Chain Gang ride on the XT ;)

Back before the Beemer’s intake manifold shit itself, I had signed up to lead a Chain Gang ride this past weekend. I figured, heck, I might as well still lead the ride, but on the white XT, to give the Seattle mods a nice trial run.

It wound up being a really fun ride, about 150 miles for me, with five of us total. Cole (i_yeti on the boards) rode all the way down from San Francisco, only to have to turn around and go back when he realized that a nail/bolt/rock had wedged between the tire and swingarm and tore the hell out of his brand new tire.

I didn’t take many photos on this ride — it’s tricky to do so while leading. I find it generally much easier to ride sweep and snap pics of people while they’re riding; it’s hard to take pictures and lead the ride and keep an eye on the mirrors for the riders behind you and watch the map/GPS and etc. 😉 So, not many pics.

Chitactac-Adam County Park:

The XT doesn’t look half bad snuggled in amongst the F650GSs. 😉

Here are Carlos (blackwell) and Payton (St. Joe) coming up Mt Madonna Road:

The XT posing on Mt Madonna Road:

A nice swoopy section of Glenwood Dr:

All in all, it was a really fun ride. I think it was the first ride I’ve ever led that didn’t send me into paroxysms of anxious hysteria. I actually felt pretty comfortable.

The XT performed flawlessly. The windscreen, ugly as it is, worked really well on both the short freeway sections and on the slower technical bits. I bonked the chinbar of my helmet on the top of the screen once while standing on the pegs on a dirt section, but quickly figured out where to stand to avoid that. 😉

I’m really psyched for the ride up to Seattle now that I know the bike is ready. Only 2.5 more weeks!