On the Road Again

© Jason Pryor

Excitement is building, emails are flying, and the countdown is nearing zero. The OFMC is about to hit the road for our annual summer trip. How can two days take so long to pass?

This year has been dubbed the “Circle Around Wyoming Tour,” for the simple reason that that is what we’re going to do. We’re heading west out of Denver, through Utah into Nevada, and then we’ll turn north to Idaho. We’ll arc northeast through Idaho into Montana, on through until we just clip the northeast corner of Wyoming on our way to South Dakota, and then we’ll head south to Nebraska. From Nebraska it’s back to Colorado.

Highlights of this trip will include an FAC in Grand Junction where we’ll all collect from our separate starts; two nights in Jackpot, NV, with one day designated for golf; Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho; Devil’s Tower; the Black Hills; and Car Henge outside Alliance, NE. The last time the OFMC tried to visit Car Henge we missed it because we didn’t know they’d built a new stretch of highway that bypasses it. We won’t miss it this time.

It’s time to be prepping the bikes and making sure they’re fit for a long ride. Put air in the tires, do an oil change if you’re close to needing one, maybe get a new rear tire. Sure that tire may have a good 1,000 miles of service left on it, but we’ll be covering about 2,000 miles. Don’t be an idiot.

Then buff that baby a bit. Sure, it’s going to get really dirty in the next nine days, and need a serious cleaning when you get home, but you always want to start the trip with a good-looking bike.

I know I’m ahead of the game because I had my Concours in for full service less than a month ago and it’s running better than it has in years. I guess valve adjustments really do matter, although I hadn’t realized how poorly it was running until I got it back and saw how great it now runs.

Packing is something you do the night before. Ever since we ditched the tents and sleeping bags and started staying in motels every night, packing has gotten very simple. Nowadays everyone has hard bags or soft bags and you just put in clothes, rain gear, and grooming items. Plus, charge units for cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, and laptops. We didn’t have any of that stuff when we first started doing these rides more than 20 years ago.

One or two guys will bring dedicated beverage bags that hold ice and liquids. That’s another change. There won’t be very many bungee straps in evidence, whereas they used to be the single most useful tool we traveled with.

But right now it’s just waiting. I’ll sleep tonight but sleep might be harder to come by tomorrow night. Oh man, I’m ready for this