Long days + fun + hard work = Cannonball Stage 4. Early morning drizzle in Southwestern NY gave way to scattered clouds and sunshine by the time we got to Bowling Green, Ohio. The ride was (mostly) awesome…sweeping curves, farm and forest, small towns with great turn-of-the-century architecture, etc. The brutal aspect came in the form of potholes, road seams and non-intentional speed bumps. On a rigid frame motorcycle from 1917, these really start to pummel the rider. They also loosen nuts and bolts! Today’s riding partners included Vern Acres and Mark Hill (the man responsible for keeping many of these Henderson’s alive and on the rode). Mark was throwing wrenches out of a hole in his saddle bag while Vern was keeping the speed up whenever possible. I wish you could hear the sound of the three bikes running side-by-side- awesome!
In order to keep all the mileage points, riders have to be prepared for “secret” checkpoints. We decided to skip lunch and drove by the lunch stop…about 2 miles later “we” decided to turn around and go back to the shopping plaza and see if there was a secret checkpoint there…nope. It was a good call none-the-less because we would have been penalized for not checking in. This did add 4 miles to the odometer so I had to constantly do the arithmetic at each of the 30+ instructions as we continued to the final check in.
Results indicate some remarkable achievements for Class I, II and III bikes with perfect scores so far:
Late night maintenance complete, time for 6 hours of sleep. Stage 5 will be another good slog of 275 miles. Let’s hope all the parts keep working in harmony.