Category Archives: Motorcycles
On the Road Again
Ralph and I took our first long ride of the season on Wednesday. We followed MN 47 north to the family cabin near Aitkin. It was a beautiful, picture-perfect Minnesota day, the kind we live for all winter. The sun shone down benevolently from a deep blue sky. The temperature was a motorcycle-friendly 65 degrees when we left Minneapolis in the morning and in the mid-70s when we returned that evening.
One of the things I like about riding a motorcycle is that you become part of the landscape. The corn, which has started to tassel out, seems much closer than it does when you’re riding in a car. You can see lakes and small ponds that aren’t visible from the cab of a truck. As the day heats up, you can smell the water, new-mown hay, the spicy-woody scent of birch trees and the heady aroma of pine.
You see more wildlife, too. As we neared Isle, I spied a deer happily chowing down on some woman’s flowers. I bet she was thrilled. On the way home I counted one deer, three Canadian geese and two herons.
I describe Minnesota Hwy. 47 in full in my book, Ride Minnesota. We have at least three months of good riding weather ahead of us yet. Get a copy and explore!
How’s Your Riding Season?
That’s a question posed by Donnie Smith today on Facebook. Although the weather has been great, our riding season has not been so terrific. My husband has been ill most of the summer. Although he’s been able to ride his Victory to work about once a week, it’s spent a lot more time in the garage than we had originally planned.
On Sunday, we skipped church to take a ride out around Lake Minnetonka. It’s the first time I”ve spent more than 15 minutes on the bike this year. I definitely don’t have my riding muscles in shape! It was good to get out into the country and measure the progress of the corn and soybean fields (despite growing up in Northeast Minneapolis, I’m a farmer at heart), to sniff the fresh lake breezes and feel the sun on our faces. The sweet scent of red clover hovered along the roadways. It was glorious!
Heavy rains have kept the big boats off of Minnetonka. It seemed odd to see a just a few fishing and sailboats out on the lake. The big cruisers are all parked at the dock, waiting for a day when the water level goes down enough so they can go fast and leave a wake.
There’s still a lot of the riding season left. As summer progresses into fall, we’ll try to put more miles on the motorcycle, discovering new places to ride.
Harley-Davidson in Blaine called to re-order Ride Minnesota. Get your copy while the riding is good!
Good Riding Weather
Benefit ride for the St. Cloud Children’s Home
Now that the June monsoon has ended, the weather has been absolutely perfect for hopping on a motorcycle and cruising to no particular destination whatsoever. Whether you travel in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Dakotas, the Midwest offers some really nice rides.
The Fourth of July is a great time to celebrate freedom on a bike. Traffic will be heavier, though, as Minnesota lakeshore property owners make one of their three mandatory trips to the cabin (Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day). Be on the lookout for people who may not be looking out for you. Stay safe, and have a great Independence Day!
I hate my helmet
I’m not very fond of my DOT-approved motorcycle helmet. It’s heavy, the foam padding is scratchy, and sometimes the visor makes me feel like I’m in a cage. Yet, even though Minnesota law requires helmets only for people 17 years old or younger, I still wear it.
I was discussing motorcycling with my eye doctor (he’s an avid biker) during my last visit to his office. He asked if I wore a helmet and I said yes. He nodded his head. “Me, too,” he said. “After all it’s your brain!”
There was an excellent commentary by Darrell Brandt in the Minneapolis Star Tribune last week about wearing helmet while riding. There’s a saying among bikers: “If you haven’t dumped your motorcycle, you will. It’s just a matter of time”. Brandt argues that the same is true for needing helmets, and I’d have to agree.
We’ve had to drop our Victory a couple of times in our journeys around Minnesota and Canada. One time I ended up on my back with my head resting on the pavement. Thank goodnesss for that heavy, scratchy helmet!
The photo in this post shows Ralph’s helmet and jacket after an “up close and personal” encounter with the concrete on I-35 in downtown Minneapolis. He was only doing 35 mph at the time.
Stay safe!
Get Your Motor Runnin’
Sunset, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Steppenwolf”s “Born to be Wild” is running through my head this morning. An article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune this morning reported a new event in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, that townspeople hope will become an annual event: “Dennis Hopper Day.”
