Today, was a great time at Motorcycle First Thursday in Minneapolis. The sky was clear and bright blue. It was one of the warmest days we’ve had so far in the mid 50s. Over 100 motorcycles came out. Perhaps even 200. A good start for so early in the spring, but nothing like the 1000-2000+ we get in the summer.
The smaller crowd was nice. It made it easy to find friends to talk to as well at look at the bikes. The ratio of folks wearing Aerostich gear when I first arrived was surprisingly high.
It was a good mix of bikes. Some cruisers, sportbikes, adventure bikes, and a pile of others. There were even two sidecars.
The most interesting bike for me this month was a Honda GoldWing. Yea, yea. A very common bike, but this one had something on it I had never seen before. The odometer was at 461,636 miles! Impressive! I wish I didn’t have a mortgage payment, so I could have the time to ride that much.
The stickers on the back of his bike said “4 times 10 day 10,000 miles”, “40,000 miles a year club”, and “450,000 miles strong”
This is a Suzuki VStrom 1000. When I finally sell my 1150GS, I want to bike a VStrom 650. I like how this one is setup. Many of the mods I’d like on a VStrom: bags, bars, plate, and seat. Missing the extra lights though. I’m not sure if I’d get mine in black though.
It was a good night chatting with folks until the sun went down.
Chris:
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine riding 40K+ miles a year. You'd have to be rich and independently wealthy.
That is still a large crowd for this time of year. We only get a couple of hundred in the middle of summer during our BBQ nights
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
I agree. How do you work and ride that much. My brain can't figure it out. Maybe if you did 50 miles at lunch on the freeway. (Boring) and then had a 25 mile commute you could get there.
DeleteWe do get some big crowds. It is a lot of fun.
nearly half a million miles on one bike is pretty badass no matter how you slice it.
ReplyDeleteIndeed! I was very impressed. That many miles on any vehicle is a feat.
DeleteWhat a great turnout. I used to put that kind of miles on cars when I lived outside of Los Angeles. No good public transportation back then and everywhere was always a long ways away.
ReplyDeleteWow. Too much time in the car, and LA traffic is terrible without splitting.
DeleteI'm going to try to make it down in May. Watch for the green Zx-14.
ReplyDeleteThat's an impressive bunch of miles on the Goldwing. I don't even come close to that kind of mileage with any or even all of my vehicles combined!
Cool! We should try to meet up. Send me a note the day before if you are for sure going to make it.
DeleteFunny to think you think 100-200 bikes is a small gathering. Hard to believe how many bikes you get in the summer.
ReplyDeleteWe are pleased when we get 65 bikes in the summer on bike night.
40,000 miles a year? That is over a hundred miles on each and every day of the year. Wow.
Yes, 100-200 is small for first Thursday. At last Tuesday sport bike night we can get more than that in just sport bikes :-) we are a bit bigger metro area though.
DeleteThere was a guy filming at the corner as the bikes came and left, does anyone know if he posts the videos online?
ReplyDeleteI saw him too, but I don't know who he is.
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