2900 mile excellent adventure!

Guess what happens when you have a VFR and a Goldwing and need to take an epic adventure trip...the Wing stays home with the wife! My sons are 22 and 19 (with 19 and 17 years riding experience respectively), they make good travel companions for an old iron butt like myself. We decided to take a trip to the X-Games last week and they wanted to ride the sportbikes, which was fine by me as we planned to ride down the coastline of Wa., Ore. and into L.A. Weather was great, roads were fantastic, scenery beautiful and all three bikes flawless (although the youngsters were much more saddlesore than the old man at trip's completion)! I have to say it was certainly much more entertaining than it would have been to take the Wing. VFR gas mileage is also much better although I still felt as if we LIVED at gas stations due to the need to refuel Gixxer & R1 every 120-140 miles. My 3,000 mile Pirelli's suffered some fairly serious meltdown in 100+ degree NorCal weather at 100+ mph speeds but, other than that, the VFR could not have been a better steed even with lots of camp gear strapped on. Lane splitting in L.A. traffic is not even possible with a Goldwing but really quite entertaining on the Viffer. Speaking of lane splitting, a trip highlight was one evening just after the X-Games ended, we were walking through the crowd back to our hotel when here comes a tall dude on a skateboard, talking on his cell phone and picking his way through the pedestrians at (no shit) 30 mph...Tony Hawk knows how to commute!

 

Wheres the pictures? can't have a thread like this with no photos Sheeesh!!!

 

Agreed!!!!

 

Okay, okay, you guys are right but I already told you I'm an old dude...digital cameras are even trickier than those damned new fangled cell phones. I'm going to try and post some pics here, if it works, hooray for me! If not, well, as RVFR knows, Northwesterners are born with the ability to ride fast, accurately dodge raindrops and effectively monitor traction on moss covered surfaces, we are not necessarily the most technologically up to speed! Happy viewing (or not)./IMG_2237.JPG[/IMG]

 

See what I mean? I thought I posted 5 pics but only see two. Trying again:

 

See, waterlogged brain cells...2 of 3 pics. Oh, by the way, due to my NW time management skills, I failed to plan out any camp spots or hotels on the way back since we were superslabbing it up I-5 to get back to work in two days. Well, the temperature did not drop below 90 degrees until 8:45 at night so we just kept riding and after 22 hours and 1200 straight miles with just fuel and breakfast stops, we arrived home. Ready to go again anytime!

 

What a cool adventure, Ottoman.
Looking at the pictures, it's hard for me to imagine sitting atop the R1 for that distance! The son that owns that bike packs light too hey? (or lets dad carry everything for him, lol).

 

Sounds like all of you had a good time, and everyone got home safely! It doesn't get any better than that. My son (29) rides (GSXR 600), but lives in Virginia. One of my fondest hopes is that one day we will be able to do a ride like you just did with your sons. Thanx for sharing.

 

Now that I figured out how to actually post pics I thought I'd send a couple more. Although not VFRs, no motorcycles pictured even, I thought a bunch of hearty thrillseekers like the VFRW crew could appreciate the over the top extremism of this event.
If you didn't catch it on TV, that's a mega-ramp as tall as the Staples Center leading to a 70 foot gap and culminating in a 27 foot tall 1/4 pipe off of which skateboarders and BMX riders would gain another 20 feet of air and then have to land (or not) without the benefit of suspension! BMX tires were blowing out on contact!

Here's a shot of the Motocross step up event...an extremely short runway (and landing area too), straight up launch to a gold medal winning 35 foot height (Bar is only at 29' in this shot). "The GOAT" (RC) had a hard get off at 35' that was tough to watch. "Showtime" (Mc) was smooth and precise as usual despite his advancing age.

 

You are an awesome dad!

 

Great pics, thanks for sharing. The VFR was loaded!

 

Now that is impressive! I thought I had an iron butt after riding from San Francisco to Bremerton WA in 16 hours but their is a huge difference in riding 16 hours & 840 miles or riding 22 hours & 1200 miles, my guess is the kids started feeling it around the 700 mile mark