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Blue Light Special Anyone?

BajaRon

Well-known member
Not sure why, but my rides usually turn into adventures.

Daniel and I decided to ride out to Marion, NC on Wednesday morning for a John Maddox arranged lunch. John is a great guy and tries to do this once each month. It is a labor of love and I know the local Spyder/Ryker community appreciates it very much. I on my 2008 GS and Daniel on my 2015 F3S.

I don't get to ride nearly as much as I did before getting so heavily involved in the business. Or, should I say, the business getting so heavily involved in me! The winter is the only time I really have to ride anymore. But as you can imagine, the weather is a bit dicey in East Tennessee this time of year.

Daniel and I headed to the gas station to fill up. I'm pumping gas on the left side and it's running out on the right side. Not good! Not wanting to ride back to the shop for a fix since the fuel was running down on the exhaust. Daniel headed back while I waited. That took much longer than expected and put us way behind. It is amazing that most of the time, our bikes are not rideable. We steal parts off of them to get customers back on the road, or something needs attention and we just shove it in the back because we're too busy to get it taken care of.

We arrived in Asheville, NC about 40 minutes from Marion, around noon. Since it was obvious we weren't going to make it, I called John to tell him so. We stopped in Asheville and got some quick lunch.

My sister lives in Moravian Falls, NC. About 90 minutes north east from Marion. The plan was to go there after lunch and pick up her (and husband's) 2016 F3T. A friend had given her a brand new BRP/Can-Am Trailer several months before which she dropped off at our shop, having towed it there with her car from Kansas on her way back home. The idea was to drop my Spyder at her house and pick up the F3T, ride it to the shop, install the hitch, and wire up the trailer to their bike.

We got caught in road construction on I-40. That took about an hour to get past. Time is ticking. And while it was a nice day, high in the low 60's. We knew it was going to get cold as soon as the sun went down.

We pulled out from my sister's house just after 4pm with about a 4 hr. drive back to the shop ahead of us. We knew we had to take the long way around through Banner Elk and Roan Mt. because the best route (321) is still out due to the hurricane flooding having relocated bridges and roadway.

The sun was getting low and right in our eyes. I couldn't see my gauges without putting my left hand up to shade my eyes. The wind was howling. With the sway bar the bike is very stable. But the same can't be said for the rider. It wasn't dangerous, but I didn't want to do the hand/shade manoeuver if there were any other vehicles in the vicinity.

Speed limit there was 55 mph on a 4 lane separated median road. The sparse traffic was running between 60 & 65 mph when we passed a state trooper who had someone pulled over on the right shoulder. I did my hand/shade manoeuver to check my speed as Daniel (in the lead) and I moved into the left lane. The speedo read 65 mph (which it reads high), and we slowed some. The trooper was just opening his car door as we passed.

It wasn't long before I had the 'Blue Light Special' in my rear view mirrors. It startled me because all I could see was the lights. The trooper was so close that I couldn't even see the hood of his car. Just him through the windshield and lights flashing. I was surprised that he'd gotten so close without me noticing. Though the sun was murdering my eyeballs. And he never hit his siren so there was no sound above the noise of the headwind.

Daniel and I pulled over and again, the trooper parked so close to the back of my Spyder that you couldn't walk between them. The whole thing seemed a bit odd.

The conversation started out as expected. "Do you know how fast you were going?" 65 mph, I answered. Which again, my speedo reads high. I knew I was over the 55 mph posted speed limit and I fully expected this to end in a ticket. "No!", he replied forcefully. "You were doing 82 mph!" 82! I exclaimed, genuinely shocked.

"License, registration, and proof of insurance." Which I supplied quickly.

At this point, a 2nd trooper pulled in behind the first and asked, "What about him?", pointing to Daniel patiently waiting about 100 feet up the road. "I'll get him when I'm done here" the 1st officer replied. "Right now I'm worried about this one." Which made me wonder what about me worried him. He didn't elaborate and I didn't ask. "How long have you been riding?" he asked. "This one?" I replied, pointing to my white and orange F3S. Then thinking that was a foolish question. The trooper doesn't realize I have several bikes and he really doesn't care. "2 or 3 years", I said quickly. Not really knowing what he was trying to get at. Then wondering if he meant how long had I been riding that day. I decided to let my original answer stand unaltered and he didn't ask anything else.

