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Cincinnati camp and ride

What a great time we had. Here's my very long-winded ride report: (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) The camping part of the weekend, had 5 of us sleeping in Steve Thompson's camper at the Indian Mound Campground along the Ohio River about 25 miles S.E. of Cincinnati. A neat, quiet little campground with lots of friendly folks. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) **** Jones and I met at Greg DeCola's house Friday morning where Greg had a great hot breakfast waiting for us. We then rode a little over 3 hours to the campground. We were looking for some lunch and a cellphone call to Steve had us back on the bikes and heading up the road to meet up with him at an area sports bar. Back at the campground, we just hung around for a while until Tub Maxson showed up with his BMW sidecar rig, complete with a 1/4 barrel of Killian's on board. Steve prepared some fried chicken, pasta, and green beans for dinner, which was all scrumptous. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) Saturday morning had Steve heating up some sort of bread concoction containing cheese, bacon and Italian salad dressing. Sounds a little strange but tasted great. Jim and Kathy Brown showed up around 9:00 a.m. and we shoved off for our 125 mile Northern KY backroad ride to meet up with the Kentucky COG members at their RTE about 25 miles S.W. of Lexington. **** did not make the ride with us, as he was feeling a bit under the weather and decided to head home. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) Our first stop was taking the ferry across the Ohio River into Augusta, KY. $2 for a motorcycle to ride across and it saved us about 20 miles of not that great of roads. $2 to save 20 miles, is cheaper than 1/2 a gallon of gas at the going rate of just over $4 per gallon at 40 mpg. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) The route planner and ride leader (who do you think that was) managed to screw up the route and make a couple of wrong turns. I, um, I mean, the ride leader, threw together the route in a hurry with Google maps and didn't zoom in on some of the route changes to get an idea of which way the roads should go. So, when we were on SR 10/19 and they split off and the sheet said to follow 10 to SR 156, but it really should have been follow 19 to 156, we had to find another way to go. Luckily, I, um I mean, the ride leader, again, was familiar enough with the area to get us back on track with a quick look at the map, as well as get us lost, and we were back on our way (actually, a different way). Add in weather created detours (we'll talk about the weather later) and we may as well have just crumbled up the route sheets and navigated with a compass. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) Now, onto the weather - keep in mind that the weather forecast was for no rain until overnight. About 20 miles from Lexington, the skies were looking nasty and everyone was looking for a rest break, so we pulled into a little gas station/greasy spoon in the middle of nowhere, just before the winds kicked up and the rains came pouring down. Oh, and in the process of moving the bikes to the downwind side of the building, your's truly, managed to drop his bike on it's right side. UGH. I have had my Connie for over 3 years and I am approaching 30,000 miles and I had never dropped it. But, luckily, the only damage was a bent peg lowerer and a few nicks on the mirror, bag and light mount (which, we think kept the bike from hitting the ground very hard and prevented worse damage from occurring). (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) The rains stopped after about 1/2 an hour and we continued on our way. Since we were behind schedule, I altered the planned route and headed for the highway. Entering Lexington, the skies were looking ominous again, but it appeared we were heading around it. However, as we approached our exit, it began raining again. We dove for cover under a bank's drive through. Here's a little helpful advice for everybody, the oil slick in the bank drive through is really slick, be careful or you may have your bike slide out from under you. No, I didn't drop it this time, but the front tire left a neat skid mark about 4 feet long. Oh, and I am sure Greg will tell you that Dunlop Elite 3s don't give you much traction on wet roads, either, as his dirt riding skills were put to the test. Now, we were only 20 miles from our lunch spot and spending about 20 minutes or so waiting for the rains to let up. They did and we thought we saw a break in the clouds in the direction we were headed. So, we suited back up and just as we were swinging our legs over the seats, the heavens opened up. Off came the gear, again!! After a few minutes of contemplating and reading the clouds we determined that it was going to be a good long time before we would be back on the bikes. So, I called Brian Holland to let him know we weren't going to be able to meet for lunch and we left the bikes and headed across the street to an Applebee's. A far cry from the planned Shaker Village lunch that was planned. BTW - Brian told me later that it was going to be a 2 hour wait for a table at lunch so they went to a Catfish restaurant up the road and had the best catfish he'd ever tasted. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) Just before we were done with lunch, the rain stopped. We got back on the bikes and headed back to Cincinnati. We decided to slab it back, as everyone had enough of the rain and wanted to get back ASAP. We ran into a little more rain and wet roads coming out of Lexington. We stopped about 25 miles north of Lexington to take off the rain gear (sauna suits), because by now the sun was shining, the temperature was rising close to 90 and the roads were bone dry. We gassed up and I knew some good twisty roads to get us back to Cincinnati. So, we abandoned the slab (except, Tub, who wasn't too keen on the idea of doing more backroads on the sidecar rig), and took off for a few more hours of hilly, twisty fun. We got back to the campground around 6:30 and Tub mentioned that they were predicting strong storms for the night and rain on Sunday. So, since the skies were clear, I decided to head for home. Greg, Steve and Tub stayed at the campground to feast on Steve's banquet of hamburgers, hot dogs and brats and work on that keg of Killian's. The campground hosted a karaoke night at the picnic shelter right across the road from Steve's camper. None of the three answered their cellphones when I tried calling to let them know I made it home, so I can assume they were enjoying the beautiful singing voices that were echoing through the campground. I don't think they were in a Killian's coma, because Tub called me back later. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) My 170 mile ride home was dry and wet. I ran into wet roads about 1/2 way home and managed to avoid any substantial rain. When I got home, my daughter said it had just rained so hard, she almost pulled her car over because she couldn't see the road. Was it a good idea to come home that evening? I don't know. I checked the weather radar before going to bed and it looked like the campground was getting hammered with a storms at the time. It rained here this morning from 8-11, but everything is drying up now at about noon. Oh well. I'll use it as a learning experience, as I don't ride in the rain unless I get caught in it. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours.) I think Steve wants to do this camp and ride again next year and Brian and I talked about getting the Kentucky and Ohio folks to join forces for a joint ride weekend sometime. Both sound like great ideas to me, so plan to come out, meet some great COGgers, and ride some awesome roads when we get something worked out. (The Bergmen Oil Filter adapter is the best thing Tub has put on his Concours. BTW - after Tub told us this about the 6th or 7th time, it became a running theme for the weekend.) Bill Hookman Columbus, OH COG #6893, Ohio AAD The twistier and hillier the road, the bigger the smile.
 
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