So, I guess I've skipped a step here in introducing myself. I live in Annapolis MD and have been riding pretty much all my life starting out on mini-bikes and go-carts in the mid-70's. I raced in WERA for a few years around the late 70's and then dropped out of sight in the mid-80's to raise a family. These last several years, I've scratched my itch for long distance travel on a BMW K1600GT that I've recently swapped for an R1200GS. One of my two main interests in riding now is adventure riding. I did the Trans America Trail last year on a KLR 650 and this year we're riding from Georgia to Maine mostly off the pavement up the Appalachian mountains and I'll be taking the GS this year. The other big interest is getting back out to the track, not competitively but just for fun. I've been through the California Superbike School at VIR, Barber, and NJMP the last being a repeat level 4 offender. I had a '13 S1000RR for my track day fun until I wadded that up a couple of months ago in a low-side that turned into a pretty energetic tumbling agricultural event.
I've spent the last couple of months thinking about how many "R's" I need in my sport bike and determined that since about 90% of my riding is on the street with less than a half-dozen track days a year, that one "R" will do. So I eliminated the '16 S1000RR (still think it's the most amazing track day weapon available to the public), and the other RR bikes (R1, ZX10, RSV4, 1299) and focused on naked sport bikes. I rode the new Ducati Monster 1200R, BMW S1000R, and the KTM SD1200R. I wanted to demo the Speed Triple R, a bike that kinda fell in love with at first sight, but couldn't find a Triumph dealer within range that would let me demo it ( or even a standard Speed Triple for that matter). I really didn't matter after I rode the 1290R. So tonight I'm having delivered to my door a 2016 black 1290R freshly sprung from it's shipping crate. I missed out on the '15 Akrapovic incentive but I'm getting that and other parts thrown in the deal at 15% - 18% off list.
I'm looking forward to tapping in to the collective mind here on mods and my initial interests are some luggage good for running around town and day trips, possibly the rear sets, a tail tidy, and eventually, adding a fuse block to power my heated clothes, GPS, and electric tank bag.
Giddy up!
