Hailwood

Just got back. What an awesome ride! Wound up meeting MadMax in Massillon and heading down 83 through Millersburg just to make sure no one was waiting (nope) and then continued on 83 all the way to Marietta. The newly paved section of 83 South of Coshocton is absolutely awesome. Flawless surface and nice and clean. After a quick bite to eat we headed up OH-26, which is an incredibly fun road, to Woodsfield. Other than stopping to help some poor guy on a Harley who had put his bike in a ditch it was great. From there we hit 800, which is now one of my favorite roads, and headed North. We parted ways around New Philly, and I wound up going through Bolivar back to Massillon and home. Literally couldn't have asked for a nicer day. Thanks for coming out Max! Here's the route I wound up taking (~330 miles round trip): Google Maps Link

Since everyone seems to have other plans, I went ahead and made alternate arrangements for the ride tomorrow, so I will not be in Millersburg tomorrow morning. Have fun everyone.

It's cool man, I definitely understand. Have fun on the water. So is anyone planning on going? If not I'll probably start out a little earlier.

That works fine for me, you're more than welcome to bring the truck down to my place. If no one else is interested, shoot me a text and we'll figure something out.

I'm not talking about riding to the Meet & Greet, I'm talking about having a completely separate ride South. I went ahead and made another thread for it here

Update: Seems like everyone had alternate plans, so I made alternate plans and will not be at the Speedway in Millersburg, although I will be testing out this basic route. Will try again the next nice weekend. Have fun everyone. I know the Meet & Greet is this weekend, so I imagine there will be many folks headed down to C-bus, but this is looking like one of the last free weekends for me for a bit, plus the weather is looking great, so I'm thinking about heading down to the River and back instead. Here's a basic outline of the route: Google Maps Link Pace is whatever you feel like. I've ridden these roads before, but I don't know them that well, so I'll be going at sight-reading pace which pretty much means around 70ish-in-a-55 on the straights, and a little slower through the corners than I might normally go. A lot of these roads don't have great passing locations, so I will pass cars on a double yellow if I think it's safe, but we'll try and keep the group together, and always wait at stops/turns. Should probably take 5~6 hours from Millersburg for the whole loop. I'm thinking meeting at 10 and trying to move out by 10:30 to make sure everyone can get home before dark. The Speedway on OH-83 in Millersburg seems to be a popular meet-up spot, so we can go with that: Google Maps Link

Meet & greet sounds like fun, but honestly I'd rather be riding, especially when weekends with nice weather are soon going to be in short supply. Hopefully I can get to one next year. I'm definitely down for a long ride Sunday, and the weather's looking great. I'm thinking meeting in Millersburg around 10ish (later if the Cleveland folks want) and heading down from there. Probably take 5~6 hours to do the route. I'll go ahead and make another thread for the ride South.

I was actually just thinking about making a thread for Sunday. I'm definitely up for a Sunday ride, and I actually wouldn't mind venturing a little further South this time. My wife and I went camping last weekend on the FZ near the Ohio river, and took some great roads. The OH-83 to Marietta to OH-26 to OH-800 back North turned out to be a really fun route that I would love to do on the S3. Heading out on Sunday would give me all day Saturday to get the new tires mounted and get a shakedown ride in, so count me in. Edit: Here's basically what we wound up doing, except starting/finishing in Millersburg: Google Maps Link

Nice ride report. Sounds like a good time, but sucks about the guys who went down, and the unpleasantness at Wendys. Those roads down there like 555/536/26 ect are tons of fun, but require a steady head and good bit of experience to try and ride quickly. My wife and I camped down by the river Saturday night and came back on OH-26 & OH-800 and there were a few spots where it would have been really easy to get into trouble trying to haul ass. Hopefully I can make the next one.

Truth. There's a really nice SV650 with a GSX-R750 front end on craiglists right now down in Akron. I have an unnatural desire to own one of these, and this one looks really nice. http://akroncanton.craigslist.org/mcy/1355947846.html

Not a fan. The closest thing Ducati should ever make to a cruiser is the Monster.

Definitely. Should have the new tires on the S3 by then too. Saw you got your bike back togather. We'll have to get a nice long ride in to break it back in.

Well hell, looks like I'm going to be camping now on Saturday If some of you guys still want to ride, I should be back and able to go for a decent ride on Monday, or we can take a rain check and try it some other weekend.

I took it from the grandstands just above T15 coming on to the main straight (it's cropped down a little). That was a great place to watch.

Few more: Edwards Just hanging out Coming through T13 Aston Martin at the Bridgestone tent More El Doctore Ducati Streetfighter with about $20k worth of carbon & aftermarket parts

For awhile now I've been wanting to take a nice long ride and hit some of the roads South of where I normally ride. The weather forecast for this weekend is looking amazing, with sunny ~80's every day. This could change, but I want to see if there's any interest in going out one day for a ~300 mile ride. My initial thought is meeting up in Millersburg and heading down OH-83 to the Ohio River at Marietta, stopping for lunch and then heading back North on OH-26 (awesome road) until we hit OH-800 and heading back North from there, probably winding up in Bolivar. Last time I checked, this route was just over 300 miles. The pace is whatever you feel like. I typically keep it under 80 on the straights, and whatever I feel brave enough to manage in the corners. I'll be on the FZ1 since the S3 picked up a nail in the rear tire (), but it still moves pretty well. At this point I'm not set on a particular day, but I suppose my preference would be Saturday 9/5. Let me know if you might be interested and if a particular day is best for you, and then we can finalize all the details.

Thanks for the comments, guys! I probably stood and stared at that thing for at least 20 minutes. It was just so well done, and as anything from NCR, the fit/finish and attention to detail was just amazing. They had one of the titanium frames on a display table in the middle of the bikes. I was able to pick it up with one hand easily! It couldn't have weighed more than 10lbs.

Really great shots! Where were you shooting from to get all the nice front 3/4 shots? I'm still learning the best spots on the Indy track.

Wow, you've got some fantastic shots there! I especially like the panning on the side shots. Really nice work.

Great photos as always man. Was a really great weekend. I hope we get to keep going back for many years to come.

I was out at Indy over the weekend and had a great time. Indianapolis is really a city that knows how to host a motorsports event, and I was really pleased to see all the enthusiasm. I tried to get some decent shots, but Indy isn't as good for photos as some other tracks with all the netting/fencing everwhere, but I tried my best. I staked out T9 with about a billion others to try and catch the riders during practice. Got some ok shots: Capirossi: The Doctor: Hayden - he was pushing so hard all weekend, I was really happy for him to get on the box: I was fortunate enough to get down into the Pramac Ducati pits. The photos are a little blurry because they made us stand behind a plexi shield while they were working: Downtown Indy on Saturday night. They closed down several streets and allowed motorcycle parking. There were a ton of people, and we saw some really cool bikes: Absolutely amazing NCR Hailwood replica. Titanium frame. Sub 300lbs. MSRP ~$125,000: Saturday warm-up. The lighting was terrible here, but it was really fun watching them come through. The Kevin Schwanz demo on the Suzuki 500 was awesome. I think he had more fun than anyone though: The rest are Here if you want to take a look.

Yeah, we took OH-212 from Bolivar to Leesville at hit 164 just outside of there. Here's the full route I definitely like riding 164 from South to North better than the other way around.

Thanks for coming out guys, that was a great ride. Hopefully everyone had a good time and made it back safely after the split. We'll have to get another one together sometime soon.

Awesome, thanks for the update. I'm looking forward to this. Have fun on the CORE ride.