The dealership, HDL of Shadyside, had everything ready to go except for a few signatures and a check. He went over everything on the bike and verified I knew how to get back to I-70 west. It was overcast amd rain was moving up from the south so I got going without wasting too much time. I thought that I could avoid getting wet by making a quick trip to Columbus. I was heading north from there and would have been able to put some distance between myself and the rain.
As I got closer to Columbus the skies started to clear and when I took the 270 bypass around to the north the sun was out. I took OH-23 north, intending to take US-30 west to Fort Wayne. I was starting to get a bit low on gas and since I didn’t know the range I didn’t want to get too low. Pushing an 800+ pound bike isn’t something I wanted to do – especially since it would be really dumb to run out of gas the first time I rode it. I thought that there would be plenty of places to get gas on US-30, since on US-30 west of Fort Wayne you cannot help but pull into a gas station. Well, I was wrong. There was no gas station in sight, the low fuel light was on and I was getting concerned. Finally, I decided to leave US-30 and head for Findlay. But, just 4 or 5 miles north of US-30 a small town had gas and I filled up to continue the trip.
I wound up at my parent’s house at about 2 in the afternoon, 300+ miles from Shadyside. The bike had performed flawlessly and was a joy to ride. Comfortable, great handling, smooth power, and plenty of range makes it a real cross-country machine. You can rack up the miles on this bike. Pizza for dinner (naturally) and a nice visit with my parents made this a great day.