Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. It was 78 degrees and sunny, slightly windy, but not overly so, and a perfect day for riding motorcycles. We only had 80 miles left until the Tigers were due for their first oil change, so we rode over to a neighboring town to eat lunch at our favorite pizza place and went down by the Ohio River to snap a few quick photos.

On the way back we took the long way home and went looking for some county roads that were in disrepair so that we could see how the Tigers’ suspension would feel on rough roads. Whereas our Yamaha’s would feel and sound as though they were going to fall apart on those roads, the Tigers felt smooth and capable, and MUCH more enjoyable to ride on these roads. We both kept exclaiming that we wished we had had the Tiger’s on our trip to the Northeast last year because the roads were very rough and exhausting on our Yamaha’s in New Hampshire and Maine. I’m not trying to put the Yamaha’s down, mind you, they were fantastic bikes, they just aren’t made to withstand endless frost heaves and potholes.

When we returned from our 80 miles of fun, we pulled the bikes into the garage and changed the oil right away. It could not be any easier to change the oil on these bikes, everything is easily accessible and they take an even 4 quarts of oil. We used Castrol full synthetic 10w-40 oil, simply because that is what Triumph recommends. We found it on Amazon Prime for much cheaper than we could get it from stores or dealers around here, so yay for that!

After changing the oil we went for another quick ride, and Dwayne took our 1988 Honda NT650 HawkGT for a spin. Had it not been for the fact that the sun was going down and we still had some things we needed to do at the house, I would have loved to have ridden all night, since this is the first night that it has stayed in the 70’s even after the sun went down. I’m hopeful that we will be able to ride more tomorrow, though the local news channels are reporting chances for 40mph wind gusts, so we will have to wait and see what happens.