#vt1100c2

PAST RIDES -  Mod Day 2011

I started 2011 still riding my 2005 Honda Sabre VT1100C2, and the best damn motorcycle blog on the internet, the Sabrehood, was still up and running.  There were two main active “Chapters” in the Hood, the Rocky Mountain Sabres in the Denver Area and the East Coast Sabres (ECS).  While there was no formal memberships taking part in some of their get togethers was a great experience in brotherhood and family.  Each year the ECS kicked off the riding year with “Mod Day”.  Jetman hosted the event at his house, he and his wife Cheryl opened their doors to us for a weekend, several Hoodies staying at their house and others staying at a nearby motel.  The garage was cleaned out making room for the bikes to roll in, and get worked on.

Bones and I rode down to Virginia’s Northern Neck to attend this great event in 2011.  We made a dramatic and memorable entrance pulling into Jetman’s loose gravel driveway in the dark and practically dumping the Sabre when the front wheel dug in the gravel.  I can still hear Bones’ voice in my headset as I was straining to keep the bike upright and him still on the bike behind me, “Way to go Dad!”  At mod day, it didn’t matter what you wanted done on your bike, oil change, brakes, fork oil, tires, pretty much whatever you wanted as long as you had the parts, you didn’t need the knowledge.  You just needed to do what you could for others there. Leathers were cleaned and treated with mink oil, and some bikes were literally torn down and put back together over Mod weekend.   I lent a hand where I could and learned a lot from these guys who could tear a Sabre down in their sleep.  

PAST RIDES - THE GRAND CANYON RUN - The Bikes

Today is the first day of Spring.  So I might just make this my last “Past RIde” Thread until next winter.  I can’t think of a more fitting way to roll into the full riding season than by reminiscing about this epic run.  To break this down into 10 pictures will be impossible.  So I will likely have 3 parts of this thread, this one, the next one and one more after that . . .  or more appropriately, The Bikes, The Sights and The People . . . Even then - 10 pics in each category won’t do the ride justice - but - it will get the figurative wheels spinning . . .  Let’s Roll!

September of 2010 - Dave, Kevin and I were ready.  We had been planning this for over a year and it was time to do it.  I started my first day of the trip by going to the range and qualifying before heading home, getting on my bike and riding out to Altoona, PA to meet up with Dave and Kevin.  From the moment we met up I knew this was going to be a great ride. The ride itself added 6,736 miles to my odometer in 16 days.  I added 17 states to my two wheeled conquests, but more importantly we had an amazing time.  It was the usual players on their usual rides - Dave on his 2007 Harley Ultra Classic, Kevin on his 1998 Honda Gold Wing and me on my 2005 Honda Sabre.

There are basically two ways to approach such a ride - one is to plan out a route with stops for each day, make reservations at campgrounds or hotels at the stops and stick to the plan.  This works quite well for some people, but it is no our style.  We prefer to have a basic route, and go where the road takes us each day.  We each had a bucket list of what each of us wanted to accomplish on the ride and we made sure no one got the short end of that.  And we rode . . . And we laughed . . . And we lived!  Sure there were a few nights that we pulled into a town “for the night” dead tired and ready to put our heads on a pillow, any pillow and go to sleep, only to find there was “No Vacancy”.  It appears that our ride timing put us in several towns right during their Homecoming festivities . . . so we had to ride another 50 or 100 miles to find a place that a room for us . . . But that was all part of the ride, part of the trip, part of the adventure . . . 

PAST RIDES:  The New Beginning

I remember the day like it was yesterday.  But the day was April 13, 2006; about a month before I turned 40.  My 40th birthday present from my wife was my 2005 Honda Sabre.  It had been about 8 years since I sold my last bike - the 1979 Suzuki GS-850 that I had bought from my uncle Garry.  Little did we know that this day was a new beginning.

After picking up the Sabre from the dealership, my buddy Will (now part of the Clueless Cycles Crew) led me on a great ride through some of Virginia’s horse country.  The fire was quickly rekindled and burned hotter and brighter than ever before . . . Riding quickly got in my blood and has grown into a requirement for a sane life.