Let’s go on a trip down memory lane. What was the best ride of your life?

Sometimes people apologize for going off topic in my moto threads and taking about memorable rides and I wish they wouldn’t apologize, I love reading that kind of stuff. I didn’t get to witness the muscle car era or two stroke motorcycle era in its heyday so I love when our members here share their stories.

I’ll go first and tell you the story of my favorite motorcycle ride ever. Your best ride doesn’t have to be a motorcycle ride, a car ride or any vehicle will do but extra points will be awarded if the machine only has two wheels

Hmm where to start. On one of my motorcycle related threads one of our members mentioned owning a motorcycle that I absolutely adored. I never thought I would get to own one. Not thinking anything would come from it I offered to buy it if they ever decided to sell it. To my shock the stars aligned and after a few emails I was on a road trip to get a neat little 399cc four cylinder that Honda only imported to the USA for two years.

Around the same time my best friend had also just fallen in love with motorcycles. He was in the process of bringing a 1979 CB650 back to life. Fast forward a few months and we had both of our bikes street legal and ready for a vintage motorcycle rally called the Distinguished Gentlemen’s Ride or DGR. The DGR would see hundreds of vintage motorcycles ride from Norfolk to Virginia Beach. It was the fall of 2015 and a day or so before the rally. My friend and I decided to go for a ride. This was the first time we rode these two bikes together.

We started our ride around the NC/VA border headed towards Chesapeake Virginia and rode out to Northwest River Park. It was a perfect warm fall day, the sun was shining and we were out enjoying a perfect day riding around with no particular destination in mind. The winding back roads eventually led us to Virginia Beach. I had driven those roads many times before but I had never ridden them on a motorcycle before. It was completely different. I will never forget the faint smell of burning oil as I followed my friend on his CB650. The feeling of the wind as it blasted my face and the glorious sound those two Hondas made in unison as we flew across a two lane black top. Farmers fields sprawling as far as the eye could see on both sides.

We rode past Sandbridge and stopped at a beautiful park. Both of us were excited about the rally the next day and were having the time of our lives. Little did I know this ride would be 100 times more fun than the rally the next day where my bike would break down on the way home.

A few months later my friends bike unfortunately broke its chain and the chain ate into the engine case causing an oil leak that would require the engine be torn down or replaced. This was something that was outside the realm of my friends budget and mechanical abilities. The CB650 is now back to a dormant life collecting dust.

It is my hope that one day we will reunite these two brilliant mechanical masterpieces and be able to take them on an unforgettable ride to the beach again.

Some pics of that trip.
Right outside the entry of Northwest River park.


I had to get a pic of my friends bike next to that sign.




The beach!

Every ride in the Yoop is a favorite, so I will rate the top three. Which I can do often since they are pretty close by.
1- M35 between CR 480 and Gwinn.
2- H58 from Munising to Grand Marais.
3- US2 from the Cut River Bridge to St. Ignace.
While none of these are epic, multi state trips, they represent what motorcycling is to me. A mix of challenging roads, great scenery and low traffic.

The best ride of my life was a few years ago when I completed the 50 mile course of the Tour de Cure (American Diabetes Association charity ride) out of Spokane, WA (Airway Heights).

The route went from Airway Heights to Cheney, WA and back along a rails to trails path where the old unused railroad line was paved.

I did this on a 2013 Orbea Orca carbon fiber bicycle and pedaled my ass there and back even if I had to walk a couple sections of hill I still completed the course on my own power.

At the end of the ride there was a meal waiting, and about 10 minutes into the meal the wind whipped up and we were sitting in a thunder storm (we were under cover).

This was great for me as it was my first 50 mile ride after working myself up from just over a mile to 10 miles to 25 miles, and so on.

Being a diabetic meant part of my fees to ride went to a red jersey so that everyone could cheer on the red riders. I have type 2 diabetes and riding has allowed me to decrease my insulin intake by 1/2 from 80 units down to 40 units.

We had a group of a dozen or so coworkers who were avid riders. Most of us attended a dealer convention in Phoenix a few years back on the company dime. We decided to add a leg, flying to San Francisco where we rented bikes from Eagle Rider. We rented a cheap motel room, dumped our luggage and slabbed it north to Mendocino via 101 and 128. This was in November so we were running in the dark for the final few hours that first day. I will never forget the smell of the Redwoods running up 128 in the cool damp night. Dodging deer most of the way.

From there we spent four days winding down PCH all the way to San Luis Obispo and back to San Francisco. Distracted driving to say the least. Coming down through Big Sur was everything you always heard. A true bucket list trip. Around every curve was a post card.

I was so taken I flew back with the wife a couple years ago to LA and rented a car. Ran PCH north and flew home from SF.

I live in PA and have spent many miles riding the Smokies the Shenandoah, Blue Ridge, Skyline etc. This was on another level. And the food was killer.

