/r/snakes was surprisingly active given our fairly niche position in the greater pet community.

28 is amazing, and usually less populated than the Dragon. The Cherohala Skyway is also stunning, and makes an excellent loop with 129 and a couple of other great roads. Hard to go wrong out there.

I rode the BRP+Skyline Drive from Cherokee to DC at the beginning of May, and other than getting caught in a freak snowstorm my second day, it was one of my favorite rides I’ve ever done. It’s easy to get into a kind of zen flow when you’re the only one on a road like that.

I’ve owned four VFRs in my life, the last of which was a 2007 Anniversary edition that I bought in 2015 and sold to one of my best friends to fund a trip. He’s made a standing offer to sell it back to me and I’m having a very hard time not doing it. I still maintain the VFR is one of the best all-around street bikes ever produced, especially if you sort the suspension.

Hard to have a bad time out there as long as you stay upright. I live about three hours away and if I want to kill a weekend, I’ll ride out, camp at the motorcycle resort, and spend it getting lost on the back roads.

Wages haven’t kept up with increases in CoL for years, and the pandemic skyrocketed the latter while barely budging the former.

I was seriously considering a move from Nashville to Minneapolis last year, but after a lot of soul searching about it, I realized that the length of winter there would mean giving up most of my favorite hobbies, especially motorcycles, for a substantial portion of the year, and I’m not willing to do that.

So far wefwef has been my favorite. It’s a web app and has to be downloaded through Safari or Chrome, but it was made by the developer of Apollo and is very similar the overall experience of using that. Liftoff is a close second.

A gentleman, a scholar, and an all-around good person.

Conde Nast has owned Reddit in some part since at least 2012. They’ve tended to stay pretty hands off with it though.

That era ended when they fired Victoria.

If I’d known that Kawasaki made a black and gold Z900RS with a racing-style quarter fairing straight from the factory, I’d very likely have bought one instead of my Aprilia. The couple hundred $ it costs over the Ducati will be made up for by maintenance costs within the first year of ownership unless you’re willing to do the cam belts and Desmo valve adjustment on the Ducati yourself (hint: it’s a pain in the ass). They’re both going to be fun and look great, albeit with very different characters; it really comes down to whether the Ducati’s inherently Italian cost of ownership is worth it to you.

Is motorcycling inherently more dangerous than driving? Yes. Can much of that danger be mitigated with education, technique, and awareness? Also yes. The single best use of your time in learning to ride would be taking an MSF course; you can learn most of the techniques they teach on your own in a parking lot, but the instruction in mindset and awareness is entirely worth it. I’ve been riding for 12 years and the lessons taught in my initial class still pop into my mind every time I get on a bike. Hyper-awareness of other drivers and road conditions is the best thing you can learn; I’ve been in three accidents in my life, two of which were caused by drivers pulling out in front of me, the third due to sand on the road surface that was invisible until I was sliding through it. In each case, proper gear and a full-face helmet saved me from major injuries.

RiF is dead, and so is the vast majority of my Reddit participation.