Today was a "get a few ABC pics and dealer pins" day. Didn't hit many (any?) venues, mostly just toured around the greater Milwaukee (and Racine, Kenosha) area going to dealers and stopping by Capitol Street (HD powertrain plant) and Juneau Ave (HD Headquarters!)
Seeing the Harley facilities was cool. I have pics on the previous linked page.
Going to the dealer sites was... CRAZY. Think the 4 Corners Rally... at a dealership! Yeah... parking... oh 1/2 a mile from the place. One was in the middle of a bunch of other businesses (offices I think) and all their lawns, parking, shipment ramps, everything - were covered with motorcycles. There were definitely more vendors than at 4 Corners, and probably close to as many as Red River. And this was at EVERY DEALERSHIP we went to. Which I think was 4 of them. Plus all the venues (Millers Park, Summerfest, Museum, HOG Island - plus maybe another). It was pretty incredible. Plenty hot, tired, exhausting, sore feet... But something to definitely be a part of.
Somebody on the road asked me later, "You went to the 105? How was it?" - I explained like above, "Would you do it again?" Yeah... maybe if they do it in 5 years again - but definitely not every year.
I've never been to Sturgis - which is a whole different scene - but other than something really large like that - its hard to describe what its like to be a HOG and be in a city that size, where there are bikes EVERYWHERE - even 30 miles away! And where the whole town (even little mom and pop places) are pretty much saying "Welcome Riders! Stop on by!" Pretty cool stuff.
Downside for Christi is that most the dealers were out of dealer pins. I don't think anyone had a clue how many people would show up... You know an event is big when the US Post Office shows up as a vendor! "Ship your stuff home from here!" - so you didn't even have to carry anything on your bike!
We did stop at one store in...Ocowocon (or something like that - anyway - a big hard to pronounce name that started with a 'O' - that turns out to be the store I bought by backrest from on eBay! :)
We didn't even go "downtown" - but just hit vendors, then ate at a place on the way home and turned in early... Well OK - it was still 9 or 10 - but earlier.
And Tom was with us as of Thur - so that was cool.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment