In order to pay our respects to the American Steel MC, we accepted their invitation to participate in their poker run.

The American Steel MC clubhouse is near Pyeongtaek, Korea, which is about 1.5 hours South of Seoul in the Northwest corner of the country. Pusan is located at the very Southeast tip of the country. It is a long haul between the two points. Nevertheless, all of the Club officers committed to attend.

The poker run was scheduled to begin at 11:00 on 6 October 2007. Rather than waking up and leaving Pusan at 3am on the day of the run, we decided to head up on the night of the 5th, ride as far as we could, sleep for the night, and ride the rest of the way on the morning of the 6th.

While Iceman was finishing his work, Big D. went shopping for road snacks. Eight bacon cheeseburgers from McDonalds, copious amounts of caffinated beverages, and a tin of Pringles was enough for two people.

Iceman and Big D. hit the road just before 9:00pm on the 5th. We took highway 2 out of Pusan. After about an our ride, we arrived in Changwon. Big D. took an hour to fix his broken turn signal, and Iceman worked on his loose mirror.

We were back on the road again at shortly after 11:00 pm. We took highway 2 into Masan. We then left highway 2 and road Northwest past Masan Stadium until the road connected with highway 5. Once we got out of Masan and the surrounding towns, the road opened up and we laid some rubber as we scrambled North.

Things were going well until about 13 kilometers South of the town of Changryeong. Suddenly, Iceman’s engine began to cut out on him. Out of gas. He switched to his reserve tank. He indicated that there was not enough gas in the reserve tank to reach Changryeong. It was around 11:30pm when came to a tiny village that looked just big enough to have a gas station. We rode several kilometers to the far side of the village, but could not find a gas station. We asked an intoxicated gentleman and were told that there was a service station about 1 kilometer further down the road.

Using precious drops of fuel, we headed toward the service station only to discover that it was closed. We had a brief meeting of the minds where it was decided that we would head back to highway 5, continue North as far as possible until Iceman ran out of gas. Big D. would then ride ahead to a service station and bring back a container of fuel.

A sign loomed out of the darkness and gave notice that a rest area with a gas station was only two kilometers ahead. We sped up a bit to arrive there as quickly as possible. As we rounded the final bend before the rest stop, we were shocked and horrified that the rest area and service station were all as dark as the surrounding night. Closed.

It was only a matter of minutes before Iceman’s bike ran out of fuel. Mercifully, a bright yellow glow of a service station sign slowly came up out of the darkness. With no time to spare, we pulled into the station and fueled up. The fuel stop ended up being a roughly 30-minute rest. Big D. got a call from a client. The service station attended gave us little travel kits with a toothbrush, shampoo, shaving cream, and other amenities. Then he gave us some chestnuts. Then he brought us some coffee. We still had a lot of ground to cover, so we had to break up the little social gathering and get wheels up again.

Fueled up and rested, we ripped up highway 5, trying to make up for lost time. We continued on highway 4 until it intersected with road 26. We turned left on to 26 and made the short dash to Goryoung. Part of the plan to save time was to avoid going anywhere near the city of Taegu. Although neither of us had taken this route before, the map indicated that we could bypass Taegu and save upwards of an hour travel time. We decided to try our luck.

As we reached Goryoung, we turned right onto road only road 33 and headed north to road 59. When we got to road 59, it branched left and right. Not being sure which branch to take, we stopped to check the map, eat a burger, relieve ourselves, and stretch the legs. It was getting cold.

After taking our break, we got on our bikes and headed up the right-hand branch of highway 59 straight in to KImcheon. According to the map, it was supposed to take us nearly arrow straight into Kimcheon. I looked great on the map…Too great. We joked that it probably went up a huge mountain or turned into a dirt road. It didn’t take long before the road started to ascend a steep mountain. The construction along the road caused sections of the road to resemble a dirt road. Our jokes had become reality, with the added fact that the road was an incredible collection of switchbacks, hairpin turns, and twisties. We eventually decided that there were so many twists and turns in the road that the map maker simply decided it wasn’t worth making each individual turn, so he just gave up and made a straight line. However, as twisty and dangerous as it was to take at night, it saved time. In terms of actual road time, it saved us somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half over the usual time.

