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- Week Our rides today.

Happy Tuesday, team. I'm getting the yearn pretty bad. Haven't ridden today, and it's only been a couple times this year so far. Fresh snow yesterday and I just don't feel like getting the bike all salty. I meant to jump into this thread before and maybe this is all technically "Off-Topic" because it's not today, but hey.

Last Sunday some friends were meeting up at a bathhouse near Philly. I was already jonesing at that point. It seemed like a good opportunity to run the ST around the highway. And it wasn't the turnpike this time, so even better. As expected, it was so nice to be out on 2 wheels. The arrival time was supposed to be 5, and I was running late, but it's not a super strict kind of thing. The sun was getting lower in the sky, and I finally wrapped up my time on 202 and hit the bridge to PA and entered roads that I had little knowledge of.
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This was a surprisingly nice and empty route at this time of day. No time to explore, but I had to stop for this cow statue
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Going to this kind of thing by bike ends up being a little bit of a pain, but a practical lesson was had. When I commuted to work in the past I could easily fit my R-3 in the top box. Now I have a different top box with a slightly different form factor that makes it harder to fit. Still, I managed to get all my stuff bagged and boxed so I wouldn't have to try to cram it in the lockers at the bath house.

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I was starving by this point, and food was priority.
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The bath house was great, and I get to see these friends even less often than I get to ride in the winter.

Everything went great and I was packing up to go. I had expected temperatures of 24, but it never got below 32. Would have been a nice comfortable ride except my hair hadn't dried out as much as I would have liked, so no matter what I did or what amount of heaters I had turned on, my head was cold.


Every year I do less and less riding in the winter. It seems to be more a reflection of my circumstances rather than my willingness to suffer. There's less riding overall throughout the year while I try to make different moves. I spent most of this winter house shopping. Google reminded me of these photos a year after the date (Jan 23). I remember that much suffering was had.

23 Jan 2022
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I happened to stop in a friend's house to check in and warm up. We reconnected in a good way, and I bought an ST1300 (see above) for us to ride together, and now buying a house together. All thanks to winter stupidity.


Out of curiousity I went further back to the year before. Several cold rides were had. Not as much snow, but I remember some hairy icy moments on Delaware Water Gap roads.

27 Dec 2020
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I could do this for every year, but there's such a variety of winters here and pictures don't always portray the cold. And in the winter I'm often not in the mental state to take more pictures so I always have a scattered few from each year. But on days like today, I'm always happy to have them. So I can sit here and wish I was on a trip, and remember how I felt at the time.

21 Mar 2016
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Ride soon.
 
Can you ride 2 up on a GROM?

Only if she's brave enough :lol3

It's beautiful here in Houston so we decided to go have lunch at one of our favorite taco places. Parking is hell in that area so we took the GROM.

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There are multiple locations of Tacos A Gogo but the one we like best is in Midtown. It did not disappoint.

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On the way back we rode through the Museum District and later made a stop by Rice University. It's a beautiful campus. With lots of cops so taking pics can be dicey. I went to the University of Texas in Austin and I can't imagine how much fun it would have been to ride a GROM around campus back then.

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Looks like a fun afternoon. I'm not sure what the presence of police officers has to do with taking photos around a university. Has that been a problem?

Is there a rear peg solution for the Grom?
Lots of signs that say "no parking" just like the one behind and under the GROM in the last picture.

The GROM comes with passenger pegs and is homologated for 2 people unlike the Super Cub, Trail, or Monkey.
 
There were 2 hours to spare, so a quick ride was in order:


Light Rain had fallen, cloudy and 54 degrees. March 22 ride as Spring begins.
[UWSL]The roads are wet from an earlier rain. Puddles stand collected in the depressions. I set Rain mode, and remind myself to slow down.[/UWSL]

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The surface looks greasy with translucent rainbow spots of petroleum hiding in the moisture.
When I put my foot down to take this photo, my boot slipped out from under me slightly.
Poor- Traction noted.


Favorite road #3 was due up, as I have not ridden it for a while. A twisty, hilly, meandering two-lane country road that runs along ridge tops and farmlands triggered my imagination.


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Most all the Oaks have lost their leaves from last summer. The understory has yet to bloom but I can see the buds. It won't take long now.

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Hills, curves, and bent roads, what could be better? Here the speed limit must be advisory only and ridiculously conservative.

