Been looking for a way to test my readiness and Diego's for a possible long trip to visit relatives this summer, but for quite a while, my job precluded anything beyond relatively short weekend rides (a couple of hours maximum, with a few stops enroute).
This week, however, my company truck was laid up and I had three sites to visit. Fortunately, none of the projects required any large tools, so in my last week of work before retirement, I found myself in the amazing position of being on travel allowance, uncaged!
I left Tuesday afternoon and returned home 55 hours and 600 miles later. Not enough to win any iron butt competitions, by any means, but two of the days' rides were roughly comparable to what I'll be doing as a tourist, and they were easy as pie on the big ol' Tiger.
Tuesday afternoon was a three hour journey to south Georgia (two 5-minute breaks for orange juice and water), followed by a few hours on site, then an early evening hour-and-a-half ride up to middle Georgia.
Wednesday evening entailed another hour-and-a-half jaunt, this time up to the Augusta area. Unfortunately, the south Georgia work caused the remainder of my schedule to slip considerably, so I didn't get there in time to stop by and say "hi" to Tom Clancey at Augusta Triumph Ducati this trip. Always enjoy visiting there nearly as much as I do my own dealer's place. Maybe next time.
Thursday morning saw about 90 minutes of travel to various destinations, including one down a dirt road that turned out to have deep, loose sand at some crucial corners. Too bad there's not a pale green smiley face with a seasick expression I could use here, but we made it through (slowly) without incident, and with surprisingly little dust on the magnificent beast. Cleans up nicely, too, I'm glad to say.
About a quarter to four in the afternoon, we started back home, and got here four hours and 15 minutes later. All but ten minutes of that was spent in the saddle--a four minute break early on to sip some water and buy more orange juice, a continuous three hours without dismounting, a six minute break (had to force myself to stop, remembering how dehydrated I got the first day, but part of me just wanted to keep going and going), then the final 45 minutes.
I'm glad that the last leg was with the sun sinking lower in the sky and heavily wooded terrain around. It had been in the mid-thirties all afternoon (Celsius, that is...95 degrees in "American money") and the solar heating on open fields in the middle part of the state resulted in some very gusty winds. I spent much of the Tuesday and Thursday afternoon trips crouched lower than I usually ride--sometimes plastered to the tank. My personal wind profile is, shall we say, considerably less aerodynamic than the Tiger's. The less of myself I presented to the wind, the happier the bike was, and it turned out to be less uncomfortable for me than I would have expected. Diego didn't seem to find the heat bothersome, despite some unbelievably long waits at traffic lights in several heavily built-up areas that were open countryside when I took this particular job five years ago.
When I dismounted in my driveway, I found my legs to be in better shape than after the same trip in the Ford Expedition. No crucial bits below the belt suffered from cut off circulation, either, as regularly happens with my Sportster, and sometimes even with the Bonneville. There was no more back stiffness than an old geezer should expect from sitting that long, either.
The only bike-specific soreness I could detect, in fact, was just behind the upper thighs, and it was gone by morning. It may be that the Triumph gel seats will take care of that situation. I already had some on order, along with the touring windscreen, and they arrived while I was gone. I look forward to checking them out, though I really can't complain a lot about the stock seats.
Please forgive this lengthy babble. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I've been on such a natural high for the past few days that I find myself wanting to tell everyone about it, especially folks who understand from personal experience.
[ This message was edited by: Diego on 2004-05-30 01:13 ]
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