Day Nine of the CCC trip

Dano says:
With a decent nights sleep, I grabbed a shower and went downstairs to see who had arrived for the ride. Bucket decided that he would stay put for the day as his head was still spinning from all the drinking. Hockeyfan took off with his wife(so nice to meet ya Dina) to make the CCC trip a true CCC trip. More power to ya David, I wished that I could have done the same. There was a large group of people and we had decided that it would be best to divide into groups. Fast, medium and slow (like me). I signed up for the last(slow) group because I wanted to take pics and sight see with my Oz mates,

not to mention the fact that I was riding my pals bike and needed to return it to him in one piece. So we set off with Cheapbastard and the rest of the wrecking crew, about 45 miles into the ride, we stopped for a break and deduced that we lost a few of the group. One of the riders was Leeds, NakedChicks husband, she tried calling him to no avail. Cheapbastard, Nakedchick, BrianK and myself retraced our route to try to find the wayward riders. We made it back without finding them, but they showed up later as one of the riders in that group had GPS and continued riding for a while. Later in the afternoon a few of us went to the motorcycle shop and got supplies to change our oil and filters. BrianK took Chewie, Bucket and myself to the shop in his car. First we hit some BBque lunch with Nimec and Dfib. From there it was a short drive to the motorcycle shop where Cheap demonstrated his wheelie abilities to us in the car, a few feet away. Squid. At the shop we purchased our supplies and the manager got wind that we had ridden across the country and had a couple Aussies with us. The manager was cool enough and gave us some free shirts, I think Cheapbastard's free "aura" was working its magic. Back to the casa we roll, to do the services on the bikes. With a few drinks in hand, we quickly changed the filters/oil in three bikes with a lot of sideline mechanics staring over our shoulders. The day was done, time to chow down on some pizzas


and drink a few cold ones.


Later in the evening we got together to do a "Thank You" to Cheapbastard for hosting the 2009 ECR. I asked Chewie to be the MC and do all the talkin'.

We got Cheap into the garage and rolled the film,

Chewie gave a great thank you and led up story to where we gave him his gift. With all of my appreciation, I thank everyone in TST.com that donated to this gift. With the inside knowledge that he was tired of paying 15 dollars to change a tire, we decided to get him a Cyclehill tire changer kit with balancer. Bucket and Chewie threw in a set of Bridgestone BT0-16's to sweeten the deal. When I thought the awards were over, I was told to get from and center. I was then thanked and given a SWEEET Arai exact replacement helmet that I have. I was so grateful that everyone chipped in to do this for me and Brad, Thanks everyone, you guys rule. There is a drawback to having two of the same helmets now. One helmet has a clear lens while the other has a dark smoked lens, now I have to carry the other helmet with the opposite lens in case it gets dark/bright outside. hehe

To recap the day though was kinda painful. I knew to keep myself in check having rode those local roads the previous two years. North Carolina has some amazing twisties and the locals are fast on their home court. Hell they are fast anywhere! Our small slow group was fine for the most part, Nakedchick had a grassy knoll moment and slipped on a U-turn. She and the Monster were fine. I was almost run over in a sweeping left hand corner by a black Ford Ranger that was all the way in my lane...damn that was a close call. I had all of MAYBE two feet of pavement before I went off roading.


After we got back to the house, we found out that a bunch of the riders weren't lucky. Check the egos at the door people. I remember being 4th or 5th in the line of bikes and seeing the outta towners going at a fast clip with the local fellas. I remember thinking that they are riding to fast out of the gate, slow down, there isn't anything to prove. I think there were 5 or 6 wrecks that day. I was sad to see all the carnage, it was a bad way to start a fun weekend. I don't have a map of today because it was chopped up and we didn't adhere to the regular map schedule.

With everything taken care of we proceeded to enjoy a wonderful evening of drinking and a lot of bullshitting.


David says:
Day 21 Whiteville NC
You read it right that says Whiteville not King. After talking to Dina last night we decided I would wait until she got there and then we would see the other coast together. I got to sleep in and take my time getting cleaned up for the first time in three weeks. The timing seemed to work out cause no sooner than I got done the carnage started to show up from the days ride. I'm not the fastest guy in most of the groups I ride in and I can't come close to some of these guys and I except that especially on roads I'm not familiar with. Some times its good to make that admission early on and just enjoy the ride. Dina, Bryce, and Catlin showed up around two and I find out Dina has ridden all the way from our house and is still raring to go so after meeting a few people we headed out. Let me just say this about NC road signs. They suck. Interstates are not always identified on the exit signs and sometimes your expected to know the old route number too. Since we got a late start and Dina had already done 300 miles when we left we didn't make it to the Atlantic today. We did get close enough before dark to make it an easy day tomorrow. I fell asleep sure I had missed another good night of camaraderie with people from around the world and many different walks of life, but there is much to be said for spending the night in a strange town with the love of your life after being apart for three weeks. Whiteville NC 7705 miles so far.