Riding in my backyard (November 26, 2012)

Something rare for this page...guy said, "I will take your photo" and I took the photo at left of me in front of Charlotte Motor Speedway. That is the tree (a tree shaped collection of lights) in the background. Charlotte Motor Speedway is the big attraction in the area (along with the massive Concord Mills complex, which is actually the number one tourist attraction in North Carolina- so I have read) but it is one massive race track. It is all decorated for the season, and you can drive inside the track and see all sorts of lights (for a price per carload) for the next few weeks. I had a great ride today; went to Speedway Harley-Davidson, Concord Mills, Concord Regional Airport and Roush-Fenway Racing. I have a few photos from that on my "Richmond and Me" page, but here I have a few photos from Speedway Harley-Davidson which is near Concord Mills Mall. It was a great day to ride with temps around 60, and as you can see it was a bright and sunny day. I love days like this in late November.     

Seen at left is a Harley-Davidson "Muscle" which is part of the V-Rod line for 2013. Nice motorcycle with the 1250 cc (60 cubic inches) v-twin engine, and one of the few Harley's that fit a taller rider such as myself. It is also part of the only line that is water-cooled: most of the Harley-Davidson's still being air cooled. Water cooled engines to me are better, got to figure because how many people still drive air-cooled cars. Makes for better more dependable performance, plus makes for longer maintenance periods, and frankly the engine lasts a lot longer as it does not get so hot.      

Seen below are two Screaming Eagle versions of the Harley-Davidson Line, in the foreground is a CVO Electra Glide, and in the background a CVO Road King. Something like $70,000-80,000 would get you the pair. I talked about air cooled bikes, well these are both air cooled. Beautiful and iconic for sure but you pay a good price to get that nametag on your gas tank (but these are special editions of what are somewhat cheaper bikes in the basic versions). I enjoyed seeing some of the new Harley-Davidson motorcycles, but unless I win the lottery sometime soon will be riding Japanese motorcycles for some time to come!

New Bikes, and the Lake (November 23, 2012)

Good day to ride. Rode with three friends; a former boss at my old job, a hot air balloon pilot, and a retirement adviser..a diverse bunch. We met up at RideNow, a bike shop in Concord, NC and there I saw for the first time a brand new 2013 Kawasaki Ninja 300, which is seen at left. The bike is a punched out version of the Ninja 250; and it is a pretty nice ride. Even though I am 6'2' it is a very roomy bike, and the extra power will come in handy. Seems to be a nice quality bike too, with a lot of nice features. Will be interesting to see how this does, I think the 250 was their top selling bike.  

This is a 2013 Star (aka Yamaha) Stryker, one of the big cruising bikes from that company. Looks like (as did Victory Motorcycles) that they have changed the tank logo on the bike. Have quite a few friends who ride Star Motorcycles (have quite a few who ride about everything) and they are fine motorcycles.
As for our ride, started out today on a sunny day in the 70's and headed out to China Grove. Went to see if a friend was going to have his famous Christmas light display this year (and that will be a no it seems) but fun rolling out that way via some great backroads! 

We headed out to High Rock Lake, which is close to Lexington, NC and I got a photo of that at left. Covered a total of 86 miles in today's ride, and we all had a very good time. It is nice to get out on a fine day, especially when it also is a warm one, and that was a real plus in my book. Have ridden with Phil a few times, but a nice plus to get out with the two other riders. The "Salisbury" area is one of my favorite areas to ride here, lots of real nice country roads. Being as this is "Black Friday" seemed like a good idea to stay as far away from the cities, and especially the malls, as possible!

City/Country Ride (November 11, 2012)

 Go figure, November 11, and its around 70 degrees. As you can see, a beautiful day to take a ride on the Vulcan. I rode via a country route, went to Charlotte via NC 24/27 but took a very small detour to Wilgrove Airport which is a small private airport just off that main road. Nothing much was flying at the time, but they were moving some planes and fueling another up, so sure they enjoyed the day too. As you can see, its pretty dry in the area, has not been any rain for some three weeks, and they are quite a few inches below normal at this time of year. That may change in the next couple of days.  

Rode to Charlotte, down to Central Avenue. I like that part of town, lots of interesting apartments (such as the building behind the restaurant) and of course some fine restaurants as well. This was a great day to eat outside, and a number of people were taking full advantage. Central has a lot of interesting stores, and a lot of foreign owned stores (many of which seem to be Vietnamese) so a good place to get a lot of variety. It is just outside of town, in fact a good view of Charlotte from this street can be seen on my Richmond and Me Page (which is also a lot of Charlotte and area, as this work thing I am doing involves two places, as does this blog).   

Heading back, went from Charlotte to Concord via NC 49, but made a stop at NoDa (or North Davidson) which is a suburb of Charlotte (which you can sort of see, at least some of the tall buildings wayyyy off in the background at the end of the street). Nice place, again a lot of neat stores, bars, music venues...it is a real artists town or at least it was started that way, as the neighborhood went into decline due to the closing of the mills in the area. Now a lot of people are moving there due to a lot of new apartments building in that area. It is a fun place to explore though, and a lot of interesting businesses can be found there.
Ride ended up being around 40 miles or so- did not pay a lot of attention to distance on this one. It was just a great day to be out, though we can ride most of the year in the Carolinas, you don't get a lot of rides quite this nice in November and it was pretty remarkable. I had a great time, and fun to see these sights on a Sunday in NC. The ride was a fine addition to a really great weekend. Before heading home visited a former co-worker and then rolled back after a two hour and thirty minute ride!