BobFV1
02-25-2006, 11:05 AM
Not sure if this counts, since it is the beginning of a CAGE trip, but just wanted to fill you guys in on my trip plans. Son Nick, the 20 year old in the DC area, is flying here to Tempe tomorrow and we are hooking up a 6 X 12 covered trailer to the Touareg and driving back to Washington, DC. This is part of my transition to being a business owner in the DC area while being homesteaded here in the Phoenix area.
The trailer will contain a few essentials for the apartment I have rented in McLean, Virginia, near my new office in Vienna, Virginia. It will also contain my two sport bikes, which I am reluctantly planning to sell back in the DC area. Actually, my son Nick is going to sell them for me - he's good at selling stuff and is looking forward to this task. It will be tough not having a track bike but at this point in my life, the biggest luxury I can really afford, not financially but in terms of being able to maintain and logistically support, is one motorcycle. So I am getting rid of the sport bikes, and in April I plan to trade the RT in for either the new K1200GT which I have paid my deposit for, of for a new GS. I will be back here in Arizona throughout April, then in early May I will ride the new bike up through the rockies and across to DC to have there for the Summer, including the MOA National Rally in Vermont.
It will be tough not having a track bike, but I just see this as an interim measure until I figure out where and how I can return to the track on a regular basis. I may get one and keep it here in the Phoenix area if we maintain our residence here, or I may place one in the LA area to ride there and do track days. My family has a couple of properties in nice parts of LA, so I may end up making that my West Coast home base.
In terms of my next track bike, who knows. A 749 would be nice, or an RC51 - those would be my two choices, but I am probably not going to get a new track bike until next Spring.
So our cage route, leaving very early this coming Monday Feb 27, we will try to get all the way to the Missouri state line - to Joplin or Springfield - that will be a ball-busting 1000 mile or so day. I picked up Sirius yesterday to go with my XM, so we should have a full slate of entertainment for the long day. Tuesday we want to get from wherever we stop on Monday all the way to Richmond, Indiana, to spend the evening with my younger son, a freshman at Earlham College in Richmond, and then on Wednesday we will drive the relatively easy last leg from Richmond to McLean, Va.
Who knows, if we have some freakishly good weather in the DC area next weekend, or any time before the sport bikes are sold, I may be looking for weekend riding partners in April!
Well, that's about all my news. If you are out on the Interstates next Mon/Tue/Wed between Phoenix and DC, look for the two scraggly-ass dudes in a nice VW SUV with a Dead-Head sticker on the back! Say hi and have a Red Bull with us!
Will try to send photos from the road....
Oh - one more thing, the trip name. This is the "Opposite of Zen" trip, because it is pretty much the reverse of Robert Persig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" trip. His son was little, mine is big. He and son rode a motorcycle together, we are pulling two motorcycles in a trailer. They went East to West, we are going West to East. Them Summer, us Winter.
Most of all, the real meaning of "Zen" is "self". This trip is about Nick and me being together.
The trailer will contain a few essentials for the apartment I have rented in McLean, Virginia, near my new office in Vienna, Virginia. It will also contain my two sport bikes, which I am reluctantly planning to sell back in the DC area. Actually, my son Nick is going to sell them for me - he's good at selling stuff and is looking forward to this task. It will be tough not having a track bike but at this point in my life, the biggest luxury I can really afford, not financially but in terms of being able to maintain and logistically support, is one motorcycle. So I am getting rid of the sport bikes, and in April I plan to trade the RT in for either the new K1200GT which I have paid my deposit for, of for a new GS. I will be back here in Arizona throughout April, then in early May I will ride the new bike up through the rockies and across to DC to have there for the Summer, including the MOA National Rally in Vermont.
It will be tough not having a track bike, but I just see this as an interim measure until I figure out where and how I can return to the track on a regular basis. I may get one and keep it here in the Phoenix area if we maintain our residence here, or I may place one in the LA area to ride there and do track days. My family has a couple of properties in nice parts of LA, so I may end up making that my West Coast home base.
In terms of my next track bike, who knows. A 749 would be nice, or an RC51 - those would be my two choices, but I am probably not going to get a new track bike until next Spring.
So our cage route, leaving very early this coming Monday Feb 27, we will try to get all the way to the Missouri state line - to Joplin or Springfield - that will be a ball-busting 1000 mile or so day. I picked up Sirius yesterday to go with my XM, so we should have a full slate of entertainment for the long day. Tuesday we want to get from wherever we stop on Monday all the way to Richmond, Indiana, to spend the evening with my younger son, a freshman at Earlham College in Richmond, and then on Wednesday we will drive the relatively easy last leg from Richmond to McLean, Va.
Who knows, if we have some freakishly good weather in the DC area next weekend, or any time before the sport bikes are sold, I may be looking for weekend riding partners in April!
Well, that's about all my news. If you are out on the Interstates next Mon/Tue/Wed between Phoenix and DC, look for the two scraggly-ass dudes in a nice VW SUV with a Dead-Head sticker on the back! Say hi and have a Red Bull with us!
Will try to send photos from the road....
Oh - one more thing, the trip name. This is the "Opposite of Zen" trip, because it is pretty much the reverse of Robert Persig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" trip. His son was little, mine is big. He and son rode a motorcycle together, we are pulling two motorcycles in a trailer. They went East to West, we are going West to East. Them Summer, us Winter.
Most of all, the real meaning of "Zen" is "self". This trip is about Nick and me being together.