What a change from the ’70s, when “Easy Rider” was a cult hit and Hopper and Peter Fonda played misunderstood, pot-smoking bikers! Dennis Hopper Day featured a rally and a ride out of town. As in the movie, bikers were accompanied by a police escort. This time, however, they toured scenes from the movie instead of visiting the local jail. Much of this change of heart can be attributed to Hopper himself, who made friends with local Navajo and Hispanic families and broke down cultural barriers during filming. Hopper died in Taos in 2010, but his spirit lives on.
New Mexico is a wonderful place to ride, with long, open stretches, snow-capped mountains and canyons to explore. The food is good, too. Navajo fry bread, right out of the pan, is a heavenly treat, and the New Mexican version of chili can blow your head off.
If the desert Southwest isn’t on your travel itinerary this summer, look closer to home. Ride Minnesota (you knew I had to sneak a mention in somewhere) can be your guide to some great weekend trips.
Get your motor runnin’ / Head out on the highway / Looking for adventure / In whatever comes our way
Making the most of a short season
Benefit ride for the St. Cloud Children’s Home
The motorcycle season is short in Minnesota. It says so right on the back cover of my book, Ride Minnesota. Now that we’ve left winter behind, we’re in the rainy season when thunderstorms can crop up just in time for rush hour and dampen your ride home from work.
A lot of people ride their motorcycles to work. I temped recently at Thomson Reuters in Eagan and entire sections of the parking lots (there are multiple lots) were designated solely for motorcycles. It’s nice to have a motorcycle-friendly employer. Motorcycling to work not only saves money on gas, it also gets you there sooner, thanks to the diamond lanes on metro freeways.
Still, there’s nothing like riding two-lane blacktop on a sunny day. Discovering what’s just beyond that next curve lends an air of mystery to a ride, whether it’s another set of curves, an uphill climb or a cow grazing peacefully in a nearby pasture.
Today’s gray, rainy weather gives me another chance to work on building my retail network. Here’s a list of places where you can purchase Ride Minnesota. Here’s to sunnier days ahead!
Eat My Words Bookstore, 1228 2nd St. N.E., Minneapolis. MN 55413
Harley-Davidson Shop of Winona, 1845 Mobil Drive, Winona, MN 55987
Indian Motorcycle Twin Cities, 2967 Hudson Rd., St. Paul, MN 55128
Mankato Harley-Davidson, 1200 N. River Drive, Mankato, MN 56001
Northway Sports, 21429 Ulysses St. N.E., East Bethel, MN 55011
Route 65 Classics, 14954 Aberdeen St. N.E., Ham Lake, MN 55304
St. Paul Harley-Davidson, 2899 Hudson Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55128
Trav’s Outfitter, 7315 Hwy. 65 N.E., Fridley, MN 55432
Twin Cities Harley-Davidson-Blaine, 1441 85th Ave. N.E., Blaine, MN 55449
Twin Cities Harley-Davidson-Lakeville, 10770 165th St. W., Lakeville, MN 55044
SubText Books, 165 Western Ave. N., St. Paul, MN 55102
Zylstra Harley-Davidson, 19600 Evans St NW, Elk River, MN 55330
Splitting the lanes
Ralph and I just spent a week in southern California, which has to be — weather-wise — motorcycle heaven, especially when you get away from stinky, exhaust fume-ridden I-5 (“The 5”, as it’s called locally). Getting off the freeway allows you to follow the coast, drive along citrus orchards and make you feel like you own the world.
Fresh ocean breezes notwithstanding, California has a law that scares the hell out of me. The Golden State allows motorcyclists to “split” the traffic lanes. Maybe it’s because I’m still relatively new to motorcyclng, but I find it unnerving to have a biker come up from behind me, swerve to the white line between the lanes of stopped or slow-moving vehciles and zip to the head of the line. I worry about their safety, especially when traffic moves a little faster. It would be so easy to get a little too close, bounce off a car and end up on the pavement. Whitelining is allowed in Texas, too, and in England, where motorcyclists sneak up on you from the left. In Minnesota, the freeways have designated motorcycle lanes, for which I am grateful.
I’ll be doing some “splitting” of a different kind this weekend. I’ll be at the Fury Motorcycle open house tomorrow morning from 10:00-1:00, promoting Ride Minnesota. Then I’ll move up to East Bethel for the open house at Northway Sports from 2:00-4:00. Yesterday afternoon, I heard back-to-back commercials for both on KQRS. Let’s hope the weather is better than predicted!
