Enjoyed the pics, thanks!

 

yeah? i liked michigan city, it was a pretty area. we stopped by some little town called LaPorte while we were there on the south side of the highway, had a really pretty pond/lake with some really nice homes surrounding it.

the deluxe was a giant marshmallow all the way out there. very easy ride. only issue i had was how deep the stock saddle is, my but kept sliding forward when i would use the cruising pegs (im only 5'9") and my lower back would hurt a little bit, but nothing some stretching every 100 miles couldnt fix. also, my ****ing throttle hand went numb from the ring finger to the wrist all the time. that **** was annoying.

 

Looks like you and I were in many of the same hot spots last year, but I do not remember seeing you there.
Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.

 

Custer State Park has some good camping areas. You can wake up with Buffalo standing by your camp area

 

aight, **** it. here goes.

So for some reason, even on the weekends, there is an unbelievable amount of traffic between chicago and milwaukee on the i-90 interchange. not really slow or bumper to bumper, but there are a metric-****-ton of vehicles on the road. my buddy Matt and I ride around DC, and sometimes around here you have to ride aggressive to be defensive, if that makes any kind of sense? so, essentially what im getting at is, we ride aggressively. Im not saying we flip people the bird or spit on cars or shove people out of the way, we just accelerate a lot, split lanes on occasion, ride the shoulder, and stay mobile/agile while we are on bikes. well, we were tired of only running along at 55mph during this traffic zone, so we both looked at each other, and said lets just hopscotch through this, Fritz (who is matts father, been riding since the early 70's with some MCs back in the day) should be able to keep up. so away we went. slicing through traffic like its butter is one of my favorite things to do. as a veteran, I like to do things that require a certain sense of clarity and judgement which get the adrenal glands pumping that I dont experience in everyday life. riding my bike like this is one of them. sorry Im not a geezer on a glide (yet). Im still young enough to have my fun.

anyways, as soon as we cross the state line from IL to WI, we can see cops hanging out in the median, and on the opposite side of the highway. we do our best to remain incognito during those times. as we were cresting a hill in the midst of speeding and passing some vehicles, there is a cruiser on the other side of the jersey barriers facing towards us, and as we passed him, you could see him do the head snap to follow us and try to take down our plate numbers. I also knew that there was absolutely no way for him to turn around and start to pursue, so both of us just hit the throttle and darted away. this was also about the time I realized Fritz wasnt anywhere in the rear views, and for as long as we had been at it, who knew how far he was back. Well, with the exposure we had given ourselves, I was pretty certain that we had been radio'd in on an APB, and the remaining hwy patrol would be on the lookout for 2 hooligans from the east coast terrorizing the i-90 corridor and all the mini-van moms we nearly gave heart attacks to. sure enough, as soon as there was a split in the median, we saw a maroon unmarked ready to pull into our direction of traffic. we slowed down and got behind a panel van, and to our luck, there was a semi (thats an 18 wheeler to you city folk) in the slow lane. also to our advantage, the shoulders on this stretch of highway are twice as wide as the damn lanes themselves. so we swung around on the right side of this semi on the shoulder just in time to pass the unmarked cruiser. we then proceeded to pull in front of said semi, and once again continue our asphalt assault. this was probably 20 or 30 miles west of milwaukee at this point.

as we started to head north on 94/90 towards wisconsin dells, there was a really bad jeep rollover up a hill on the highway, so traffic started to crawl. we were able to ride the shoulder around the left side past all the traffic, and find an exit. we pulled over at that exit, and proceeded to wait for Fritz. nearly half an hour went by, and there was no sign of him. finally we get a phone call from Fritz, and hes screaming incoherently about mother****ers and ***********. we relayed the information about what exit we were at, and he said he would meet us there. about 15 more minutes goes by before Fritz finally pulls up, bitching and moaning about getting a ticket for speeding. apparently he was trying to keep up with us, and was so involved in keeping us in sight, that he wasnt watching for police vehicles on the road, and ended up flying past the maroon cruiser we had ditched! 96 in a 55! so as the cop pulls him over, and begins to write him the citation, he asks if Fritz was riding with 2 other bikers that were weaving and driving recklessly. Fritz tells the cop yes, one of them is my son, and the cop responds with "well you should lead by example!" and Fritz says "what the **** do you think Im doing? Im in the back!" after that exchange the cop lets Fritz know the WI state patrol is basically on the lookout for us, but because of how many bikes are in commute right now, its really not much of a search as much as it a request for us to obey the law. after that we toned it down a bit, and the cop let Fritz off with an 84 in a 55. thats what he gets for straggling.

 

Cool pics, thanks for posting.

Enjoyed your speeding story...sorry bout Fritz's ticket.

 

meh, he got over it pretty quick. Matt paid it for him as kind of a "sorry for leaving you behind, dad."

 

Awesome photos. Love to do Sturgis one day.
Thanks for sharing.

 

Just read your speeding story and I still cant stop rolling on the floor. I can just hear Fritz bitchin at you guys now. Absolutely PRICELESS! Your story and pics made me think about my trip in 2011. Cant wait to go back to Sturgis myself.

 

From all of us "Upper Mid-West" riders who are in winter hibernation...we thank you for letting us re-live summer riding fun w/your pics. Looks like it was a good time for all and glad you made the trek there/back safe. Thanks for sharing!