Mid-1970s rode to The Rock Store on a Honda 350 Scrambler set up as a cafe bike.

The Rock Store is a restaurant in Cornell, on Mulholland Highway in the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles, Calif.

PC

They're pretty much ALL good, but some are better than others.

My favorite local loop is about 50 miles and the best part of it is out through pond country an a relatively un-populated and very twisty road. The above picture is at the start of the best 12 miles of that loop. In the interest of avoiding self-incrimination, I won't go into just HOW much fun it is, traffic permitting.

Perhaps the most memorable is ancient history. I was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1970 and 71. I had a Honda CL77 305 Scrambler. By today's standards, it's a heavy, slow, ill-handling tank of a bike, at the time I thought it was hot shit. A few of us (don't recall exactly how many) decided to take a multi-day ride into the boonies. We had a Filipino guide (he worked in the barracks, liked GI's and spoke fluent English) and we just gassed up, packed a few essentials and followed him up North of the base into the wild.

It should be noted that at that time and place, Communist insurgents known as Huk guerillas were pretty active and wandering around in the jungle was strongly discouraged. Our guide said as long as we were escorted, behaved ourselves and stayed out of certain specific areas, we'd be fine.

The resulting trip included some VERY sketchy mountain "roads" (I use the word very loosely) awesome scenery, "interesting" cuisine and meeting some of the nicest people on the planet. It also involved torrential rain, the slickest mud I've ever encountered, and one VERY long day wrassling that tank of a motorcycle around.

On the way back, we stopped at Dagupan, a little village on Lingayen Gulf. Sugar-sand beach, crystal clear water, great snorkeling and prawn the size of your fist. I memorized the route there and returned several times. I worked a schedule that had 96 hour breaks every 6 days, so riding up, spending a couple of nights in a Nipa Hut on the beach drinking San Miguel, eating prawn and snorkeling (among other...ahem..."recreational activities"...) was well within my schedule.

Most memorable ride for me was nearly 20 years ago. I took my 99 Honda Prelude down to South Carolina to see an old friend from High School. On the way back, I detoured an went west, travelling to the Tale of the Dragon in Deals Gap, NC.

319 curves in 11 miles was exhilarating in that car to me!

1984. Yamaha 750 Maxim. Erlangen WEST Germany to Bad Tolz for training at the SF Group. 6 afternoons and evenings of solo riding in the Alps.

Last July me and a buddy took a 2 week trip from PA to Montana, rode Yellowstone, Beartooth Pass, Glacier National Park and surrounding roads and were treated to some of the best scenery and roads one could imagine. On the way home we stopped in Rapid City, SD and rode Spearfish Canyon, Needles Hwy, Custer State Park, MT Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial.

Rode my recently broken in '70 Norton Commando up from Central NY across the Thousand Islands into Canada during that summer. Recall taking a small Ferry and spotting an old beat up mailbox while in line with the same last name as mine. Left a note but never heard from them. Headed north and maybe 4 hours up pulled over and laid out my bedroll to sleep for the night. Woke up and found a neat dairy operation just down the road. It still exists although it has obviously changed significantly from the little roadside shop I encountered five decades ago.
https://forfar.com/
Had some great cheese, bread, and milk and then continued north exploring the sparsely populated areas.
The beautiful, totally non light polluted skies were mesmerizing. You felt drawn in to swim among all the myriad stars.
Thankfully the snortin' Norton behaved on the week long trip. Will never forget the sights and folks I met.

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
Last July me and a buddy took a 2 week trip from PA to Montana, rode Yellowstone, Beartooth Pass, Glacier National Park and surrounding roads and were treated to some of the best scenery and roads one could imagine. On the way home we stopped in Rapid City, SD and rode Spearfish Canyon, Needles Hwy, Custer State Park, MT Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial.

Starting in Iowa I did this plus a rallies in Stanley, Idaho and Paonia, Colorado. Beartooth is one of my favorites.

Many years ago, while a student at Michigan Tech
University, Sault St Marie, MI, and a member of the
Air Force ROTC, I had a very thrilling back seat ride in a T-33 jet aircraft from sea level up to 10,000 feet following a victory roll over the Kinross AFB runway. THAT was the best ride of my life!

The best ride I ever had was in a Cessna 172, on a crisp, clear CAVU late fall day flying from Manassas, VA to Tangier Island, MD.

For me, motorcycles were suburban and urban transportation. Few rides were memorable, save for the three where I crashed.

3:00 AM on a highway in the middle of nowhere in the plains with the lights of a small city at some inestimable distance ahead of me; I got the distinct feeling of the earth rotating under me while I seemed to stand still.

