November 7, 2010

Beemer Stats:
112.7 Miles
40 MPH Ave
43 MPG Ave

Gypsy Stats:
5 Hr 56 Min elapsed time
2 Hr 43 Min Riding Time (long breakfast!)
105.7 miles
38.9 MPH Ave

Tim: ’96 BMW R1100RS
Dave: ’99 Triumph Sprint ST 955 Triple (aka Smokin’ Red)
Lindsey: '07 BWM R1200R (Grin!)

Just a short run today; Tim scored a ticket to the Eagles-Colts game at 4:00, so he needed to get home by noon. Dave pointed out that it was fall-back day. If we started at 8:00 EDT (7:00 EST) rather than 8:00 EST, we would hardly notice and could get in an extra hour of riding time. This worked for me for three reasons: (1) heading out to meet up at 7:00 (EDT) would be before the sun was up enough to raise the temp so I could really try out the electrics, (2) we get an extra hour of helmet time, and (3) if I could get through all of Sunday on EDT, then I could collect my extra hour on Monday morning when it had some real value.

Heading out at 7:11 am EDT (6:11 EST) it was brisk, to put it lightly: 28 leaving the house, dropping to as low as 24.7 crossing the Oley Valley. I gotta tell you, on a motorcycle with no windscreen moving at 60 MPH, this a few degrees below cold. I suited up in the two piece, custom made, motorcycle long underwear as a base layer. For pants I wore Thinsulate and flannel lined jeans with the RevIt suit pants with liner. On top, I layered up with the Gerbing heated jacket, RevIt liner and riding jacket, topped with the Frogg Toggs jacket as an extra wind break. On my head, I wore a balaclava and the Shark Evoline helmet with the chin bar closed in the full face position. With the jacket plugged in and turned on and the heated hand grips turned on, this was amazingly warm and comfortable. The biggest problem was visibility as the balaclava tends to deflect the exhaled breath up onto glasses which fog up. I had to open the helmet face shield one notch to clear the fog and suffered the consequent cold breeze on the cheeks. All-in-all though, I think we demonstrated that sub-freezing riding is definitely in as long as the roads are dry.

When I got to Tim's his bike with gear was parked on the street. Hmm..... Something's up. Tim is usually getting the bike out of the garage and collecting the gear for the ride at this time. Turns out, he sprung forward instead of falling back, confused the time change and rolled out at 6:00 am wondering why it was so cold and dark and where everyone else was.

By this time the temp was holding between 30-32. After sub 25, this felt downright balmy (with the electrics still on!). Luckily, Giegertown FD opens their Sunday morning breakfast at 7:30, so we didn't have to go out a ride around in circles in the cold for an hour before getting a cup of joe. 'Pears to be a new guy on the grill today, so the pig was pretty abused before getting to table. But the GFD special eggs were OK and the SOS filled in the holes. We lingered for 2 1/2 hours over breakfast catching up on news, then headed out to ride around the county. Temps made it up into the low 40's and the ride was glorious. A bit breezy, so the air was full of swirling leaves. The colors are past their prime with maybe 50% of trees bare and the remainder mostly the yellows and brown mixed with the the deep russet of the pin oaks.

Well, I didn't take the camera along this morning, so no pics of the ride, but here is a pic of my new Kentucky KM900 mandolin, the stringed instrument sized to travel on a motorcycle. I went up to Steve Walker's after the ride today to pick it up . Sweet instrument. It looks great, but more importantly, it rings like a bell. And the action is incredibly close. Look for mando music at the next BWM rally.