April 7th, its just about 70F and gusty but what a great day for a ride. Chris and his girlfriend Karen and I head off and do the Northwestern Loop. The route was pretty clean for this time of the year. There are a lots and lots of bikes out today. This is the first time I really get to ride the bike over a hundred miles this year. So far I really, really like the Dunlop D207's, really. I have been working out regularly, strength training and spinning and like James Brown, I feel good, not fatigued at all. The Arai Helmet is a bit more comfy then the AGV. But the AGV is a race helmet. On Dexter Trail this guy waves at us as we pass he was into a turn and almost lost it. Doh! Didn't see much in the way of LEO but I'm sure someone did. And I finished the day washing the bike and admiring the sunset.
Friday night Chris and I head to Grattan and I have a head cold from HELL. We get to track on Saturday morning and take the walk/drive around the track. Its chilly and there is a threat of rain. I'm getting more miserable by the second. I hear about half of what the guy says between blowing my nose. I signed up with the intermediate group and go out for the first ride. My head is so stuffed up that I'm just getting in the way and its real hard to concentrate. So I drop down to the 'school' group. This better because I can take it easy and maybe learn something new. By lunch time I'm feeling better. I'm not having as much fun as I could but I'm having fun none the less. We run into Gregg from HSTA. He's riding a pretty neat VFR. After lunch I decide even though I'm feeling better,
I don't feel good enough to go out with the middle group. I'm still learning how the power band on the inline four works after riding a V-4 for the last 15 yrs. By the end of the day I feel real good about how I'm doing on the track. We go have dinner at the Grattan Inn/Pub/Tavern and then went and saw the way too cool movie, DRIVEN. Sunday, the weather is much better. It feels weird not going to Suzy's. I haven't missed that in years. At least I made sure there was plenty of baked goods. I decide to continue to ride in the school group because I'm still stuffed up and its a smaller group. There are at least six crashes through both days with all being in the middle group, four with broken collar bones. Today is also the day we get to test ride the Aprilias at speed. Chris had a bolt go through his rear tire. Tire didn't lose air thankfully. I got to ride the Falco and missed my chance to ride the Mille. The last session of the day I went out and I was the only one I could see for the first three laps. It was weird not having anyone around. What a great weekend! Worth doing again.
A real road trip finally!
Sept 15-17
This was to be my first riding event with the Michigan Squadron of the Honda Sports Touring Association.
I met up with Karl and Bob at the Canton/ I 275 Shell station about 5:30 or so and we rode down to Mansfield, Ohio. That's where we met up with the others and went through some maps and beers. Saturday the weather turned out pretty good despite being a little chilly in the A.M.. We had nice long ride down to Marietta, Ohio lots of nice scenic roads. We all went out to dinner at a brew pub. I had the meatloaf from Jupiter. Sunday we rode back home. It was a good time.
I was putting my warm duds today because its colder then a well diggers toe out there. 32F to be exact. I waited for Chris to come by. Not to many other takers today.
There was still a decent crowd there as the temps rose up into the low 40's.
As you can see there wasn't much to write about this year. I put on about 5,000 miles give or take this year on the Stinger with the last ride up to now on Dec 9th. We had a great day to ride on Dec 5th with the temps getting close to 70F. In November we rode up to Laingsburg to watch the M-MSU football game, that was a grin. The ride home that night with the full moon rising just something else. The trip out to Laguna is what made the year and the Superbike School at Grattan was a lot of fun too. The D207 tires worked real well, probably have another 1k left if I choose to use them.
