WOW February has been flying by and I don't think I have much to show for it as far as riding. The weather hasn't been that good on my weekends, I have only been able to get out for a couple of small rides. To be honest I have been camping with my son most of the time. Since we have been having such bad weather for riding, I have been camping with the Boy Scouts. We went to a great little box canyon last weekend. We ended up hiking (doing some map and compass training).
I took a nice little ride this week with several riders, I posted a ride saying lets figure where we were going after we look at the weather report that morning. I only had one reply that someone was going to show up, so I thought it was going to be a quiet day. No one was at the coffee shop when I showed up, so I kicked back drinking coffee and reading the paper. All of a sudden everyone started to ride up. By the time KSU came, we had 8 riders and we decided to head to Mountainair, NM. Mountainair is an old town not much to it but it has a great little stop for Green Chili Cheese Burgers called "Grab and Go".
So off we went me leading the pack. We were taking a nice winding road and I told everyone I wasn't going to go for a land speed record, so if they wanted to bust loose go for it. I must have been running faster than anyone else wanted to do because only a couple of guys turned on the after bunners. I was running 70-75 mph only slowing for the little towns along the way. Once we arrived in Mountainair, one of the guys pointed to the Grab and Go. It was the first time I had been to the Grab and Go what a great little place. It can only hold about 10 people but the burgers are excellent. I think they are a limited meat market mostly. They have 3 different burgers a 1 lbs, 3 lbs then a monster 9 lbs burger. One of the guys ordered a double which is the 3 lbs burger, it was brutal to watch but I was in awe cause he finished it. The green chili was hot and several were wiping back the tears. We ended up heading back the same way we came, the road is better and we were able to wind it out a little. I ended up leading the pack back to town again. I was cruising around 70-75 the whole way, never really backed off the throttle unless we came up to a town. There are a few turns that are a little tight but nothing that caused me to slow down, I just leaned a little more. If I wanted to push I could have probably turn it up another 10 mph and felt comfortable. We have been having quite a bit of snow and the roads were a little dirty so I didn't feel like pushing it any harder.
Traffic was light and there was three of us that pulled away on the way home. When we got back to town we pulled off waiting on the others as they trickled in I figured I must have been pushing a little harder on the way back. I guess not riding for a while and having Mark and Lou (blackbird and busa) on my rear tire pushing me kept my speed up.
This was the first ride since replacing the tires, I'm back on the Dunlops again and they seem to be holding up, I do have a little vibration but I think it is due to the wear more than anything else. I did find a leaking front fork seal and I need to get that fixed in the next couple of weeks. All in all it was a great ride and fun to get back on the FJR. I ended up riding round trip 175 miles and the temps were 30's to 50's so not too bad.
On a side note I do have some riding planned for May. This should be 4/5 days of hard riding, I'm hoping 400-500 a day. A good friend of my brother that passed away 4 years ago is crusing through New Mexico and wants to ride. He just bought an 2008 FJR with only 635 miles on it. I'm planning to meet up with him in late May and show him some of the roads in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. It should be a blast, he is a better rider so I'm hoping not to slow him down to much. Right now we are e-mailing and setting up plans on things to see.
Well until next week ride safe.
