In the Begining

It's all our sons' fault. It all started a couple years ago when, sitting around discussing motorcycles with my sons, I mentioned that it would be nice to have a small 250-350 cc motorcycle to ride around when the weather is nice, which doesn't happen a lot between October and June here in the northwest. Well, I came home from a business trip in August of '06 and there in the garage was a 1974 Honda 350Four. My sons had found a good deal. I heard later that someone sold the 350 for rent money. Poor guy! Any way, Jason being a good mechanic, it was tuned up and running just fine. It needed some, well...maybe a lot, of cosmetic work. But it ran nice and has been a lot of fun. I've spent the winters working on it and some of the good weather riding it.

Our sons, who both have bikes, and my nephew who lives across the lake and I started going on day rides. I was also doing a lot of evening and day rides on my own. Soon my wife got tired of waving good-bye and decided she needed a bike also. But that's another story. After we got her bike, discussions with her brother and brother-in-law who also ride and live near Chicago got us thinking about a road trip back there. We may be in a little over our heads, but with a lot of research, planning and some help from our Guardian Angels, I think we'll make it and have a lot of fun doing it.

The ratio of maintenance verses road time on the Honda just didn't seem to support the idea of such a long ride. I like a little adventure but I don't think I want to have the kind of adventure that riding a 34 year old bike nearly 6000 miles could be. So of course the only answer was a NEW BIKE. After much looking and sitting on many bikes I got a new '05 Moto Guzzi Nevada 750 Classic. I got a good deal from a great dealer here in Seattle, Moto International. Dave Richardson, the owner, literally wrote the book on Moto Guzzi's "Guzziology". It's a book well worth the money if you have or are interested in Moto Guzzi's.

We've spent most of the winter, spring and now the summer getting ready for the trip. However, the cost of gas and other things (the cost of getting outfitted for the trip and the cost of "practice" trips) has us thinking of postponing it till next summer. We'll see. We have been doing some "training" rides, trying to work up to multiple long days on the road. We did a trip to Pacific Beach and back in one day. That was nice but a little long, 330 miles for one day. We have some 3 & 4 day trips planned. We really don't know how far is too far or far enough for one day on non-interstate roads but we'll figure it out.

One thing I have learned in the last two years is that motorcycling is not a cheap hobby. From our research it seems we needed many things, none of which is inexpensive.

That's it for now.

Ray