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A vista worth stopping for. Rolling forest with farms nestled within the bare trees.
One tree defiantly clings to its brown and shriveled leaves. There is always one that bucks the trend.

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Without the leaves, the Sycamores stand out in the woods, their white bark easily seen against the darkish oaks.
Once the budding process begins, you won't see them much again until fall, as they will blend in with all the others.
But for now they maintain their winter eye-catching status.



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More S-curves rolling and swaying against Century-Farms.
I think those road signs mean "Accelerate Here", but don't quote me on that….

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From here I headed back home, and logged just under 45 miles.


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Take care and will catch you later.
 
I headed out this evening to take some sunset pics at my favorite spot on the Tennessee River. I ended up changing my mind and riding down some nearby two track trails.

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I still managed to catch the sunset.

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This was all nice and close to home. My total ride was 22 miles.
 

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Took a quick ride by the reservoir to show my partner some of the roads by where we live now. It was still cold, but nice and sunny. Got a chance for her to test her new heated gear, which worked rather well and was kept on one of the lowest settings.

We took an old haunted road that's popular in NJ folklore, and then took an offshoot to a small unpaved road to see how we would do with that 2-up on this bike.

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We normally ride the ST1300 together, but took the tiger this time. The tiger handled both of us a lot better than the last time we rode it 2-up. Surprisingly well. I think it has to do with the fact that I've replaced the tires (had a lot of shake at 35) and the fact that she's just more comfortable riding with me.


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Having a nice sunny ride really turned the day around for us.
 
Haven't been on a bike since last October. And judging by today's weather, it'll be a while longer.
Getting jealous looking at all of you getting out already...
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Thermometer on my bike showed 92° on the way home from work yesterday.

Last Sunday was a little cooler (low 80's) so I did some of this kind of stuff.

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Haven't been on a bike since last October. And judging by today's weather, it'll be a while longer.
Getting jealous looking at all of you getting out already...
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I feel for you on the riding front, but we barely got any amount of snow this year over here, and I don't love that either.
 
Aliens, UFOs and Volcanos.
I put together a DS ride last weekend out into a interesting geologic area which also happens to be very scenic. To understand the geology you need to know about our caldera, located just north of Albuquerque in the Jemez mountains is the Valles Caldera, a large extinct volcano that's apparently large enough to be visible from space.

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It's also the reason why NM has allot of UFO sightings as well as a secret underground UFO base located about 80mi north in Dulce NM. Hey, don't laugh, NM doesn't have a Grand Canyon or lots of 14K' peaks to rope in tourists so we rely on aliens. :lol3

What's that got to do with a motorcycle ride that wasn't even in the mountains? The vulcanism that formed the caldera was also responsible for the formations in the area we were headed to: Cabeson Peak. The faults radiating out from the huge volcano allowed lava to come to the surface millions of years ago in the from of a large volcanic plug then the surrounding sand blew away like it does every spring here and left these big nipples sticking up. There's others but most are on private property.

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During the ride we decided to do some scouting around off-the-grid before making our way into nipple land. The surrounding area is also quite interesting, lots of upheaval as the Rocky Mountains were being formed. Upheaval = interesting dirtbike riding.
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We take our jumps seriously here, no pussy stuff.
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I think I got this :lol3
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Here's some video of this section.


Eventually we made it into the valley of the nipples where we stopped for a snack.
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You can ride about as fast as you want out there, plenty of opportunity to blow out the cobwebs :thumbup
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Out in this area it's possible to visit a ancient Indian cliff dwelling and Kiva. (Pics from a previous ride)
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Some of this ride takes you on the Continental Divide Trail, seeing cyclists is pretty common out there.
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The ride takes you through an old 1890s town site where there's a building that was supposedly used as the stage stop/saloon and brothel. You can see it in the next video. The ride was about 140mi of dirt roads with some interesting riding on some of the paths off to the side of the main trail.

There's some deep arroyos out there, more like a canyon then an arroyo. Not a place to be in wet weather.
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Here's the scenic video of riding through the area, Enjoy and thanks for coming along :thumb
 
Back in 2005 I rode past Valles Caldera on the pavement and stopped at an overlook. I had no idea all that cool riding was out there. If I ever go back that way i'll have to check it out.
The snow covered peak in the picture below is Redondo Peak, a 11K' lava dome located inside the caldera.
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