Where did you ride in MS today?

Who else rode into work today? I love the cool weather so much more than the hot stuff!!!!

I wanted to! But our parking is parallel on a downhill slope, and they won't let me park it under the garage area anymore, cuz the inmates were enamored with it.

I haven't made it to work yet, but I will be riding. My truck is in the shop for very likely two weeks, so, rain, shine or cold weather, I'll be riding for a few days.

I ride to work every day I possibly can. This weather is a vast improvement!

+1

I try to but I am learning the limitations of my current riding gear...

My boots were too muddy / dirty to wear to work, so I wore mesh tennis shoes. Mistake number 1.

My mesh jacket, with liner, does not like anything below 50degrees and above 50PH. I thought I could layer under it but with liner installed it is too tight and restricts movement too much to be safe. But it really wasn't that bad this morning.

I am learning about breathing and fogging and raising visor at red lights. I closed vents and do fine moving but stopped I fog up.

Luckily I have a relatively short commute and the weather is bearable in the morning.

I ride to work nearly every day. Rode all this week, rode home in a great little rain storm today . Awesome weather for rain riding . Need to put my Gripsters back on though , kinda slippery in the intersections with knobblies :eek1.
Springridge road from HWY 80 working my way back to Florence . Sometimes through Terry and backroads . Ride .

So I planned on making a big ride this weekend. I am still kind of new at this solo exploring, but was considering heading across state lines. I had an invitation to ride up to Starkpatch for tailgating and I had two neighbors when went to the beach together and invited me to ride down. I split the difference and decided to test out some routes I have been planning for a future group ride. I read over the maps, looked on Google Maps / Streetview, got a notebook, highlighters, scanned and printed map copies and thought I was ready... I even head to break open the transformer on my GPS power line and re-solder a wire than came loose.

Slept later than I meant to. Left house at 8:00AM. It was 45F outside and I was hungry. So I started the ride with breakfast.


Put a little air in my front tire and headed out of Brandon down Shiloh Road. I have heard several sport bike riders talk about some fun sweepers and it was fun, but once I hit about 55MPH, I realized how poor my riding gear is in cool weather. I made short trips to work in it fine, but extended rides get COLD...

Side note, somewhere above someone asked about my new skid plate and wanted to see it on the bike... Well here it is:


Now to the failure part... Besides the COLD, I discoverd many errors in my Gazetteer. I kept zig-zagging through Bienville NF (South of I-20) and all forest roads appeared to run pretty much North-South and all were DEAD ENDS but 1 or 2...

more...

I kept zigging and zagging, but almost every dirt or gravel road was a dead end... Some I rode for miles before coming to locked gates, or just a road end.








Maybe I should have called this a "find all of the trail head signs" ride...

I finally back tracked for the 8th time on a road that was soft clay and had tandem axle ruts. Ground was slick sandy / clay mix. But I kept it up.

Finally got back to a paved road and realized I was not far from Lake, MS. I was cold, tired, frustrated, hungry, frustrated, and getting close to needing gas.

SO I ended up on highway 80 and turned back West. Stopped to get gas and grab lunch at the Ward's in Forest and decided to give up and head home. So I hit 80 and headed back home, highly disappointed.

Only 155 miles traveled (so far today) and searching for warmer gear!!!

(But I was still riding, so I guess it was an awesome time!!!)

layer,layer,layer!

I tried, but my jacket is too tight with too many layers underneath. Especially in the arms. I was really only cold where the wind hit my upper torso and upper arms. And even that wasn't that bad, but will get worse as winter comes in...

Took a little ride today. It started and ended in Mississippi, but took an extended detour through Alabama. I was hoping to find some decent foliage shots as I got farther north, but got distracted by all the great roads and ran out of time before the leaves really started changing. Oh well...









Look carefully at this next pic. They were holding up a line of cars for about 5 miles. No, not the minivan, in front of the van you can barely make out an ElectraGlide.