We made one last fuel stop in Kimcheon and warmed up a bit to get the circulation going back in our legs. We then took off up highway 4 to Taejeon. We arrived at a small motel near Taejeon Station at around 3:30 am. Exhausted, we were lights out at 4:00am.

Alarms went off 2 1/2 hours later at 6:30 Saturday morning. We were back on the bikes at 8:00 am and winding our way West out of Taejeon past the Olympic Stadium onto road 32. A short while outside of Taejeon, we turned North onto highway 1.

We stayed on highway 1 for the next hour and a half through Cheonan and into Pyeongtaek. From that point, we had no idea where to go. Thankfully, Big D. has his phone with a GPS navigation system. We used that to navigate our way to a hotel around the corner from the American Steel clubhouse at exactly 10:00am.

We signed up for the poker run, got our rooms in a cheap, musty, dank, smelly little motel a few meters from the clubhouse, and prepped our bikes for the run, which was scheduled to start at 11:00 am.

At start time, the bikes took our positions at the start line. There were several clubs in attendance in addition to a number of independent riders.

We left out of town and headed into the countryside.

The poker run had some incredibly beautiful stop locations near a lake and a reservoir.

We rode back to the clubhouse to complete the run.

At the clubhouse, the prizes were awarded and the party got underway. Burgers, hotdogs, chili, potato salad, an assortment of Filipino food, softdrinks, beer, etc.

American Steel MC is commended for putting on an incredible poker run. Everything went extremely well and extremely smoothly. The course was safe and well organized. Despite the loss of two bikes along the way due to mechanical issues, the ride progressed as smoothly as could be imagined. All in all, it was a spectacular ride with a great group of guys. Again, hats off to American Steel for a great run.

At the end of the run party, we all took a little downtime. Heretic, the Rotten Dead Vice President, showed up around 7:30pm, just in time for the kick off the after party party.

Knowing that we had a full day’s ride back to Pusan ahead of us in the morning, we decided to call it quits at around 2:30 am. We went back to our rooms and dropped to sleep.

Somehow, Heretic managed to get up and get on the road at 6:30 am so that he could make it to work on time. Big D. and Iceman woke up at 8:00, enjoyed a very delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, potatoes, and juice at the Veterans of Foreign Wars building.

We hit the road back to Pusan at 10:00am. We were escorted out of town by one of the American Steel MC members who had advised us of a quicker way back home than using highway 1 and highway 4.

In the company of a guy named “Kevin,” who lives in Taegu, we headed due East out of town on road 34. Kevin was riding a huge, full-dresser with an incredibly large 110 cubic inch engine. Although on a massive bike, Kevin rode hard, well, and fast. We burned up the road. We rode for an hour, took a half-hour break, and rode for another hour as road 34 turned into highway 3 in a tiny town of Yeonpoong and on into the town of Seongju.

At Seongju, we said goodbye to Kevin who turned on to 25 toward Taegu. We continued on 3 until we arrived at Kimcheon. Although we met with some slow traffic on the narrow road, the trip down from Pyeongtaek was much shorter than the way we had gone up.

We were making good time. Then our fortunes changed. It started to rain. We got wet for a while as we proceeded back down highway 59 toward Goryeong. The rain stopped for a while shortly before Goryeong. We thought we were in the clear. But that was not the case.

As we worked our way back to Pusan on the same roads we had take up, the rain started again. The more we road, the harder it rained. It was the worst rain we have ever ridden in. Thankfully, there was no wind or lightning. It was just an incredibly hard rain.

We arrived home at 6:00pm, which was 8 hours after we had left Pyeongtaek. Had it not rained and had we taken shorter breaks, we could have done it in 6 hours.

It was a great weekend, a great ride, and a great time for the Rotten Dead MC.

RDFFRD!

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