Yesterday's Kitchen Kommittee had apparently decided that we should all meet at the local bike hangout this morning, so we tumbled out of bed and into our riding gear. I was honored to have Todd's daughter (Katie) as a pillion, and she showed up wearing a pint-size Harley leatherette jacket and pink tights. Then we scoped the weather...it was raining, so everyone bailed to the car. I saw the look on my would-be passenger's face and opted to tough it out in the rain.

The ride to the meeting place was very short, and the rain was an on/off thing, so Katie stayed fairly dry. I wasn't expecting much of a turnout, but there were a surprising number of bikes, considering the weather. Chicagoans apparently are more cognizant of the need for protective gear, as there was a much larger percentage of Stiches and knockoffs there than you'd see at such a gathering in Pennsylvania. Katie jumped off the ST with grace and style, then started scoping out bikes. She'll make some young Sabmaggot very happy some day.

Meeting up with the rest of the Sabmag contingent, we settled in for breakfast (or lunch, I'm not sure. There were rumors that Greg had both at this sitting). The food was fast and pretty good, and afterwards we milled around in the parking lot. Seeing Chuck's R1 standing lonely by itself, I slyly asked him if he'd like to ride the ST. "As a matter of fact, I would", he replied. Correct answer! "Cool! Throw me the keys to the R1 and it's all yours." Which he did, the fool.

Now, I only planned to take it up and down the road in front of the restaurant, but unbeknownst to me, this breakfast thing normally heralded the start of a Sabmag ride, so when I started gearing up, so did everyone else. Once I figured things out I declined to do a serious ride (or as serious as any ride can be somewhere where there isn't any actual curves), since I still had to go back to Todd's and work on Nate and Ross' bikes. No time for riding, I'm afraid!

It was decided that we'd just ride back to Todd's, via a more circuitous route. Greg led with me on the R1 behind, and Chuck behind me. Or at least, that's how it started. A minor twist of the throttle changed that in a New York minute. The R1 is stupefyingly powerful, so much so that, in an urban environment, most of your concentration goes toward continuously answering the following question:

Unfortunately, in Chicago, the answer was always no. Even a tiny twist of the R1's tail acted like a transporter...you're *here*, you twist, you're *there*. The transition is almost instantaneous and too blurry to catch any details.

Meanwhile, Chuck had let the ST do some walking and caught up to me, blowing by on one of my decelerations, so I caught up and the two of us broke the law together for a while. Arriving back at Todd's, I thanked Chuck for the demonstration of the modern brute force concept, and we split off into teams for the maintenance work.

I'm really not fond of multiple maintenance procedures happening at once, but there wasn't enough time to do them serially, so Nate and I got started on his V65 valve adjustment, while Ross and his brother cracked open his V45 leaking float bowl issue.

Both Nate and Ross had opted for the "I'll do it, you guide me" methodology of instruction. I was overjoyed to have Greg Terpin here, as he filled in and kept a guiding eye on the job I wasn't currently helping with. I felt a bit guilty for Nate; being surrounded by maggots who've done the sum total of several dozen valve adjustments, it was inevitable that we spent a fair amount of time teasing him while he tentatively poked around on his bike. I tried to keep an eye on him when he was about to start throwing things at the spectators, and it progressed fairly well. He disappointed all his hecklers when he managed to get his rear valve cover out of the frame in under a minute.

Meanwhile I got involved with Ross' carb removal and managed to fuck everything up, despite Greg's attempt to prevent it. The carbs were cemented into the carb boots, and Greg's attempts to yank them out were unfruitful, so I employed the infamous 2x4 method, popping the left rear instantly. When I tried the right side, repeated blows caused the 2x4 to split and slide past the solid point it was against, to strike the airbox.

*Crack*

After the appropriate profanity, we continued and eventually managed to pop it out, but it took many hands and lots of time. I never saw a more stubborn carb boot. Todd was sent for JBWeld.

Back to the valve adjust, and Ross and company replaced the float bowl gaskets. The old ones were hard as a rock. When the JBWeld arrived, I created a steel splint to go across the airbox crack and immobilize it, and performed a solid but aesthetically unappealing repair. The reinstallation of the carb rack was extremely difficult, requiring 4 sets of hands and more profanity. Ross' rubber boots might just need replacing sometime soon.

Engines were eventually started and warmed up, with no apparent problems, despite the difficulties experienced during the procedures. While things warmed up Janine, who had traveled from Pittsburgh to attend the weekend and then escort me back, took her new bike for a spin, with me riding wingman on Chuck's R1. She seemed to like it. I liked it, too.

Carbs were synched and things were buttoned up, after which the local maggotry headed for home, leaving myself and Nate with Janine, Todd, and Pam to watch "Mystery Men" on Todd's trick DVD setup and stuff ourselves with yet another excellently laid-out spread, courtesy of the hardest working woman in Sabmagdom, Pam.