A brief report on TriSTAR...
Around 10 riders made it to Sparta Thursday. That's more than usual for a Thursday night, but we started hearing almost right away about the weather forecast for the weekend. Everybody was predicting rain starting Saturday afternoon and continuing through the night, all day Sunday, and into Monday morning. Not good.
Andray Hubble had ridden up Thursday to give his newly resurrected ST1100 a baptism. But with a family wedding on Saturday, he had to return to Alabama Friday. Bill Rusk had something come up and he along with a couple of his riding buddies headed back to Ohio Friday morning.
Jim Roberts trailered his brand spanking new Yamaha MT10SP from Iowa(!!) to Sparta arriving in the wee hours of Friday morning. He was catching up on a bit of sleep when the rest of us were getting ready to take off for a ride, and we felt like if he was still sleeping, he needed it.
Friday morning arrived with a temperature in the low 50s, but a beautiful clear sky! The temps got into the high 70s later in the day...really nice riding temps.
I rode with Norm Kern and Jeff Dolence up to Burke's Garden where we had a fine dining experience at Mattie's Place. While we had to do a bit of hopscotching around some slower traffic and other issues, I'll remember it as a pretty nice day.
Jim Roberts got out and did some riding on his new bike that he ordered about 2 years ago...by the end of the day he'd accumulated a total of about 334 miles on the bike since he got it. It's REALLY that new.
Ron Vess was out and about on his Triumph 900...I think he really likes this bike!
Upon our return to the Allegheny Inn, we compared notes and decided the weather forecast was just too, too nasty for Saturday. We decided to have a good dinner in downtown Sparta, and then we'd all head home Saturday morning before the rains hit.
But as the afternoon progressed, Chris Parker rode in from northern South Carolina. And over the next couple of hours, another 7-8 riders came in. I'm sorry I don't remember everyone's name, but several of them were new or non-members and were checking things out. Some had plans to come to STAR in a couple of weeks, and others had only a couple of days available, so they came to Sparta. We have a picture of several of us standing behind our MSTA banner hanging on the 1st floor railing. But even these afternoon arrivals were well aware of the weather forecast for Saturday, and already had pretty definite plans to head out Saturday morning away from the cold front coming from the southeast.
After hitting the sack at an unusually early time (we were chastised Thursday night for talking too loudly by some of the other Inn patrons), I woke up early Saturday morning. With temps now in the mid 40s (what the heck, Lucille??) but still clear skies, it was tempting to pass on our departure plans. Several of us had another good breakfast at JB's across the parking lot from the Inn, but it wasn't long before the parking lot was nearly devoid of bikes.
For myself, I'd trailered a bike to Sparta. It's an older trailer that cranks down to a nearly flush level with the ground. It's sounds good, and some aspects of the trailer work well. Other aspects could use a little refinement. On the way home, I stopped at a rest area, ducked into the restroom, and then came back out ready to get rolling. That's when I noticed one of the joints of the square tubing base had cracked, the one supporting the left side wheel, and the wheel was tilting over near 30 degrees. It looked terrible...it was terrible. While I could see the bike in my rear view mirror, I couldn't see the trailer, and I have no idea how long it had been like that other than it was not broken when I left Sparta. But with the left side wheel being held in place pretty much only with the u-bolts on the leaf springs, I wasn't sure just how much further I'd be able to go. I could see the entire left wheel breaking off...really not good!
I got off the big road and started looking for options. We sometimes make fun of the proliferation of Dollar General Stores, but when I saw one, I wondered if they would have ratchet straps. With some straps I guessed I'd be able to support the cracked joint and pull it together which would hopefully get me the final 35 miles home. 4 ratchet straps and an hour of experimenting later, I was more comfortably back on the road home. The cracked joint looks, in retrospect, like it's been welded before. But the inside of the tubing is really rusty and I don't know if it's repairable. There may not be enough good metal left at the broken joint to re-weld.
Once I got just a few miles away from Sparta, the weather improved greatly. When I stopped 35 miles from Knoxville for my Dollar General excursion, the temps were already near 80...quite a change from the mid 40s just a few hours earlier. And I had a nagging fear that the high probability of heavy rains at Sparta might have just been a shake-and-bake by the weather gods...it wouldn't be the first time. I have to admit I was relieved (if you can be relieved about bad weather) that Sparta was now getting heavy rain which would continue until near midnight, lighten up a bit for a few hours, and then hit again Sunday morning before continuing into Monday morning.
The weather really did a job on us this year. With STAR only 200 miles away in only 2 weeks, bad weather, and more and newer events close chronologically, our numbers were really down. But we made some good contacts with new and potential members. We had good fellowship, and I continue to be reminded of how the MSTA is my "riding" family. I hope to get back to the Sparta area and maybe come up with some new routes for TriSTAR "future". What has been developed over the years is a great resource. But it won't hurt to add some new options either.
See you next year!
