396.7 Miles

That's the mileage Gretl racked up today from the gas station near the house to the hotel in Custer, South Dakota. It took us nine hours to ride this distance, with multiple stops for gas and just stretching out sore muscles.

All the motorcycles did great, though when my wife saw me riding with my two riding buddies on their larger motorcycles she came to the realization that yes, perhaps I do need a bigger motorcycle! She apparently giggled to my friend's wife who was riding with her that it looked like I was riding a Vespa when compared to one friend's Kawasaki Concours 1100 or the other friends's Honda VTX 1800! It's all good, it helps move me closer to a bigger motorcycle.

And a bigger motorcycle is what I thought about on those stretches where a little more horsepower would have come in handy in order to pass slower moving vehicles more quickly and safely. A bigger motorcycle with perhaps a longer wheelbase and more legroom to stretch out on. A bigger motorcycle to bull through the headwinds with ease as opposed to sometimes struggling. These were the thoughts running through my head at certain points during the ride.

Don't get me wrong, Gretl did great. As long as she was not called upon to exceed 85pmph when passing or on some of the more boring stretches of road in Wyoming, she delivered what I needed.

The ride through Wyoming was windy as expected but not too bad, it was rolling hills and flat range at first and when near the S.D. border it became quite moonscape-like. Lots of rocky mesa-like rock formations. I could picture what the geologists say that the whole area had been sea bottom at some point eons ago.

We got to Custer at 1630, having made only one wrong turn, which is pretty good I have to say. Checked in, went out for a steak dinner nearby and now tired and fed, making these notes before calling it a night. I've half a mind to go to Sturgis tomorrow, it's about 70 miles from Custer, and take a test ride on that BMW R1150RT but we'll see how I feel in the morning. The temptation is high to trade Gretl in and ride the beemer home! : )

First Big Trip on a motorcycle starts tomorrow

Riding up to the Black Hills National Forest area to the town of Custer, SD. Two co-worker rider friends and I are riding up on our motorcycles with my family following in the "support" van. It's just shy of 400 miles one way and we're pretty much avoiding the I-25 superslab on the way up. Having a support vehicle is nice since we can stow all our non-essential gear in the van and cruise the roads without too much excess weight.

Looks like it'll take us about 10 hrs with stops and such to get there so we'll be leaving early to get there before dark hopefully. The weather is predicted good for tomorrow and Saturday, a bit iffy on Sunday but we shall see.

Still debating upgrading to a bigger motorcycle. Still have an eye on one of the two R1200C Cruiser motorcycles at the BMW dealer but the finances may not work out. I'll definitely have a better idea after this long trip whether my Gretl is a keeper or not.

I hope to report on the ride tomorrow night. Meanwhile, here's our route:

Test rode a couple of BMW cruisers today

The local BMW dealer had a couple of used R1200C Cruiser motorcycles for sale. Apparently this was BMW's entry into the Cruiser market, they apparently did not do well enough as a class to be continued though according to the salesguy.

They let me test ride both of them after signing away all my rights. I rode the R1200C with less mileage(11k+), better looking paintjob (no scratches), smaller saddlebags/windshield and less bling and farkle. It had a rocker gearshift which took some getting used to but she ran fine though I could hear some whining while accelerating which was bothersome. She also idles rough when compared to the smooth idle of my Honda Aero. Apparently that's normal for BMW motorcycles with their "boxer" engine. The vibrations quickly dissapear once you start rolling and its a very smooth and quiet ride. The route outlined by the salesguy involved a bit of highway driving and before I knew it I was doing 90 and the motorcycle was not really working hard! Nice.



The second R1200C had huge saddlebags, a huge windshield whose top edge was annoyingly right in my sight line so I found myself either trying to look through it or above it. This windshield produced heavy buffeting above 65mph to the point where I could not read the road signs and got a mild headache out of the short time I was on the highway. This one had floorboards and a custom shift lever which allowed very little room for the toe of my boot to slip under it to shift. I did not like this arrangement and neither did my left knee after several iterations of shifting up and down in traffic. This motorcycle though rode smoother than the previous R1220C without evidence of the whining noise the first one had exhibited. This motorcycle as about $1600 more in price due to all the farkle and such and had racked up over 32k in mileage.



As I rode back to work in my smoothly idling Honda Aero, I could not help but notice how much smoother the idle was. The R1200Cs where definitely more powerful and smoother once moving but the experience of riding them was not one that said to me: "Buy me now! I can't live without you."

Seemed to me also the exhaust note on my Honda was a bit louder than the beemers....I would have thought it'd be the other way around or perhaps I was not paying that much attention to the noise when riding the beemers since I was concentrating on not breaking the motorcycle. Nice riding motorcycles, we'll see what kind of trade-in offer the dealer makes me if any.

If these don't pan out, there's a nice looking R1150RT up at Sturgis that might be worth looking at.

Thinking of upgrading.....

Yep, my co-worker friends who are motorcycle owners told me it would happen but I thought it would take longer than it did. What's that you ask? The feeling that I should move up to a bigger engined motorcycle!

Sure, in the back of my mind I always thought that there was a bigger motorcycle in my future but it's been less than six months since I got Gretl and already I am thinking of trading her in. Sad.

It all started being more than a thought about two weeks ago as I was fighting a very strong headwind on Interstate 70. Throttle was full out and I was barely holding 70mph into the wind. I would have been out of luck had I had to pass or been in need of more speed to get out of something's way. It just was not an option.

So, I've got the upgrade bug pretty good right now. Here's the motorcycle I think I want to move up to but who knows what it'll morph to by tomorrow:

BMW R1150RT, a radical departure from the Cruiser look.

or perhaps:

Honda Valkyrie, a six cylinder monster.

then there's the:

Honda VTX 1800, biggest production V-twin, over 750lbs empty.

Or, I can stay with Gretl, who other than a bit underpowered on the superslabs in high winds, does everything I need her to do without complaint and great fuel economy. A bigger motorcycle would of course not get the 50-60mpg I am getting now, more likely in the 40s instead. There's a price for more power.

I am going, with co-worker friends, up to Black Hills National Forest this coming weekend. It'll be Gretl's first long distance ride so I guess I'll know at the end of that trip whether she'll stay with me for the long run or not.