The FIRST Good Day of 2010

The FIRST weekend day of the New Year that is 1) not snowing, 2) not raining, 3) sunny, 4) not working on the transmission and 5) projected to reach 62F!!

Can you believe it?  We sure couldn't, and we were gonna make use of it!!  What better way to shake the cobwebs, stretch the fingers in the summer gloves and enjoy these perfect temps than on the bikes of course.

Didn't want to head towards the mountains given the night time temps, sand, salt and gravel on the roads.  So it had to be someplace south.  The easy, no-brainer was to head to Warm Springs, GA since I had been there but my two companions hadn't.  It was someplace where I knew we could get food, see some sights and take it easy.  Not a difficult ride at all.

Again, the quickest way was to hop on the freeway and head south.  With Mr. Oilburner in the lead we followed his goofy GPS directions that jumped us off the freeway just before construction began.  Great news since I didn't want to ride the 28 miles of slalom construction and the side roads were wonderfully empty.  There was some sand in some places, but mostly out of the riding lanes.

The ride down was slow paced and completely, luxuriously uneventful.  I rode in the back to take my time and look around at everything.  I still need to get that GoPro camera so I can capture some of them...

Warm Springs was the hotbed of bikers it is coming to be known for.  Given it was the first, best riding day of the New Year many other people had exactly the same idea and the place was crawling with bikes.  We parked on the main street, before we knew there was plentiful biker parking in the alley. Which was probably a good thing since it was mainly full of chrome, pipes and leather.

We just planned on walking and soaking up the sun.  We weren't terribly hungry as Mr. Oilburner and I had just eaten.  It was easy to pass up the Brazilian food, although it smelled great.  But we just couldnt' pass up the BBQ.  Come on...it's the South.  You have to try the BBQ.  And it didn't disappoint.  Hence, why no pictures of the food...  :-)

Not all of the shops are open.  It is a little before peak tourist season.  But a large portion of the shops are connected by meandering paths with tons of junk antiques and murals at which to gawk.  Someone was having some fun with their paintbrushes.

 

  

  

  

  

 

We wandered, ate, shopped, photographed and went on our merry way.  The road back was new to all of us and completely avoided the interstates.  The cops were out in force, but friendly if you followed the traffic laws.  And we topped the day off in the best way possible by meeting up for dinner with another musketeer that wasn't able to join us for the day.  Hmmm...this can't become a habit of riding to breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one day...

Stats:
223 glorious miles
A warm 64F as the high temp of the day...yyyeeaaahhhh
Good food all around
Numerous bikers to share the road with

Stir, Don't Shake

It was going to be a hard job convincing me to get on that bike while it was 28 degrees out today.  Sure it was supposed to warm up to 47F.  Sure those clouds were supposed to give way to blue skies.  But that sure isn't happening this minute!!

I told myself that I was going to be more then happy to let Mr. Oilburner take that ride down to Hamburg State Park with the group while I sat in a nice warm house.  But when I saw him start to suit up I just couldn't handle it.  I drug my feet walking to the dressing room.

See, I really didn't have a problem riding in these temps.  And for the most part I do have the cold weather gear.  It's just that I seem to have put on some winter inches and I am terribly mad at myself about this.  I want to ride.  I just don't want to stretch and contort to get into said riding clothes.  Ugh!

No matter.  We still jumped on the bikes and headed for the group meeting point.  Little did we know the ride had been canceled two hours earlier.  We arrived just in time to see one person leaving.  Really not an issue.  We enjoy riding on our own.  So our new plan was to head towards Hamburg on our own.  Of course the GPS' wanted us to get on the highway.  But that wasn't happening in this weather.  Can you imagine how cold it would be in 28F speeding 70 mph down the highway??  Unh unh!! No Way! No How!

The roads we ended up on were great.  Unfortunately the clouds in this part of the state didn't seem to dissolve.  These clouds were thick without any visible blue peaking through.  Where did they go??  Mr. Oilburner hadn't put on all of his warm clothing thinking that we would be stopping at the meeting point to give him the opportunity to suit up. So now he was starting to freeze.  We didn't make it too far before turning towards home.

Mr. Oilburner and I compared temps the entire route.  They are consistently 2 degrees apart.  With mine being on the low/fatalistic side.  My temperatures fluctuated between 28F and 31F.  His dabbled between 30 and 34.  (I didn't look at mine arriving home like he did.)  He tried to convince me his was correct since his bike is newer.  Given that logic, I said that me and mine were correct since I was newer and an improved model.  ;-)

Arrived home and that bathtub was calling my name.  My thighs were absolutely frozen.  It's as if they had been frozen with liquid nitrogen.  I could see taking one of my legs off and using it as a martini stirrer.  James Bond may have a better idea for warming them up.  Trouble is, he just isn't around when needed.

We didn't ride as far as some.  But we did ride farther then others. It was still nice to be out and feeling the fresh air.