I blame Mike

I want to take a sentence or two to apologize for the lack of updates, I would personally like to blame Mike for not giving me/mom great updates. Mom has been keeping up on facebook with their updates and bringing up stuff that they are doing on that. So sincerely apologize, however, I knew it wouldn't be as awesome, because well, I and Mom are not there getting the details first hand. 

Monday: 

They started in Evansville, IN and went to Bowling Green, KY. On this route they had to take this crazy wooden bridge. Here is a picture of some riders going over it (pictures were taken by crew from the Chase)

Photo credit: Mike

Originally I was under the impression that It was just this one bridge, but after talking to mom, there was actually two! They got over this bridge, all thankful for that, and then they came up to another one, and it was longer. And it was in the same condition. The trick for this kind of riding is to go fast and stay in a straight line. It allows you to essentially bounce over some of the hole-y areas. Mike believes (and I would have to agree) that his dirt biking skills helped him get over these bridges with no issues and to know how to get over them. He did see that some riders did put their feet down on both sides to almost balance themselves while going slower. 

He did think that everyone made it across without issues, but later found out that two did not. One guy kind of went down and broke his finger. OUCH! And the other rider got stuck in the middle section and couldn't get out, when he tried he ended up tipping his bike. For the record, he did get his bike out. 

Unfortunately many people disliked the ride Monday because there was a lot of construction (which I assume is hard to prepare for when making these routes). The construction ended up making the riders go on 4 lanes roads. (side note-- is that what they are called? when two lanes are going one way and two lanes are going the other way? DON'T JUDGE ME!) With these older bikes, interstate highway riding is really hard on the bikes, you are pretty much riding them open throttle. Two riders said they weren't enjoying the ride, one actually called his family to come pick him up. But they said nope. (It sounds harsh, but if you live with someone who does The Chase and the Cannonball and spends money on this hobby, I personally would give the same response and say 'suck it up buttercup')). And supposedly the other rider actually did quit. All in all, I think it is just more taxing on the riders. They don't have that support crew, they can't just roll the bike up into the trailer, they have to take all their things into the hotel, no one to help them with anything, etc. I guess one guy in the beginning was explaining how badly he needed his support crew, realizing they put a lot of effort in. Anyway, there were a lot of bike problems for people this day, mostly batteries and primary chains. 

The weather was REALLY hot. In the 90s. 

Tuesday:

Murfressboro, TN to Chattanooga, TN

Someone had an accident (mom thinks that this happened on Tuesday). They pulled out in front of a vehicle and clipped the front wheel which fell off. They thought he broke his ankle but sounds like he's okay. Fortunately, he's from the area, and will get a new bike to finish the ride. He will be disqualified just like Mike is, but thats typically not why people do this. 

I guess Mike LOOOOOOOOOOVED the ride that morning. There were up and down hills, winding roads. Mostly all backroads. It was sunny. The only problem it was 98 degrees. They were in Tennessee. He thought it was really cool (mostly because he had never seen it before) but there would be a huge plantation mansion on one side of the road with fields and then across the road a little bitty trailer shack and it was like that EVERYWHERE. 

Wednesday:

After changing out Steve's primary chain, Steve took his bike out for a test drive. He got lost, and couldn't find his way back to the hotel. As he was driving around looking for the hotel, a cop pulled him over because he wasn't wearing a helmet. Georgia is a helmet state--meaning you can get ticketed for not wearing it. If you get a ticket while riding in the Chase you are disqualified. Fortunately, Steve showed him his greasy hands and explained that he was just trying to see if the chain was okay, but then got lost and couldn't find his way back to the hotel. The cop didn't give him a ticket, but did give him directions back to the hotel! Oofta, that was a close one.

Steve may have also lost his jacket when he drove off for the test drive. They're hoping someone found it and turned it in to the lost and found. Mom I guess was teasing that the lost and found is probably the largest that the organizers have ever seen with The Chase, since the riders don't have their support crews "sweeping" up after them. 

I guess one of the riders - maybe more - are having problems with staying hydrated. One had to not ride due to having heat exhaustion. The rider was found wandering around under a tree, didn't know where they were, couldn't read a map, nor really see. I'd personally like to make a service announcement as a nurse -- take this shit serious. Confusion, dizziness, fatigue, loss of consciousness, muscle fatigue, etc. It can develop into heat stroke -- don't get me started. 

