Riding in the USA
My passion for riding a motorbike made me buying one shortly after I arrived for my two year assignment in the USA. And it became a great time, an opportunity to discover the country and an opportunity to make friends.
All started with getting my new bike, a 2007 BMW K1200R in April 2007
After riding around on my own for a while I discovered the internet community www.i-bmw.com. This gave the whole riding thing a new direction. All in a sudden there were others which liked riding like me and which revealed to be a great bunch of guys.
First I met Jim, Chris and Kevin.
Jim is one of the Jersey Boys (Bill, Bill, Jim, Pete and Paul from NY) which I rode with the most.
The next ride brought Paul, Bill and Bill into play. On this picture there is me next to BillA and BillG.
By far the most rides I did together with BillG. It is always a pleasure to follow his smooth and safe but still quick line and most of the times I was able to follow. In addition Bill is a good guide and showed me hundreds of nice little back roads in the area. And he helped me a lot with changing tires and other bike related stuff.
Pete appeared (to me) a little bit later. On this picture on the right together with Bill.
Other good things to mention
We did tours like this one to Vermont with Chris and Kevin
We had our preferred places like Hawks Nest (here with Bill, Paul, Bill and Pete)
or the diner in Port Jervis (here with Jim)
I learned to cope with cold by using heated clothes
or using head phones combined with GPS, MP3 player and radar detector which is unfortunately illegal in Germany
From time to time new riders appeared for a ride like for this one to the Hudson Valley
Or this one to the Delaware Water Gap
But again and again we had our great tours into the area (here Catskills with Paul, Tom, Pete, Bill)
And Bill was always there to help with tire changes and other technical issues.
The highlight was the Blue Ridge Parkway ralley where Wolfgang joined us
Here Kevin, Wolfgang, Tom and Jim on the way to Snowshoe
The group on the Blue Ridge Parkway (Tom, Jim, Bill, Randy, Kevin, Jim, Wolfgang)
Jim, Tom, Bill, Randy, Jim, Wolfgang (guess who took the picture)
Tom at the Blue Ridge Parkway
And there were the gatherings like this one in Stowe, Vermont
It was a wonderful time and I am very happy that I made this experience. It was a great additon to my work experience in the USA and it gave me some feeling of belonging to a family while on my own in a foreign country. I will miss all of my good friends. I hope we will meet again.
The Jersey Boys gave me a big farewell party hosted by Jim and his wife (which is an excellent chef).
Tom, Jim, Paul, Jasna, Ann Marie, Bill, Bill, Chris, Pete
Karte 2008_09_us_summary
Details of all my rides in the US are available at my tracklog page.
P.S.: The bike has been sold. I will get a new one next year back in Germany.