My friend Tim just picked up his new still-in-the-crate 2006 ST1300 and he was ready to stretch its legs. A mutual friend of ours was attending a trackday sponsored by the US Desmo club at Carolina Motorsports Park, so we decided to ride down there and spectate.

Right after we arrived, a 17 year old rider (Nick) had a high side coming out of turn 1, and wasn’t moving after sliding down the track with his bike. The medical guys were there very quickly, and the chopper was there in no time. I later found out from Nick’s dad that he suffered a concussion, but is expected to make a full recovery.

A BMW LT was even in attendance.

Some still shots.

And some action shots.

The rest of the pictures can be found on the ConqSoft.com Picasa Web Galleries.

Took a trip to Deals Gap July 26th - 29th with my friend Tim. 

Here are the pictures from the pros. 

Killboy.com:

US129Photos.com:

Some friends of mine were in the Deals Gap area for the whole week of April 28th - May 5th, so I headed down there for a couple of days to meet up with them.

 Day 1 (Thursday May 3rd)

I finally got the ST1300 loaded and headed out around 9:30am.

I ran into a little mist along the way, but never hit any heavy rain.  I arrived at the Crossroads of Time (where Hwy 129 and Hwy 28 meet) at around 4pm.  This is where the Deals Gap “Resort”, restaurant, and store are located.  Across the street, TailOfTheDragon.com also has a storefront; I picked up a t-shirt for my wife and a keychain for my luggage and helmet lock keys. I couldn’t get a cell phone connection, and I didn’t see anyone around I knew, so after resting for a while and checking out the store, I decided to head into Robbinsville to check into the hotel.  

If you’re on a bike, and are staying in Robbinsville, THE place to stay is the Two Wheel Inn.  Every room has it’s own private garage.  I got a room with two twin beds, but they also have Kings available.

I still couldn’t reach anyone on the phone, so after unpacking I went by Subway to grab a sandwich, went back to the room and wolfed it down, and rested up for the following day’s ride.

Day 2 (Friday May 4th)

I woke up early for some reason, so I watched some TV and caught up on some on-line stuff (the Two Wheel Inn also has free Wi-Fi), then got a quick shower and packed everything up.  I finally got in touch with my friends at around 9:30am and we planned to meet at the Crossroads Of Time at 10:30am.  I got there early, so I had some French Toast with Bacon at their restaurant.  It wasn’t bad, but the French Toast was a bit undercooked.

Everyone showed up soon thereafter, so we discussed the plan for the day.  The Mini Cooper event had just started, and The Dragon was crawling with 400-500 Mini Coopers, so we decided to ride the Cherohala Skyway instead. 

We went all the way across into Tellico Plains, TN and grabbed some Beach Burgers at the Tellico Plains Drive-In restaurant.   After gassing up, we headed back across the Skyway and ran into some rain near the top.  We stopped and put our rain gear on, but the rain was pretty much over by the time we got back on the road, so when we got back to the NC end of the Skyway we pulled everything off and headed back to the Crossroads of Time.  On the way there we hit a HEAVY DOWNPOUR and got soaked.  Figures.

By then it was near 5pm so I had to get back on the road home. 

 The ride home was cold, but uneventful for the most part, other than some heavy fog on Hwy 19 and I-40 going through the mountains. I pulled into the garage at around 11pm with exactly 888.8 miles on the trip meter.  Freaky.

When the weather is nice, a lot of bikes gather at Michael’s Bar & Grill in Chapel Hill, NC on Sundays.  My friend Charles had never been there, so we decided to go today.

Heading out on the XX. This was the first time I had ridden it in over a month, and it took a little while to get used to it again. I don’t remember the footpegs being that far up and back.

I met up with Charles at 9am, and we headed toward Chapel Hill, taking the scenic route by Jordan Lake.

Various bikes at Michael’s.

6 Cylinder Honda something…

Trip Stats.

I needed to get some miles on the ST so I could do my first oil change, so I decided to ride down to Irmo, SC (near Columbia) to visit my dad for the day.   It’s about 250 miles each way, and we rode around town some while we were there also.  (My dad rides a Honda VTX.)

Very happy with the ST as a long distance bike so far.   I was fairly comfortable for the entire trip, however an upgraded seat and windscreen may be in my future to improve it even more.

 Trip stats:

(And as you may know, the top speed of the ST1300 is about 140mph, so the top speed on the GPS was a glitch. )