The riders have no discovered that Mike is an emergency physician. He's been approached by multiple riders asking for medical advice. I guess it's pretty handy having a doc around to get back on the road and not miss a beat!

Mike also loves Jody Perewitz's snaps wit. They were chatting when she mentions that she had called an "uba" to take her to the "pot" store. Fortunately, that sentence was part of a greater conversation where she was saying that she had to help another rider who needed parts to fix his motorcycle. She had called an Uber to take her to the parts store. Mike laughed at her accent an she quipped back "what do you mean accent? we were here before you were" referring to her home being in Massachusetts vs Mike living in Minnesota. 

 Photo credit: Ron Alft that I stole from Jerry's facebook

Wednesday 

Chattagnooga TN to Macon GA 

Photo credit?? Mom probably screen shotted from the live video from The Chase

Jerry

Jerry

Mike

Steve

Thursday 

Leaving Macon GA to go to Tallahassee FL

Photo credit: Jerry.  Mike and Steve preparing to leave

The Swap

Saturday Sept 7
Well, 5:30 am came real quick as my alarm clock rang. But with excitement I jumped out of bed and got ready to drive to Milwaukee. Through the 5 hour drive there, I was overly excited to see all the bikes and some of the riders who also were in the Cannonball. 

I did talk to my mom on the phone who told me this wonderful story about Mike. Supposedly, on Friday before Mary, Deb and Mom left Mary couldn't find Shane (her favorite, maybe even more than her husband--sorry Starry). She ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS gives him a hug prior to start of the race. Well, somehow she couldn't find him. And blah blah blah, his bike ended up breaking or not working. Some kind of spring? He was talking to Mike the next morning (Saturday) and told him that he blames it on not getting a "Butts" hug. Well, Mike said that this might not do, but he ended up giving Shane a hug. Now, if you know Mike AT all, he is not a hugger. So for him to do this, it is VERY out of his comfort zone, and its wonderful! I am so proud of him. I think Shane probably thought it was hilarious. He actually called his wife Tammy and told her about it. 

On our drive Tony and I stopped at a few Harley's for some poker chips (for my brother and his wife's niece), which it's always fun to see the different once. Once we arrived early so we could site see in Milwaukee we clearly started off at a brewery, and then check out Lake Michigan, but then--we find a get this....National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. I mean, seriously, what a find!

As for Mike, which is the REAL reason I'm writing this blog, lets be real. So, on Saturday they only had to ride about 10 miles to the ferry that they would take across Lake Michigan which he and Jerry felt would be okay for the bike, remember the bike started making a knocking noise, making them believe that it was the piston going out. So he made it to the ferry. Larry, Mike and Starry's (the reason I call Steve Starry ((Steve and Larry combined))) brother met Mike at the other side of the ferry with the truck and trailer. They loaded up the bike and headed toward Milwaukee where Jerry had his friend Willy bring a different bike for Mike. Are you ya'll keeping up with all these -y names? I'm not making this shit up, this is real life. I swear. Unless you know of course I got their names wrong- which is totally feasible. 

Anyway, Tony and I ended up meeting up with Mike, Larry, Will (who is also a friend of Jerry, different than Willy who's bike also broke down) and Willy. It took us only a few minutes to figure out where to pack, they actually allowed us to park at the Harley Davidson Museum which was kind of nice to still be within the action and we swapped bikes.

I personally had a lot of fun swapping the bikes. I feel like I actually was of help besides when I couldn't get the damn nuts on at some points, I am claiming that my hands were full of grease and thats why? Lets run with that. Anyway, between the 6 of us, we switched the windshield, odometer, the seats, and the cargo bags. In theory this may seem like it shouldn't take that long, but this bike didn't line up PERFECTLY etc. It was trail and error, but we definitely managed. It did go faster than what I even expected. One of my personal favorite comments from both Larry and Jerry were; one of them said "well it's not very often you see a girl with her hands covered in grease" and the other said "well you had no problem just jumping in and helping out". My response was "well how else am I going to learn?!" 

Of course we spilled oil....Remember this picture

The bike that we will switch to

  

Wahoo!!  We did it, we got it swapped. Notice that I have no pictures of myself, because guys don't take pictures like girls. How lame. Jerks. kidding, I knew I needed to write this blog and well, I like to document stuff.  

