Friday, March 31, 2017

New Mexico mountains begin

New Mexico is beautiful country. It is also mountainous. These little 50cc mini bike sure don't like them. We should have brought extra sprockets to change the gearing too but then that have meant even more weight to carry.
When we took this picture in the morning, we could see the snow covered mountain tops. Later that day we were riding in those very same mountain range. We could have stopped at Ruidoso and went snow boarding. We kept riding though as these mountains make it hard to do high mileage day even without stops.
Riding through Roswell, there was very little mention of aliens. They still have an alien museum but we couldn't stop there. Instead we stopped at Motion Performance and visited Darvin Crone. He is a long time flat tracker that loves everything two wheeled. He helped us out with out flat issue and had a set of heavy duty tires. He even made sure that Tim's was put on in the right direction but I did my own so until I have another flat, the tread pattern will just have to run backwards. I'm really over fixing flats and changing tires. 
Today I'm not asking for donations. Just go in this website www.aidanhasaposse.org/ and find out what ALD is and how something as simple as signing a petition can help make the world a better place. 

Thursday, March 30, 2017

New Mexico and the New World Record!

We finally made it out of Texas. It was a tough exit to say the least. Plenty of flats, 3 days of terrible storms complete with high winds, hail and tornado warnings. Now here we are in Tatum, New Mexico. And the best news yet- We are now well over 1500 miles meaning we have now ridden longer than anyone else on a 50cc mini bike. Now we will continue to add on the miles to ensure that the next guy that wants to do what we did, will have to turn around and go back once they do coast to coast. I sure wouldn't want to do that.
Texas sure wasn't easy. We even had to take a detour across this guys ranch when our back road ended even though Google said it went through. It was a mud trail thanks to all the rain but we didn't want to turn back.
                 And when they say "Don't mess with Texas" you can bet they mean it!
  Riding through the storms, there was a double rainbow. When I tried to catch it with a picture it disappeared that fast.
Don't let this raffle disappear of you! Give today and get a chance to win some great prizes!              
click here to support The Aidan Jack Seeger Foundation and get your chance to win!!!!!!!

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Tim's revenge

We had't gotten 3 miles down the road when Tim had his first flat. We were by an auto parts store so I bought a foot pump for air and some green slime that keeps holes from flattening tires , so they say.
An hour later, another flat

in total he had 4 flat tires. The last one is here at I motel. I'm waiting for a bike shop to open in Graham Texas to buy several more inner tubes. I did come to the realization as to maybe why I didn't have any flats on my first world record ride. I ran a rear knobby tire. That puts a lot of ribber between the road and the tube. If the shop has one or two, I will try it. This is getting old.
Some of the locals watch me work my magic on the tires. They acted like they've never seen a couple of Blues Brothers on mini bikes before.
So we'll keep fixing flats but hope you'll support our cause and buy some raffle tickets

Monday, March 27, 2017

Rick Fairless' Strokers Ice House

Rick Fairless is the best guy ever. He is constantly giving back in everything he does. He has his hands full with enough to keep 10 men busy yet he always makes time for everyone and all good causes. He is an inspiration to me.
His restaurants ( he now also has The Big State Fountain Grill in Irving) serves some great food including this world famous fried bologna sandwich. Just like when I was a kid and made with just as much love as my mom put in it. If you are ever in Dallas, you gotta stop in and see Rick and his crew!

Dallas is a BIG city but then everything is bigger in Texas.
It still has the small time charm though.

Everyone was very friendly to us and welcomed us with open arms and no pepper spray.
    Now it is time to get back on the road and head west. Guess what I woke up to? Another flat tire. I had Rick's professionals look unto my problem and they found yet another microscopic metal wire poking through the tire. All i can figure us that they are remnants of the steel belts from shredded tires on the shoulders of the highways that we have to ride through.
and don't forget why we are doing this for-


Sunday, March 26, 2017

A day early in Dallas Texas, and half way across America

Getting into Dallas we were so early that we decided to brave the traffic and ride straight into the heart of Dallas. The option would have been to get a hotel outside of town and have someone pick us up then to return to the hotel and contunue on from there. Dallas is a big town and like most cities, people driving are in a hurry. We just rode through it all and mad the best of it.
Attracting attention wherever we go, we also get a lot of attention from the local law enforcement. Here we got a thumbs up and he will be following on the website and supporting our cause. That sure beats being tasered!

