International Motorcycle Show, PHOENIX, AZ

[SilverBullet]

I will be heading to the Progressive International Motorcycle Show in January 25 in Glendale. We will be leaving the Prescott area between 9:00 & 9:30 when one of the guys gets off work. If interested in joining our riding group, message me.

http://www.universityofphoenixstadium.com/events/view/id/237/date/697

 

[mkitchen]

I plan on going too

Are you going by bike or car? I get off work Friday afternoon and may go down then or Saturday morning, but I am interested in meeting up with some folks.
Mikey

 

[SilverBullet]

The plan is to ride my Concours probably down 17. If weather stinks, I may drive the truck and just take the gear for demo rides.

 

[mkitchen]

I will look for ya!

Doesn't sound like we can meet up on the way but I will send you a PM with my phone # so that maybe we can meet up while we are down there. I am thinking of going down on Friday and staying at my daughter's place in Mesa and riding over from there. I have a two day pass for Mo and I. I am just getting back into riding and I didn't really have much experience before. I took a MSA class, got my license and bought a touring bike a year later (Yamaha Venture). My knee went out and I thought that my riding was over so I sold the bike (it is touring around Europe and I am still unhappily working in AZ). My knee has since gotten better so I bought a Victory CC Tour. I would love to see your Concours, they are a very nice looking travelling bike. Maybe we can do some riding together some day as well.
I am hoping to check out some dual sports while there and also look at some riding togs. I would like to find something lighter than leather but it would have to be in a size that fits me, I am 6'7" and haven't missed too many meals.
Hope to see you there.
Mikey

 

[SilverBullet]

Doesn't sound like we can meet up on the way but I will send you a PM with my phone # so that maybe we can meet up while we are down there. I am thinking of going down on Friday and staying at my daughter's place in Mesa and riding over from there. I have a two day pass for me and Mo. I am just getting back into riding and I didn't really have much experience before. I took a MSA class, got my license and bought a touring bike a year later (Yamaha Venture). My knee went out and I thought that my riding was over so I sold the bike (it is touring around Europe and I am still unhappily working in AZ). My knee has since gotten better so I bought a Victory CC Tour. I would love to see your Concours, they are a very nice looking travelling bike. Maybe we can do some riding together some day as well.
I am hoping to check out some dual sports out while there and also look at some riding togs. I would like to find something lighter than leather but I would have to be in a size that fits me, I am 6'7" and haven't missed too many meals.
Hope to see you there.
Mikey

Mike, sounds great. I work Saturday morning, so I won't be down there until around 10:30 is my guess. I will keep your PM and give you a shout. So far it looks like 2 of us, myself and Rexsname (Rex).

 

[Ozrockrat]

Make a weekend of it. Open house about 5 miles from Stadium Sat night.

We are having an open house Sat night about 5 miles from the show. Camping space available.

Australia Day Open House

 

[SilverBullet]

Okay, due to work schedules, we changed dates. We will be going Sunday now instead, sorry if anyone was planning on meeting us.

 

[mkitchen]

Show review

Well Mo and I rode down to Phoenix for the show (we have a Victory bagger). The ride down and back was great and we couldn't have asked for better weather. I bought a two day ticket so we would have plenty of time to see everything but a half day was plenty of time for us. We were basically looking for some kind of dual sport that Mo could comfortably ride and be able to put a foot down when needed. She has so far only ridden her Vespa and I didn't want to put her on something that would intimidate her.

With that in mind we hit the show and right off we saw a DR 650 Suzuki that was dropped with factory parts and had a factory low seat. This bike was low enough that she could be comfortable on it. That was good to know. We also looked at the BMWs (how could we not look?) and as I suspected, the F700 GS fit her fine as well. I already have the 1200 GSA in my sights. Buying two BMWs though would be costly and since we don't have any experience on off road motorbike use, I think that we are going to go with the Suzuki for her and I will go with the KLR for me. The KLR has a bigger cockpit (I guess that is what you would call the rider area?) and I am not scrunched up on it as I am on the Suzuki.

If we find that these bikes are as much fun as we hope, then we may up grade to the BMWs. Who knows we may be perfectly happy with the thumpers. Or we may find that camping off the back of a bike is more than we want to do anymore. We both have bicycle toured for many years and only quit when we both got stuck on CPAP breathing machines. I believe that I can set up a charging system to charge the battery for a CPAP while driving the motorbike.

It was also neat to see just what is out there as far as gear for dual sport travel. There is some very nice technical clothing as well as helmets that seem like thay would be cool during the warmer months in Arizona. I think that we had as much fun just cruising through the parking lot. There was everything there from custom street cruisers to some very well travelled dual sports and just about everything in between. Not sure that I would go again but it was very enlightening for novices such as ourselves and the folks running the displays were very patient with our ignorant questions.

So we are slowly learning and hope to be out on two wheels in the near future.
Till then
Mikey