Just got home from my longest motorcycle ride to date: 335 miles. Detroit to White Pigeon via US-12 (Michigan Ave), then White Pigeon to Kalamazoo via US-131. Lunch and a lager at Bell’s (excellent pastrami sandwich), then back home via I-94. I-94 was smooth sailing until Mt. Hope Road, where it started backing up. Peter and I got off the freeway there and hit the back roads back to Ann Arbor where we split off and I continued home. The bike worked like a champ, and did so well passing on I-94 that I’m giving serious thought to keeping it instead of trading up next season.
The ride was relatively uneventful…rode with some Harleys through Irish Hills but other than that Peter and I were pretty much alone in both directions. Unbelievably hot…mid-90s with a heat index of 102…yowza! Glad my Kaw is water-cooled, I would have been one cranky rider if I had had to sit in traffic with a mega-hot V-Twin in my crotch. Big lesson learned: hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. I’m going to buy a small bag I can put on the handlebars behind the windshield so I can keep a couple bottles of water in there. That way I won’t have to stop to hydrate.
This ride and last week’s Lake St. Clair circumnavigation were shakedown rides for the big Lake Michigan ride later this month. 225 and 335 on two separate weekends with zero problems, I think the bike will be fine on the Lake MI trip. Oh, and this trip was a shakedown ride with the new Tsukayu Patrol hardbags installed. No problems there, either!
Entries (RSS)
Awesome that you’re getting out there and riding, especially a ride like this!!