Hello gentlemen. I don't post often, but I do read these forums regularly. Today I've decided to give you guys my impressions of touring the east coast on my 2013 C5 Classic.
I bought the bike last February after years of pining for one. My first order of business was to break the motor in. I had intentions of riding it to Savannah Georgia for St. Patrick's Day and only had a few weeks to knock out 600 miles. Now I don't know how familiar you guys are with winter in Philadelphia, but it isn't exactly the best riding weather. But the bike handled the cold and the pot holes with relative easy. I quickly fell in love with the torquey little 500 cruising around the city. I did my first oil change the night before we left for Savannah. Between the cold and the rain, ice, rain pattern we had here last winter, trying to knock 600 miles off was a real challenge. I'm honestly surprised I hit 300 miles in the first month I owned the bike, but that last day I took a long trip around the city in the pouring rain to get to the 300 mark.
The next 300 or my initial break in were achieved on the first leg of our 700 mile trip. The guys I ride with were all kinda pissy about me needing to stay under 50mph for the first 300 miles, but they dealt with it. There was a 890(?)cc Triumph Boneville, a 70's Suzuki gs750, a '74 Honda CB 750, and a '05 Honda Shadow. Needless to say, I was riding the pace car.
We left on March 15th at about 6:00pm. It was 26 degrees. I remember because we made a pit stop after about 50 miles so everyone could warm up. Two of the guys we were with had never done a bike trip like this before, and are both fair weather riders, so they had a field day bitching about the cold. My Enfield held up nicely though that first night. We rode back roads and RT1 through to Washington DC before the cold finally took over and forced us to stop for the evening.
The next morning we continued down route one until about lunch time, when I finally hit the 600 mile mark, from there we crossed over to the highway and gunned it down I-95 the rest of the way to Savannah. Sometime on the highway my stock exhaust broke at the muffler, where the muffler meets the header pipe. Other than changing the exhaust note (and pissing me off) it didn't effect much . The bike cruised at 70~ mph the rest of the way down and we pulled into the hotel in Savannah incident free at around 8:00pm on March 16th.
We left Savannah on the 18th at about 11:00a.m. and cruised RT17 up the coast with a few detours to hit some choice southern coast line MC roads. The weather down there was beautiful and we got some really decent riding in, stopping in Kitty Hawk NC for the night as we road up the Outer Banks. We slept on the beach behind a sea side restaurant under the stars.
On the 19th we woke up to cloudy skies, fog, and colder weather. The weather only got worse as we drove north, plummeting about 20 degress as we crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and eventually ending in snow about 35 miles south of the VA/MD boarder. We ended up calling a friend to come get us with his trailer and pickup and finishing the last leg of the ride towing our bikes. Luckily we were only 5 hours from home at that point.
My bike was in the shop a few days later getting the exhaust fixed. I was already planning my next trip. A ride out to Wichita Kansas to visit and old friend. I planned to leave a few days after my birthday in May. I was gonna drive Rt30 and then Rt40 the whole way.
The Wichita trip went off without a hitch, though no one ever told me how bad the wind in Kansas really is. It took me 4 days to get there through some pretty scenic country. It seems like every time I stopped for fuel or food, I spent 30 minutes talking about my bike. Considering this was a solo ride, I had plenty of time to talk.
On the way back from Wichita I decided I was just going to power home on the highway. I had inclinations to earn my Iron Butt badge, but alas, my C5 had other plans. I made it about as far as Columbia Missouri when my bike died at a brisk 70mph as I cruised on I-70 back toward PA. With a little cussing and a few cigarettes worth of panicking, I finally figured out that my negative battery lead had broken inside the rubber boot. A nice Missouri State Trooper (a vintage bike enthusiast himself) gave me a ride to a true value where I purchased an eye hook and a pair of strippers and crimps and I only lost 5 hours of ride time in the process. The rest of the trip was incident free. Even earning me a few free beers at a biker bar in WV because everyone there though I was insane to be riding a 500cc single all over the country like an asshat.
After that trip I just rode the bike as a daily driver and enjoyed one of the best summers we had seen in a while for riding. Some may call it a drought, I call it "riding dry". I took a few day trips to Chesapeake City and to Baltimore, DC and New York, but no long trips again. Somewhere in there, one of the header bolts to my exhaust busted, my seat cover was peeling off, and the decal on the gas tank was peeling, so the bike took another trip to the dealership for some warranty TLC. I remember when I picked it, the mechanic was amazed that I had put over 5,000 miles on the bike already.
My next trip was for Biketoberfest in Daytona Beach FL. Me and my buddy with the Boneville decided to take the ride down for the long weekend. We left on a beautiful Tuesday morning and picked up RT13 in DE. We road RT13 to RT17 to RT64 to RT113 where we stopped for the night at South of the Boarder at about midnight. The next morning we took RT113 back to RT 17 and road that all the way through to FL where we picked up the A1A and road that all the way into Daytona. By the time we got there my exhaust had broken AGAIN where the muffler meets the header pipe and I had lost a lock for my airfilter tool box. I pissed mostly because the duct tape was gonna detract from the overall beauty of the bike.
It didn't. That Boneville and my Bullet got more stairs and attention then any of those identical "hogs" they were parked with. On the last day of the tip though, tragedy stuck. Me and Zak (my buddy on the Triumph) where riding staggered, going north up the A1A when he was rear ended by some douche on a cell phone. He was hurt pretty bad. They rushed him to an ICU in Orlando, where he was in a coma for the next 30 days. His bike was totaled and he still isn't back at work. He's going to therapy to learn had to do, well, everything again.
With the accident, I needed to find a place to stay in FL. I knew a friend of ours had recently moved there, so I called him and found out where he lived. He was happy to put me up. So a day after the accident, I road from Orlando to North Port FL (about 30 minutes south of Sarasota). I stayed there for about a week before the stat troopers would let me leave the state. I was a witness in a near fatal car accident and they needed to take my statement twice a day, every day, for a week.
When I finally left Joe's house, I road straight through to PA. It took me 22 hours. If I had documented it, I would have earned my Iron Butt badge right there.
Since I've been home, I've ridden as much as possible. I ditched the stock exhaust for the EFI silencer on NFieldGear.com. And I switched out the toolbox locks for the thumb screw replacements from there as well. This winter has been terrible weather wise and I unfortunately haven't gotten to ride much since late November. Though I am already planning my second trip out to run the Dragon's Tail, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Skyline Drive this spring. I've done that trip once before on my jockey Honda, but I think the nimble little Enfield will be a blast to do that ride on.
Well I hope you guys enjoy my story. I know it's long, but I really thought you guys would like to hear the tails of touring on a 500cc Royal Enfield 500 Bullet Classic.
Topic: One year and 8,000 miles in on a C5 classic (Read 7795 times)