NorthernRR

Well I finally have time to post about my latest ride on the VFR.

I got the call thursday morning from my freind Mike. "Mid ohio is this weekend, what are you doing?"

Me: "nothing, why what did you have in mind?"

Mike: "Want to take the lincoln down and watch the races?"

Me: "Why don't we ride down"

Mike:"I don't have any insurance"

Me: "Let me see what I can do"

A couple of phone calls later(mostly to Decker aka my dad, and THEBOSS aka my mom(not actually a member) I had arranged a bike for Mike to ride to Ohio. (Huge thanks to Decker aka Dad, not many people would trust their $30K harley to anyone other than themselves)

I Had booked Friday off as I had planned on doing a "private" track day at calabogie (which ended up cancelled)

I packed frantically on thursday night, said good bye to the G/F and the dogs and left South Mountian at about 5:45pm on thursday night.

I rode from my house to my parents house to meet with mike that night and arrived around 1:00 am after close to 600kms of salb riding across the 401.

We planned out our route Friday morning and decided that a nice tour would be in order across new york state and some of Pensivanias finest backroads...

We got a decent start to the day, left my parents house around 10 am(after breakfast at a fav. restaurant) Things we GREAT until we hit the 427... Stop and not so much GO.

Traffic was a Major concern as it was a Canadian long weekend. We Mangaged to cross at Ft Erie, after sitting in stop and go traffic for around 2 hours. After that, it was smooth sailing. We toured across new york and then decided to take a back route across Penn. as a nice detour.

New york passed pretty quickly as we slabbed a little of it before hitting construction and we had only been riding for around a few hours and thought that a nice re-route would be in order. Photo Op: seeing a construction sign that said "Steel Erection ahead" Honestly I thought that I was going to have to stop for a minute...

We decided that a scenic route was in order and that following the Alagehey(sp) river would have a LOT of nice scenery and we were right. Hardly any traffic, Beauty roads and good company made the route that much better.

We stayed about 2.5 hours from mid-ohio that night leaving a nice little ride in the am yet leaving ourselves a little reserve for after the races.

Breakfast was good, or at least as good as a comfort in smorgasboard can be. We rode out after that, stopping periodically to take in some sights and fill up as the VFR is slightly harder on gas than it should be with out a map loaded into the PC3.

Finally Mid ohio.
This was my 7th time returning to mid ohio, I've done a LOT there from riding in on the back of dads harley at the young age of 14 to camping out with mike after driving down and watching the starboyz winnebago light up 6 am in the am... So many stories so little time...

Loads of bikes and polenty of cool people met us there as they had in past year, we had to make sure that we made the rounds of the vendors, stopping in at our fav. helmet dealers (Robert at the srevice pavillion) and the no mar guys booth for some tips before taking in some of the races.

Races that we saw wern't too bad, we managed to see the superbike race that was stopped close to 100 times... those guys are AMAZING we were positioned right after the strightaway and over the hump. they come over there SO unstable yet so fast it is just simply unbelievable.

After the races and checking out what was there(Did I mention that I got to sit on a new 08 1KRR? ) we decided that we should take off as the only thing we could get into was trouble as we were both riding and a drink at this moment sounded VERY attractive...

We stopped in Findaly Oh for the night, ate at Ralphies(which never disapoints for a restarant named after puking... go figure) this had kind of became a ritual for the last 5-6 years, findlay has a decent cheap super 8 and lots of stuff to get up to after hours.

The next morning we left Findlay, I rode the decker(for the second time this trip) Squid me up... Hung over, no helmet, no coat, tunes blasting, mohawk blowing in the wind just me and the open road... Hahahaha something I NEVER thought that I would see myself doing, But it ended up being one of the highlights of the trip. So relaxing. I found it funny how many kids waved at me on that thing. Some people would speed away from the "bad ass"(their term not mine) on the harley, while there kids would think that it was the coolest thing... Funny how that works.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, we had no problems crossing the border (as it should be, we had nothing to hide) and we enjoyed the ride for what it was, just a ride...

Makes me remember when I was growing up and "touring" on the back of dads bike... Really drives home what "biking" is all about.

This year I have a LOT fewer miles on the trakc bike and a LOT fewer miles on the VFR(so far). I found that as I get older(I'm almost 30 now you know) that I cherish these trips and experiances more and more every time I get a chance.

Life has been dictating how much spare time I have lately and between teaching with the ottawa safety council my regular Job and working as a volunteer fire fighter I have very little spare time. This trip reminded me how much more riding offers than just an outlet to go as fast as you want in a closed environment. You can have some VERY memorable times away from the track that will last a very long time.

If you can get out there and ride for nothing more than the sake of riding, it really takes a load off.

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See you at Indy

maxib

That was a great trip report!

SheepOfBlue

1) I was not in New York
2) What no pictures?
3-100) Shame on you for no helmet, one time could have been to many (and was one to many, though it did not get scraped into that funny haired head)

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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way

NorthernRR

Sorry, no pics, it was just the two of us guys and we're REALLY not that photogenic... plus I had pretty much ran out of room for extra "stuff"

The no helmet thing was cool, but I honestly can't see me "converting" No worries... Still fun though.

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See you at Indy