I made the first leg of my Bikeweek ride yesterday. There's a map on my blog.

I rode from Smyrna, TN to Orange Park, FL to spend the night with my buddy Corndog. It ended up being a 578 mile ride. I left Smyrna at about 9:30 CST and arrive in Orange Park at about 8:45 EST. That's about 9 hours and 15 minutes. I did make one stop just north of Altanta to grab a bite to eat, but other than that, I was only stopping for gas.

Based on the distance and how long it took me to travel it, I averaged 62 mph. That's including the stop! I was on a mission.

Most of the ride was uneventful, until I got near the Macon Bypass.

I came up on another rider on a demin silver Street Glide. I passed and waved. Then I checked my rearview and the guy was following me. I motioned that I was get onto the bypass and he followed. He pulled up beside me and asked if I was headed to Daytona, to which I replied yes. He also asked if I needed any fuel, to which I replied no. I told him I would stop with him and ride the rest of the way to Jacksonville, FL if he wanted.

We stopped. I took on about a gallon of gas. My new friend filled up.

I introduced myself and he introduced himself as Dan. Turns out Dan lives in Atlanta ans does concrete work. Turns out he's also a pretty serious rider. His Street Glide was only two years old and he had over 26,000 miles on it!

Since there's safety in numbers, I decided I would ride with him as far as he was willing to go. He agreed and said he would just follow me. We were off! And I had a riding partner to boot!

We made one more stop in Valdosta. He told me there he would ride with me to I-10, but that he would keep on going. That was a pretty good decision since rain was in the forecast for Jacksonville that night.

We got to I-10 and I peeled off. We waved and Dan continued on his way to Daytona. He was going to make it the whole way that night.

I-10 is where the fun started. Nothing realy eventful, other than meeting Dan, happened so far. I-10 was a different story.

It had begun raining. Mostly, it was a light drizzle, but enough to make the roads slick. In the 50 mile stretch of I-10 I traveled, I saw three accidents, one which was pretty scary!

Two of the accidents were on the other side of the freeway. The really scary one wasn't. From what I could make of the carnage, a tractor trailer had been traveling west (opposite of the direction I was) and had lost control. He had come across the median, across the east bound side, and ended up off the road of the east bound side.!

Could you imagine cruising down the road and all of the sudden a tractor trailer is staring you in the face! I'da been dead like a bug for sure! Ouch!

I wonder thought if that would've been classified by the authorities as Bikeweek related?
Right now, it's raining and it doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon. Looks like I'm gonna get wet. Oh well, that's what rain gear's for!

 

Glad you made it safe Mike, that rains messin up a lot of peoples plans, I think I'm gonna trailer mine up tomarrow just to be on the safe side.[:@]

 

Glad you are safe Mike. Please keep us posted on your ride!