2009 Multi-day Bike Trip is Underway!

Our 2009 motorcycle trip is underway! On Friday August 21st, Bill rode north to Milwaukee to see the famous Serial Number One at the Harley Davidson Museum. Bill took the awesome Back Roads Tour which took him to see the archives behinds the scenes. There were racks and Racks of bikes stacked to the ceiling! A must see for anyone visiting the museum! The ride was good. The temperature was about 60 degrees the whole way which was really nice. It rained nearly the entire way back to Illinois which gave Bill the opportunity to check his rain gear for leaks!

The next day, Brad rode through Utah and Wyoming stopping in Sydney, Nebraska. He arrived at Bill’s house after riding through Nebraska and Iowa on his second day. Brad stayed at Bill’s house one night and got on the road the next morning heading to New York to visit family. Bill works until Thursday and will meet Brad in New York.

He is a picture of Bill's friends, Darren and Mike, putting on their rain suits on the way back from Milwaukee.

2007 Sturgis and the decision to make plans to go no where.

In 2007 we organized a ride to Sturgis, South Dakota. Kevin, Brad, Jim and Bill (pictured left to right) started at points from Virginia to California and rode into Sturgis together. Bill started in Illinois and ended up riding to where the corners of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah met at the Four Corners Monument before finding his way north to Utah where he met up with Brad and Kevin.

We camped out on the hard, hot, alfalfa hillside at the Buffalo Chip Camp Ground. We attended the concerts each night and woke early enough to enjoy breakfast and go on some awesome daily rides before the summer sun baked the streets and the majority of the other rally-goers woke. We enjoyed riding to Deadwood, the Black Hills National Forest, Mt Rushmore, Custer, and the Crazy Horse Monument. We had a great time exchanging stories and seeing the Black Hills first hand along with the enormous crowds the Sturgis Rally draws.

Near the end of the rally the four of us split up and headed home. Bill never seems to make definite route selections. When asked how he was going to go home he would reply that he’ll follow some small road that headed east. He’d decide where to go at each intersection. Brad and Bill left the campground together heading south. Brad ultimately had to go to Utah and Bill to Illinois. They ended up on route 18 at Edgemont. Bill’s bike lost power and would not accelerate. While tooling around in Edgemont, the bike sputtered and coughed some black smoke out of the exhaust. This gave her a second wind. It must have had some bad fuel from somewhere because this never happened again (knocking on wood). They followed the back roads south and ended up in Laramie, Wyoming. The ride from Sturgis to Laramie was relaxing because we simply headed south without regard for the actual route. We knew that we’d find Interstate 80 at some point, which we did at Laramie. We realized how relaxing it was to be able to enjoy the scenery and stop to explore without being tied to a schedule. It was at Laramie were we decided to plan a ride to nowhere instead of rides to crowded motorcycle rallies. The 2008 trip around Lake Michigan was successful for us so here we are planning to ride east toward New Brunswick for 2009!