Our main reason for coming to Dallas was to have a fundraiser at Rock Fairless' Strokers Ice House. It gets a lot of traffic on Sunday so we rushed to be here on a Sunday. If you are around please come out and support us. If you cannot make it, PLEASE support our cause. All the money raised, 100%, goes dirrectly to The Aidan Jack Seeger Foundation. And it isn't just donations. You get chances to win thousands of dollars worth of prizes like a rare David Uhl signed print, #6 of 9.
                                                              Support here !!!!!!!!
Plus the more raffle tickets you buy, you can get other free stuff like stickers, patches and even out limited Aidan minibike tour tee shirts.
                                         Raffle tickets here!!!!!!
Click this link to get in on this today. We are running out of time. The drawings will be when we finish this mini bike ride.
                                                    Donate here !!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, March 25, 2017

We're doing it!!!!!!

This whole trip I have been setting goals and knocking them down. Despite any adversity like flat tires and broken frames, the time table stays intact. I can't believe it. I just keep having Marine Corps training flashing backs and when things look tough, I try harder. Ask Tim. I've barked so many orders at him, he probably feels like he is in boot camp. But at the end of the day, we are high fiving because neither of us though we would get this far, this fast. We are 100 miles outside of Dallas Texas 2 days early. We have ridden over 1200 miles in just 6 days. I still can't believe it.
   I couldn't be doing this alone though. Not even close. This fine group of Motor Maids helped us out tremendously. Not only did they organise a fundraiser and rest stop in Minden, Louisiana but also got us immediate access to a fab shop and welder, and when we left and broke down, came to our rescue again bringing the needed tools and other items to McGiver a fix. A big thanks to Juicy, Miriam, Kathy and Therese.
They even took us out to taste some Louisiana cuisine complete with crawfish, catfish, jambalaya, and etouffee. yummmmm!

 As to what happened to our frames, due to the weight of us as opposed to a child, combined with is sitting so far back on the rear of the fender, the frame was never designed for that. Then we welded luggage racks behind us and are carrying all our stuff, proved to be too much. We had to first bend it back up which we did with me standing on the tank portion of the mini bike while Tim lifted the bike and then I jumped up and down repeatedly. I strengthened the frame by welding a piece of angle iron onto it. It's primitive and my welds do look pretty but it is getting us down the road. The first day we left with this fix, we hadn't gotton 10 miles down the road when the back of my bike dropped at full speed. I though my welds gave out but instead it was my shock ( and it only has one) broke. The red heavy duty spring that I installed, wasn't screwed down all the way. I took a tie down strap to compress the spring, revealing more threads andf was able to screw the top back on and re-install it.

Friday, March 24, 2017

Riding across the El Camino Corridor

I had never ever heard of the El Camino Corridor. It is probably because I usually always ride the interstates to make time. Mini bikes are funny that way, no matter how much you want to make time, they keep you going slow, like it or not.
Riding across Louisiana even on a mini bike brings so many flash backs from the movie Easy Rider. I even have the soundtrack playing in my head.
  The next blog will be bigger. I got a lot to do. Both our frames started bending due to the weight of us and our luggage. There are severe storm warning for today. We were up late with a fundraiser last night and lastly, we are both hurting from pushing it so hard. Now is a goot time to you to log on and support The Aidan Jack Seeger Foundation- CLICK HERE!!!!!!!!!



Thursday, March 23, 2017

Setting goals and smashing them!

 When I first started planning this trip, the dates for the fundraisers started becoming a problem. They put us on a time schedule and didn't leave a lot of room for error. I committed to needing to run back to back 200 mile days to make it work. The problem was, on my last record breaking mini bike ride, our best day ever was 187 and that was with 3 support vehicles. After ending our first day from Daytona at 200 miles, I knew this trip was going to have some personal records. The whole flat thing was even a record since I've never even had a flat on my last ride. We're up to 6 total flats now. We have it down to a science though and only lose about 15 minutes.
   Pushing the limits and setting records also means you have to take chances. Not stopping for gas at every opportunity is one way to save time. I ran out of gas when I was wrong about how for the next gas station was. I was only off by a couple of miles but fortunately this farmer helped us out big time.
  We even took some extra time to get some pictures at his farm and Tim shot a video.
At one gas stop, we met some people that believed in our cause so much that they gave us free gas and free lunch. When it was time to leave, I discovered I had a flat so I fixed it there and used their shade and air compressor.. Thanks James and Karen at MDI ( and your daughter too).
     When we crossed the state line from Alabama into Mississippi, there was a sign that said Natchez 197, I thought there was no way we could get all the way across the state to the Louisiana border town Of Natchez. We had already ridden over 50 miles and it was now and the day was getting long. We started the day though before the sun had came up. Like the Cannonballers, the minute daylight peaked, we were rolling.

