Geezer
Parsimonious Curmudgeon
My Dad spends the winter months in Florida and I did not get down there to visit this past winter so I decided to hold off until the clocks change to daylight savings and ride down on the FJR. I never thought of myself as a long distance rider and always though the IBA folks were a little a little eccentric, but after hanging around this forum for a while I decided to make this a SS1K to see if I could do it. I am normally a heavy coffee drinker but I tapered off to the point where I was complertely off of it by Saturday. I planned to leave Saturday morning but the weather looked pretty bad in the south east and they had just had some tornados near the route I was planning to take. I held off until Sunday morning. It was hard to kill the day on Saturday knowing that I should have been on the road.
I started out at home in the Catskill mountains of NY a little before 6:00 AM on Palm Sunday. The earliest I could get a gas receipt anywhere near home is 6:00. It was a chilly 24 degrees F but I expected it to warm up once the sun came up and the weather reports were showing sunshine all the way down the east coast. Got my wife up so she could take a couple pictures and witness my departure. About 15 minutes later I was filling up the tank and logging my first receipt.
By the time I was ready to stop again for fuel I was near the bottom of NJ. It was dry and sunny but still pretty cold. In fact, even though I was wearing winter gloves and have v-Strom handguards, my hands were so cold that I had a hard time working the d-rings to get my helmet off. Still, the weather man said it was going to warm up and I was heading south. I bought a small coffee to warm my hands and drank about half of it before fueling up amd moving on. It didn't actually warm up until I got into South Carolina.
I rode the slab, I95, all the way to Florida. I'm not sure why but traffic was unusually light and even the DC area was a breeze as far as traffic was concerned. The bike ran flawlessly and I guess I was mentally prepared for the long ride because the whole thing was easier than I expected. I arrive at my destination, Lake City, FL, a little after 10:00 PM. It being Sunday night, the first couple of gas stations I found were closed. Uh oh... I rode around town for a little while, probably not more than 10 minutes but it seemed like a long time, searching for a station that was open. Found one. Logged my last receipt and headed to Dad's house so he could witness my arrival. My odometer indicated well over 1,100 miles so I figure I've got a good buffer to get the 1K.
OK, so I did the big ride, but I was done yet. I stayed in Lake City for a couple of days. I took the bike out once but the roads there are so straight and flat that it really wasn't much fun. Wednesday morning I loaded up and headed to the Smoky mountains to get a look at the Cherahola and the dragon. Got there in the afternoon and started looking for a place to set up my little tent. I found the Cherahola first so I rode up and down that a couple of times. Great road. Very little traffic and only a few bikes out that afternoon. It did surprise me how the bikes would pass the slower cagers on double yellow as a matter of normal riding. Made me uncomfortable, but I did it a couple of times myself.
I stopped at a scenic overlook and asked a guy on a KTM to take my pcture for me. We got talking and he told me how to get to the dragon. Off I went. On my way to the dragon I spotted a sign for Horse Cove campground. I went in there ans set up my tent for the night. After that I went into Robbinsville to get some groceries for dinner and breakfast. On the way there I stopped at a bike repair/souvenier shop. There were three guys there on BMWs who just arrived from Connecticut. The one bike had a stripe of exposed cord on his back tire over and inch wide all the way around. I don't know how he couldn't feel that. The shop was about to close and the rider was trying to decide if he was going to ride the bike to his motel and come back in the morning, or leave it there overnight. I was amazed that the tire even got him that far.
Got my groceries and headed out to the dragon before eating becase it was going to be dark in an hour or so. Wow. What a road. It was hard work pushing the FJR through there with my panniers and Givi trunk fully loaded. When I got to the turnaround at the north end of the dragon my arms were tired and my hands hurt from hanging on. The curves come up so fast that I had a hard time swinging my head around to look for the next curve. A couple of times I couldn't get my butt over on the seat to get down into a curve. Great fun, but I was wishing I had a smaller lighter bike for that road. Again, traffic was surprisingly light and I only saw about six other bikes on the dragon. Guess my timing was good.
The next morning I got up at dusk and packed up. Went through the dragon a couple more times and headed north to visit my older brother in Ohio. Thr roads through Tennessee and Kentucky are very nice. I spend a couple days in Ohio and headed to NJ to meet my wife and kids at my younger brother's house for Easter dinner.
