New Ride Reports forum

[177195]

Well,here's hopin'!
Sendin'a pic of my scoot,on the mornin'I was leavin',plus a couple of shots from the motel I was stranded at,in Wisconsin....Nose

[177195]

Guess one at a time's better than none at all...Nose

[177195]

If ya look closely,u can see my'lil'magnetic heater I had bungeed to my oil tank,t'make sure the'ol'bumblebeemer'd start. Had a 1 amp charger,t'help the battery as well...Nose

[177195]

Voni's responsible for makin'it possible for me to be able to show u these pics,and I wanna give her credit for makin'it happen....Nose

[Rich]

What is it? It looks pretty cool behind that bike.

[BRADFORDBENN]

Coool or should I say cold

[honu]

Wow, looks like a cold ride.

I just got back from a little vacation myself. I bought a R1100 S from my little brother on my way down to Southern California to see my sister. My test ride was a beautiful few hundred miles in the foot hills below Yosemite, where I grew up, with my Dad on his RT and my little bro on his new sporty Yamaha. The valley itself was very rainy, but the rest of the ride was sunny, clear and beautiful. We stopped by the Merced river outside of Mariposa for lunch.

Since I had to take a tile saw and some other tools down to my sisters, I popped the S in the back of my truck and took it with me. My sis was focused on the tile job, but I was able to pry her loose for a short time. She has a little old NightHawk which she rode along for a short tour of Hwy 1. It looks like mudslides have attacked some portions of the road recently, but it was still a gorgeous ride, with the sun setting over the Pacific a few hundred feet to our right.

My dad road his RT down to see how we were doing with our tiling. He also agreed to go for a little Harbor tour with me on our bikes. Unfortunately it was pouring down rain on the trip back to Yosemite. We were a cute little caravan though. Father in front on a RT and Daughter behind with a silver S in a silver toyota tacoma, in the pouring rain, over the Grapevine.

I'm back in Oregon now, back at work, but getting a little ride in every day. I'm new to this touring thing, but I'm just giddy with the possibilities.
Next time I'll be leaving the truck at home.

[177195]

What is it? It looks pretty cool behind that bike.

A buddy of mine in Winnipeg used t'make these lil'trailers,and they're great,weighin'only 60 pounds,empty,and like the sayin'goes,ya can't even tell yer pullin'one......Nose

[pumppeddler]

Was fortunate enough to sneek away this weekend from albany area of NY through Mass. on rt. 2 over the mountains to portsmouth,NH. Its been a long winter and felt great to be riding on asphalt rather than snowmobiling the Adirondacks.My wife and myself had some fresh seafood sat. evening then sun. morning crossed into Maine and headed for home over rt. 4 through NH into Concord then rt.9 through VT. There were a lot of bikes out this weekend enjoying the 70 degree weather with very few bugs.Looking forward to many more rides this summer including taking a week off work to go to my 1st international rally in Lima,OH. Can anyone tell me what can be expected at the rally. Ive been to loudon in the past and it was pretty rowdy I would expect the crowd to be a lot more mellow. Should I preregister or can I register when I get there? ps. Im new to the forum and I type real slow.

[BRADFORDBENN]

Can anyone tell me what can be expected at the rally. Ive been to loudon in the past and it was pretty rowdy I would expect the crowd to be a lot more mellow. Should I preregister or can I register when I get there? ps. Im new to the forum and I type real slow.

I would recommend preregistering and it helps the process to know how many people are coming. It will be a blast, there is lots of information over in the
Rally Section of the Forum.

[98288]

Coool or should I say cold

My winter riding contribution. I don't ride in salt and try not to ride in snow unless there's somethin' a little special at the end Took the old vet back into the shop, dusted him off and cleaned him up. Weather sort of caught me unaware. sigh. -Bob

[BRADFORDBENN]

EEEK!!!!!

[SKS46LT05]

If ya look closely,u can see my'lil'magnetic heater...

Oz-those are great pics and they remind me of the time back in 87 when I took off from Michigan on my trusty 550 Honda Nighthawk and drove the southern route into California. The winter that year, as I recall, was a particularly mild one and I was farting around down in Death Valley, Kings Canyon/Sequoia and up around Mono/Yosemite.

An emergency back home had me hitting the road in a hurry and i blasted from somewhere near Lee Vining in Cali all the way to Vail in probably the longest haul IÔÇÖve ever done in a day. I was rolling over some 11,000 foot summit at about 1130 that night, freezing my arse off (that ol Eclipse electric vest was great but it would have taken a blast furnace inside my jacket to warm me up at this point).

I was extremely limited on funds as i had scheduled a western union transfer with my girlfriend before the emergency and was unable to pick up the money in Fresno since I was headed in the opposite direction now, and I figured those luxury hotels I was passing there in Vail were waaaay beyond my price range.

The cold had become almost unbearable by then, so i pulled off the freeway and motored into some hotel to see if maybe they could just give me a broom closet for the night. Well, it turned out that because the skiing season had been so crappy due to the lack of snow, the rooms were going for $20/night! AWESOME!

Lord, I was never so happy to throw my shivering body under a hot shower! As soon as I hit that bed I was unconscious.

I was awakened by muted hoots and hollers--it sounded like a party was going on somewhere off in the distance. I pulled my bleary arse from the bed, peeked out the window, and about crapped my drawers--a ton of snow was now on the ground and I had a room that looked dead on to the bottom of a huge ski run that was literally crawling with skiers!!!

Well, to make a long story tolerable, I ended up being snowed in there for 3 days, managed to get my money wired to me in Vail, and ultimately made it home in time to address what had by then become an urgent but non-emergency matter. I have some pics of the incident somewhere buried in my "hard-copy" picture box in the basement and if I can ever find em, maybe I'll post a few here--I did a LOT of touring on that ol 550 over the three years I owned it and I've got enough stories to keep an army of Cossacks bored for months!

Thanks for firing up some great memories for me!

Ride safe!

[RNOWELL]

Exploring local areas seems to be a good idea with gas prices so high. So I
examined my Fla. map and found a good day trip from Daytona to the St.
Johns river near Jacksonville. The intended route was CR13 from Espanola to
Hastings. I soon discovered this to be a brick road built in the 1880s. How
quaint! The road was fairly smoothe to start with,but deteriated with each
mile. At one point, a deer was jogging just ahead of me while I was doing
20mph. Many potholes and sand washes made me stand up and do my best
dirt bike efforts (while piloting this R1200CLC). At mile 14, I decided the road
was getting better, so I sat down and clicked up a gear. Thats when I went
into a broadslide that launched me 20' from where the bike stopped. I landed
on my head and neck, then back. After checking myself for broken bones, I
got up and tried to bring the bike upright. I only managed to bring it to a 45
degree angle. The loose sand prevented better traction for my feet. I prayed for someone to come along to help--it came after 45 min. as a dump
truck driver. A true miracle considering that no one uses this road! I rode
the remaining 3 miles to civilization and found a Jiffy store. After recouping,I
rode 50 miles home on the interstate. Xrays confirmed no broken bones and
the bike is in the shop getting new fiberglass. My brother said now I was
ready for a GS and South America. I disagreed.

[Dolph]

My understanding is that the GPS BMW offers has the main roads as the base map, then you have to load in the maps you want.

Either way, a Garmin not branded BMW is just as good and usually less expensive.

I have the BMW Navigator II ( AKA Garmin 2610 ). It is a wonder. After loading the western US into a 512 compact flash chip we rode all over the western US without a hitch, even looked up motels and resaurants as we traveled.
Incidently it has all of the little county dirt roads around where we live in Texas Hill Country. Try it you'll like it!