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Leesburg thoughts
Leesburg thoughts
Had a real nice ride to Leesburg yesterday. Headed down Rt.1 from my
place and stopped finally at a little knife shop in Bunnell that I've
passed often and promised that I'd stop in some time.
Met Mr. Turner, who owns a sewer company and makes knives as a hobby.
His wife told him to get his knife collection out of the house so he
opened this little shop down the block from his regular business and
moved his knives and his knife making tools in. Spends his week ends
and evenings making knives, puttering with his collection and trading
stuff. Fun place. Knives of all descriptions from total crap fantasy
knives for whoever the hell it is that buys that sort of thing to some
decent Benchmade and other semi-production stuff and and assortment of
his own hand made knives. Picked up a nice handmade knife from his
while I was there. Nice guy and worth supporting his craft.
Went on from there along Rt. 40 and encountered the Giant Chicken. Pics
next door. It was a sort of flea markety yard salish thing. Full of
cast replicas of the Statue of Liberty and puking dolphins and pissing
boys for fountain use. Had to get a pic of Max's Dragon and the Giant
Chicken.
It was a gorgeous day. Upper 70's to low 80's I'm guessing and no
traffic on the back road two lanes so I was able to crank the Duc up to
the 85-90 range for long periods of time. Bike runs and rides great at
those speeds. I had complained about the stock windshield and
buffeting, but turns out I just wasn't going fast enough.
Ran through the Ocala National Forest. Trees, road, no company.
Perfect. Several bear crossing signs, but no bears. Several deer
crossing signs, but no deer. The bear crossings and the deer crossings
were always separate. Probable to keep peace.
Oddly enough, all the bear crossing signs were absolutely pristine. All
the deer crossing signs were shot to shit. Wonder why.
Leesburg was fun. Smallish town, kind of quaintish. Some sort of plant
(Kaolin maybe?) there just off the main drag.
Lots of people, lots of bikes. More like Biketoberfest of a few years
ago than it was like Bike Week. Felt like a similar size crowd. Some
vendors, but it wasn't at all a shopping meet like Bike Week. Not
nearly as many high buck checkbook bikes and a lot more baggars and
sportbikes. Didn't see any colors at all. Did see quite a few black
clubs, which was pretty cool from my point of view. Always hated that
about the Daytona stuff. White folks over here, black folks always over
on the other side of the tracks and almost never did the twain meet.
Always felt wrong to me.
And speaking of black clubs and sport bikes, there were amazingly decked
out custom Hayabusas and ZXwhatevers, amazing custom paint jobs, chrome
or polished custom wheels on them. Mostly set up with extended
swingarms for drag racing rather than for road racing, but then this is
Florida. We don't have much in the way of twisties.
I never though of a 'Busa as a particularly erotic design. Until
yesterday. Saw a young black woman riding one (actually there were
quite a few, but I'm only talking about one woman in particular). By
ordinary standards she was probably pretty ordinary looking. Not all
that tall, kind of stocky in build. But when she draped herself over
that 'Busa with the clip-ons and the rearset pegs and made is snarl and
spit and stand up on it's rear wheel it just set my old man's heart (not
to mention my old man's nether regions) into serious awareness. I do
like strong women and that young woman on that Busa was so confident, so
at-one with the machine, that I'm not going to be able to look at 'Busas
quite the same way again.
I was hoping to see a bunch of nice home-built bikes, but that didn't
happen. There were few nice Sporties that had the home-build look about
them, but mostly I saw either stock bikes or stock bikes with lots of
bolt on chrome and expensive paint jobs. It may have been that I wasn't
in the right area to see them, but I though I covered the area pretty well.
Most of the bikes, though were real people bikes. Not the 50K factory
built BigDogs and IronHorsen and stuff like that. Some of those, but
relatively few. And the crowd was more of a real people crowd, too.
Whole lot of folks in the over 40 range and lots of folks as old or
older than me. Or maybe younger than me but with more and harder miles
on them. Good to see folks like that around.
Lots of bands, an all-day arm wrestling contest that was real popular.
Beer tents, food tents. Quite a few of the food vendors seemed to be
local churches cooking home made stuff and vending it. I ate a lot of
their stuff 'cuz I liked the idea of it. Quite a few of the vendors
were local or regional charities raising money for their causes. Spent
a lot there, too.
T-shirt vendors, leather vendors, patch vendors and sewers, a couple of
tattoo parlors on wheels, a few hard parts vendors and at least three
different people doing pin striping.
