My friends and I had camped overnight in a small town near the border with Canada called Oroville. The next morning, after breakfast in a nice little diner, we were filling up the tanks on our bikes when a kid comes walking out of the station with his dad. He points to my bike and says, "Wow. I've never seen a motorcycle that looks like that before!"
Well, it's true. Out on the highway, there aren't many of the older bikes. But I only have one motorcycle and I like to ride so old or not, where I go, it goes. And damn if that bike didn't run like a dream the whole 700 miles, just humming along.
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| Here's my bike with friends. |
On several stops, other riders just had to stop and talk to me about the bike. I'm not sure why that is. It's not a real pretty bike. I mean, I love it, but alot of that is because there's a lot of my sweat in that bike of mine. I know nearly every inch of it and sometimes doodle my bike from memory when I'm in boring meetings at work.
For some, the bike reminded them of bikes they rode years ago. And it made them smile.
I think a couple of guys I talked to were just happy to see the old bike still hanging with its beefier, crisper, and technologically superior comrades.
A few of them had technical questions 'cause at least two had old bikes of their own.
My bike has never garnered that much attention before on any of my previous rides and these reactions were a really cool surprise.
It was a great ride. And I have a pretty great bike.
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| Molson, Wash. - a ghost town near the Canadian border. |
