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Route 32 Walt's Speedometer

 




It was late afternoon in Albany, NY. I was riding the four speed Evo; Levi had his Sporty; both Mike and Walt were riding clean Shovels. The plan was this: we were gonna run south down route 32, make a few miles, then maybe stop at some juke joint or tavern, but closer to home. Once we got out of the city, the road opened up, and the throttle hands got looser. We were doing maybe 60 mph, in a tight pack of four, and we'd roll up behind some sedan doing 55, and most times, with plenty of room to pass, we'd give 'em a little gas, and just blast right on by. But each time we did that, we'd gain a little speed, and pretty soon we were kind of hammering down the highway, maybe 70 or 75. And I could see in my mirror, Walt was dropping back. He'll catch up, I'm thinkin', he's probably just not used to that kind of riding. So anyway, I'm watching Walt in the mirror, and he's back there maybe 50 yards…then I look again, he's still with us, but maybe back 100 yards…then maybe 150. But I could still see him. And we run up behind a truck…no passing zone, and we lose our momentum. And here comes Walt. And after that we kind of got into a more "normal" riding pattern, and still heading south, we stopped for a cold one.

So I asked Walt, "…how come you dropped back?" 
"You guys were doing a hundred miles an hour," he said. He exclaimed it. 
"Whoa, Walt," I said. "We were only doing maybe seventy…seventy-five…"
"My speedometer was reading one hundred miles an hour," he said.
"No Way."

Turns out later, we come to find out that Walt had bought a new speedometer drive unit, but not from Harley. He bought one from an aftermarket, better known as Taiwan Ted, and after much introspective conversation, Walt came to think that maybe he got the one with the wrong ratio. 100mph... not that day.  


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