Soooo, as some of you may know, Desmolu's bike was totalled a couple of weeks ago. Search for a new bike began immediately. We saw a couple of prospects but no bike that fit what she wanted popped up. That is, no bike except mine. I've been itching for a little more power from the monster for a while but I would never sell my 695. I've become so attached to the bike that I would only let it go if I still had visitation rights. We are also in a bit of a time crunch, as we plan on attending Ducati in the Rockies in colorado, and we need two bikes for that.
So quickly we began a new search for an S2R1k. And we found one that matched everything we needed, except location. The bike is in Philly and we're in Houston. Should we ship the bike? That would be waaaay too easy. And if we are going to ride it, should we ride it straight home? Of course not, that would be way too easy as well.
A few minutes with google maps lets us know that we have some of the country's best roads on our way down. A plan was quickly hatched.
I must say, the romantic in me is excited by this trip, the notion of storming through the country on a new bike, riding the best roads it has to offer, taking no prisoners, and generally wreaking havoc appeals to me greatly.
The plan is to ride the 695 to Dallas and leave it at a friend's place. From there, we would fly out to New York and meet with some friends, including He-Man. We will stay there one night and take the bus to philly (He man following us on his bike) where we would pick up the new monster. From there it would be a quick jaunt to DC.
In DC, we would try to stay with friends for the night or find a bridge to sleep under. In the morning, the Epic ride begins.
From Dc we will take Highway 66 to the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Dr. We would ride this all the way down to somewhere in Northern North Carolina where we will depend on either the kindness of strangers or cardboard boxes to find shelter.
After that, we will ride the Dragon
and proceed to Memphis. The next day we will ride to Arkansas where we will meet up with some friends and ride the mountains of southern AR. After some nice riding we'll continue on to Dallas to reunite the bikes. (We have yet to ask our friend on this but he hasn't failed us yet).
So far so good right? Well, any sane person would just continue on home, but not us. We are not sane, we are mentally divergent. The next day, our friend will pick us up in dallas with his truck and trailer and then on to New Mexico to spend the night at Lu's mom's place. Next stop: Ducati In The Rockies baby! Spending some quality time riding with some awesome folk seems like the perfect way to unwind from such a long trip.
Afterwards, the bikes are to be trailered back to houston where we will collapse and go into a catatonic state for the next 3 years.
The total travel time (excluding joyriding) amounts to about 48 hours.
If anyone along the way wants to join us for a ride or can help us by contributing a warm floor, they will be handsomely rewarded with Lu's cooking and the good luck karma of the platypus