The most incongruous thing I saw all day was a clean cut sort of guy on
a bike with three big reflective crosses on the backrest of his sissy
bar (Christian type crosses, not exes, so I figured he was Christian and
not a porn star) and wearing a t-shirt that said 'If you can read this I
threw the bitch off' I wanted to catch up with him and ask him what he
thought Jesus would think about his t-shirt but I was afoot at the time.
Oh, yeah, cops. Saw probably all of the local cops and some special
crowd control cops. Got to talk to two of them who were riding two
wheeled Segway gizmos. One was a young real cop and the other was some
sort of crowd control part timer. They were friendly and I enjoyed
talking with them. I asked the young one how hard the Segway was to
ride and how hard it would be to ride one with a few beers in you. He
said it was pretty easy once you got the hang of it, but that it took
some fine muscle control to ride it smoothly and guess that if you got
to drinking and riding it it'd probably throw you off and make you puke
before you got into any real trouble with it. Wouldn't let me ride it,
though.
All in all the cops were very cool. I saw more than one young woman
waving her hooters around and they just smiled and gawked at them. One
woman was wearing one of those net webby things and riding up and down
the street drawing a huge crowd of guys with cameras, and they never
intervened. Didn't see them stop anyone from walking around with open
containers. Didn't see them stop or hassle anybody for loud pipes or to
'check numbers'. Leesburg advertised the event as hassle free, and from
my point of view it was.
I've written too much, but it was a good time and I think next year I
may well find a motel and go for all three days. I'd recommend it,
based on my experience, as a Good Thing. It'd be nice to set up some
kind of NetScum get-together there.
--
Spunky Hussein Tuna
radical ChristoIslamic fundamentalist Pescasupremacist...
but not at all bitter
Had a real nice ride to Leesburg yesterday. Headed down Rt.1 from my
place and stopped finally at a little knife shop in Bunnell that I've
passed often and promised that I'd stop in some time.
Met Mr. Turner, who owns a sewer company and makes knives as a hobby.
His wife told him to get his knife collection out of the house so he
opened this little shop down the block from his regular business and
moved his knives and his knife making tools in. Spends his week ends
and evenings making knives, puttering with his collection and trading
stuff. Fun place. Knives of all descriptions from total crap fantasy
knives for whoever the hell it is that buys that sort of thing to some
decent Benchmade and other semi-production stuff and and assortment of
his own hand made knives. Picked up a nice handmade knife from his
while I was there. Nice guy and worth supporting his craft.
Went on from there along Rt. 40 and encountered the Giant Chicken. Pics
next door. It was a sort of flea markety yard salish thing. Full of
cast replicas of the Statue of Liberty and puking dolphins and pissing
boys for fountain use. Had to get a pic of Max's Dragon and the Giant
Chicken.
It was a gorgeous day. Upper 70's to low 80's I'm guessing and no
traffic on the back road two lanes so I was able to crank the Duc up to
the 85-90 range for long periods of time. Bike runs and rides great at
those speeds. I had complained about the stock windshield and
buffeting, but turns out I just wasn't going fast enough.
Ran through the Ocala National Forest. Trees, road, no company.
Perfect. Several bear crossing signs, but no bears. Several deer
crossing signs, but no deer. The bear crossings and the deer crossings
were always separate. Probable to keep peace.
Oddly enough, all the bear crossing signs were absolutely pristine. All
the deer crossing signs were shot to shit. Wonder why.
Leesburg was fun. Smallish town, kind of quaintish. Some sort of plant
(Kaolin maybe?) there just off the main drag.
Lots of people, lots of bikes. More like Biketoberfest of a few years
ago than it was like Bike Week. Felt like a similar size crowd. Some
vendors, but it wasn't at all a shopping meet like Bike Week. Not
nearly as many high buck checkbook bikes and a lot more baggars and
sportbikes. Didn't see any colors at all. Did see quite a few black
clubs, which was pretty cool from my point of view. Always hated that
about the Daytona stuff. White folks over here, black folks always over
on the other side of the tracks and almost never did the twain meet.
Always felt wrong to me.
And speaking of black clubs and sport bikes, there were amazingly decked
out custom Hayabusas and ZXwhatevers, amazing custom paint jobs, chrome
or polished custom wheels on them. Mostly set up with extended
swingarms for drag racing rather than for road racing, but then this is
Florida. We don't have much in the way of twisties.
