Classic Velocity

Spring is open house season, and it seems that every shop within several hundred miles is offering some kind of spring open house event. Hermes is a great shop, and they make a decent barbecue at their open houses, so second only to a tech session, the magnetic draw of the spring open house was too much to resist. It just so happened that I also needed a few quarts of oil, so that was more than enough excuse for the round trip. It was a nice event, and I was even surprised to see another Dakar show up. Nice low mileage bike, with some custom paintwork. I had a good conversation with the owner, and we exchanged some contact info. Some nice BMWs and triumphs showed up at the dealership deals in both. They were mostly new bikes, but still fun to walk around and look at and talk about what else some of the owners had in the garage. One barbeque chicken sandwich later, I hit the road for the return leg…