Road Runner Touring Weekend

[Darrenk]

My wife and I just got home from Road RUNNER Magazine's 10th annual Touring Weekend in North Carolina. The host hotel for this event was the Village Inn, located in Clemmons, a suburb about 15 minutes from downtown Winston-Salem. For those of you not yet familiar with this great publication, here's a little about the magazine: http://www.roadrunner.travel/about-us/history/

We left home (Columbia, SC) on Thursday, and after an uneventful (although HOT) 3 hours of predominantly interstate slab, we arrived at the Village Inn. Road RUNNER had a registration/info desk set up in the lobby, and all of the staff members were very friendly. We had originally only registered for the Saturday activities, but since we were already there, we registered for Thursday night and Friday activities as well. That evening's activities included a social hour in the hotel bar, dinner, and a presentation about accident scene management by a first responder and fellow motorcyclist.

The Road RUNNER staff really knows how to organize some group rides. During registration, we were asked what type of riding we wanted too do; sport, leisure, or cruiser. Being a noob and with my wife riding pillion, I chose the leisure. So, Friday morning, we lined up in our groups for the day's ride. Each group was no more than 12 bikes, but with a very eclectic mix. In our group, we had 2 Valkyries, a few Harleys, a Can-Am Spyder, a big Victory, an FJR and a Concourse. At first glance, I thought that I'd quickly get bored with the sedate pace these guys were sure to require. Boy was I ever wrong! My wife and I were near the front with the leader, a VERY experience staff member. I followed directly behind the couple on their beautiful white Victory, and that man could ride! He had that thing leaning so low in the twisties! At our first break, I commented on this and he blew me away when he said that it had a 33 degree lean angle! The ride took us throughout some of the rolling hills area around and on the Blue Ridge Parkway. At the end of our approximately 200 mile tour, I felt pretty good about keeping up with the much more experience riders. Then it was back to the hotel for drinks, dinner and a presentation by Uwe Krauss about his experiences traveling the world on his motorcycle.

Saturday morning ended up being a much more interesting ride, in my opinion. Same group of great people, but a route with many more miles of twisties. That was, by far, the most aggressive riding I've done to this date. The guy on the Victory said that he had a hard time keeping up with me! (I know it doesn't sound like much, a cruiser-style bike having a hard time keeping up with a sportbike in the twisties, but this guy could really ride!) My chicken strips are much narrower after that 200 mile day!

One of the most interesting aspect of the whole weekend was the bikes. There were well over 300 motorcycles there from all brands. Harleys, Goldwings, ST1300s, BMW adventure bikes, trikes...I even saw an MV Augusta Norge! I was very surprised that I had the only VFR, and I did gather quite a bit of attention. That's fine with me, because I love talking about my VFR with others! All said and done, we had a great weekend and my confidence level with the big Viffer is much higher. The Winston-Salem area has access to some great, well maintained roads with curves and elevation changes. The people we met really didn't care what brand of bike you rode; the fact that you rode was enough...I'm already looking forward to next year!

Wife lined up getting ready to go

!

Our group on a Pilot Mountain overlook

[TheJay]

I saw all the bikes gassing up and heading out on Fri. and Sat. I was wondering what was going on. Wish I would have not been working and knew about it. Glad you had a good time and I hope you found Clemmons hospitable.

[RazorWing]

Glad to hear you had a good time. I was hoping to make it to it earlier this year, but just too much going on right now to swing it.

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