About a year ago, I bought a motorcycle after a 33-year break in riding.  It’s a smaller (Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 cc) bike for cruising around town.  I love it.

The urge to buy a bike was recharged annually when we would ride over to the mountains for our fall vacation and I would always see folks on their touring bikes along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I wanted to take those same rides.

Well, the Royal Enfield just isn’t big enough for that, both in terms of power and storage capacity.  So, I narrowed my search for my next bike to a Kawasaki Versys 1000 or a Suzuki GSX R1000 GT, both of which are sports tourers, meaning they are sports bikes set up for touring.  After several months of deliberation and watching way too many reviews on YouTube, I finally decided to go with the Kawasaki.

I bought it in north Florida and drove it back to North Carolina the week after Thanksgiving.  It was in the upper 20s during the last hour of the ride.  Brr.

So, now it’s here and it’s time to customize it and set it up for trips over to the North Carolina mountains!