July 31, 2010, Saturday

Gypsy Stats: 89.5 mi, Trip Odometer

90.9 mi, Track record

5 hrs 27 min elapsed time

2 Hr 34 min riding time

35 mph average speed

Beemer Stats: 94.6 Mi

39 mph average speed

46 mpg

Just Lindsey today: ’07 BWM R1200R (grin)

Another beautiful day for riding with temp in the mid-70’s in the morning, running up to 80 to 82 F in the afternoon. I can’t make the Sunday ride tomorrow, so I wanted to get out and I’ve been wanting to get up to Hermy’s in Port Clinton to see about getting a rear luggage rack for the Beemer, so it looked like a prefect excuse to hop on the bike.

To my great surprise, Hermy’s had a luggage rack for the R1200R in stock. I was expecting to have to order it and come back in a week, but there it was, so I bought it. The box was a little big to strap on the back of the bike and the installation instructions didn’t look too complicated, so I took it out to the parking lot and got out the tool kit. Tools out, seat off, side bags off and wrenching on the side rails outside the bike shop I felt like I was becoming a true Beemer gear head. Left the empty box with Hermy and headed out south on Rt 61 to Cabella’s. My plan was to buy a couple of shirts, but they really did not have anything that I liked and frankly, the place looked like mutant city on a Saturday afternoon, so I soon split without buying anything.

Kempton was on the way home (well, sort of, the long way, anyway) so I stopped off at the WK&S RR for lunch from their snack bar. They serve Johnsonville Brats for only two bucks. What a deal. That with a cheeseburger and a pretty good cup of coffee made a nice lunch. At that point, it was only about 15 minutes to train time and I wasn’t pressed, so I bought a ticket and rode the excursion train up to Wannamaker (the W in WK&S) and back. I chose to stand out in the open car to get the full experience. They were running a little GE diesel switching engine rather than a steamer today, so no smoke and cinders, but we did get covered in hemlock needles as the diesel exhaust shook the overhanging branches just before we passed under them. Great fun, including a walk through the HO scale model layout on display in an old passenger car behind the station when we got back to Kempton.

A quick run down Rt 737 through Kutztown and on home through Lyons wrapped things up at about 90 miles for today.