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OK, again it has taken me entirely too long to post about this event.  What can I say?  It has been a busy week after a fantastic, relaxing weekend.  As I said before Leesburg Bikefest, this is one event everyone should attend.

The ride up was nice.  Ian and I rode together and stopped at Ft. Pierce for breakfast at the ever popular Waffle House.  Apparently the Denny’s there went out of business, but there’s enough customer base to have two WH’s within a half mile of each other.  From there we rode to Yeehaw Junction where we stopped to split up.  Ian was meeting a friend in Ocala and I was meeting my son north of Haines City.

I took SR60 west on what turned out to be a very nice ride.  Traffic was low and cruising between 65 and 70 was without interruption.   I got to US27 and rode towards Haines City.  In spite of being in town and the construction, the ride wasn’t bad.  The speed limits were 50 or better and the lights were spread far apart.

I pulled into a Walmart to refuel and wait for my son and his friend (following in a dune buggy) to arrive.  That was over 30 minutes, but after they got there we were soon on our way.  It’s only a short hour ride to Leesburg from there unless a biker lays one down.  Naturally, someone laid it down, but there seemed to be no life threatening injuries as we rode past the slightly damaged bike.

As we neared Leesburg bike traffic picked up rapidly.  Where we had been seeing dozens of bikes on the highway we now say only a few dozen cages!  It was bikes everywhere and it sounded great.  Riding US27 with its hills into Leesburg let us know there was good riding around.

We spent the day doing the carnival acts.  We looked at vendors, the Rats Hole for bikes and babes, listened to some really good bands, and just looked at bikes and people.  We met friends and made some, too.  We ate some pretty good road food and had a beer or two.

By 5:00 I was really getting antsy.  It was hot in the parking lots and I wanted to ride to cool off.  Now, David (the dune buggy guy) had to ride bitch with Wes to get over to Main Street.  Wes didn’t like the ride so I humbled to give him a ride back to his buggy.  Then, the three of us road our respective vehicles our through the villages.  It was nice and peaceful riding the back roads and through the golf course developments.  We topped off the tanks and headed back to the hotel.

After dark the old fart (me) decided it had been a long day.  I was up at 5:00 AM and rode 4 hours to meet them before they leisurely came along so I was pretty tired.  The young guys wanted to go downtown to party and I bid them good night.  They came back sometime in the night and had a few good stories, but nothing remarkable.

Sunday was great.  We started after checkout with a gourmet breakfast at the Golden Corral.  Not bad!  Then, riding out we split up as they had to attend a Rotary benefit bowling thing and I had to check out my proposed ride for the way home.  I was the winner on this one.  I rode out through hills and took a few “wrong turns” to see what was there.  I had beautiful curves and fantastic vistas.  Yeah, I said vistas in Florida!  There was one spot high on a hill where I could see for literally 30 to 40 miles.   There was one hill that went up, dipped, went up a little more and then crested to a 45-degree incline straight down about 400 yards to a traffic circle out in the middle of nowhere.  I rode past lakes and homes and was so anxious to take everyone on the route that I hooked back after I hit SR50.

I haven’t finished working on the videos for this trip.  I have an avi file that is over 6 GB that I have to bring home somehow to edit.  The ride home with friends was great even though we compromised to the turnpike to get home before dark.  It was a great weekend and I hope to see more of our riders on it next year.  It’s that good.

Negligence of writing here has been a bad habit of mine lately. Last week we had a great ride and over 60 photos posted on the meetup site. It was relaxing and when I got back I just zoned out. There’s been a lot on the plate lately.

Today, we had a ride that Rich came up with quite awhile ago. It’s about time we actually did the ride and it proved to be everything he said it would be. We started at the Harley-Davidson store in West Palm Beach. It’s a common meeting place for our group because it’s right off I-95 and makes it easy for all our riders to get there in time. We left at 8:30 as scheduled and headed towards Okeechobee, another standard leg that we do on many rides. Once there, we kept on US98 north and started the route we hadn’t done before in our group. After moving north awhile, we hit back roads that took us west to Punta Gorda. It was a nice, relaxing ride on country roads We rode into the Fisherman’s Village area and to the restaurant on the water where we had a nice lunch with friends.

As food went, it wasn’t that great. The key was the location. On the water we watched catamarans and yachts cruise by as we ate, drank, and talked with our friends. We had a superb waitress who dazzled us with her incredible memory (she took no notes with orders for 13 people and never slipped once!) and had a nice lunch in general. This Fisherman’s area has several buildings with shops in it and we walked through it after lunch. Trudy and Mark were taken captive by a store and finally escaped so we could leave.

Keep in mind that we’ve traveled about 150 miles to get there and now have a bit over that to get home. Weather played games with us on the way up and wasn’t done with us for the ride home. Rich led us to the roads he planned for the way back and everyone was very pleased with this part of the trip. It was great. Winding back roads with forests, estates, and great views all the way back. We even saw a gator sitting by the corner at one turn. The roads took us all the way into La Belle. This is a route we’ll work into a ride again. It was just to good to not revisit.