He just shook his head, said, "I'll be right back", turned and stepped to his car with my paperwork. After several minutes he returned saying, "I'm giving you a warning. Please slow down." This shocked me even more than his statement that I was doing 82 mph. All I could say was, "Thank you very much!" I got geared back up and left as quickly as I could before he changed his mind. I had originally hoped to get away with just a ticket and not having my bike (and possibly my BIL's F3T) impounded. You can imagine my surprise and relief at the offered warning.

All the way home Daniel and I tried to figure out why a state trooper would give a warning for 27 mph over the speed limit. And here is our theory. The trooper had left his radar on during the previous stop. When we passed, I noticed that he was watching us closely. He quickly jumped into his car, obviously in a hurry. I thought at the time he was just wanting to get out of the wind and it might be giving him fits with the door as well.

So maybe he quickly glances at his radar display and sees 82 mph. So he runs us down. But when he gets back in his car and looks more closely, he realizes that it was 62, not 82. Still 7 mph over, but nowhere near his original statements. And that fits. Because 65 on my speedo is 62 mph on my GPS when I run it.

All in all, it was a great day. We froze a little as we arrived back at the shop around 8pm. All's well that ends well. Surviving a Blue Light Special is just that! Very special indeed!
 
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Dang Triker trash. Lol.
Well Ron we had a good lunch oursleves and a really nice ride. That wind was Brutal at times though.
Hope you guys can make it next time.
 
Dang Triker trash. Lol.
Well Ron we had a good lunch oursleves and a really nice ride. That wind was Brutal at times though.
Hope you guys can make it next time.
We tried hard! We really wanted to see everyone. And yes, the wind was brutal. It was actually a bit worse on the trip home. But I've had worse than this on trips out west.

As long as John is around, there will always be a 'Next Time'. Glad you had fun. For this time of year, it was a very nice day.
 
Ron I’m glad that you didn’t get a ticket but sorry that you missed the lunch. We had ten in attendance. Hope you can make the next one.
 
I sometimes worry about being stopped by a State Trooper while out for a ride, although I'm a very conservative driver.

My worry is that the trooper would be my next door neighbor.
 
Maybe the trooper had read your forum signature line.....:cool: :ROFLMAO:
Glad you had the foresight to keep quiet with no citation!
I knew we were exceeding the speed limit. Though we were moving with the flow of traffic, as light as it was. I have no ill feelings about the trooper, during or after the event. He would have been fully within the scope of his duties if he'd written me a ticket. I think he discovered that he was mistaken about my speed and resolved it with a warning. He didn't have to do that and I thank him for it.

It never pays to be less than respectful, regardless of who you are dealing with. Sadly, I don't always live up to that standard. But I try.
 
Move to rural Nevada. I haven't seen a NHP on Interstate 15 in a couple of years.
Even the grannie ladies run 20-25 mph over the limit.
And the limit here around Mesquite is 75 mph.
Last week I got passed by someone in a beater Toyota who was going at least 25 mph faster than me.
My speedo read 84 mph!
If you think this is BS, tell me. I'll take some photos of empty roads and speedometers in the high side of 80.
The photo is of me near the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Not one vehicle passed in 30 minutes.

DSCF0491.JPG
 
Glad your outcome was better than my last 2. One in Ga backroads probably 5 years back. Barny Phife said I was speeding in his flashing red light stop corner town. Said was like 7 over. Wife and I were loaded coming back from NC mountains on the RSV. I wasn't going to come back 400 miles to try to fight it. The other was in Wauchula Fl a tomato cop (agricultural assigned sheriff) ticked me for running a stop sign on a side street in a neighborhood, because I didn't "stop for a time to set both feet down for a completed stop". Argh Slow day in big city I guess.
 
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