I went riding today with some people that I met here
http://bamarides.com/ I think there were 9 other bikes that road. Here is the thread on bamarides.
http://bamarides.com/rideforum/central-rides/mystery-bbq-6-see-the-leaves-ride-saturday-october-15-2011/ I left my house just after 7:00am to drive the 75 miles to the waffle house. Arrived at around 8:30 and there were 5 other bikes there. While I was refilling the gas tank before going in the waffle house I noticed the left rear blinker was hanging by its wire. The 6mm bolt that holds the blinker to the stalk had fallen out. Instead of getting to eat breakfast I had to make a trip to the autozone which was about 1/2 mile away.
After installing the bolt I went back to the waffle house where everybody was out side looking at each others bikes. There were several Harleys, a dressed goldwing, a v-strom and others that I did not recognize. There was not any duel sports , choppers and no bobbers. The Nighthawk received plenty of attention. Had several comments about how it looked like new and several people wished Honda still made something like it.
At 9:15 Postmaster from bamarides gave a little safety talk about how this ride was going to be. He told us to ride staggered and stay in line, no passing others in the group. If some one has to stop everybody try to get to the next wide place in the road. There was a lady riding with us on a new Harley sportster, she and the bike had less than 3500 miles . She received the position of 2nd in line.
Around 9:30 we headed southeast from Pell City to Talladega. I was third from last, just in front of me was a Harley and behind me was another Harley. As we entered the town of Talladega two medium sized dogs tried to cross the road at the Harley that was in front of me. He revved his engine and scared the dogs back . But they were so scared that they ran in front of the Harley behind me. I heard tires screaming and looked tn my mirror to see him just miss the dogs.
We left Talladega and traveled through some hilly terrain till we ended up on top of Mt. Cheaha, the highest point in Alabama.
As we neared the top we passed these guys taking photos.
http://joerides.smugmug.com/MtCheahaAlabama/2011-Mt-Cheaha-Alabama I will look to see if they got me when they post todays photos.
Here are some that I took at the entrance to Cheaha State Park.
After some more twisty roads our next stop was at Touchdown BBQ in Anniston. The owner of this place is a big football fan. He is so devoted to football that he is closed on Saturdays. So we had to go to the backup bbq place Brad's BBQ. When we asked the waitress what was best she said the catfish. Huh. I had a BBQ sandwich and fries that was good. The riders that tried the catfish said it was good.
After eating it was time for fresh ice cream right from the dairy. So after some more twisty back roads we ended up at Wright Dairy.
http://wrightdairy.com/ The wild blackberry was great.
This was where we started back to Pell City. I think two bikes road down from Huntsville so they left us and headed north. Once back at Pell City we split up an I road back to Tuscaloosa. Had a total of 308 miles.
It was 50deg. when I left in the morning and around 80deg on the way home. The trees are still mostly green with only a few Judas trees betraying that fall is coming.
