El Matador's and Desmolu's most excellent adventure. Writeup Finished!

[El Matador]

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

[Scottish]

So expect partly cloudy skies and lots of rain through those areas. 

[swampduc]

The truck and trailer part will happen, I assure you.
The rest, well, good luck and get some rain gear 

[Bun-bun]

It's only about 3 hours from Philly to DC. About 4 hours more could put you into Virginia Beach, and I'll happily put you up. It would mean missing part of the BRP, so you may want to pass.
Hopefully someone in DC will man up.
Keep us posted.

[DesmoLu]

So expect partly cloudy skies and lots of rain through those areas. 

ya, no shit!

i promise to post many pictures of El Matador growling at the camera along the way.

[El Matador]

We're coming 

[angler]

What are your dates?

[El Matador]

Hopefully we-ll pick up the bike the 31

[695LAM]

Sounds like good times.  Have fun and be safe guys.  Lots of pictures please. [moto]

[angler]

Damn.  I was going to pony up a warm DC floor (actually you may want a cool floor this time of year), but I'll be out of town.

[He Man]

  everyday it looks like im closer to going with you guys. im doing my valve inspection, hopefully its not to terribly out of spec. also got new belts, fresh oil and filter.

im going to go from my 12k straight into my 18k lol

im planning on picking up a vholdr contour HD helmet cam, but ill be leaving when they are shipping it out. I'm hit you up later tonight to see if we can get it sent to one of our staying locations.

[hooligan machinist]

 Keep me updated with date and time you will be going through Cookville,TN and i can meet up with and feed you. I'm only about 25 minutes away from I-40 in cookeville. Interstate drive has so many eateries on it they call it restaurant row.
  Howard

[CMDRDAVE]

Blue Ridge Parkway is good but slow and lots of    especially on weekends.  There are other roads through that area that are better.  I know a few.  There are others around who know a lot more.

[Popeye the Sailor]

You two should stop in Vegas and get hitched on the way to Colorado.

[DesmoLu]

well, that was the plan....



until we realized Vegas is nowhere near on the way to Colorado coming from Philly.

we talked about it and decided that we just don't have enough tire left to get married on this particular trip.