Five of us got together on Saturday to discus plans for future rides and discussion of some new techniques for familiar maintenance and riding situations.

The meeting kicked-off with a selection from LHM Men's Network, that depicted some of the ways the gospel spread in the early church, even to the Samaritans, a then despised people that accepted the Pentateuch but held alien beliefs as well.

On moving to a discussion of possible routes for a May 12th ride it soon became apparent that most of those present felt there would be very few riders interested in riding on Mother's Day weekend. However, since there may be riders not at the meeting that would see the 12th okay, a ride was scheduled (called the Short Loop) that includes stops at VanZandts and TWO (aka TWoS). Addition details will be posted as the ride date nears.

The meeting opened by viewing a five minute lesson from "What They Didn't Teach You In Sunday School" that gave us interesting background knowledge about Pentecost. We'll be tapping this resource more often at future meetings.

The first order of business was setting a plan for a ride on April 14th. A possible  route to The Pocket was discussed and we settled on a route that includes a ride over the mountain on Lake Marvin Road https://www.plotaroute.com/route/586752

After The Pocket the route heads south then east to Adairsville where we'll have lunch at the Adairsville Inn. After lunch we'll continue east picking up some favorite backroads back to the starting point in Ball Ground (around 150 miles r/t)

The remainder of the meeting included discussion about riding in rain, and a look at a videoed accident that resulted from the rider being distracted.

After the meeting five of us rode up to Jasper following a round-about scenic route, for lunch at 61 Main.

Nine of us made it to the meeting this fine Spring-like day in Winter.

Larry opened the session with a prayer that thanked the Lord for the fine weather and an appeal for the Lord's guidance to the medical folks that will be engaged in bringing Dennis back to good health.

We set March 10th as the day for our next ride, weather permitting. The ride proposed is a relatively short (124 mile) loop through adjacent counties to the north, as depicted in : https://www.plotaroute.com/route/563127  If the 10th needs to be canceled for weather reasons we will try again on March 17th.

A short video of a small German village being awakened by a 300 kph motorcycle pass through, got everyone's attention :

https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/7s98yb/300_kmph_in_a_small_german_town_with_sound/

We discussed the Trans America Trail, best known as the TAT , and through a video of a father-sons recent ride gained an appreciation of some of the obstacles and hazards presented by the various terrains that must be crossed.

MC Garage described the "why and how" of  motorcycle "slipper clutches".

Larry told the group of the multi-day ride he's working on for late Spring that would take in camping in North Carolina and east Tennessee. Details will follow at a later meeting.

The meeting adjourned to the parking lot around 11:15 am where Dave got everyone envious, looking over his new Triumph Bonneville. Nice bike!

From the parking lot Dave, Mel, Steve D, and yours truly had a great ride, albeit short, over to Silvia's at the top of Sugar Pike, for burritos or hamburgers under the umbrella outside. Pleasant place.

Mel then took off for Athens, I went home, and Dave and Steve headed for WOW. Seems the Spring new bike bug has bitten. Keep tuned.

Eight of us met this Saturday after Thanksgiving to map out a schedule for December and January. Most rode in in spite of the cool temperatures.

This is what we came up with:

No monthly meeting in December; the next meeting will be on January 27th

No scheduled ride in December

A local ride (<125 miles) is scheduled for January 13th, weather permitting

Additionally, we reviewed and discussed the major findings of the Virginia Tech Study of motorcycle risk factors, and MC Garage's decoding of motorcycle tire sidewall markings.

Smarter-Every-Day, through use of a drone, a 22 rifle and dog ears showed us how our ear-brain work together to give each of us an ability to locate sounds in a vertical plane (nothing to do with motorcycles but very interesting).

The remainder of the meeting was devoted to fellowship, talk and solving the word's problems.