Had a great time at this year's DGR. Put on 250 mi from my house. I went down and stayed over my buddies house Saturday evening. Participated in the DGR Sunday morning and then headed back home after picking up my gear from my buddies place. We got rained on hard with only 2 miles left from his house. The rest of my afternoon was spent watching the weather radar for the ride home. There was a cell to the west I was trying to get past before it reached the highway as I traveled north. No such luck. Had to pull off the highway and was able to get underneath a sidewalk canopy at the local Publix in the area. Set me back an hour and half. Had the rear tire cut loose a couple times on the wet roads. Once braking, the other time accelerating onto the highway. Other than that, it was a good day.
I'm in the second row with the black helmet. Bike ran perfect this day.
Not sure how it happened, but I ended up taking point for the first leg of the ride. Had no clue where I was going other than a general direction that the first stop is in downtown ,St Petersburg. The spotters were helping me out along the way, but they would disappear from time to time leaving me leading blindly. I tried slowing down to a crawl and wave people by a couple of times in order to let riders behind me take over the poll position. They would not have anything to do with it and slowed down as well while ignoring my instructions to take over, LOL. Once I resigned myself to my situation I got a bit more aggressive. Even forced my way through a couple of red lights without know the spotters meant for me to stop
. Miraculously, we made it without any incidents. During the second leg, the put one of the spotters as designated lead. He missed part of the route, no big deal, but would have been a nice scenic portion by the water's edge. Then however, he missed a turn which took us east out of Tampa. A cute girl on Ducati Triple roared to the front and took over about 10 or 15 mi out, She lead us back to our final destination. No harm, no foul.
First half destination:
No, not a couple:
Final Destination:
Here is a link to facebook that has some very good photos this ride:
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207752...36595&type=3&theater