Tales of heroic tours ... ?

[RSSprinter]

Why should the Tiger forum have all the tales of monster trips?

Who's really put the "tourer" part of our sports-tourers to the test?

Where have you been ... and what was it like?

[jefftarlton]

I've been everywhere my time off from work would let me go. When it was cold and wet, I was cold and wet. When it was hot and dry, I was hot and dry. When the roads got twisty I didn't slow down.
Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Tennessee, and best of all Arkansas in the two years I've had my sprint. I wish I had more time to ride.
1151 miles is the most I've done in a day so far.

[SpiderTex]

summer 2003:
Leg1: Driven from Hasselt (Belgium) to Tours (France) via Reims, Paris, Orleans (totaling 800Km).
Stopped in Tours at a friend of mine, after a 2 days continued my trip: Left in a windy, cloudy but now and then sunshine piercing through day...
leg2: Tours - Angers - Le Mans - Rennes - Mont St Michel - Caen, when I arrived at Deauville I felt I did a bit too much "oooh looks like a nice road" and "oooh what a nice view, let's take a picie" and as such was getting tired after 750Km with my full loaded ST (hard panniers and tank bag).

Before I left on holidays I'd booked a hotel in Bologne-sur-Mer but the weather was starting to get verrrry menacing. So filled her up and took of for my last leg of 250Km.

Passing Le Havre, the wind by now picked up and in stead of a reasonable 6 Beaufort, I was getting sidewinds from over the Northsea of 9 to 10 bf! I kid' you not!! I left the little roads near the coast to get onto the highway (which was more land inwards but in free area, so not a too good an idea) and rushed to my little hotel. It started raining and hailing, I had to keep the speed up to enable myself to see anything, at moments I was driving in angels fit for taking a tight curve on the straight highway. The hail felt like someone throwing buckets of little pebbles to me.
And despite all this, I felt secure, my little trustworthy steed just kept keeping track, and go go go...

When I finally arrived soaked in Boulogne-sur-Mer, the lady at the reception looked at me with big eyes when she saw that strange man raining on her floor....

That evening I offered my self a nice restaurant, good wine, good food. And I ended up talking to the "maître d'hotel" who just bought a bike (Yam Fazer) and was entering the realm of motorbike enthusiasts. We talked about bikes until late into the night. The cognac(s) I drank that night were for free.

Trust me, I slept like a rose that night! biking can be sooo nice!!!!

[thfwsf]

I'm glad to see a thread like this. I have grand ambitions to do some serious riding in the future on my ST. However, I do ride my ST a fair amount 9 months a year (16k miles this year). Though if I didn't have family commitments and work, I don't think you could pry me off of a scoot.

With that said however, I did take a nice trip last fall from the Northern VA area to the NJ/NY area and back. I ended up with about 1500 miles in 3 days.

All I can say, overall the weather was pretty nice except for all the rain we got on Sat when we were on a group ride in the NY area. My ST performed, without any issues. It handled the rain, interstates, back roads, slow speeds and high speeds without any complaint. I even ended up going down about 10 miles of gravel/dirt road. It didn't miss a beat.

Tom

[UK-SPD]

Great thread, Especially doing the cold days of winter.

Every year in June some friends and I ride from Northern Virginia to New York, to ride in Big Bear State Park, and other area's like Greenwood Lake. Then it's down through PA to ride some nice twisties near Towanda PA, and on to Tennessee for the Honda Hoot. Did I mention I know a lot of friends ride 1300 STs and 1100XXs. At the Hoot we ride Deal's Gap, and the Skyway a half dozen times. This year we rode southeast almost ending up in Atlanta before turning back. Definitely going there again in 2005. And on the way home, we stop off in Johnson City, VA. (right outside Bristow, VA.) and ride some serious twisties in that area. And finally it's time to go home. And can't forget to ride Virginia's twisties of 211 and area's near Warrenton. 10-12 days of riding and BSing with other riders, usually getting about 1700-2000 miles on the bikes and the least possible amount of time on any major highway!!. It's amazing what you can do with some state road maps and a nice GPS unit. Every year the trip gets longer, more miles, more riders and great memories.

We usually start plan the next year's trip the weekend after we get back. Good news for me, it's less then six months away!! :-D

[JasonS]

We will soon have an entire forum dedicated to just stories of touring... rather than bury all these great tales in the individual forums, they'll be posted them in one forum for all to read!!

[RSSprinter]

Great reads .... keep them coming.

1151 miles in one day .... yikes!

Planning on doing a 'monster' trip from Melbourne to Queensland (and back) during my holidays. I'll let you guys know how it goes - might even post a pic or two if I get some decent ones...

Have a safe and happy festive period.

[ This message was edited by: clackavosticus on 2004-12-24 04:00 ]

Planning on doing a 'monster' trip from Melbourne to Queensland (and back) during my holidays. I'll let you guys know how it goes - might even post a pic or two if I get some decent ones...

Have a safe and happy festive period.

[ This message was edited by: clackavosticus on 2004-12-24 04:00 ]

[Nelson955]

I did 3 trips to the Costa Blanca region of Spain on my first ST. The most miles I did in a day was 700, and that was not using motorways/highways. I also did one trip which took in Dresden, Krakow and Prague in 2002. It happened to coincide with the floods they were having in Europe at that time (and the visit of the Pope to Krakow), which led to a few amendments to the schedule. Did 2800 miles in 12 days on that one. So yes, the ST can rack up the monster mileages too.

Bob