Two Wheelin' Weekend and more

Now this is how weather should behave, nice, sunny and the perfect temperature for lots of riding fun.

Ohio Bike Week 6/12/2009

The weekend started early, Jeff and I took off for Ohio Bike Week (www.ohiobikeweek.com) around 11:30 on Friday to see what it was all about. We headed towards Sandusky on I-90 and exited onto Rt. 250 about 40 minutes later. This was one of the first times I was on an interstate for an extended period of time, surprisingly; it felt comfortable cruising along in 6th gear at around 70 mph. It was a good precursor to some riding I did later in the weekend. After getting off the interstate we headed towards Roeder H-D which is right on 250. This was my first time to this H-D dealership and it was sad. Roeder officially closed on Fri. May 15th after 30+ years in business. (http://www.examiner.com/x-4702-Motorcycle-Travel-Examiner~y2009m5d20-Roeder-HarleyDavidson-in-Ohio-closes) It’s an awesome building to have a H-D dealership in and it’s sad that the economy sucked them up. Something else that also struck me was the swiftness with which H-D removed all of their merchandise and bikes. I guess when you owe the man, the man takes everything and goes home with it all. They used the Roeder dealership as the HQ for Ohio Bike Week, I guess they still own the building. There was your usual overabundance of Ohio Bike Week merchandise that you could buy and they had opened their bar that was on site- Shifters for the week of Bike Week. We left Roeder and headed towards downtown Sandtown to check out the action. I’m not sure if action is the right word, the entire downtown area was blocked off and there were people strolling form vendor to vendor to check out more wares. Is that all Bike Week is? An opportunity to sell shit? The heavy metal band started up and we decided that this would be great about 6 hours from now, it’s really hard to get yourself into the head banging mood at 12:30 on a bright sunny day, if you know what I mean. After leaving downtown we headed towards the fairgrounds where there was yes, you guessed it, even more food and merchandise. They also have a stunt show that was supposed to go on later in the day, but again we were too early. Enough of Bike Week, off to Marblehead. We took the Ohio Scenic roadway and drove around Marblehead, this is something everyone should do at least once. You really don’t get to see Cedar Point unless you’re on a boat, this roadway give you the opportunity to do just that. We headed back toward Sandusky and stopped at Shifters bar for a drink and a burger, which I must say, was pretty damn tasty. Having had enough of being a biker for the day we headed back towards home, this time on the turnpike. Yep, another new experience, the turnpike. This was easier than driving on I-90 from the standpoint that we had our own lane, there wasn’t as much traffic and the road itself was better. Some interesting takes on the turnpike, stopping at the ticket booth and loading your ticket is an interesting experience, you have to make sure you secure that ticket somewhere. Getting off the turnpike is also interesting, juggling gloves, money, ticket and getting started again is all very challenging, especially when there’s 18 wheeler breathing down your back. Challenging, but not impossible.

Copsride 6/14/2009

Another early morning, another worthy charity. After taking Saturday off from the bike, Jeff and I hoped back into our saddles and headed towards downtown to participate in the 1st annual COPSride.(www.copsride.com) This was very similar to the Firefighter’s ride that we did a few weeks back, they have a nice memorial ceremony, you drive through the western suburbs of Cleveland and we headed towards Lake Erie Harley www.lakererieharley.com. I was again overwhelmed by the number of bikes and the number of motorcycle clubs showing their “colors” who were out to support a good cause.

National Ride to Work Day (http://www.ridetowork.org/) 6/15

Monday morning came and it was met with excitement and in trepidation. Excited because I was doing my first RTW day and I got to meet and interact with all of the other bikers at Progressive. In trepidation because I had to drive on 480 and 271, two of the worst freeways in the Cleveland area. The ride over to Progressive went fine and it was amazing to me the respect that was given by the “cagers”. As the number of motorcyclists has gone up, so has the awareness that we are out there and that we deserve the same respect as all vehicles. It was a great day, Progressive….the #1 motorcycle insurer (that’s my plug) put on a nice lunch in the park and we got to meet and greet with a bunch of like minded individuals. It’s awesome that they put on an event like this. I wonder if Geico did the same thing?

Another work day ride 6/16

I decided to tempt fate, not just once, but twice in the same week, I rode to work again and it was met with great success, no issues on this day either. I’m going to start riding to work whenever possible, it gives me the experience that I’m looking to gain prior to Sturgis and it’s also a great way to decompress after a long day. There’s nothing quite like jumping in the saddle after a long day and driving yourself home enjoying the weather while the “cagers” are locked in their car getting more A/C pushed at them after leaving their offices. It definitely makes the ride home more enjoyable.

Sturgis Update:

The Buffalo Chip continues to add entertainment, Chuck Berry (yes, that Chuck Berry) will be playing Saturday, August 1, as will Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, it amazes me how some of these guys just get pulled out to the woodwork, or would that be the grave?

Charity rides: If you’ve been following The Ride, you know that I’ve done a few charity rides and it looks like Sturgis is no different, the have at least two charity rides that I’ve seen, the first one is The Legends Ride (www.legendsride.com) and the other one is the Pink N Proud ride (www.pinknproud.com) We’ll see if we decide to do these rides or not.

On the planning front, the brackets for the trailer are in and we need to get us all together to position them in the trailer. We’ll also be getting together in the not too distant future to start doing some serious planning around what we’ll be doing.

I apologize for the time between posts, now that the kitchen is almost done, it should be easier to keep up…thanks for reading.