March 22, 2026

Planned Ride

The planned ride into Alabama with Tristan as Pillon was to ride into Alabama from Douglasville, Georga on Georgia Highway 5 / Alabama Highway 48, grab a quick lunch in Lineville, Alabama and then ride north on Alabama Highway 281 through the Talladega National Forest and then back to Douglasville, GA via non-interstate for a planned total of 178 miles roundtrip.

This section of Alabama Highway 281 has some nice twisties and some pretty hill country and rolls by Cheaha Mountain, at an elevation of 2,413 feet, is Alabama’s highest natural point.

Actual Ride and My First Flat on a Motorcycle.

Almost immediately departing Jack’s Restaurant in Lineville, Alabama, Bruce was handling very oddly, especially in a turn.  Suspecting a flat tire, I looked at my TPMS on my display and saw that the rear tire only had 4 pounds of pressure!

I quickly pulled over and accessed the situation and once the luggage was off Bruce and on its center stand, I discovered a sizable screw lodged deeply into the center of the rear tire, yep, that will cause a flat.

At this point, we only logged about 76 miles on the ride.

This was my first flat on a motorcycle since I started riding again in 2015.  Also, this is the first time that I have ridden more than 10 miles from home without my toolkit or tire repair kit, what an incredible coincidence!

The paniers on Bruce were empty with the panier bags packed in my garage at home for the upcoming Florida Loop 2026 Touring Trip starting April 4^th, 2026.  My wife and I discussed packing my tools and tire repair kit, but I was reluctant to unpack my tool bag.  Also being that Bruce only had slightly over 1,000 miles at this point, we both agreed that the odds of a breakdown were minimal (I can still hear the universe laughing about this comment).

So, I called DeAndra, my wife, to come to the rescue with my tool bag and tire repair kit.  I was able to plug the tire and inflate it.  For safety reasons, I decided to have Tristan ride back with mom in the car, just in case something else interesting happens with the tire on the way home.

I was able to ride Bruce the 82 miles home via Interstate 20 This route was a few more miles than the way we rode to Lineville but is a faster route.  Also, Alabama highway 48 / Georgia highway 5 really don’t have any shoulders and no great place to pull over if my tire were to fail again.

Bruce is in the shop…. again.

Bruce has been in and out of Atlanta Harley-Davidson for the past two weeks.  No real issue with Bruce itself.  The first scheduled visit was for the 1,000-mile servicing, installation of the Harley-Davidson Day Maker auxiliary lights, and routing the power feed wires for the Garmin Zumo and Quadlock Wireless Charger under the fuel tank.

I will create a more detailed post and video about this fiasco later but in short, the installations were not done as requested (or correctly) and have involved several re-visits to Atlanta Harley-Davidson to correct the issue.  To their credit, they have been following up with me and expressing desire to correct the issues (which most have now).

I purchased a replacement rear tire for Bruce and Atlanta Harley-Davidson will be installing the tire for no charge (to make up for the issues with the service department) and fixing the last wiring issue.  Again, I will make a more detailed post and video about all of that once there is final resolution.

 Alabama Ride with Tristan 2.0

Tristan and I will attempt this ride again after I return from the Florida Loop 2026 trip.  We are targeting sometime in May 2026 to be followed up by a weekend touring trip of North Georgia in June 2026.