Hey Rob, that dark patch at the outside of the tire is reffered to as the "chicken strip." I never saw one so big. The tire will last a lot longer if you use it
Geez. I don't feel so bad about my old Shadow tires, now. Thanks Rob. I will attest to Rob's cornering skills--seen first hand in Sucches. I guess since then it's been all NC flatlands.
Isn't it amazing how I just get more handsome every year? Done vomiting yet?...OK. Doug and I made a ride this October. It was cold and rainy, but with heated bikes and heated gear, it was no big deal. I made it back down to Suches area which I have good memories of as it was my first big trip on the new BMW with Lisa, John, and Bob Newman and the roads were fantastic. On the way back, we crossed the summit of the Cherohala (Cherohaulass). At the top, it was 25 degrees (from the BMW computer) and mostly clear with a snow flake here and there. We stopped at the summit to have a drink and enjoy the icy beauty and snapped this picture. We proceeded and found an ice covered tree that fell across the road. Then, we approached a spot with about 100 feet of ice where a couple of Harley riders flagged us down. They hit the ice and their bikes went down. It was nice of them to warn us. We probably would have seen it, but still, if we hit it at 20 mph we would likely have gone down too. Inst...
So I went riding with Matthew Powell yesterday; me on the RT and him on the Triumph Triple. There was a long line, probably a mile, of traffic stopped on a two lane road with a dashed yellow line. The oncoming lane was clear. I said to Matthew that we should , since we have a broken yellow, 'pass' the traffic. With a little goading, he was into it and off we went. Once we got to the end, we saw an accident and a policman was directing traffic in the one open lane. We quickly ducked back in line, me in front of a truck and he behind the truck. Once we got close, I saw the cop looking at me and I gave him a wave and got a wave back. I then pulled over in a parking lot once we were past the scene. Matthew comes up to me and says, "Did that cop yell at you for passing all the traffic"? "No", I said, he waved at me! What we figure happened was that the big faring and headlight of the RT blocked the cop's view of the naked Triumph and he only saw one bike pass...
The 2010 Smoky Mountains ride has come and gone. It was a great turn-out this weekend requiring four cabins to house everyone. The initial forecast predicted rain, and that we got, along with some nasty fog on Friday. But for a good bit of the time we had beautiful skies, sunny and hot. I'll just put these few photos here for now and post more with more comments later when I've got a bit more energy. But I do want to thank Rob for organizing this again. we really appreciate you, Rob! And Jean kept us all well fed to the point of busting! Thanks, Jean! You're awesome! I really enjoyed hanging out with the ladies and children on this trip. It was great to see so many this time.
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