I never though of a 'Busa as a particularly erotic design. Until
yesterday. Saw a young black woman riding one (actually there were
quite a few, but I'm only talking about one woman in particular). By
ordinary standards she was probably pretty ordinary looking. Not all
that tall, kind of stocky in build. But when she draped herself over
that 'Busa with the clip-ons and the rearset pegs and made is snarl and
spit and stand up on it's rear wheel it just set my old man's heart (not
to mention my old man's nether regions) into serious awareness. I do
like strong women and that young woman on that Busa was so confident, so
at-one with the machine, that I'm not going to be able to look at 'Busas
quite the same way again.
I was hoping to see a bunch of nice home-built bikes, but that didn't
happen. There were few nice Sporties that had the home-build look about
them, but mostly I saw either stock bikes or stock bikes with lots of
bolt on chrome and expensive paint jobs. It may have been that I wasn't
in the right area to see them, but I though I covered the area pretty well.
Most of the bikes, though were real people bikes. Not the 50K factory
built BigDogs and IronHorsen and stuff like that. Some of those, but
relatively few. And the crowd was more of a real people crowd, too.
Whole lot of folks in the over 40 range and lots of folks as old or
older than me. Or maybe younger than me but with more and harder miles
on them. Good to see folks like that around.
Lots of bands, an all-day arm wrestling contest that was real popular.
Beer tents, food tents. Quite a few of the food vendors seemed to be
local churches cooking home made stuff and vending it. I ate a lot of
their stuff 'cuz I liked the idea of it. Quite a few of the vendors
were local or regional charities raising money for their causes. Spent
a lot there, too.
T-shirt vendors, leather vendors, patch vendors and sewers, a couple of
tattoo parlors on wheels, a few hard parts vendors and at least three
different people doing pin striping.
The most incongruous thing I saw all day was a clean cut sort of guy on
a bike with three big reflective crosses on the backrest of his sissy
bar (Christian type crosses, not exes, so I figured he was Christian and
not a porn star) and wearing a t-shirt that said 'If you can read this I
threw the bitch off' I wanted to catch up with him and ask him what he
thought Jesus would think about his t-shirt but I was afoot at the time.
Oh, yeah, cops. Saw probably all of the local cops and some special
crowd control cops. Got to talk to two of them who were riding two
wheeled Segway gizmos. One was a young real cop and the other was some
sort of crowd control part timer. They were friendly and I enjoyed
talking with them. I asked the young one how hard the Segway was to
ride and how hard it would be to ride one with a few beers in you. He
said it was pretty easy once you got the hang of it, but that it took
some fine muscle control to ride it smoothly and guess that if you got
to drinking and riding it it'd probably throw you off and make you puke
before you got into any real trouble with it. Wouldn't let me ride it,
though.
All in all the cops were very cool. I saw more than one young woman
waving her hooters around and they just smiled and gawked at them. One
woman was wearing one of those net webby things and riding up and down
the street drawing a huge crowd of guys with cameras, and they never
intervened. Didn't see them stop anyone from walking around with open
containers. Didn't see them stop or hassle anybody for loud pipes or to
'check numbers'. Leesburg advertised the event as hassle free, and from
my point of view it was.
I've written too much, but it was a good time and I think next year I
may well find a motel and go for all three days. I'd recommend it,
based on my experience, as a Good Thing. It'd be nice to set up some
kind of NetScum get-together there.
--
Spunky Hussein Tuna
radical ChristoIslamic fundamentalist Pescasupremacist...
but not at all bitter
Re: Leesburg thoughts
Spunky Hussein Tuna sed
<snip the Leesburg thoughts>
>It'd be nice to set up some kind of NetScum get-together there.
You sed it, it's now your call.
Unless you want JohnBG to do it for you.
ASSHOLE#104 Len
Thanks for the write-up, it sounds like it'd be fun,,, for maybe the
next two years.
Spunky Hussein Tuna sed
<snip the Leesburg thoughts>
>It'd be nice to set up some kind of NetScum get-together there.
You sed it, it's now your call.
Unless you want JohnBG to do it for you.
ASSHOLE#104 Len
Thanks for the write-up, it sounds like it'd be fun,,, for maybe the
next two years.
Re: Leesburg thoughts
"AH#104" <wrote:
<snipped it all>
Hey, Len. Happy Anniversary to you and Pauline.
And many, many more I hope.
Hope to see ya'll in Gardner in a month or so.
JC
"AH#104" <wrote:
<snipped it all>
Hey, Len. Happy Anniversary to you and Pauline.
