She is quite a different style of bike from what I've been riding back home. The "sport tourer" class of bikes are supposed to be quite fun to ride, and comfy, too. She did represent her class quite well. She handles the corners a bit better than my bike due to the fact that she can be leaned farther without scraping bits on the tarmac. My only complaint about this bike is that it was a bit tall for my liking. She's a beast of a bike to handle when one can only touch the ground with their toes. Indeed, she's also a bit top heavy compared to my bike, so, that added more challenge maneuvering at very low speeds and keeping her balanced just right.
I met up with one of the guys from work, Craig, at 8am right at the office, because it was convenient for both of us. We hit the Pacific Motorway (the locals call it the Southeast Freeway) for about 50 kilometers or so, and then made our way through some nice twisties through the mountains. There was a point at which my ears popped, and I hadn't realized we'd gained sufficient elevation for that, however, we soon came across an overlook and the evidence was before me.
The mountains here remind me very much of the ones in north Georgia. The only marked difference is that the trees and such are different. Also, some of the roads on the route were EXTREMELY narrow. It would have been a tight fit for 2 cars to pass one another on some of them. Luckily, being on bikes mitigated that problem for us.
We stopped for a light breakfast (with bacon, sausage, eggs, tomatoes and toast - yeah, really light) at a little cafe overlooking Hinze (the "in" is pronounced like the word "in") dam.
About ten minutes after those shots were taken, the sky opened up on us. This forced us to cut our planned trip short, since there was no way we were going to continue in the twisty bits while the roads were really wet. The worst thing was the fact that the seat on the Bimmer had sheepskin surfaces! There's nothing quite like a case of wet-butt. We had planned to get to the border of New South Wales, and so, I think I'm going to have to make that ride again in the winter because I've been told that the mountain at the border has quite the view.
