Who the #@&% was Ben Ash?

Morning came, we walked across the street to a cafe and had a delicious breakfast. Then we saddled up and continued west on 212. 

There's not much to see on 212, but we were definitely in "The West". The plains were browner, there were less tree's, and thus less pretty girls (good on Paul for bringing one). The Missouri river came and went and the topography turned into gently rolling hills and we rolled through towns which were increasingly smaller with fewer services and further apart.

Shortly after passing through an Indian reservation we discovered who Ben Ash was ... Finally! We had been wondering about this for about six months. In our exuberance we had to show off our 'stiches. We are sexy beasts, no?

 We also managed to get a group shot of the bikes, waiting for us to relieve ourselves in the pit toilets with grates in them, presumably to keep people from falling in. Or throwing things in. But things were still thrown in, and the grates caught the toilet paper. You can thank me for not taking a photo.

We didn't have far to go to the next town, but I knew we were stretching it on fuel. The Shadow 1300 had the shortest range, but at 150 miles, it ran out, about 10 miles from the nearest town. With no siphon hose (I have one now!) we left Bill and Mark with Brett and rode to town to get fuel. Rob was smart and figured a garage was the right place to go for help, where he was offered a FREE hose and a FREE gas can. But not before stupid me figured a gas station with a convenience store was the right choice and paid $10 for a little gas can and filled it up.

We rode east, back to our gas-less brethren, and noticed the "No Services for 67 miles" sign. There was no such sign going west, from the indian reservation. Thanks a lot, that would have saved us an hour. Once we reached our stranded friends I then realized the little gas can I had purchased was missing a part and we couldn't pour it directly into the gas tank, so we had to first transfer it into an intermediary soda bottle then into the gas tank. Like eight times. The 30 mph wind didn't help .. we probably lost 15% of the fuel.

But eventually we got the job done and we made it back to the gas station and filled up, where I embarassingly noticed that I simply didn't know how to use the new-fangled gas can spout contraption.

 Next stop was Sturgis. Not being during the famous and obnoxiously loud and crowded Rally, we had an easy time finding parking and lunch.

Spearfish Canyon. This little bit of road snakes its way along a scenic river through a tight canyon gorge, at speeds a bicyclist would be bored with. Most of it was 35 mph. Am I crazy or was this 45-55 mph just a few years ago? The corners aren't very tight, but the pavement was decent. We didn't go very fast, which is good, as it was patrolled.

At the end of the day we arrived at our KOA cabins in Custer after riding through a short and cool shower.

Ron, a friend from Oregon, met us there. His plan was to ride to Alaska, but the weather report predicted 1800 miles of rain before reaching the just-recently-plowed Haul Road. It made perfect sense for him to meet us here in South Dakota instead, despite burning through his tires much faster than anticipated. He also had a bucket of beer available to us, which was VERY welcome!

Once settled, Rob and I made a beer-run into town and crammed his panniers with brewskies for twelve, some bourbon, lots of ice and snacks. That meants I missed the burger grilling. Dammit! The rest of the evening was spent enjoying each other's company, telling lies about how well we rode, and Paul, Amanda, myself and someone else (Mark ?? ok I had a few brews too!) getting kicked off the Giant Jumping Pillow. Now, when I say "Kicked Off" I mean that we were very gently told that it is deflating and it would be a lot more fun the next day. She also included some catchy phrase that elicited some corny comments from us afterwards, but it wasn't catchy enough for me to remember. Eh. Come to think of it, I can't remember what I had for dinner. Oh yeah, peanut butter creme cookies and assorted nuts.

We did not get any photos of anyone molesting the dog.

2012 Walt Ride

Every year we have a Walt Ride, in memory of Bill's older brother, Walt, who is no longer with us. Walt got Bill into motorcycling, thus, we ride in Walt's memory. And by "WE" I mean the Red Wing Ironworks Motorbike Club. Our website is here: http://ironworksmotorbikeclub.blogspot.com/

We even have an official tattoo, designed by Rob's wife and sported by at least two of our members.

Usually the Walt Ride is the third weekend in June, and is a nice ride Wisconsin. In recent years we have grown more ambitious and made it longer ... like a ride around Lake Superior ... camping in Richland Center, WI ... drinking beer in New Glarus, WI... or watching vintage motorcycle races at Road America then riding in the rain for a few days.

This year we went west, to South Dakota and, briefly, Wyoming. And for some reason we decided to see who that Ben Ash guy is why he has a landmark. So twelve of us set out on a six-day weekend, taking the back roads to Custer, South Dakota.

It started OK. Most of us met up at a local Caribou at 7am. It was cool and overcast with showers in the forecast. After coffee and pastries we rode to our first stop .. Emma Krumbee's in Belle Plaine. There we met two more in our group, and Neal who rode down on his Ducati 748 to have breakfast with us. It was a nice gathering!

While there the skies opened up. It rained and rained. We sat there for a couple hours waiting for it to clear, but the radar kept showing more showers generating to the west of us. There was nothing to do but punch through it, and so we did. A little bit of drizzle, then a lot of drizzle, and we were in the clear! Blue skies, 90F and humid, we rode to the west.

It was sort of boring. The straight, flat, this-goes-on-forever sort of boring. We scared up a pheasant or two, and passed a lot of nothing. I got a call from work while on the bike, and stepped my co-worker through debugging a problem. How's that for telecommuting!

But in the end we arrived at our hotel, the Sage Inn in Gettysburg, SD. For a reasonable $54/night we all got clean and comfy rooms, except Paul and Amanda had a moldy shower and most of us had snorer's which we brought along. Hungry for dinner, the receptionist (who lived at the hotel) had a sign proclaiming the VFW/Legion (I forget) had the best food, but since she had never eaten there she directed us to the Firehouse. Which was closed and boarded up. So we went to the VFW/Legion, and told our waitress that our hotel receptionist told us to go to the Firehouse ... her response was "oh, you must be staying at the Sage Hotel". Clearly in small towns, everyone knows everyone's business.

We passed the police station which had a note in the window proclaiming it was closed for a week, but since we did see a patrol car passing the Sage Hotel several times we suspected that it was just the receptionist/dispatcher/office that was closed.

The food at the legion/VFW was good. Can't complain about oven-baked pork tenderloin for $6.95 or so. The beer selection was yellow fizzy stuff or Fat Tire ... I think we cleared out their stock of it. We also cleared out their customers. Within 15 minutes of our arrival we had the place to ourselves.

 After a short walk back the motel we passed an old Honda shop with some relics on the porch, and a mummified cat on the sidewalk. We got a photo of Rob molesting the pitbike, but not the cat.

Then we did the "SD Thing" and sat outside our rooms and sipped Tim's bourbon. After Paul retired, "someone" boxed in his bike with benches, and we learned that the other folks at the motel were silo builders and got pretty hammered. Eh, what else is there to do out here?