LOL...I can assure you that they're not nice looking any more. They are absolutely filthy right now. We hit rain from Newark, NJ to Niagara Falls, ON. Then when we left the falls, it rained all the way to Clarksburg, WV.

 

lol dirt sound like u got hit by the storms that went over my area, well hopefully u got the outskirts of them, because i got hit with quarter sized hail in my area, thankfully it was slushy hail

 

Yea, it wasn't too bad, just steady drizzle and some rare heavy downpours.

Well, I found a bearing supplier, Motion Industries, in Kingsport, TN. Only about 30 miles away with the bearings (6204-2RS) that I needed. It was an easy ride and was back in an hour. I got 2 of them figuring that if 1 was bad, the other was not too far behind. I talked to the Harley Davidson dealer (Black Wolf Harley Davidson) that was behind the hotel. They wouldn't even look at the wheel. Their statement was that it had metric bearings in it and they didn't have any metric tools. They said that they only work on Harley Davidsons. I personally think that type of attitude is pretty pathetic. They did point me to a local independant shop to see if they could help, CAPS Cycles. They were too busy with work, but Keith at CAPS pointed me to a local machine shop that they had worked with in the past. Economy Tool and Machine Shop was great. I hobbled the bike over there. I took the wheel off and they were able to remove the bearings from it and put the new ones that I purchased back in. I guess that they must have had a Metric Hammer and Punch to get the bearings out. They were finished in about 15 to 20 minutes. They only charged $20 to put them in. Gary (I think was his name, I'm bad with remembering names) was very helpful, he let me use his tools to remove the rear wheel from the bike. Upon inspection of the bad bearing, the cage that keeps the bearings properly spaced from each other had completely disintegrated and the inner race was flopping around inside. I was fortunate that the inner race had not siezed to the axle and it slid right out.

We were back on the road by noon on Wednesday for our continued ride down to Hiawassee, GA about 200 miles away. Thursday is a R and R day for us before heading back to S. FL.

 

It sounds like you've already passed DC, but shoot me a PM if you're still going to be in the area.

 

We were in DC on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of last week. Oh well, maybe next time. We did a lot of walking around the DC area and used the underground metro. Just not enough time to do everything we would have liked.

 

Well, this will be the last update from the road. We left Hiawassee, GA this am riding through Helen, and Gainesville, GA. The road from Hiawassee to Helen has some really nice curves. I think that if I wasn't loaded down with saddle bags and duffle bag, I really could have gotten in trouble there. Linda is a little more conservative when it comes to riding, so she kept me in check. From there it is just a race to see how quickly we can get home. We're in Lake City, FL for the night tonight. We'll head out in the am bright and early for the remaining 350 miles. I'll roll over 40K on my bike tomorrow. Looking forward to that benchmark. I think that Linda is just over 51K miles on hers. I'm slowly catching her.

Well it's been a really fun adventure. Now I have to start thinking about what I want to do for next year.