Riding the Dragon

Midway through the Dragon
Originally uploaded by joshherl

I made the most enjoyable purchase of my life on 9/19. As you might see, I purchased a '93 Honda ST1100 with several nice upgrades. To complete this purchase I flew one way to the Charlotte airport where I met the guy I purchased it from. In about an hour we had the paperwork completed and I was on the road back to Indy. Given that NC and TN contain some of the best motorcycling roads in the country, I had to take the long way to ride US 129, the most popular road in America, which many call the "Dragon".

My route began by riding to Asheville and spending the night. On Saturday morning I got off to an early start and was on the highway before 8am. After riding some very enjoyable 2 and 4 lane, I finally entered the Nanatahalla river recreation area. This was pretty cool and I really wanted to stop and go whitewater kayaking. Maybe someday I can get a portable yak to carry on the bike, but I digress.
I was a little confused when the road narrowed and became quite twisty. It seemed like I was on the Dragon, but it was just a basic warmup. Upon beginning the official ride I learned quickly what a cornering beast the ST1100 is. As I carved up one turn after another, I began to get stuck behind one Harley after another. Unfortunately one of the many shortcomings of the Harley is their inability to corner at any reasonable speed. Add the weight of a big Harley chick on the back and suddenly you are barely moving through the turns. I stopped 3 or 4 times to let traffic get ahead so that I could enjoy the ride. Eventually I caught up to them, but it made the ride a lot more enjoyable. As I re-entered civilization near Knoxville, traffic pickup up dramatically. The duration of the ride was smooth and uneventful with one more overnight stay a little south of Lexington. Sunday morning I made short work of the last couple hundred miles and arrived home early in the afternoon. All in all, this was a fantastic ride. I really enjoyed the freedom of just being on the bike and doing whatever I wanted as I traveled. I've now had my ST for about 2 weeks and have over 1,500 miles on it. I expect that I will be putting a whole lot of miles on this bike over the next several years.

Motorcycle Ride To Louisville

We decided to jump on the bikes and ride down to Louisville on Saturday night to take some pictures of the city from across the Ohio river. Because of work obligations, we weren't able to get rolling until about 5pm. This placed us at the river around 7:30- just in time to enjoy a fantastic sunset across the river. I shot about a hundred pictures of the sunset and skyline. The sunset shots were quite gorgeous, but as darkness fell I came upon an irritating realization... I had left my tripod at home. I almost always carry it on photo trips, but for some reason the thought never crossed my mind. My camera has a pretty awesome image stabilization, but nothing could stop the blur when exposure times started getting upwards of 4 seconds. I managed to brace the camera up on a post and get a couple of focused shots. Overall, I was frustrated with the results as the scenery was superb and I was unable to capture on film nearly what I wanted to. 

The bike trip itself was good practice and the weather was great. Temps were T-shirt comfortable on the 110 mile ride down. Temps dropped quite a bit on the way back and I had to wear a fleece and my riding jacket, but still stayed nice and comfortable. Nothing significant happened on the ride, but it was good seat time in prep for the upcomming trip.

Is it November Yet?

My friend Daryl and I have begun a yearly motorcycle trip to Pennsacola, FL to see the Blue Angels air show every November. Last year we brought friend Curt, and the previous year, Daryl's friend Jay. This will be my third trip down. It's become an annual Mecca and we plan it all throughout the year. This year we had great hopes to ride down to Cape Canaveral and see the final Space Shuttle launch, but the mileage was just overwhelming and we decided against it. We would have ridden 600 miles a day for 4 days, plus whatever we put on while seeing the sights.

We are now getting into the final 3 months and it's time to start getting the old 1982 Honda Goldwind ready to make the nearly 2000 mile journey. This year I've decided to upgrade my old suspension to new progressive springs in front and rear. Also, I am putting on new rubber and of course giving the old girl a tuneup. I'm quite excited about this year in particular because it will give us a great chance to use some new DSLR cameras with 300mm zoom lenses. Hopefully we can get some postcard worthy shots during the show. I also recently picked up a very nice scanner at a steal for $25. Hopefully I can get it programmed and listen in on the in flight coms during the airshow (I know I'm a geek).

One of the great perks of my job is that I stay in hotels very often and earn lots of reward points that I can use for free stays. What this means for our trip is that we get to stay at the Holiday Inn resort on Pennsacola beach this year for 3 days and it wont cost a penny!! This is good becuase the Irish steakhouse down the road costs a fortune, but it's worth it.

As the days pass by, the anticipation begins to get unbearable and we start taking 100+ mile rides every weekend. Thankfully these things get good fuel mileage. My bike was acting up a little last weekend. I'm hoping the tuneup will cure it's ills. One note: If you ever suffer from small engine trouble, use some Sea Foam. It's the greatest thing since the gasoline engine.

I'm sure I'll have more to say as we get closer to d-day...