Most of those dead ends have trails leading in the direction of the road and will meet up with the other end of the road. Would not try them alone without knobbies since we have had so much rain lately though.

As for the issues regarding the cold,

WUSS!

Did a little riding myself today. It was my dad's birthday, and he wanted to go for a ride to celebrate. About 200 miles at least. You'll see from the pics who the odd one out was

We went off to Alabama as well, and headed over to Lake Lurleen State Park to enjoy what changes in the foliage we could find.

So eeore invited us to see some places he had been exploring. So he finally set a time and place. We met up at the Shell station in Florence where 49 and 469 cross. I got there early so I would have time to grab a snack. I discovered they now had a Penn's Express inside so I sat down on the curb to enjoy my snack box of fried chicken and pickles!! Yummy!!

Eeore and I were soon joined by wsprfk (if I spell it wrong, that's what you get for having a username that is un-pronounceable!!!) and Supahflid. We soon headed out down 469 from downtown Florence. Eeore said he had explored some of these roads in person and some on Google. To bad the ones on Google don't identify the gated roads. But we found some nice backroad rural scenery and zigged and zagged between good paved roads, badly paved roads, and gravel / dirt.

This is not the prettiest map, but here is our track laid out on Google earth:


Highlights of the trip included...
1) ...those of us on 650's not realizing the disadvantage we had following a 230 around on gravel. My tires are wearing thin and I was sliding and loose all day. We topped a hill with an off camber turn just over the crest and I drifted to the side and backed out of it real quick. Wsprfk topped the hill and was surprised to see me right on the edge and braking hard. So as he tried to avoid running up on me, (and I watched in my mirror) he gracefully let his back tire hit the soft shoulder and dismounted in style as the bike laid down for a nap. By the time I slid to a stop, turned and rode back, he and Supahflid had it upright and awake again before I could get a pic.
2) ...Peaches called and wanted to meet up with us. So I pulled out the maps and realized we were close to the Old Pearl store that was a previous tag. So I gave Peaches directions by phone and headed out to meet up. On the way to meet him, my GPS hiccuped and sent us South on Old Pearl Road instead of North. We passed a cruiser with a couple on it and they were trying so hard to wave at us that he almost crossed the yellow line. We turned around and headed back north to find Peaches waiting for us at the previous intersection. He told us on his way down he passed where the same cruiser had lost it in a corner and hit the ditch. Vol. firefighters and Simpson deputies were already on scene. As we sat and talked the deputies returned and informed us that there had been calls of motorcycles flying up and down the road and scaring the residents. We assured him we had just arrived. He didn't notice we weren't on sport bikes.
3) ...Peaches decided to ride his DRZ down the bank of the Pearl river and turn around on the sand pile on the lower bank. Ends up the bank and sand were hiding a slick layer of mud...
So it slid this way:

And that way:

Finally a few of us had to slide down there and help walk it back up...
All in all, a fun ride!!! Thanks Eeore!!


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Nice ride report BW , you need a back tire .
I evidently went riding in the wrong place today . Got my first dog bite attack in my buds driveway. Heh, he evidently doesn't like cop bikes. Sorry bastid. An ex-cop Malinwa , POS drug dog . I hate that *(^&*^&*^#*&#&*^#*^#&(&(# . good thing I wasn't wearing shorts. :huh That was just a nip through my winter weights . Stupid hound started drooling and going berserk , thought I would have to drop it in it's tracks. Weird thing is that I go over there all the time on my KLR. :huh Ok, rant over, let's get back to riding.

The bike may have some stash left on it? Duh

Highlights of the trip included...

1) ...those of us on 650's not realizing the disadvantage we had following a 230 around on gravel.
This made my day! I laughed out loud! Glad no one was hurt, too.
I take this line as a compliment for the Lil' 230.
Thanks
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You're kidding, right ?

Hey MSRIDER, is your friends name Ben?