Yup! Eddie and I both made it home just after noon today. We had a short ride up from his cabin near Blue Mound, KS. It was sunny and 31 degrees when we put the kickstands up at his cabin. It was 21.3 and overcast when I put the kickstand down in my driveway. Except for a handful of miles, it was all 70 MPH pavement coming home.
I was actually fairly comfortable. The only minor issue was my eyeballs were cold. Yes--just my eyeballs. My helmet must direct some air into my eyes somehow. It was much worse with my HJC airbox installed. The airbox is designed to keep your breath from fogging up the visor, and it works. Unfortunately, for me, it put some pressure on the bridge of my nose producing a headache.
On the way home, I had to turn the heated jacket and gloves down as they were burning me in a few places.
I'm sure people thought we were nuts riding today. They were probably right.
Many thanks to Eddie for leading the ride--it's a lot of work putting routes together and coming up with the plan. We even ended up changing up plan B into plan C on the fly with a bit of a plan D here and there. Eddie made sure we had a great time! Thanks also to Scottie, Ryan, and Randy for coming along. OK, so it was cool to have Kendall along for the start, too!
I was a little too optimistic with my memory of how difficult Pannell Rd can be. I told the guys, "it's a great dualsport road--we should do it". Eddie changed up the route to include Pannell. We spent a bit of time picking up bikes (the riders of which will remain Ryan and Scottie) and working through the obstacles. Half-way up, Eddie said, "this road is not big bike friendly". I have to agree. Oops. SORRY, guys! Ryan & Scottie get another punch on their man cards for riding loaded Vstroms with road tires up Pannell. Yikes!
More to come including photos. Great time!