All together I put 3000 miles on the bike that week. It ran flawlessly and was more comfortable than I had expected. I'm sure my Wilber's suspension made a difference because I did not have a single 'bone-jarring bump' experience and I used to get them frequently with the stock shock. Now I'm getting my documentation together to send in for the SS1K. I still think long distance riders are a little off center, but now I guess that includes me. Now for my next LD ride I think I'll........hmmm, did I say I'd do it again? You bet!
I started out at home in the Catskill mountains of NY a little before 6:00 AM on Palm Sunday. The earliest I could get a gas receipt anywhere near home is 6:00. It was a chilly 24 degrees F but I expected it to warm up once the sun came up and the weather reports were showing sunshine all the way down the east coast. Got my wife up so she could take a couple pictures and witness my departure. About 15 minutes later I was filling up the tank and logging my first receipt.
By the time I was ready to stop again for fuel I was near the bottom of NJ. It was dry and sunny but still pretty cold. In fact, even though I was wearing winter gloves and have v-Strom handguards, my hands were so cold that I had a hard time working the d-rings to get my helmet off. Still, the weather man said it was going to warm up and I was heading south. I bought a small coffee to warm my hands and drank about half of it before fueling up amd moving on. It didn't actually warm up until I got into South Carolina.
I rode the slab, I95, all the way to Florida. I'm not sure why but traffic was unusually light and even the DC area was a breeze as far as traffic was concerned. The bike ran flawlessly and I guess I was mentally prepared for the long ride because the whole thing was easier than I expected. I arrive at my destination, Lake City, FL, a little after 10:00 PM. It being Sunday night, the first couple of gas stations I found were closed. Uh oh... I rode around town for a little while, probably not more than 10 minutes but it seemed like a long time, searching for a station that was open. Found one. Logged my last receipt and headed to Dad's house so he could witness my arrival. My odometer indicated well over 1,100 miles so I figure I've got a good buffer to get the 1K.
OK, so I did the big ride, but I was done yet. I stayed in Lake City for a couple of days. I took the bike out once but the roads there are so straight and flat that it really wasn't much fun. Wednesday morning I loaded up and headed to the Smoky mountains to get a look at the Cherahola and the dragon. Got there in the afternoon and started looking for a place to set up my little tent. I found the Cherahola first so I rode up and down that a couple of times. Great road. Very little traffic and only a few bikes out that afternoon. It did surprise me how the bikes would pass the slower cagers on double yellow as a matter of normal riding. Made me uncomfortable, but I did it a couple of times myself.
I stopped at a scenic overlook and asked a guy on a KTM to take my pcture for me. We got talking and he told me how to get to the dragon. Off I went. On my way to the dragon I spotted a sign for Horse Cove campground. I went in there ans set up my tent for the night. After that I went into Robbinsville to get some groceries for dinner and breakfast. On the way there I stopped at a bike repair/souvenier shop. There were three guys there on BMWs who just arrived from Connecticut. The one bike had a stripe of exposed cord on his back tire over and inch wide all the way around. I don't know how he couldn't feel that. The shop was about to close and the rider was trying to decide if he was going to ride the bike to his motel and come back in the morning, or leave it there overnight. I was amazed that the tire even got him that far.
Got my groceries and headed out to the dragon before eating becase it was going to be dark in an hour or so. Wow. What a road. It was hard work pushing the FJR through there with my panniers and Givi trunk fully loaded. When I got to the turnaround at the north end of the dragon my arms were tired and my hands hurt from hanging on. The curves come up so fast that I had a hard time swinging my head around to look for the next curve. A couple of times I couldn't get my butt over on the seat to get down into a curve. Great fun, but I was wishing I had a smaller lighter bike for that road. Again, traffic was surprisingly light and I only saw about six other bikes on the dragon. Guess my timing was good.
The next morning I got up at dusk and packed up. Went through the dragon a couple more times and headed north to visit my older brother in Ohio. Thr roads through Tennessee and Kentucky are very nice. I spend a couple days in Ohio and headed to NJ to meet my wife and kids at my younger brother's house for Easter dinner.
All together I put 3000 miles on the bike that week. It ran flawlessly and was more comfortable than I had expected. I'm sure my Wilber's suspension made a difference because I did not have a single 'bone-jarring bump' experience and I used to get them frequently with the stock shock. Now I'm getting my documentation together to send in for the SS1K. I still think long distance riders are a little off center, but now I guess that includes me. Now for my next LD ride I think I'll........hmmm, did I say I'd do it again? You bet!
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