Tony and I really wanted to check out the museum and store and TYPICALLY they aren't open on Sundays to we ran over there real quick. Well we didn't have time for the museum but luckily they were open on Sunday so we would do that before we left town. 

I LOVE photobombing pictures. I thought Tony was taking a video, however he was taking a picture. I jumped, but he got me right as I was landing. Still Amazing, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, we ended up grabbing food at the restaurant that is connected to the Harley Davidson shop, it was pretty yummy and they live music. One of the men even played the harmonica which was pretty freaking sweet. I grabbed this next picture that I found just kind of fun, all the guys just walking out and stopping to take in the view of some of the left over bikes. And PLEASE notice Mike's hat (far left). He's so hipster. Of note, Mike didn't check in because we were too preoccupied with getting the bikes swapped so they were worried about him! So he had to rush over and check in. Whoopsie! 

 It has gotten slightly chilly after dinner and the guys were going to ride the bikes to the hotel. Mike was going to grab his jacket (because he's in a short sleeve). But if you see that building in the background, the truck was parked behind that, and his bike was to the left. AND he was going like less than a mile. So somehow I told him to suck it up at the same time him pretty much told himself that he can survive that short distance. THE BEST PART THE WHOLE TRIP!!!! I was stopped at a stop sign and I let the motorcycles go in front of me, Mike included. He rode in front of me, rubbed his arm up and down (like he was cold) and then made a face like this (all with his head turned to the right to look at us) : 

I have this mental picture in my head and I wish so bad that I had a dash cam because it was the funniest thing I have seen. If you know Mike, and have ever witnessed him act like this, you know exactly what I am talking about. It is probably one of the best moments and something that you will forever remember about Mike is his funny-ness. 

Sunday Morning

Nothing too exciting that I am aware of happened Sunday morning. We met up with all the motorcycles that morning at their hotel to watch them off. I helped Jerry get his route chart set up, because clearly I am a professional. He was VERY impressed by my skills. Probably only because I have smaller hands and get the duct tape where it needs to be, etc. (hard to explain if you've never worked with one). I went into the hotel and went to see if Steve needed help he didn't he was doing okay, but if you remember from the Cannonball my nickname was the Sweeper. Well Steve almost forgot his jacket, I had to grab it for him!!! 😂 I also stepped in as a Butts' and gave Shane a hug. Hopefully it didn't turn out to be bad luck! Here are some videos and pictures:

This is not my picture: this picture was taken by Vicki Sanfelipo, the RN staff

The swapped bike 

Starry had been trying to hard to get the bike started, kick starting it and kick starting it. And then Mike just tries once and gets it started after once. And Starry just looks defeated. And I'm in the background yelling "You prepped it for him, you prepped it for him!" pure luck!

Oil and gas....yaaaas!!

They're off!

Not sure when Larry took this picture but clearly Starry is a happy man on his motorcycle! LOOK AT THAT SMILE!

 Again not sure when the next photos were taken, but thought I would share anyway!

Jerry

Jerry (again not my pic, from The Chase)

The group, in the handicap...whats the mean? Also not my pic, I think Vickis again.

Just being cool at the Harley Davidson Museum

Remember when I told you to remember the oil that we spilled? If you look really really close, you can see in-between the bent pole there is a dark spot, we left our mark..........of oil. shhhhh.

The dangerous day

Friday Sept 6th

Today, the ladies left the guys and traveled home safely. As for the guys, they had a day to say the least. 

They had to go across the Mackinac Bridge today. In Mike's words it is SUPER high. 155 feet to be exact. With today's weather it was NOT the ideal place to ride. It gets really windy, and on top of that it was raining. So how this bridge is set up is that it has four lanes. Two lanes going each way. The two outside lanes are normal paved roads and the two middle lanes are grated. 

As they got to the bridge, they realized that half of their lanes were closed. Guess which side was closed. YUP-- you guessed it-- the PAVED side. So the motorcycles were forced to drive on the grated side. It looked like this:

So, on top of needing to ride on the grated part of the bridge, there happened to be some kind of event that had all these old tractors going the opposite directions. So you had the event of Old motorcycles vs the event of the old tractors, and half the bridge is shut down.