On the way back there was an edginess in the group. I’m not sure why. It could have been the occasional spritz we had or the major rains that surrounded us as we rode the last leg home. After Clewiston we hit some rain in Belle Glade, but all in all, it wasn’t bad at all. It turned out to be a great day for a great ride. If you can’t get wet, you can’t really ride… especially in South Florida.

We had a new rider, Guz, who came on his 1200 Sportster. This was a tough ride to start with our group, especially on the Sporty, but he did a great job. It was great that with 8 bikes we actually had 3 occupied by couples. I think that’s pretty cool and everyone was great. Connie was our only female bike rider as the other girls didn’t make it. It was a great group that rode tighter than our group usually does. Our group is growing and so are our rides. The quality and planning is paying off as we near 80 members.

When we first came up with the idea of doing the ride around the Lake backwards it seemed like a simple idea that wasn’t anything significant.  But that ride was one of the most successful we ever had and it introduced a path through which we can combine day rides with our Treasure Coast friends.  It turned out to be a great idea and became called the Okeechobee Reverse for doing the ride around Lake Okeechobee counterclockwise.

Today we repeated the ride for the first time with great results.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Andre and Dawn riding with us today.  Leaving the Harley-Davidson shop just after 9:00 we headed out to the Beeline Highway (SR710) as a fog dissipated a few hundred feet above us.   The cool air made for an exceptional ride as we entered Martin County with 6 bikes and 8 riders.  We passed a grove and the air was briefly thick with the smell of orange blossoms.  The ride to Okeechobee was perfect except for a short period behind a slow farm vehicle.

We arrived at Pogey’s right on time and I found Yarka had left a message on my cell phone.  Her group had arrived at the Harley shop a bit late and missed us.  They took advantage of the detailed instructions we post for every trip and were on their way.  We were also expecting the Treasure Coast group to meet us there.  We occupied the back wall of the restaurant with two tables and a booth waiting for overflow.  Shortly after we ordered our food John’s group showed up with bikes and riders.  Within minutes, Yarka, Mark and their friends from Europe arrived rounding us to 19 people on 14 bikes for the remainder of our ride.

A group that size is hard to manage sometimes.  The slightest gap and another vehicle splits the group, making it hard to work together.  It happened and we actually rode over 20 miles as two groups separated by a van.  When we finally connected it looked great to see the line of bikes stretch out behind me.  We rode through Moore Haven and on to Clewiston where we stopped for fuel and a refreshing drink.  It was in the high 80’s, but when we were riding it was pleasant.

This ride ended around 2:30 for those in our area as our Treasure Coast friends headed north to beat the occasional thunderstorm as they formed.  The ride couldn’t have been better executed.  I hope you’re on our next ride for the Okeechobee Reverse.  You can see more photos by joining our riding group.  Just click here.

It’s a bit obvious that I’m catching up on back-writing.  It’s just been very busy and the rides have been fantastic.  Take last night for instance.  Our group took our first ride to Iron Eagle’s Bike Night.  Each month Jeff, the owner, personally takes charge of an event in his parking lot that benefits the Make a Wish Foundation.  We aren’t just talking about a run-of-the-mill parking lot get together.  There’s room for 500 bikes, a live band, a DJ, hamburgers, hotdogs, chips, beer, soda, a guy sewing patches for us, and great people to talk to.  It’s one of the nicest events our group has attended like this and you can bet we’ll be back next month.  It occurs the first Tuesday of each month.

Iron Eagle specializes in re-titled Harley-Davidson motorcycles and customs.  Definitely worth stopping to take a look.  They were one of the stops on our Dealer Ride last month.  This is one you want to attend when we do it again.

I really have been neglectful in writing about one of the best rides I will ever experience.  The Memorial Ride for Sgt. Chris Reyka, BSO and one of my neighbors, was incredibly well attended and exceptionally well organized.  A ten-mile procession of motorcycles through Pompano Beach and up the Florida Turnpike to Lake Worth was executed flawlessly thanks to top-notch planning from Brian Donnelly, fellow deputy with Chris and close friend of Chris’s family.  After the service and lunch, the escorted ride continued to Ft. Pierce where the escort dropped off.  The ride continued to Titusville at the Police Hall of Fame.  The cookout that followed was an excellent close to a day dedicated to a great officer.

Look for photos and videos to be added here later.  I’m sure Brian will put something together for us, too.

This was a nice ride and went more or less as planned. Four of us ate at John G’s and Ian joined us later. The bikes rode along the ocean to Hobe Sound where we cut over to US1 to make up some time. We joined the Stuart group and set out along the ocean and A1A.

