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Wild Motorcycle Tales

Here's a great story from Arnold Payne. Got your own story? Send it to me.

The Man Ride 2005

It was the spring of 2005. It was time to ride, to make some memories on the road.

The riders were Mike Bowman, Tim Knapp, Shane Suppess, Tom "Flash" Dunsmore, and me.

We fueled up ourselves with some breakfast, fueled up the bikes, and prayed up for the journey to Tombstone, AZ

The ride to Tombstone was a two gas stop ride. This ride turned out to be a three stop ride. Normally, I was getting 170-180 miles on the stock motor on my Fat Boy. Then I put a stage II kit on the bike. I found out the hard way that my mileage changed. I was now getting 140 miles to the tank. You got it! I ran out of gas on the first leg of the ride.

With all of us sitting on the shoulder of the road 30 miles from the gas station and not having a siphoning hose or a bottle to put it into, Shane walked up to Flash's bike and without even asking Flash, pulled the hose vent off his bike. Now we had a siphon hose. We found an empty bottle and before long we were rolling again.

We made good time to Tombstone arriving before the sun dropped. But, along the way, Flash lost his cell phone, charger, hat, Mike's hat and a headband. There's no helmet law in Arizona so we all took our helmets off just across state line, to have the wind in our hair.

At sunrise in Tombstone, we ate breakfast, fueled up the bikes, prayed up and hit the road for home. Man was it cold that morning. Thank God for cowhides.

Flash had put his helmet under a cargo net on the back of his bike. As we flew through Phoenix, his helmet went flying off his bike. Nobody even thought of stopping for it. It was like a pinball bouncing off cars in traffic.

We got to Quartzsite. Flash, not having a helmet, was a guaranteed ticket at the state line. There are no shops in Quartzsite, but God will provide. There's a flea market there though. Could there be a helmet there for Flash? Praise the Lord, there was. A faded green WWII helmet with straps and padding on the inside and no chin strap to keep it on his head. But with a little black spray paint, a leather shoe string for a chin strap and we are rolling for the state line.

Flash was riding next to me trying his best to keep up with the group. With no windshield on the bike, the helmet tied down with a shoe string was cutting into his neck and Flash had to ride with his head down to keep the wind from pulling off the helmet. And if you know Flash, that's a problem. With his head up sometimes it's a problem.

I've ridden thousands of miles with Flash and I would ride thousands more with him as well. We may not have had a siphoning hose, but I did have some black duct tape with me. I waved Flash over, pulled out the duct tape, doubled up two pieces for a chin strap and duct taped the helmet on his head. It was going to work, and it gets him home without a ticket and has no problem keeping up with the group.

We all laughed. Flash laughed right along with us. Flash said something that I will never forget: "We are making memories."

That's what riding is all about. Turning bad situations into something memorable. Having fun regardless. -- IE Black Sheep, Chapter Pres, Arnold Payne

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