A Honda V45 Sabre, later murdered at an intersection by 17 year old new driver, breaking all my ribs at the spine and freezing my shoulders, that ended my riding days.

following a bunch or bikers on a windy road from the coast to the valley in my Porsche boxster with the top down, I think they enjoyed my chasing them as much as I did. never forget that day I got several thumbs up from them when we got back to town.

quote:

Originally posted by lizardman_u:
The best ride of my life was a few years ago when I completed the 50 mile course of the Tour de Cure (American Diabetes Association charity ride) out of Spokane, WA (Airway Heights).

Lizardman_U,

I have ridden in 82 Tour de Cures.

I am wearing the first ever version of the Red Rider jersey in this picture.


Here is another.

Interesting thread, Stick. This has nothing to do with two or four wheels. I’ve been working on my upcoming novel, The Third Testament. It’s all about some odd situations I have found myself in. I call them “surreal moments”. I wrote this a few days ago...


Chapter 578: UCLA and leeches...

I need a good ramble, and I’m working on that. In The Meantime...

Summer of ‘92. I was 10 feet tall, and bulletproof. I didn’t have a care in the world, I was invincible. This was after my brother and I got detained in the great debacle of ‘91. I still have muzzle marks in my forehead.

This is not a tale of epic adventure, just things that seemed to roll into place. As far as I know, no animals were harmed. Maybe some annilids, but time will tell.

I was going to visit my brother at UCLA, or as he called it, The Useless Corner of Lower Alabama. He was attending flight school, and he invited me down. I made the 12hr trip in 10hrs. Maybe 9, but who’s counting. Maybe it was 7. Might have been 5hrs...

So I roll in my brother’s driveway. Two bedroom house. Like 12 guys living there. All future pilots. That was their bond, and I’m sad I never stayed in touch with them. Although the house had 12 guys living there, it was as disgusting as a 60 man unkempt platoon. I miss those days.

So one of the future pilots says, “Hey, let’s go to the rope swing!!!”. I’m all, “Hell Yeah!!!”, so we load up the future flight crew, and head down to the river.

In the movies, they portray a glorious path, with a semi-broken trail, down to a pristine cliff, 100ft above the river. And I can attest that is what is exactly I saw. It was a surreal moment. I was in God’s country. A single rope, hanging off a cliff, some 100’ in the air.

So we all take turns. Triple lindies, double back flips, full gainers, and belly flops. No one died, that I can recall. We headed back up to our luke warm cooler of Busch Light.

And then reality set it. All of us were covered in leeches, or annilids as the scientific community likes to call them. If you’ve ever had chicken pox, it was like that, only with brownish gray leeches, sucking on our Christian blood. And they were in places I can’t talk about.

So after that situation was diffused, we headed back to my brother’s barracks. We chillaxed for awhile, and then the phone rang. We had a party to attend.

So we arrive at this farm house, it’s a two story, maybe 2 or 3 bedrooms. I knew it would be a good time by the 60 cars parked haphazardly throughout the yard. And then I heard the band. I was a huge fan of the music they were playing. Helmet, Rollins, Danzig. It was like a white trash trailer park dumpster fire. But it was glorious.

I’ve spoken of surreal moments. Things that you’d don’t expect to happen, they just do. But two of those moments I experienced on my 5hr drive to the Useless Corner of Lower Alabama.

I wish I knew how to contact those guys, my bro’s “flight crew”, they were with him the final years of his life, and I’m sure they have stories to tell, and pictures to share. But I still remember this song, and I remember rope swings and leeches.

Motorcycle ride from Naples, Florida east on the Tamiami Trail (Rt. 41) through the Everglades and Homestead, then south on US 1 to Key West, staying at Navy Lodge on Trumbo Point.
Wonderful long ride.

Tim

1996 I traveled to the U.P. to visit my mother and stepdad. My wife and daughters did not go, some family issues there but such goes life. Anyway, my wife didn't want me to go alone.

Anyhow I mentioned in passing to a friend that I was going up north in a week. Gordy, he was my best man at our wedding and had been friends with him for real close to thirty years at that point invited himself, he wanted to get away from his ex to-be for a few days.

So off we went. Spent three days up there. That was in August, by the end of December he was gone, victim of a heart attack. He told me several times on the trip how much he appreciated going along.

Still miss him today, he was like the older brother I never had.

quote:

Originally posted by SW_Sig:


Lizardman_U,

I have ridden in 82 Tour de Cures.

I am wearing the first ever version of the Red Rider jersey in this picture.

They changed the way they did the Tour a few years ago and instead of having multiple events in a state they went to one event per state. That shut down the Spokane Tour and only left Seattle for Washington or Portland for Oregon. Living in Boardman, OR Spokane is three hours away, and I am not inclined to go to Portland.

I mostly ride on my own now, but sometimes get into local rides put on by the Tri-Cities Kiwanis Club.