Near disaster avoided

The top photo is Maggie Valley looking East just before dusk.

The other is the BBQ diner in Mocksville, NC.

June 17 – Riding Day 13

Total trip mileage is - 4810.

Photos from our visit with Allan and Barb and photos from the ride today are located here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/daveste99/20080617Day13


Last Friday was the 13th and at the time I was glad I wasn’t riding on the “bad luck” day of the year. However, today was our 13th riding day and we did run into some bad luck. I’ll start by saying it could have been much worse so we are lucky on the account that nothing horrible happened.


As a quick forward to what you are about to read, last week I had a major service performed on the bike plus new front brakes and both tires replaced.


We started out from my brother’s house just minutes after 8:00AM, as planned. I elected to take a secondary highway south of I-40 and I am glad I did. After about an hour of riding I started hearing a noise from the front of the bike, around the front tire. At first it was a light clicking and soon turned into a louder thumping noise. I pulled into a fast food restaurant parking lot and checked the front of the bike. I found the front fender was loose because the mechanic had installed the wrong size bolt into one of the bolt holes that hold the fender on. I fixed this and took off but soon the noise got worse and I pulled off again, this time in a town called Ashboro, NC.


I looked the front of the bike over again and then tilted the front tire to the right so I could get a good look at the left side. I saw right away that the lower bolt that holds the brake caliper on had worked itself loose and was gone. The brake caliper was hanging from the upper bolt only. The mechanic obviously forgot to torque the bolt to proper spec and it fell out! This could have been a very dangerous situation and luckily nothing real bad happened. To now make a long story shorter, I located a Honda dealer about a mile from our location and after about a 2 hour delay we were on the road again.


I would like to publicly thank Cycle Center in Ashboro, NC for going above and beyond in excellent customer service and getting us back on the road in very short order.


We continued on our journey and stopped in Mocksville, NC for a great BBQ sandwich lunch in a small local restaurant. Check out the photos of this and the town.


We then finally had to confront I-40 again and headed west until the exit for Maggie Valley. We arrived at about 4:00PM and all is good. Good that is except for the fact that the 2 hour delay prevented us from visiting the Wheels Through Time motorcycle museum, once again. Oh well, I will have to visit them in Prescott, AZ once they get situated there next year.

The weather today was perfect! It was a warm but not hot. It is sunny and almost no humidity. It is cooling down a bit and as we will be in the mountains tomorrow, it should be very pleasant.


Tomorrow, we ride a bit south then enter the Blue Ridge Parkway heading north. We are stating at the very bottom of the Parkway and will ride it all the way to Front Royal, VA, where it ends. The day's activities include a hike at a place called Linville Falls and then end our day in Boone, NC. This will be a short riding day and we plan on taking our time and fully enjoy all the area has to offer.


Take care,
Dave and Karen