Went to the IMS yesterday, had a ball as usual. We normaly ride no matter what but after a flippin' blizzard saturday night and Monsoon rain and wind Sunday morning we puss'd out and drove in my buds PU, must be gettin old ...
Anyway we stopped for breakfast then headed into town for the show. Parked in a Railroad Maintanance yard so we ducked the parking fee and hoofed it a couple of blocks. All the usual suspects were there so we spent all day checkin out this and that...my impressions were that amazingly, the Victory Vision is actually a pretty cool looking bike! I never would have thunk it but along the lines of a K-LT or a Winger, it's not a bad bike. A few of the Victories (I'm not sure what model) had some really nice factory paint. Nice looking bikes but slatherd in so much chrome I'd be afraid to ride it on a sunny day, fortunatly not an issue here but still... One thing that's a personal gripe of mine is chrome or billet hand grips...HTF are you supposed to ride with those???
BMW had a good collection of the 650 and 800 cc Rotax bikes in various models, also a $22K HP2.. (ahem..) moving right along we hit the Ducati display which had Casy Stoners bike on a pedestal, a nice 1000 GT w/bags and a Sport along with a collection of 1098 and oh-so-cool heroin-chic models and sales ginch's, next it was MV Augsta wich was giving away cool tri-color lanyards for ID badges, (thank you Miss..) I tried out a Brutale amazed at the fact that Longride could get his ass on one, then over to the 'Guzzi's and scoping out the Nor-Gay and Grisso, cool bikes and an interesting German dude to talk to but I do miss the V11 series.
Then it was off to look at Ural Patrols,...Ladies and Gentleman...this is no doubt the coolest thing since bottled beer...I sh*t you not, I will have one!!! My buddies Roy and John volunteered that If I bought one they would too, so I'm in the cross-hairs here. After spending an hour hanging out and drooling over every aspect of this critter the guy invited us up to Bellingham where the importer is to tke one out for a beat in the gravel pit behind the shop, when the weather breaks we're heading up there to take him up on it. Seriously these are way cool rides..
The Concours 14 was pretty impressive but not my cuppa' tea, the ZX14 felt good, and I liked the Versy's.. looked like it would be a good all-rounder along the lines of a WeeStrom or BMW.. We checked out the new 1125 Buell and also the Uly, another favorite of mine. Walked past the Honda and Suzuki cruisers...just not doin' it for me though I'm sure they're excellent bikes, checked out Rossi's Yamaha and a kitted R1 that replicated the paint at least. They had the new CBR which looked pretty *****in'..interesting under frame exhaust, the Honda boys no how to innovate I tell ya..next they'll be putting gas in the frame and oil in the swing arm...
Then it was off to look at accessories and and streamliners, they had the bike(?) that set the land speed record of like 340 MPH all expsoed, real mechanical artwork I thought, also a Sporty engined one the Cal Rayburn rode to a 200 and something record, then I got talked into joining the Washington Road Riders which is a political action group at the local level, had a nice chat with the prez who's this big f*cker in a kilt..seemed to have his sh*t together and WTF it's only $25. bucks, probably do some good. Then it was back to the Ural display to drool for another hour, by then we'd had enough so we headed over to the Pyramid Alehouse and brewery for some fish and chips and a bunch of pints of excellent Porter (since I wasn't driving)
All in all a fun day spent lookin' at bikes with some old friends, not a bad way to spend a stormy winter sunday..
