Screw the trip report, take me to the pictures!

I'm a happy camper. Yesterday was Madison Motorcycle Club's annual New Year's Day ride. One station predicted rain and 34, the other predicted cloudy and 37. We decided to go with the "cloudy and 37" station. <grin> Over the previous couple days we'd gotten the bikes up and running after buying a badly needed new battery charger. Mine kicked right off, but CrowDog's bike is cold-blooded. Then I spent some time salting the driveway and hacking out a path in the ice out to the road. That took some doing, especially hacking through the 8-10" of ice at the bottom where the snow plow had compacted things. That project ended up taking us a couple days of work on and off but we eventually got a path cleared out about 8" wide.

Sunday we got up and it was 30 degrees. But it wasn't snowing or raining. We brought in the leathers and cold weather riding gear to warm up and kept an eye on the weather. When the sun came up, it didn't look too bad! So around 10:30, with temps at 34, we bundled up and headed out. I wore my old HUGE leather jacket because it'd cover my ass (heh heh heh) with a regular sweatshirt and a hooded sweatshirt under it, heavy socks in my boots, and my jeans and chaps. Oh, and my windproof Thinsulate(tm) Harley Davidson(tm) gloves.

We carefully navigated through the narrow path in the ice out to the street and took off slowly. The tires were frozen and square from the bikes sitting for several weeks. This makes them shake like crazy so when we got out to the highway I verrrryyyyyy slowly worked my way up to about 50 mph. This took maybe 4-5 miles. Lo and behold, it was actually nice riding (and neither of us owns heated gear)! When we got to town, we filled up with gas and headed to Madison. It was nice riding and the only things that got cold were my thumbs and fingertips (as usual).

When we arrived at the Inn on the Park hotel on the capitol square, there were TONS of bikes already there. MMC has been in existence since 1924 and cater to all kinds of bikes and to both on- and off-road riding. Their AMA charter # is 2! I went down a ways and found a spot for us to park. I heard later that there were 55 bikes.

We went in to register ($10) but didn't stay inside long. We didn't want to warm up too much, just long enough to thaw our fingers.

Back outside we wandered around to look at the bikes--lots of different brands, lots of different years (even a Panhead), and lots of different "purpose" bikes. This is a good ride to see folks you haven't seen in a while and to also talk to people who ride totally different bikes than your's.

It's been a few years since we've done this ride and something new to us was that they gave us a route map. We had a choice--longer or shorter route back to Quaker Steak 'n Lube on the west side of Madison. Since we'd already ridden 35 miles to *get* to the ride, we elected to bypass things and head out to Quaker Steak directly. We did the traditional group part of the ride, tho, where you circle the capitol square twice. It felt fantastic to ride again, especially with people on all different kinds of bikes!
I peeled off (with CrowDog following) and headed directly to Quaker Steak. It was fun to see the looks people in cars were giving us. No, we're not nuts. We're just LIVING!

We'd never been to Quaker Steak before and when we arrived, part of the lot was blocked off with cones. We saw a bike parked in that section and realized they'd blocked it for us! We were the 2nd to arrive, nearly beating Ed, the guy handing out the coffee mug you earn when you complete the ride.
We headed in, got our mugs (and Ed gave us a couple MMC bandannas) and the decided to get something to eat. I was hungry because I kept smelling bacon at the restaurants we passed on the ride in to Madison. <grin> I had a pulled pork sandwich that was good and the chips were great.

We'd been sitting about 10-15 minutes when the rest of the ride arrived, filling the place. I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in some years. I didn't expect him to remember me, but as usual, he did. He was good to me back during my "dark period" when I had a lot of bad things happen to me and he's still the same, nice, gentle man I remembered.

CrowDog and I headed out after we finished our lunch because we still had a 30 mile ride back. The ride home was uneventful. On Springfield Hill the road was a bit damp, which concerned me, but it wasn't slippery (the last time we did this ride, we rode through snow drifts on Springfield Hill!). When we went through the town nearest to home, the bank sign said 36. A heat wave!

When we arrived home, I nearly dropped my bike in the driveway when I veered off my little clear path. I felt the ass end swing out but I recovered and made it to the garage floor where stopped for a second to collect myself. I pulled the rest of the way into the garage, turned the bike around, and backed it into my spot (the one with the sign above it that says "Bitch's Parking Only") just liked I'd done it every day during my 6-8 month riding season. It's amazing how it all comes back and is so automatic, even after not riding for maybe 6-8 weeks.

The day was a fantastic one. We got to ride, our beloved Packers won (even tho it was a losing season) and the Bears lost (cuz they still suck). ;-) We hit the trifecta of Good Things. ;-)

Happy New Year.

x All images were taken with a Canon EOS 5D
and are © 2006 D.M. Anderson. All Rights Reserved.

This is how I stay warm when I ride in cold weather. Surprisingly, it works very well. However, it's not very fashionable. Oh, well.	CrowDog shares a laugh with another rider.
Some of the bikes. You can see a little snow on the ground to the left.	More bikes.
These guys were having fun. I liked the bright colors of their bikes.	The oldest bike there.
I got a kick out of this.	Some of the riders at Quaker Steak & Lube.
I surprised Rich and Kim by taking their photo mid-meal.	Some of the bikes in the lot of Quaker Steak & Lube.
CrowDog bundling up for the ride home.	Yep, that's me looking like the Michelin Man with all my layers on!