Warm Winter Ride in SC

When I first woke up this morning, I was not really sure if I was going to ride or not. I had a lot of chores to do around the house and the weather was not looking great. I got started working the basement (painting, dusting, cleaning, etc.) when the skies decided to open up!

I was at a great stopping point (I was almost done anyway) so I broke for lunch, took the dogs out, and got the Triumph Tiger 1200 out for a ride. Instead of a 50s cloudy day, it was now sunny and 62! I left the house just after 12 noon and headed towards Lancaster, SC. I had a new loop I wanted to try out before taking anyone else on this ride.

So to be safe, I decided to try out the ride at least ONCE before taking someone else! It was a perfect day to ride. Traffic was very light and since I was taking the "less traveled" roads, the traffic was non-existent in many places.

One thing I do like with these mystery routes is you never know what you may encounter. Today the scenery was typical. Farms with their vast fields and a lot of forests that had been recently logged. This is becoming a more familiar view than I prefer but its not my land. The roads can also be quite a challenge as well. With all the recent rain, I got to one spot and started to notice that it is getting quite swampy on the sides of the road. There was water everywhere. When I rounded one corner, the water was still over most of the road (but only an inch or so).

Drove through it and continued on. The surface of many back roads can also be fun as well. One road I was on had a lot of grooving. As you rode, the bike just had a mind of its own. I did not fight it but let the bike find its own path (although it was not as much fun in the turns). The roads can also be quite bumpy as paving these long stretches of mostly unused roads does not seem to be high on the list for repair for SCDOT.

As I was nearing the end point, I was on a slightly bumpy stretch of road following a huge patch of woods that had been logged fairly recently. I was kicking along around 65mph when a deer just appeared out of nowhere.

It appeared in my line of sight so fast, I did not even have time to hit the brakes. In the video you can see I actually slowed down AFTER the deer. Needless to say, both the deer and myself were unscathed...well, I do not think my shorts were so lucky!

After that near miss, I landed in Lancaster and opted to stop by Frogs Bar & Grill for a quick beer (to calm the nerves).

There were a number of other bikers there taking advantage of the nice day as well. Spoke to one person about bikes before I left and headed back for home.