Now, the ocean rides in Broward are a bit boring due to the endless building of condos. Riding in Palm Beach County is better, but very slow. Most speeds are 30 or 35 and if it’s hot out the ride becomes painful. I had never been on A1A in St. Lucie County and it was a pleasure to learn about. The speeds are generally 45 or higher. While you aren’t up against the ocean very often, you have a lot of natural scenery. It was a great ride most of the way to Cocoa Beach with only a few slow spots. The only down side was that you were not riding along the water as you often due in Palm Beach.

I managed to have a bug fly down the back of my shirt which made for an interesting 30 minutes of the ride. It was either a beetle or a bee and was biting along my belt line where it finally settle on my back. That took a lot of the pleasure out of that part of the ride. We stopped for gas on the north side of Cocoa Beach and I shook out my shirt.

We doubled back through 520 and found a nice little restaurant on the water. Vic had to breathe that salt air and Ian thought it was medicinal for his cold. After they figured out how to put 11 chairs at two adjacent tables (Vic had to help them) we finally got seated and ate. This was a good group. The pictures are on the meetup.

The ride back was something I really looked forward to. Vic and Ian had family commitments and peeled off at I-95. They missed the best part of the ride. We took 520 to CR528. Naturally I missed the turn which was clearly marked as St. Cloud. We would have ended up in Orlando if it hadn’t been for the group pulling me over. We took 528 for awhile and almost missed CR419, a tiny little road that isn’t marked until you are right up on it. Both of these roads were incredible. There were nice curves and some areas were wooded. If the wind hadn’t been so high I would have done it again.

We rode to US192 west and connected to the every popular US441 to Okeechobee. The rest of the way home was very familiar since we come up that way often. The sun went down and the unbearable heat turned to cool air. I left the house at 6:45 AM and returned at 7:20 PM. It was a nice day of riding and gave me more ideas. It is unfortunate that the battery on the cam died as I was taping our fly-by and I didn’t get any of that footage. We have a special event coming up that we’ll have lots of highlights from our group.

While the video wasn’t what I had wanted it to be, I created one anyway and published it.

Every riding group in the country should do one of these.  We had so much fun on a 40-mile ride with 6 stops.  It took all day and created a great riding experience for beginning riders, though we didn’t have all the beginners with us that should have come along.  It was just great.

Our stops included Harley-Davidson of the Palm Beaches, Broward Motorsports of the Palm Beaches for Honda, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, Greater Yamaha, Iron Eagle for used Harleys and Customs, and Triumph - Victory Motorcycles of Palm Beach in Boynton Beach.  Of course, we had the ever popular lunch break which was at Russo’s, a new experience for half our group!

This ride was so much fun that we are already talking about doing another after new models come out in the late summer and early fall.  Missing this ride would be a bad move.  It’s just too easy and too much fun.  Oh, and our weather was great.  Dry roads, sunshine, and enough wind to provide some experience for riders without blowing them off the road.

See more pictures and read about this ride HERE.

Almost 200 miles from door to door, this ride was definitely one of the best we’ve ever had. We had two new riders today, Connie and Slick. Everyone got there with time to spare and the only problem was Lori’s bike refused to start for her. She came in her car and rode with me. It was interesting how many had never seen the lake. That came later in the trip.We started with the mandatory ride out SR80, but chose to take CR880 when we got to 20-mile bend. This presented us with entertainment in the form of alligators in the canal along side the road and the acrobatics of a crop duster as we road between sugar cane and vegetable fields. The overcast was like a fog that was 500 feet above us. That weather lasted all the way to Clewiston where we had planned to stop for breakfast.
The town seemed closed until we got to the plaza where Beef O’Grady’s was located. After a consensus decision between back-tracking for the Clewiston Inn, Clock’s, or trying O’Grady’s we decided to stay since they were serving breakfast according to the banner they had out front. The convenient 10-person series of high-boys made the perfect table for our group and breakfast was pretty good. We got out the door quite full for about $12 including tip.After some photos, I gave Lori the video camera to try on the road. She took video on the ride to Okeechobee along SR78. There, Slick peeled off (after we stopped to explain the route), we topped off gas for the smaller bikes, and gave the video camera to Diane. She took video all the way to Port Mayaca where we stopped to show the lake. At least three of the riders had never seen the lake, though a couple had taken the ride around it. There were lots of huge gators and the group socialized on the levee.We got underway, riding out to SR710 / Beeline Highway which took us back to Royal Palm Beach and our ride into Wellington. Will peeled off after Northlake and the rest of us went back to Starbucks. After more socializing and talk about the great ride, we finally broke up and rode to our homes just before the storm came through.

You can’t beat riding with a great bunch of friends. While it was the first time in our group for Connie and Slick, they fit in like everyone else has in our group: like friends we’ve known all along. I can’t help but to be proud of the people I ride with. They are great riders, great friends, and great people.