Jonathan Smith is a web designer, graphic designer, and photographer in Harrisburg, PA.

I’m four weeks away from my motorcycle trip to the Thumper Thaw. The trip will be about 600 miles on the BMW F650GS. The trip should be a lot of fun since I’ll be riding with two friends. But I have the urge to switch to a different bike. I promise to wait until after this North Carolina trip though.

The BMW F650GS is a great bike. I love it. It’s light, easy to handle, and great on fuel economy. It’s also fun to ride on forestry roads. The reason why I am contemplating changing bikes is that I rarely get to enjoy the forestry roads without a one hour highway ride just to get there. And even then, I know where the roads go so there is no excitement in getting to the end. If I were to do any two-up riding, the F650GS would definitely not be my choice either.

For those reasons I’m considering a BMW R1100S similar to the photo below.

Finally I would own a BMW boxer. The 1100 wold give me plenty of power to do 2-up riding and eat up the highway with no problem. All of my commuting is highway anyways so this should fit nicely. And the shaft drive means no worrying about adjusting the chain. For longer trips, this bike would provide much more comfort than the single-cylinder F650GS. Now if I can only find one for sale. Before I make up my mind I need to take one for an extensive ride. And find a buyer for my current bike.

My first motorcycle trip of the year will be to the Great Smoky Mountain Thumper Thaw which will be held in Cruso, North Carolina from April 23rd to April 26th, 2009. It will be a fun time camping at the Blue Ridge Motorcycle Campground and finally give me a chance to ride the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s currently 21 degrees outside and mind is racing of thoughts of riding around the Smoky Mountains with a bunch of other inmates from f650.com. I’m choosing to stay in a cabin for the simple fact that the weather can still get mighty chilly at night and the elevation will play into the nighttime temperatures as well. Plus I’ll lighten up the bike a bit by not having to strap on the tent. Spring can’t come soon enough!

My friend Daneen asked earlier in the week if I would be up for a ride on Saturday. She has new knobbies on her BMW F650GS and wanted to test them out. I decided that we could ride out to Swatara State Park and ride along the Swatara Creek. The ride on I81 was boring as usual. But once we got to Old State Road the ride was beautiful. The leaves on the trees were perfect and the weather was warm.

We briefly stopped to disable our ABS and headed down the road. To my surprise there was a gate open on a road that headed off towards the Creek. It wasn’t really a road though. It was the width of a road but it was nothing but leaves. Which meant extra precaution because you can’t see what’s under the leaves and the leaves are slippery. This path led us along some sort of pipeline as we went up and down several hills until we came out at the Swatara Creek. We stopped to shed some of our gear (it was getting how because we were unable to go fast) and walk down to the creek. The road went through the creek and up the other side. It wasn’t deep. But the rocks are covered in algae and the water would be dangerously cold if one of us were to drop our bikes in the creek.

We backtracked a ways and turned left on another path that headed out towards the road. This brought us to a gate but we were able to ride around it and continue onto Old State Road. We road to the end and turned around. Damn these bikes are fun! Coming back towards the Appalachian Trail I practiced my wheelie routine since I wasn’t really on a public road. Just got the front end up a few inches and I shared my technique with Daneen who decided she didn’t want to try it (even though her other bike is a BMW K1200R).

I let Daneen lead the way back to Harrisburg, PA. We took 443 (Fishing Creek Road) through Fort Indiantown Gap which was the perfect scenic route to end the day of riding. It’s not time to put the bike away yet!