Brass Lantern Loop

De-Brief - by: B.J. Max

June 26, 2010

We had six bikes hauling ten members say to heck with the heat, we're gonna' ride. That takes guts if you ask me. And speaking of guts, Charlie and Darnel's bike was in the shop so they broke out thier Katana squirt bike and rode it. They couldn't talk to us but they could hear us through a portable CB tucked away in a tank bag. This is the same sport bike that they rode to Colorado way back in '97 and I reminded them that they weren't the same people they were back then but they did just fine. 

Heat advisories with indices as high as 107 were predicted and it took some very dedicated motorcyclist's to leave their comfortable air conditioned homes and venture out on such a day. But such is the character of the Memphis Tour Riders who willingly brave heat, cold, rain sleet and storms just to take to the road for a bit of adventure. 

We left the jumping off point on time and rode US 64 as far as Whiteville then jumped off on Highway 100 to Hendersonville where we picked up Finger road, a true motorcyclist by-way with lots of long sweeping curves, hills and hollers. At Milledgeville, mile marker 98, we took our first leg stretch and while there we went ahead and topped off with gas to avoid a forced stop later. 

Somewhere between Milledgeville and five forks we went booming over this small hill that snapped back into a short left hander and a young deer suddenly appeared from outta' nowhere running along beside us, so close it seemed we could have reached out and touched her. Confused by the noisy motorcycles she quickly turned and faced the road and I just knew she was gonna' jump out in front of us. While I was grabbing and stomping trying to get woe'd up she abruptly reversed direction, considered jumping in front of Buck and Donna, changed her mind and leaped over a barbed wire fence behind her and just as quickly as she had appeared she was gone. All this happened in an eye blink and we were soon back up to speed with something to talk about for the next few miles. 

We rode into Lawrenceburg in a sprinkling rain and arrived at The Brass Lantern around 12:30. We liked it. The waitress was quick and helpful, everything appeared clean, the A/C was doing a bang up job and the food was respectable. Some of you may remember Lawrenceburg as Fred Thompson's home town but a lot of you will remember it for the many times we had lunch there at Shoney's on our early Blazing Saddle Rides to the Foglight Foodhouse. 

On the return trip we stopped off at the Savannah DQ and cooled of with a frozen dairy product then continued on to Selmer where we were cooled off again but this time by a rain storm. We didn't bother to suit up even though the rain was pouring down and we dried out pretty quick when we rode back into the sunshine. Our main concern was in several construction area crossover lanes where the heavy rain pooled into small ponds and could be treacherous if you weren't paying attention but we were and did just fine. We finally broke out of the storm near Bolivar and the rest of the ride was uneventful. Hildia and I rolled into the drive at 6:30, tired, damp and happy. It had been a good day and a great ride with good friends...

Roll Call: Richard Hightower, Charlie & Darnel Gibson, Danny Parker, Rick Totty, Lou and Carla Nathan, Buck & Donna Perminter, Hildia Max and Yours Truly...

Note: This ride concludes half of our rides this year, 2,106 organized miles ridden so far. Hard to believe ain't it...

A few meaningless stats: We rode 332 miles and our time in the saddle was 6:47, & our average speed was 48.9 MPH

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