First ride of the year

We took the first official ride of the year on Saturday. It was a beautiful day for a ride. I remembered to put sunscreen on my face but forgot about my hands so they got sunburned.

We stopped at Harley in Appleton to get some air in my tires then headed off to a Taste of the Windy City for some lunch. I had the meatball sandwich and it was delicious. Our next stop was Scoops in Chilton where we had sundaes.

We headed back along the south end of Lake Winnebago and back home. It was a little breezy but plenty of sunshine. All in all a great ride!

I turned over 12,000 miles on my bike (finally) and hope to put many more on this year. I have a longer drive to work now so that will help.

It's been awhile!

So now that I'm done with school and won't be doing homework all summer I hope I can get more than 1500 miles on this year.

So far we've gone to Eden to the Eden Cafe for breakfast and it was a nice little place to get a good, reasonably priced breakfast. I had the ham & eggs and Ed had corned beef hash & eggs and with one coffee it was $16 before tip.  The weather was cold & dreary and kind of cold and foggy.  We were waiting for the sun to come out but it never did.

I had my bike in for the 10,000 mile maintenance and I had to have the front tire replaced, again, because it was cupping.  I would think that I should be able to get more than 5,000 miles out of  tire so hopefully this time it makes it longer than that.

Ed's brake light was stuck on so HD Appleton got that squared away for us and we proceeded to head east on OO to see where it went.  We ended up in Green Bay and then wiggled our way back home and tried to dodge the raindrops.  We were pretty successful and only had a few sprinkles in Neenah and then followed the rain into Oshkosh so we only got splashed on from the water on the roads.  Before that it was 85 and sunny, quite a bit different than the foggy dreary 65 the weekend before.

We took one little detour and stopped for lunch at GingeRootz.  The food was good and reasonably priced, the atmosphere was casual and the staff was really friendly and attentive but not annoying.  We would definitely eat there again.

The weather has finally started to cooperate so hopefully we can get some more rides in.

Amazing weekend of riding

So, I learned something very important this weekend - DO NOT decide to update the map on the GPS right before you need to use it for a ride.  Yeah, I suck - I don't know what I did to the GPS, but there was NO map at all on it, so we decided to forego the trip to the new Cabela's in Green Bay and do something we could easily navigate without a GPS and that was a trip around Lake Winnebago.  

It was a great day for riding, lots of sunshine and not a lot of traffic.  My favorite part of the ride is on Highway 55 on the east side of the lake when you come up the hill and look over to the lake and all you see is farm fields followed by a beautiful blue lake that seems to go on forever.  No matter how many times we ride that way, I never get tired of that view.  Sure, we could ride a little closer to the lake, but I think you lose the effect of the hills, trees & fields before the water, and you're higher up so you can see more.  

We had lunch at Salty's in Fond du Lac on the way back, I wasn't really hungry so I just had a bowl of New England Clam chowder and Ed had a cheeseburger with a cup of clam chowder. Their prices seemed reasonable, and the service was good, but man was it dark in there!  It was especially bad coming in from outside.  The best lit place in there was the bathroom!  Maybe next time we're in the area and are actually hungry, we'll try it again.

Today we started out along the lake (Winnebago) and took Highway 45 to 67 and then rode back up through the Kettle Moraine area to Highway 23 back to 45 and back to Oshkosh.  It didn't feel as warm as yesterday even though it was actually warmer.  The wind was terrible and the trip back to the east was a little challenging to say the least.  Ed and I both said that the wind was so strong at some points that our nostrils were getting pinched off.  

We rode with our friends Jill & John, and we enjoyed our dessert first at Kelley Country Creamery and it was amazing as always.  There were a lot of Winnebago type vehicles there with older people in them so we figured they were already starting to head south for the winter.  After that, we ate lunch at the Hamber Haus in Campbellsport on highway 67.  I had a cheeseburger and Ed has a brat.  They split the brat so it's like a butterfly and serve it on a hamburger bun.  It was good as always and not expensive.  It was packed as always too, but it's worth the wait.

Next weekend is Labor Day weekend - hopefully we can get some more miles on the bikes.  I treated my Dyna nice today, washed her, removed some scratches & polished her up. She looks pretty and is ready to go for next time.

Missing ride from 7/5 (slacker, I know)

On July 5th I rode up and met my friend Jill & her boyfriend John and we took a backroad cruise from the Appleton area over to Manitowoc and Sheboygan back to Fond du Lac and then stopped in Oshkosh.

We went to Route 43 Harley Davidson in Sheboygan after we had lunch at Cruisers which is attached to the Harley shop.  The food was really good and reasonable priced.  We met a group of bikers from Arkansas who were on their way up to Door County.  It was nice to chat with them and give them some ideas of things to do while they were in Wisconsin.

We stopped at Open Road Harley Davidson in Fond du Lac and I got some new grips for my bike.  I haven't put them on yet, but I bought them.  Can't wait to get them on & try them out.

It was just a really nice day taking our time winding around not knowing exactly where we were going but we knew we were headed in the right direction.  The weather was great and any day on the bike is better than a day on my butt behind my desk!

Turned over 10,000 miles today!

Dyna has over 10,000 miles on her now.  I haven't ridden much at all this summer, taking 6 credits really puts a damper on the riding time.  I've got a few weeks before school starts up again, so I plan to get as many miles as possible on before it gets too cold.

We rode up to Tigerton and went to the Rocks For Fun Cafe for lunch.  If you happen to be in the Tigerton area and like pasties (or have never tried one) you HAVE to go there.  We got to meet the owner and his wife and the guy is funny!  He took time to go over every kind of pastie that he makes (there are 20 and growing) and we got to pick a lucky rock too.  Don't forget to sign the guestbook on your way out.  The prices are really good, the pasties were awesome and we even got some frozen ones to go so we can make them at home.  It was hard to choose because we didn't plan ahead and only had room for 10 in the saddlebag.

The weather was amazing and we found some nice hilly curvy roads to ride on without a lot of traffic so we could ride as we pleased.  The sun was out, the farmers were working on their fields and the smell of fresh cut hay was bountiful.  All in all an excellent ride and well worth the trip.

When will riding season come??

Well, today is June 7th and we are looking at getting in our second (yes, you read that right) ride of the season in tomorrow.  It's been feeling more like April than June.  The bikes are all tunes up and ready to go but the weather just has not been cooperating.

Our first ride was basically wandering around the Lake Winnebago area and ending up in Appleton to have lunch at Hu Hot with our friend Bryan.  It was a nice relaxing ride where we randomly turned on roads to see where they went.  We didn't get lost but we did have to ask the GPS how to get to Hu Hot so we wouldn't be late.  Riding anywhere near the lake was FREEZING cold even though it was like 80 degrees out that day.  It was cool (literally and figuratively) that we could tell we were close to water by how much the temperature dropped.

Tomorrow is a Cabella's & ice cream run.  We are heading back to the place in Eden to get some more ice cream at Kelley Country Creamery.  Should be a good day to ride.  I'm looking forward to seeing how much everything has grown and greened up since our last ride last month.

Safe travels to my fellow riders and if you're in a 4 wheel vehicle, keep an eye out for us bikers!

Hello March!

Ah yes, it's March, that means we are getting closer to riding season!  We both have recalls on our bikes to get taken care of before we do some serious riding, and I need an oil change.  

The March sale will be coming up soon at HD Appleton, so I plan to get some new boots since mine are getting a little worn out after 5 years of use.

Thant's about it for now, counting down the days until the snow piles disappear and the salt gets washed off the road so I can get some two wheel riding in.