REunion 2008

This is roughly the round trip route we took going to the Royal Enfield reunion in Lanesboro, MN. 

Day One 6-19-08

  Richard, my riding buddy from Lindsborg, is right on time for our 7:30am departure.  I must admit that I'm a little nervous as this will be the longest ride I have attempted on the REB.  It's 700 miles to the rally site and that is a long ride on this bike.  Richard is on his Aprilla Scarabo scooter  so  if I break down at least I'll be able to ride pillion in comfort.

  The weather forecast is calling for scattered thunderstorms all the way to our first day destination of Ida Grove, IA.  We are going to meet an old motorcycle racing Navy buddy of mine that I haven't seen in nine years. 

  Riding north and keeping any eye on the sky it turns out to be a pleasant day.  The REB is loving the mid 70's temperature and we enter Nebraska with the rain gear still on the rack.  We can see rain all around us and during one stretch the road is wet enough to soak my jeans below the knees but our luck is holding out.

  George meets us at our motel before we get unpacked and it is like we just saw each other yesterday.  Except for being a couple of old farts we don'tseem to have changed much.  He gives a tour of his farm before dinner and as expected there are several dirt bikes and three street bikes living in the various out buildings.  George is one of these guys that can fix anything and build anything so he has lots of gadgets and toys to look at. 

Dinner was great and it was fun to visit with old friends.  Richard and George had their Iron Butt rides in common and the Concours that Richard's son has is the same model of the two George owns.

Day Two 6-20-08

  It looks like it is going to be a gorgeous day, no wind and hardly a cloud in the sky.  George decided to ride a few miles with us so it was good not to be in the lead for awhile.  I'm afraid my 55-60 speed is putting a crimp in his riding style but he graciously stays within the REB's comfort zone.

  Iowa looks like Kansas except there is corn instead of wheat.  We see an occasional wind farm, small towns, and cows.  The roads are N/S, E/W and in excellent condition.  We have an extra long lunch in Algona, IA because of the REB/scooter delay factor.  The driver of the Plymouth Prowler we parked next to was quite taken with our rides and wanted to talk about them. 

  We took a short break at the Minnesota visitor's center and except for a little detour and a ten mile run on Interstate 90 things went well as we neared Lanesboro.  The landscape went from flat farm land to hilly twisty roads in a big hurry as we got close and we could see that we were in for some nice riding tomorrow. 

The Eagle Cliff campground was picturesque and clean and we were soon putting our tents up with a little help from Chris Janes from Detroit.  I had met Chris at the Rally on the River last year in Missouri.  He owns an RE but rode his Harley to the REunion. 

Three Enfields, a Harley and a scooter rode into town for dinner.  People were quite taken with Richard's scoot and he probably spent more time telling people about it that the RE riders did explaining their machines.  The guys seemed to be interested in the REs and the ladies liked the scoot.  Richard thought he was the attraction but I'm pretty sure it was the scoot.

Day Three 6-21-08

Sleeping in a tent on the ground isn't all that bad but waking up without any coffee is pure torture.  CMW was cooking breakfast but they didn't get started too early and no one had thought to get the coffee ready for us early risers. 

After breakfast we started talking about going for a ride and by and by we hit the road.  About ten of us I think, including three Bullets, one REB sidecar outfit, Kevin on the CMW shop Electra, a 1956 Matchless, a scooter and CMW's Jim leading on his Honda ST1300.  There were some others but I can't remember.

At one point in the ride Richard and I decided to cut out and ride over the Mississippi into Wisconsin, just for the heck of it. We soon rejoined the group because they had been slowed down when Ron's 1999 Blue Deluxe broke down with an apparent piston failure.  During the ensuing scramble to get Ron's bike back to the camp Kevin's bike stopped running.  He said he was sure he could have gotten it running again if someone hadn't taken away all the tools.

The rest of us finished the ride and the two ailing bikes got a ride in the trailer.

CMW put out supper, fried chicken and all the trimmings.  They had door prizes for everyone and a couple of nice plaques, one for the Hard Luck Rider and one for the Long Distance Rider.  Ron got the hard luck trophy and the long distance award went to the Kansas guys.  Since Richard is 18 miles south of me I insisted he take the prize.  After all that (no speeches thank goodness) we sat around the old camp fire as the longest day of the year came to a close. 

