Cursed

Saturday heavy rains pelted New Hampshire as the remnants of Hurricane Danny moved across the area. Then true to the old saying “if you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute” the skies cleared into a beautiful crystal clear day by Sunday. With a sigh of relief, Andy and I donned riding gear and headed three miles down the road to meet the New England Riders.

From Misc

The New England Riders began their journey north to New Hampshire an hour earlier from Westford Massachusetts. Their first stop put them close to home where we joined them for a planned loop through Southern New Hampshire. This loop encompassed some of my favorite roads and I had been looking forward to this ride for weeks. It certainly turned into a well attended ride and we divided into two groups; the power riders, and the flower sniffers. As for me, flower sniffing suited me just fine.

I greeted Wingman with surprise and inquired what he was riding these days as he had sold the Wing sometime back.
“The silver Suzuki over there” he replies.
I’m looking all over creation for a silver Suzuki, when finally he points to the silver SUV parked near the building. (You can see it in the photo above.) I’m surprised by this, but Wingman never misses a beat.
“No one said you had to be on TWO wheels.”
Well, it is a Suzuki….close enough.

I’m feeling bad for Wingman, but as it turns out, Wingman had the better deal. A mere 15 miles into the ride Andy’s voice comes over the two-way radio announcing “something is wrong.” We pull over in Francestown, and can you believe it, he has a FLAT! That was the end of our Southern New Hampshire Loop. The next few hours involved trying to inflate the tire (pointless), putting Andy on the back of Blaze and heading home for the trailer, back to the bike with the trailer, then back home again. We reunited with the New England Riders later in the day at Kimball’s for ice cream. There I learned that Wingman and his SUV had come in handy when one of the passengers got a bit dehydrated and rode along with him for recovery.

At Kimball’s the woman who had been behind Andy as the flat became apparent, had also been behind him in Maine for the previous flat. Small and petite, she stood right up close and pointed upward to his chin and proclaimed how she will never get behind him on a ride again! You just have to chuckle at a sight like that.

As for Andy, he has owned his bike for four years. For each of those years he has managed to ride over something to give himself a flat tire. Only one of those times was the tire a bit thread challenged, thus giving him an excuse. I am not sure how he is attracting pointy objects to his tires but I’m beginning to believe he is cursed.

*Happy Birthday Andy*

(Photo by GoldwingBob)