How this all came to be...

I've ridden off and on for most of my adult life, always on a metric cruiser. In 2004, after a twenty-year sabbatical, I bought my first Harley, a new Sportster 1200 Custom, named "Goldie" for her smoky gold color. I decked her out with additional chrome and did a stage one hop up. She was bold and brassy, just loud enough and she ran like a scalded greyhound.

There was only one small problem with her. While I sometimes like to run solo, at other times it's nice to have Jan come along and share the journey. While Goldie had power to spare, her ride, though somewhat shy of brutal, left something to be desired. In short, she was not comfortable for riding two-up, especially for the passenger and as an old biker saying goes, "If mama ain't happy, nobody's happy."

After talking about it for two years, I made the decision to trade up to a touring model, This past Memorial Day, Goldie went off to be someone else's first Harley and we adopted Mariah, a fully equipped Street Glide, complete with a 6-speed tranny, a touring saddle, hard saddlebags, a 40 watt stereo, cruise control.

In June, I broke her in on a solo trip to the Redwood Run, an old school biker rally in northern Cal, about 230 miles from home.  She's big, powerful, and comfortable, and though she doesn't handle like a Sportster, she rides like a Caddy. It was on that run that I realized that the Sturgis Rally was eminently doable.

A few weeks ago, Jan and I took her down Highway 1 through Big Sur and spent a great weekend in Morro Bay. I can tell you that she is infinitely more comfortable on the larger bike, and although Goldie was fast and fun, Mariah is far more practical for keeping peace in the family, if you can use the word "practical" in reference to motorcycles.

Although it's been a while ( a LONG while) since I've run 400 mile days on a bike, Mariah is built for gobbling highway and, with any luck at all, should get to Sturgis and back in reasonable comfort.

Four days and a wakeup.

The excitement builds...