After spending most of the day at Barber Motorsports Park and Museum, only taking 1 break to leave and go get food and charge my camera battery, it was around 4:30 pm when I decided to head north towards Michigan.
It was raining quite heavily when I entered traffic filled downtown Birmingham, Alabama, but had stopped raining before I exited North Birmingham. I started feeling the anxiety of just wanting to be home in my own bed with my own pillow. I know many of us distance riders go through this, but I need to work on this.
I ended up dead heading to Franklin, Kentucky, skipping two spots on the map I wanted to check out, downtown Nashville, Tennessee and the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee.
This is one thing I wish I could change about myself. In my anxiety and stress of thinking about home, normally in the latest stages of a trip, I end up skipping things I originally wanted to see. After I'm home for a couple of days, I could kick my own ass for not taking an extra day to see these places I had intended to. I know I'm not the only one like this, but I get this itch really bad and can't seem to control it. I wish I could take a deep breath, calm myself, and stick to the original plan. I wish I had stayed in Huntsville, Alabama, went to Lynchburg, TN and stayed a night in Nashville, TN for I'm sure would've been a great time. I guess there's next time, eh?
Anyway, I arrived in Franklin, Kentucky safely. Fueled up, got a hotel room, and went for a nice meal at Cracker Barrel. CB serves down home southern style food. Not the most healthy option, but stick to your bones kind of food. I failed to get a pic of my meal, but I ate Chicken Fried Chicken (a deep fried breaded chicken breast with gravy on top), green beans, redskin taters, and a tossed salad.
I did not sleep well. The hotel was too close to the interstate highway and the windows didn't do a good enough job of insulating an occupant from semi-traffic noise. Sounds a little pompous, but I was hoping for a good nights sleep. The next morning I planned to visit the National Chevrolet Corvette Museum just north of Franklin, KY in Bowling Green, KY, where the Chevy Corvette aka America's sports car, is manufactured. After visiting the museum, the plan was to stop at two of my favorite Bourbon Distillery's, Makers Mark and Jim Beam along the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky. Again, from most likely a lack of quality sleep, the anxiety set in to just get home. So I skipped the museum and distilleries and dead-headed all the way back home, except for fuel, food, and 2 naps at road side rest areas. Unfortunately, in my rush to get home, I didn't take 1 picture along the way.
Over the next month or so, I start thinking again about how much the Harley Street Glide hurts me a little too much to ride her. I'm simply too tall for the bike. And, like many motorcycle manufacturers, HD is guilty of charging top dollar for their bikes, while allowing them to leave the factory with cheap suspension components. I take a lot of heat for being vocal about this in my local community. I bet 99% of the motorcycling community in my local towns are exclusively riding HD. Many of these riders are very close minded and wouldn't even have the thought of riding any other brand, wouldn't even allow themselves a test ride on a Euro or Japanese bike. I find it troubling but to each their own, I don't sign their paychecks. So, you can just imagine the response and attitude I receive when I'm at the breakfast round table telling these die hard HD riders that, I could buy a better set of shocks out of a used shock bin from a back alley in Bangkok, than what comes from the factory, it pisses them off royally. Oh well, they'll get over it!
I do have to admit, HD has come a long long way in the past 15 years. The fuel injection calibration is flawless. No on/off feeling at the throttle on an FI HD. While the engines vibrates at a stop sign, as soon as you take off, the engine is buttery smooth, one of few bikes I've owned that never made my hands go to sleep. For a 900 pound bike, she got excellent fuel economy. She never let me down, she was as reliable as an anvil, though admittedly the bike only had 11,000 miles on her, a little shy of 20,000 kilometers. With our long winters, not a bad total for only riding the bike for a handful of months.
I longed to get back riding gravel and made the mistake of going look at the new KTM Super Adventure 1290 R model :drif: I began negotiating a trade, my HOG for the KTM, but the dealer wanted me to come up with money for the new KTM :imaposer:. That wasn't happening considering what a new HD Street Glide costs. It was none of their business I had gotten a screaming deal on it new. I understand business, so I wasn't surprised at their beginning offer for my HOG, but NO DEAL stealership. Over the course of the next week, we went back in forth on price. No deal unless I get the brand new KTM and walk out with some money in my pocket. I had to be realistic though, because my HOG had a small scratch on the fuel tank and the panniers were badly scratched and rubbed from my waterproof Ortlieb duffel bag rubbing against the pannier lids. Also, those letters I had adhered to my panniers for the Downs Syndrome Awareness ride had bleached the paint, so even after removal of said letters, you could clearly see what letters were adhered.
After a week of going back and forth trying to reach a number happy for both parties, we made it happen. I took my time getting to the stealership, taking a nice country cruise to Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Traded this flat black sinister American beauty
with only a little over 11,000 miles on her.....
for this odd faced zero mileage Austrian.
And rode home with a grin from ear to ear on my new Austrian babe, thinking how much lighter she felt between my legs.
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