Changing seasons, changing attitudes
The road to Mesa Verde, Colorado.
Just when you think riding season can really begin, ol’ Mother Nature comes and gives you an unkind gesture once again. Who said it could be 20 degrees and snowing (tomorrow) this late in April? Spring is always an uphill battle in Minnesota. On the upside, the unseasonable cold has given me time to do a little more vacation planning.
I received a package of tourism info from Wisconsin yesterday. There’s a lot of unexplored motorcycle country in our neighbor to the east. And the Badger State is beginning to promote it. (C’mon, Minnesota, get your tourism act together!) In fact, many states are realizing that motorcycle tourism is a good thing.
According to the Rider Friendly Business Association (a Canadian group), there are more than 11 million potential motorcyclist/tourists in the U.S. and Canada, and they spend an average of $3,100 per vacation trip. That’s roughly $34 billion spent in the form of gas, hotels, food, entertainment and stops at tourist attractions. Motorcycle tourists can be big economic stimulators!
Of course, we’ll have to get the non-motorcycling public to change its perception of bikers. A few years ago, Ralph and I stopped in Durango, Colorado, for the night. We pulled into the Holiday Inn, which had a Green Mill restaurant attached to it. I went to the front desk to inquire about the availablility of a room. I was still in my full leathers, my hair cropped super-short to avoid having to deal with helmet hair. The sole was coming off of my old steel-toed work boots and I probably looked pretty travel-worn since leaving Arizona that morning. The young woman at the desk informed me that the hotel was full. “By the way,” she said as I thanked her and turned to leave, “for your future reference, rooms are $150 per night.” As if I couldn’t afford it. I felt as angry and misunderstood as Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.”
We drove down the street to the Travelodge, where the rooms were cheaper and ate at a fantastic Italian restaurant across the street. And had a far better time than we would have at the Green Mill.
Motorcycle Fever
“Got your Harley out yet, Karen?” I asked my neighbor yesterday afternoon. She has a beautiful blue Softail. “No. The snow has to be completely gone and all the sand swept up before I ride,” she replied.
Mother Nature put the damper on the start of the motorcycle season here in Minnesota last week. On Thursday, she dumped 8 inches of wet, heavy snow on the Twin Cities and more in rural areas. It’s enough to make you scream. By suppertime yesterday, the temperature had climbed to 62 degrees and there were only a few humps of snow left around the neighborhood — if you don’t count the shady sides of houses and the hard, black-crusted mountains stacked in parking lots, vacant lots and just about anywhere anyone can think of to pile large quantities of unwanted snow.
My neighbor is not alone in her caution. Yet there are motorcyclists out on the streets and highways, dodging potholes and braving sandy intersections because they just. can’t. wait. any. longer. Motorcycle fever has set in. The desire to feel the sun on your face and the wind in your hair (or across your helmet) is irresistable, urgent. On weekends, the dealerships are crowded with people checking out new bikes, buying new clothing. Some are even picking up copies of Ride Minnesota.
I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of tourism materials from Wisconsin so Ralph and I can plan some summer rides. In the meantime, our great-niece in California has sent us a Flat Stanley. After reading the book in school, she has sent him to us so that we can bring him along on some adventures. If he’s lucky, Flat Stanley will get to ride on Uncle Ralph’s Victory some time this week.
Packing Up
With temperatures edging up into the 40s and 50s, you can bet that motorcycles will be cruising around the Twin Cities this weekend. I know Ralph will be out in the garage installing new turn signal lights on his Victory cruiser. As for me, I’ll be at the Donnie Smith Bike & Car Show at the River Centre in St. Paul.
I have a case of shiny new copies of Ride Minnesota out in the garage. Today, I’m packing up my “show box”, filling it with more copies of the book, bookmarks for giveaways, extra pens, my cashbox, signs and an easel for displaying a poster-sized version of the book cover. It’s the biggest event I have attended as an exhibitor — more than 18,000 are expected to attend. (Gee, I wonder if I have enough books? Yikes! I’d better pack an order form, too.) I also have to make sure my cell phone’s charged and my card reader is ready to go.
Thanks to Audrey Johnson of Motorcycle Life EXPO for inviting me to share her table. We’ll be at Booth 22 on the main floor of the show.
The streets and highways haven’t been cleaned yet. Watch out for gravel and keep the shiny side up!
Ride Minnesota 