Sunday, May 31, 2009

Monderosa Ride

A group from Bethel Church rode to the Monderosa Bar & Grill located about 5 miles this side of Nenana for lunch. They have some of the best burgers in the state plus, it just seemed like a great idea. There was just a touch of drizzle on the way back but other than that the weather cooperated. It was a good opportunity to meet others from the church. Kind of funny to have a "church activity" with the destination being a bar but why not. The burgers were great. The RT handled great and for the first time, I had it over 55 mph since most of the secondary roads I normally ride on have speed limits of 50 or less. Once over 60, you can actually use 5th gear. I've also never ridden as part of a group before so that took a little bit to get used to. It was easy for me to leave plenty of distance to the person in front of me but I don't have any control over the person behind me. You pretty much need to pick a side of the lane and kind of stick to it. Normally, I tend to use most of the lane in the curves so this was different and I always had to think about it. The speed out averaged about 60 but someone else led on the way back and the speed seemed quite a bit faster. The speedometer on the bike is optimistic compared to the gps. The placement of the unit worked well. I don't feel at all tempted to try and push the buttons or even look at the screen for much more than speed. There is a screen which shows a map, speed and direction and that seems to be perfect for me. This is a snapshot of the group getting ready to leave the Monderosa and, as you can tell, it wasn't a clear sunny day. At this point, about a third of the group needed to head into Nenana for gas and, I was surprised to learn, some of the cruisers have very small gas tanks and need to fill up every 100 miles or so. I guess I shouldn't complain about having to fill up every 240 miles. It was a pretty cool trip and I'm glad someone organized it. They even had t-shirts made up!

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