Finally put some miles down today and got out of Florida to get the road trip well and truly underway. I travelled 450km (281mi) all on Fwys - dead boring, but easy to chew up the miles averaging about 90mph. It was nice to leave the heat and stickiness of Florida behind, but not by riding for 3 hours in the rain! The clouds were dark and low the most of the way with tough cross winds. I had to cross an enormous bridge (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dames_Point_Bridgeossed) that is about 200ft high. The wind was absolutely howling and keeping the bike in just my lane definitely required some gritting of teeth and white knuckle riding. I had to stop twice under bridges to let rain storms pass, but despite all the rain, I stayed relatively dry – but by the time I arrived a hot shower was well needed. The temperature has dropped a lot and was only about 17’deg compared to Florida’s 30+’deg. Tomorrow I am heading even further North and I am a little worried I don’t have enough warm clothes. I have found some fantastic roads that go up through some low mountains at about 5-6000’ft. The weather is forecasting to be nice and warmer for the next week, but I’m sure it will be a little cold. It will be good chance to wear the full leathers without sweating my nuts off. I think I will try an buy a neck warmer. Also I have spotted a big Air Force base that has a public road at the end of the runway. So am going to slightly detour towards it and hopefully see some jets. Tomorrow I am going to split the ride up between Fwy roads and some nice twisty stuff... really looking forward to leaning the bike over and having some fun.
