Hailwood

It is for sure, just not ones as near and dear to my heart as this bunch of weirdos

Happy 10 years, OR! Even though TN has generally better roads and much better weather, I really miss riding with you gun toting degenerates.

Interested in a price plus shipping to 37122 for a black Alpinestars Core Airflow jacket, size 50 (Euro size). Also, curious if the Core runs true-to-size vs. other A*s stuff, or if I should size up to a 52 - mostly concerned that the 50 arms might be too short. Thanks!

Interested in a price for some Sidi ST Air boots in black (size 45) shipped to 37122. Thanks!

They announced that the contract has been renewed for another 2 years, so hopefully you'll get your chance. I wouldn't wait too long though - I always wanted to watch the race at Laguna but kept putting it off and now I might not get another chance.

Thanks guys! The crowd was as good or better than I've seen at the GP so far. The problem with Indy is that since it was designed to hold 300 ~ 400,000 people for the 500 a healthy motorcycle crowd of ~75,000 doesn't come close to filling it up. Couple that with the fact that the infield is really the best place to watch, and the stands can look empty. It's definitely worth the trip to check out, and the general admission tickets are really reasonable.

Another year of MotoGP at Indianapolis is on the books, and it was a great weekend of racing. I also ran into Dgasser and his wife - was awesome to see you guys! The new track surface and corner modifications were really well received by the riders, and you could tell by watching them that they were more relaxed, and were enjoying riding much more than in previous years. As a result, lap times were down and the racing was great in all 3 classes. The other bonus is I felt like the corner changes made for some better photographic angles, so I moved through most of my usual spots and was pretty happy with the results. It's been interesting watching Rossi's style evolve this year. He's really getting off the bike more than he did previously: Colin had some great special leathers for the Indy race: Trying something different with Dani: Loved the intensity of Cal's look: Indy skyline courtesy of Mr. Marquez: Lorenzo looked much better than in past years: Not a good day in qualifying for Bradley Smith. Fortunately he was not injured: Downtown was great as usual, and getting bigger every year. There were so many Groms running around that I now desperately want one. Really sad to see Colin go, but I'm glad that he's able to leave a very successful career and spend time with his family: Basically superman: I'm still working through the majority of the shots, but the rest will be here

Looking for pricing on either the Alpinestars Tech3 or Alpinestars Scout WP boots shipped to 37122.

I've run BT023's on my FZ1 for several years now and have never had any issues with the grip or the wear rate. I only really used them in heavy rain once, but they seemed fine. I'm actually getting ready to put the T30's (BT023 replacement) on the rear of my R1 with an S20 front and I don't expect to have any issues.

Well, looks like I'm out - wife signed me up to be the photographer at her cousin's hippy/redneck wedding that weekend. It should be some consolation that I can get over to the Gap pretty easily, but I'm bummed that I won't get to see everyone

If you wind up coming down earlier/later this year definitely let me know and I'll try to swing over. It's only about 3 hours to the start of the Cherohala for me and I plan on hitting both that and the Gap as many times as I can this year.

I'll plan on making it over for at least 1 day so I can catch up with you degenerates.

I like the new design well enough, but I'm sad to see the air-cooled engines go away. I only owned my 900SS for a relatively short period of time, but that bike was a joy to ride, and I have never had another bike that was as easy and intuitive to work on. The earlier liquid cooled bikes got something of a bad rep for reliability, but those air-cooled motors were completely bullet-proof as long as you took very basic care of them. Combine that with enough torque (especially with the later DS versions) for a goofy looking Eye-talian tractor to walk away from an OMGWTFBBQ liter bike in real world riding, and you've got a really appealing setup. I'll definitely own another air-cooled Duc at some point, especially if I can find a nice SS1000DS.

Sounds great! I'll definitely shoot you a PM to go ride sometime as I'm very interested in some good local roads that won't require a full day's commitment. That being said, if you ever want to head to the Gap, I'd make that trip again in a heartbeat.

Since I haven't around much lately, I thought I'd give a little update on how things are going down in Tennessee. Between house hunting, the move, and getting settled in down here, I haven't gotten to ride nearly as much as I've wanted to this year, and most of the rides I have taken were short jaunts around the local backroads. Even with our longer riding season down here, I was getting worried that if I didn't make some time for a good long ride, the days would be too short to do the kind of ride I was really craving. With that in mind, when I saw that the forecast for this weekend looked good for Saturday, I decided that this was the weekend to try to make what I will now affectionately refer to as 'The Ultimate Loop'. As you can probably guess from the state I'm living in and the title for the route, there's only really one destination fitting of that name: The Gap. I initially thought that I would probably still be too far away to comfortably do a there-and-back to the Gap from Nashville, but once I started looking at the numbers, it really wasn't any worse than some of the rides I had done with OR/Core down to WV and back. After checking out the map and talking to some folks that were more familiar with the local roads, I came up with this route: http://tinyurl.com/pt9cq5e Embarrassingly, this was my first time on both the Cherohala and my first time going through the Gap on a bike. I'd heard enough stories and see enough ride reports to have some idea of what to expect, but I was still a little intimidated about putting these in the middle of a ~450 miler. Fortunately I didn't need to be worried. Both the Cherohala and the Gap were an absolute joy to ride. I just kept my own (fairly slow) pace on both roads and had an absolute blast. The Skyway is one of the most spectacular roads I've ever been on, and it just seems to never end. By the time I got to Robbinsville I was sweating and wound up taking a break to catch my breath and checking out all the bikes and cars pulling through the gas station at the bottom of the hill. After my short break I got my GoPro set up and headed up to the Gap. I wasn't actually sure that I'd like the Gap since I generally enjoy more open, flowing roads to ones that are tight and technical, but I had an absolute blast. There was something about the way the road flows that really appealed to me, and I felt very comfortable with my moderate pace. I wish I'd had time to do a couple of runs and get more comfortable and pick the pace up a little, but in the interest of getting home before dark, I soldiered on towards some other nice roads for the ride home. Overall it was a fantastic ride, the only thing missing was some folks to share it with. Hopefully next year I can get in on the OR Gap weekend since a weekend stay sounds like the best way to make the most of all the roads in the area (I still want to try NC-28 on a motorcycle). I hope everything's going well for everybody and hopefully I'll see some of you guys next year! Here's a quick video of my run through the Gap. I wanted to try and get a good bit of the bike in the shot as well, but the angle wound up being too low so it looks a little weird. Next time will be better [ Tires got nice and toasty during my run: Cherohala: Deals Gap: