Let us begin.
The last installment for this blog was February 2015 where a trip that was taken with my wife up to the Smokey Mountains was regaled. A trusty SV650 and an old GS500 were our bikes at the time. While these were wonderful motorcycles, needs change and so does the equipment to fit said needs. The GS500 was sold after we became tired of working on it nearly every weekend for some reason or another. Since my wife and I are heavy motorcycle commuters, that just wouldn't cut it. The capital gained from the sale would go towards a brand new Yamaha FZ-07.
My wife loved this bike. A decent upgrade in displacement and horsepower coupled with fuel injection meant easier commutes and more enjoyable rides. A service plan also helped to take the load off of any heavy maintenance. Dubbed "Maxine," this Yamaha was near and dear to my wife's heart for about 40,000 miles. Until CASE came along. An explanation is to follow.
Jarvis the SV650 was ridden to the point of exhaustion. 104,000 miles were put on that bike. Most maintenance was done by yours truly. Wheel bearings that tried to kill me on my birthday were replaced. A burned out rectifier. Notched steering bearings. Fork seals. Dent repairs. A few batteries and many, many chains. Jarvis was my ride during silly Instagram projects like "#motoselfie365" where I would try to take a selfie with him every day during a ride for a year to inspire other riders that it could be done safely and "#journeyto100k," or something to that extent, where I kept track of how things were going with Jarvis as he made his way to 100,000 miles. He ultimately reached that goal during a trip up the east coast to Times Square in New York City.
Jarvis was sold to a new, eager to learn rider who was trying valiantly to contain his excitement but failing miserably to do so at the same time. All I can hope is that both are still doing well.
TARS the Kawasaki ZZR1200 passed through the garage for almost exactly a year. A gift from my dad, I had to fly up to Maryland to pick him up and ride it back down the Florida starting the next day. The return trip lasted 2 days and we became well acquainted as I took Skyline Drive all the way back down as far as I could the first day. The name TARS came from one of the robots in the movie Interstellar. In the movie, TARS was a bit rowdy and rambunctious, with a knack for exceedingly dry humor. A perfect moniker for a loud, heavy, fat tank that was my ZZR1200.
TARS was an excellent commuter with heated grips, a custom Corbin seat, a smooth inline-4 engine, and hard GIVI cases on the back. The Smoky Mountains were obviously visited a few times, but the highlight trip with TARS was across a large portion of the United States over to Colorado with a stint to Moab, Utah, and back. While this trip was awesome in its own right, it also made me realize that I was lacking capability to see the things I really wanted to see. About a year later, that capability was attained.
Enter CASE the 2016 BMW R1200GS. TARS was traded in for a meager sum as a down payment for this motorcycle. He actually just barely made the cut for trade in. The dealership found a wholesaler that would take him for $1,200 and I rode away on my new-to-me dream bike.
CASE is another robot from Interstellar, but the more quiet, reserved, analytical one. Again; absolutely perfect. Since getting the GS, a newfound love of off road adventure riding has blossomed. This led to learning about all new things like detailed GPS units, understanding what a .GPX file is, navigating with roll charts during rallies, body position when riding in sand, how to approach an unknown water crossing, etc., etc. I think all of the stories that I have told my wife about taking the path less traveled led to her getting a bit jealous that she could not partake in such shenanigans. This, in turn, led to her trading in Maxine for the very first 2019 F750GS in north Florida. Her name is Cooper and she is quite the fun motorcycle.
Now that you have been caught up on the garage, an update about the actual blog is in order. When I first started this, it was a project to keep myself busy during a period of unemployment after college. Routes were described quite dryly with attached screenshots from Google maps of the route itself. Not very fun. It then morphed into an actual blog where I would describe trips that were taken. There will be more on that in following posts. I will stick to the "here's a route, what it's like, and where it is" format, but more effort will be put into each post. Photographs, more personal thoughts, along with .GPX files will be included if I can figure out how to add them in, too. Old routes will be re-ridden and updated as necessary. New routes will mostly be adventure oriented rides, so prepare yourself accordingly if you choose to take one. The overall look has been updated a little bit in order to make it easier to read. I've come to learn that there is a balance between form and function; I think form was focused on too much before.
I am very excited to bring this back to life, if it even had any life at all. So please follow along, subscribe, like, and comment to your heart's content. I hope that this can become a useful resource in discovering new, every day adventures, possibly right in your own backyard!
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