I was waiting for someone to start singing Kumbaya when one of the Minnesota crew said let's make some long cakes.  Now that was about the funniest thing I had seen in some time.  They had these eight inch long one inch dowel rods fixed on a stick and rolled biscuit dough down over them all the while explaining how to do it.  The funny part was the instructions were the same as for rolling on a condom.  They stuck them in the fire and after they were done filled them with strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream, very tasty.  Of course the camera was in the tent.

Day Four 6-22-08

It rained last night so breaking camp was a messy affair but at least we had coffee. 

If I did much of this camping thing I'd have to refine my technique or get different equipment or something as it was almost ten before be rolled out of the campground heading south for Anamosa, IA to visit the National Motorcycle Museum.

Traveling these Iowa back roads without laying out a route first is an adventure.  I led because of the GPS.  I finally broke out the Iowa map George had given me and planned a route to Anamosa.  We rolled up to the Museum at 3:30 only to find out that it closed at 4.  Turned out not to be a problem as they told us to stay as long as we liked.  Nice display of bikes, not Barber standards but and interesting place. 

With several hours of daylight left we decided push on west before finding a place to spend the night.  Yeah, I saw the sign that said Road Closed to Through Traffic, yes I knew they had been having lots of flooding in Iowa but I figured there would be a good chance that we could ride around whatever the problem was.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  The picture on the left shows what stopped us dead after going around a couple of barriers.  As luck would have it there was a guy there taking pictures of the damage, and he was a biker.  He said he didn't know the roads but if we could follow him a few miles up the road his girlfriend could tell us how to get around the washed out highway.  Turns out it was the girlfriend's bike he was riding.  We pulled into the girlfriend's farm and she quickly showed us a route to get into Toledo, IA.  Very nice folks showing kindness to a couple of old coots on bikes.  Bikers still stick together......in Iowa anyway.

Day Five 6-23-08

We took every advantage of the Iowa back roads, riding two lanes so small there were no center stripes but with great curves and hills. In one little town the pavement abruptly ended and there was nothing but gravel in three directions.  Hawk Eye Kurtz spotted the tarmac a couple hundred yards further away while I frantically looked at the map and GPS.  Off we go just like on a ROMEO ride in Kansas.  We had lunch the ROMEO like cafe of WoJo's in the town of Humeston, IA.  A quick jag through NW Missouri and across the Missouri river into Nebraska was enough for my ailing back and we searched out a nice little motel in Beatrice, NE.

Day Six 6-24-08

Our luck ran out as we crossed the border into Kansas and the rains came down.  We were able to find a place to pull over and don the rain gear.  The rain stopped and I had lead us down a dead end road by the time we hit Linn, KS and it was time for coffee.  We knew it was a good place when we saw three Highway Patrolmen walking out.  Never a dull moment around Richard as he inquired of the officers as to the quality of the doughnuts.  They had a good sense of humor, fortunately, and visited with us while we pulled off our gear.

It occurred to me while took a break in Clay Center that we would get to Salina around noon so we called our wives and had them meet us of lunch.  I guess guilt finally overcame Richard because after lunch he insisted that I take the plaque he got for the long distance rider.  I thought it required a formal presentation so his wife, Joyce took this picture.

Wrap-up

The REB ran like a dream the whole trip, I lost the nut on the exhaust header bracket but George gave me a replacement for it.  I lost a bolt out of the GPS mount and Richard secured it with one of the rubber bands he keeps wrapped around the hand grip of the scoot.  I added 40 ozs of oil in 1579 miles and averaged about 62 mpg while running 55-60 mph.  Richard's scoot hit a few bugs and he had to clean them off, his gas mileage was about the same as mine and I remember him saying he should check his oil but I don't know if he ever did.  A few days later while cleaning the bike I discovered that the muffler bracket had broken, second one in less than a year.

It was a good ride, folks are friendly on the back roads and especially to old guys on strange looking motorbikes.