And many, many more I hope.
Hope to see ya'll in Gardner in a month or so.
JC
Re: Leesburg thoughts
"Mutt (at work)" <jlcole 99@yoohoo . com > wrote in message
> Hey, Len. Happy Anniversary to you and Pauline.
> And many, many more I hope.
If that's the case, happy anniversary Pauline, you're a saint for certain.
Oh yeah, you too Len...the happy anniversary part, you shirley ain't no
saint.
"Mutt (at work)" <jlcole 99@yoohoo . com > wrote in message
> Hey, Len. Happy Anniversary to you and Pauline.
> And many, many more I hope.
If that's the case, happy anniversary Pauline, you're a saint for certain.
Oh yeah, you too Len...the happy anniversary part, you shirley ain't no
saint.
Re: Leesburg thoughts
"Spunky Hussein Tuna" wrote in message
> Had a real nice ride to Leesburg yesterday.
<snip some>
> I've written too much, but it was a good time and I think next year I may
> well find a motel and go for all three days. I'd recommend it, based on
> my experience, as a Good Thing. It'd be nice to set up some kind of
> NetScum get-together there.
Great ride report STT, we don't get enough of those 'round these parts in
recent times. I liked the 'Busa part, seem real heart/hard felt. <sfsf>
Segways are a blast to ride. I rode a friend's (has 2) while quite plastered
and contrary to the cop's perspective, I highly recommend it, you can't get
into too much trouble with 'em though I wouldn't wanna see Kickstart on
one...heh heh.
I've heard only good things about the Leesburg rally. Heard it's very easy,
comfy, less bullshit. (Kickstart, Joe's a fan of that run, told me about it
a coupla times, trying to get me up there)
"Spunky Hussein Tuna" wrote in message
> Had a real nice ride to Leesburg yesterday.
<snip some>
> I've written too much, but it was a good time and I think next year I may
> well find a motel and go for all three days. I'd recommend it, based on
> my experience, as a Good Thing. It'd be nice to set up some kind of
> NetScum get-together there.
Great ride report STT, we don't get enough of those 'round these parts in
recent times. I liked the 'Busa part, seem real heart/hard felt. <sfsf>
Segways are a blast to ride. I rode a friend's (has 2) while quite plastered
and contrary to the cop's perspective, I highly recommend it, you can't get
into too much trouble with 'em though I wouldn't wanna see Kickstart on
one...heh heh.
I've heard only good things about the Leesburg rally. Heard it's very easy,
comfy, less bullshit. (Kickstart, Joe's a fan of that run, told me about it
a coupla times, trying to get me up there)
Re: Leesburg thoughts
you can't get
> into too much trouble with 'em though I wouldn't wanna see Kickstart on
> one...heh heh.
I been on one - sober though
>
> I've heard only good things about the Leesburg rally. Heard it's very
easy,
> comfy, less bullshit. (Kickstart, Joe's a fan of that run, told me about
it
> a coupla times, trying to get me up there)
>
tried calling Joe sat. no answer - he's usually @ Leesburg
I coulda rode -anything- by sat nite
kickstart
you can't get
> into too much trouble with 'em though I wouldn't wanna see Kickstart on
> one...heh heh.
I been on one - sober though
>
> I've heard only good things about the Leesburg rally. Heard it's very
easy,
> comfy, less bullshit. (Kickstart, Joe's a fan of that run, told me about
it
> a coupla times, trying to get me up there)
>
tried calling Joe sat. no answer - he's usually @ Leesburg
I coulda rode -anything- by sat nite
kickstart
Re: Leesburg thoughts
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:45:01 -0400, Spunky Hussein Tuna
<spunkyhusseintuna@earthlink . net > wrote:
>Had a real nice ride to Leesburg yesterday. Headed down Rt.1 from my
>place and stopped finally at a little knife shop in Bunnell that I've
>passed often and promised that I'd stop in some time.
Snip a good read.
Makes me sorry I fell asleep in the recliner after work Sat instead of
going. Next time!
danl
On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:45:01 -0400, Spunky Hussein Tuna
<spunkyhusseintuna@earthlink . net > wrote:
>Had a real nice ride to Leesburg yesterday. Headed down Rt.1 from my
>place and stopped finally at a little knife shop in Bunnell that I've
>passed often and promised that I'd stop in some time.
Snip a good read.
Makes me sorry I fell asleep in the recliner after work Sat instead of
going. Next time!
danl