As the day went on, Me and Time really go into the groove. We kept going after every gas stop ( about every 2 hours) about a 5 minute break or less. By the end of the day, Even when we saw some friends at a stop, it was only long enough to give out stickers, take a selfie and roll on down the highway.
When I'm rolling, I try not to count the miles. It is a trick I learned young when wheelbarrowing concrete at a construction site. NEVER count the wheelbarrows. I told Tim this every time he asked how far I though we went. Never count the wheelbarrows. Towards the end of the ride, I did start trying to figure out the mileage. I knew it was a good day. It felt surreal. 220 or 240 I though. When we checked our the map at our hotel, we high fived to an unbelievable amount- 265 miles!!!!!!
Now please take a moment to click on this link and help make this a record breaker too. You may just win some amazing prizes too!!!

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Party in Dothan then back on the road

  We had a great recpeption in Dothan. Berry and the crew at Accurate Engineering had everything waiting for us. All the BBQ we could eat, lots of photo opps and even got the bikes a full servicing. Plenty of fun and we even raised about 600 dollars for The Aidan Jack Seeger Foundation.

 

We may have had a little too much fun because we didn't take off till about noon the next day. We tried to make up time but had yet another flat. This time it was Tim's rear tire. We are getting better at this for sure. In 15 minutes, we were back on the road.
   Some people are wondering about the flats. We have had 4 already. That is a lot but because our speed is only 29mph ( sometimes 31 when we ride with the wind) and the highways we are on are 55 and 65mph, we have to ride on the shoulder or even the emergency lane at times. This is by far the safest but it is also where all the road debris lies. We picked up 2 nails and even some kind of wire. The third flat was my mistake. We left with no tools hopping for good luck. On the first flat, we bought some screw drivers at a gas station to fix the flats. I pinched the tube with them and had a flat a few miles down the road. I got tire spoons now.
   If you like this blog, Please click on to this web page and support the ride. 100% of this money goes to The Aidan Jack Seeger Foundation, in fact, this is their page, not mine-
                               https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MTU2MzY

Special thanks to James Champion in Dothan for these great pictures!

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

an easy day that never happened

  Our second day was suppose to be an easy one. We were going to do 137 miles to Dothan, Alabama and Accurate Engineering where we were having a fundraiser for The Aidan Foundation. I rolled my bike out of the hotel room only to discover, I had a rear flat. I pushed the bike to a gas station, pumped them tire up and tried to make some miles. Tim informed me that the actual miles to Dothan  was 160 ( an extra hour and a half away). I stopped several times to check the tire. It seemed to be holding air. For a couple hours were rode on. I stopped again to add air but it was ok. We pulled out and about 2 miles away the rear tire lost all air and came off the bead. At 31 mph, it got scary quick. The bike went sideways in both directions before I could get it stopped. Lucky to have avoided an accident, we started to look at our options to fix it on the side of the road. We had a can of fix a flat but that did absolutely nothing. There was a giant nail in the tire and tube. A local police officer stopped and he was a true blessing. He rode time to the bike shop to get a tire then to he private home to get tools. After I fixed it, he even gave us the tools needed to fix another flat. this really proved invaluable. About 5 miles down the road I had another flat at full speed. It resulted in a crash.
The bike went down but luckily on the right side and I was able to air it for the grass. I spun a 360 down a grass ravine and came to a stop with the bike on top of me. That little bike was heavy laying on top of be in a fetal position. I had to crawl out before I could lift it the rest of the way off of me. Tim was in front of me so he hadn't noticed I had crashed yet. So the first thing I did while I was still on the ground was take a selfie. The grass was soft and I was just dirty and not hurt. With all out tools, were were able to pull the tire and try and patch it. This failed so I borrowed Tims bike and found a bike shop with a tube. I even borrowed an air tank to fill the tire with air instead of the messy fix a flat thank I was now wearing all over my Blues Brother suit.
 

Still with all the adversity, we made it to Dothan only 15 minutes late. It was rush hour traffic and our little bikes were looking like an arcade game of Frogger zipping in and out at intersections. A block from our destination, we were pulled over again. He told us to ride on the sidewalks. I chuckled and rode away with Tim still talking to him.

So that was our day. 3 flats, Tim ran out of gas and 3 states with an all night fundraising party after we arrived at Berry's Accurate Engineering. Even had time for a TV and newspaper interview.
I wonder what today will bring..........