[NTempleton]

Well it has been a while since I have made a post on here, but I thought I would share my experience from the past month as I did the entire parkway.

Here on the East Coast, going through practically the entire state of NC as well as VA, we have the legendary Blue Ridge Parkway. Not as curvy or challenging as Deals Gap as I have read about recently, but still a good mix of curves. And I imagine its a much more beautiful ride as well. Anyway, I did it on my first and only bike, my 06 Kawa 500R. I know that there are some claims that this thing is a sport tourer, and maybe by riding position, but certainly not by carrying capacity. I did this trip in 5 days w/ 2 others, one (my Dad) on his 72 Norton 750, and my friend on his newly purchased 78 Honda Hawk (I think its a 450). One of the most important things that I learned from this trip is the overall relaxation that you can experience w/ 5 days straight of just riding. I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite vacations of all time. We went all the way from where it starts in almost Northern VA at Skyline Drive and all the way down to Cherokee Reservations on the NC and TN border. Then, we went all the way back up. The fact that we only did around 250 miles or so a day probably allowed for us to make good time and still have time to get into trouble. What a trip.

I'm only 20, but I certainly see what everyone is talkin about w/ the touring aspect of motorcycling. I am happy to have found something that I can do for the rest of my life so early in my life. For some reason, nobody had any problems on this trip, which is kind of funny, since this trip one way is pushing 500 miles. Two vintage bikes apparently doesn't necessarily equal problems, go figure.

Experienced a lot of crazy stuff on this trip, ranging from police threats to seein lane splittin bmw blowin by us. The Beamers had been riding w/ us for little while, up until apparently the cops must have been called. I can definitely say it was definitely impressive to see such a large bike, carrying so much cargo, still manage to accelerate like that. Yes these two had new BMWs and yes they looked good. No, I'm not sure why these BMWs were being chased by the police, but it was w/o a doubt a half hearted attempt. The police turned off the parkway in no time at all (apparently a Crown Vic doesn't outhandle a sportbike). If you get a chance to take a vacation this summer, consider going on a touring trip. If you sleep in the campgrounds like we did, it really is one of the most inexpensive ways to have a lot of fun. Anybody riding in NC or VA would likely enjoy spending some time on the parkway, whether its for a 5 days or 5 minutes.

Saw that is possible to overfill a motorcycle tank, as my friend filled his 2.5 gallon (or whatever the hell it was) tank to the brim, and 10 min later after sittin in the sun we got to see Old Faithful. I have made several long trips in my life, some taking a few days, some just taking all day. But for the first time, I didnt care about how quickly I could get to my destination, the "going" there was far better then the "getting" there.

And as a side note, I did not see one group of Harley riders that was not going dirt slow on the parkway. The average family sedan I saw on the parkway was going just as fast as the average Harley rider. I only bring up this point since this is a sportbike site. By the way, I'm apologizin in advance for makin this post a little bit too much stream of conciousness, but this is a forum site, so ask me questions if you need to.