okred

Having ridden in the southern appalachians, this is the most significant difference between the two areas. The elevation changes tend to be on the gut wrenching side - in the mountain biking world they're called 'whoopy's' - and when you add direction changes immediately after the elevation changes.... well, you damn well better be sure you're not carrying too much speed. My next time to Marietta I'm going to try the WV side of the Ohio and see how those roads are. How was 800N? I've been looking that that as an alternate route to get down south (rather than Interstate 77) but wasn't sure if it was worth the trouble..

Can't help you with spring rates but if I lived less than an hour from racetech I would do the whole shebang in a heartbeat. Everyone on VFRD who has upgraded the springs and internals has been very positive about the results....

They don't sell duct tape in Queens? Ah, just kidding. Enjoy them while they are small, cause it'll all be done in the blink of an eye...

VFR=SPORT Touring ST1300/FJR1300= Sport TOURING Goldwing etc = TOURING

My buddy said that he recently retired from an airline just so he could do this trip. Pretty cool to just drop out for 6 months to ride the spine of the continent!

Friend of mine at work stopped by the other day to give me this link to his brothers log. He and his wife are traveling from Chicago to the southern terminus of South America: http://rogorides.com/saride/index.php Quite the adventure... aside from passing thru central american customs... not on a VFR but a V-Strom, pretty cool trip.

This is exactly why I went ahead and bought Tightwads VFRness. No need to worry about when they will have the parts ready... or how long it's in the shop... plus now I have an accessory box. $80 or have the bike in the shop for a completely undetermined amount of time - the answer is pretty easy.

On the seat... no option for that... am I the only one?

I ate an ant once - by accident - and it tasted sourish, but not horrible. Crunchy, of course. I think that they do make a good source of protein...

For my $1000, these 4 would be key: 12v sockets and blue sea fuse block on relay: for phone charger, ipod, video camera, etc. Gotta keep your phone charged for emergencies, plus tunes would be nice Sargent saddle Stock seat on my 2003 might as well been a brick GPS (Garmin Zumo, GPSmap 60CX, or eTrex Vista CX) Am terribly spoiled by GPS and have it now in both cars, will be my next bike purchase if i keep the vfr Gen-mar bar risers Nice for the long straight bits The risers and the extra sockets are cheep. The GPS and seat will eat most of your coin... but will make a huge difference in the quality of the trip. Have fun and keep us posted!

Just a note for those considering this mod - I installed a competion werkes fender eliminator last summer and un-installed it this winter. Yes, it cleaned up the lines significantly... but it turns out that riding over anything moderately rough (railroad track, driveway apron) with a passenger causes the dreaded license plate taco :doh: . I straightened it out a few times and then, after finding out that the soon to be installed OEM bags required the stock fender, simply gave up and removed the #$%#$ thing and reinstalled the stock fender. The mod explained in this post may use a different mounting point (more towards the tail) and perhaps the same issue won't occur ??? .