was found in the main jet. So Daniel and Jenn ran to the next county to get some beer (ours was dry!), and Jenn ordering us a couple of pizzas, we called it a night. Another long, hot, humid, dusty day, but no new bruises or broken bikes to fix.......... but a challenging day none the less!
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