I guess when you ride on a grated bridge on a motorcycle, the bike goes back and forth- back and forth constantly.  So pretty much you cannot change the front wheel. You need to let the back end fish tail or you'll tip it. Mike even said "I'm not going to lie, I was scared."  Mike to me, is someone who is never scared. Unless it's heights, but he handles that very well. Granted this bridge was very high up, so that could not have been helpful, and it was SUPER windy. 

With it raining all day, there was a lot of wooded ares and the motorcycles would come over a hill and then there would be a stop sign with parked cars, so you would have to obviously put your breaks on, but you would skid out a little bit because of the hill and the rain. So all in all the whole day was DANGEROUS for motorcycles today. But, no injuries that we know of. 

They had their first quiz today, they were told it was going to be on motorcycle history. Unfortunately today it was about the area they were in. Here are the questions:

How do you spell Sault Sainte Marie? (there I gave the the answer)

When was the state of Michigan founded?

Which one has the great population Sault Sainte Marie Canada or Sault Sainte Marie Michigan?

Whats the name of the bridge that connects the two?

Well, tomorrow is another day. Mike will be disqualified tomorrow. This completely sucks, but luckily will have a bike that he can still participate with -- just not legitimately?  So hopefully with my mad motorcycle skills we will get this new bike up and running and all the bags and other necessities switched. (Just kidding, I probably will not be that much help, unfortunately). A for effort! 

Milwaukee here we come!

Answers to the questions:

Spelling: Sault Sainte Marie

Founded : 1837

Sault Sainte Marie in Canada has more of a population

The name of the bridge that connects the two are Sault Sainte Marie International Bridge

Well, crap

Thursday Sept 5th
Yesterday I got a lot of information, and pictures. Mind you I was at work and Mom was texting me pictures and stories throughout the day. I had some complete FOMO (fear of missing out) going on, and wished I was there. 

The first story I heard was that Mary had asked Steve if he had his finger gloves and he said that they were on the pocket of his jacket (this was prior to leaving for the trip). He then realized the jacket wasn't packed yet. He said he was going to run in to go to the bathroom and grab the jacket before they headed to Jerry's. Once he was almost to Jerry's, he had realized he had forgot to grab the jacket after he used the bathroom. Jerry ALSO forgot his riding jacket. For the record I did offer to stop and get them on my way to Milwaukee, I even had the day off from work today to go grab them if need be. They did not take me up on this offer.

Unfortunately, on Thursday Mikes bike has a knocking noise that is getting louder and louder. And the bad news is, is that Jerry thinks that it's probably a piston. This would cause Mike to have to drop out of the race and not be able to continue on the Chase. 

Last year when we were at the Cannonball I told ya'll about the guy who mooned us, well this same guy has been seen peeing in the bushes...in case you were wondering. I can't say that I am surprised. 

This is Mikes route chart after he got it ready to go. Please notice that it is in fact upside down. His support crew (Mom, myself, Mary and Starry handled that part) haha

Mary was beyond excited to see her FAVORITE rider Shane! He was also part of the 2018 Cannonball

Here is a picture of Mike, John Bartman and Starry. John was also apart of the 2018 Cannonball. We actually were "camped out" next to him when we first arrived in Maine

Examining the knocking noise, seeing if there is anything else going on.

Weiland's and Butts'

MARY (In Starrys voice) was actually smiling while she was getting this picture taken, even though she knew we couldn't see her mouth anyway...hahaha 

Mom and Deb getting charts set up for the husbands

Mike poses for a picture 

Da brothers

Panorama with a big ship in the background

Mike ready for the picture ---with his best smile on 

Jerry and Starry the official start

A man (Mike) and his motorcycle

The concentration is real for Starry-- chewing on his tongue

Some pictures of the guys driving

I guess Deb had some tears as Jerry drove off because this is he first time she hasn't been on the back of the motorcycle with him on something like this. 

On Wednesday evening dinner Jerry who is usually very involved in the conversation, was completely silent and starting into the distance. Not in a bad way, just thinking so hard about what might be wrong with Mike's bike and what they could do to keep mike in the race. That's when he came up with the idea of having a friend deliver another bike to Milwaukee! 

Also but not least, look who came to see the riders of the Chase! Ricky and Janice! Our lovely friends from the Cannonball. And of course-- Mom and Mary had to send their nephew, Jeff (who was also on the Cannonball as a support crew member) a picture of them. 

<3Brianna