Featured Most Memorable Ride You Ever Had...

Mine was a trip to Südtirol some time back: Me on my bike and my cousin and his son in a Z4...
We went up and down mountain passes each and every day, enjoying fantastic views, great food and a general feeling of utter happiness.

 

What a great thread! Thanks for starting it, @Johnnymoto.

As others have said, it can be difficult to choose just one as a favorite! But then it's hard for me to pick a "favorite" anything because I like SO many things! But one of the most memorable rides I ever had was the first big motorcycle trip that I ever did a couple of years after I started riding. It was a 9-day 8-night trip with Mr. Sandi and two of our best friends, Kelly & Dena. I'd known Dena and her husband, Kelly, for years through bicycle racing. Dena and I started riding motorcycles at nearly the same time and it was her first big trip, too.

We rode about 2,000 miles in those nine days started out heading north through the White Mountains of Arizona and into northern New Mexico where spent a night Santa Fe. This was the trip started our love affair with Santa Fe where we returned (on motorcycles) two years later to get married. And Kelly & Dena rode there with us along with one other friend. Once we left New Mexico we rode into Colorado. Our time in that beautiful state included riding the Million Dollar Highway, riding over Independence Pass into Aspen (where Mr. Sandi had lived for four years some time ago), and having a beer outside of Aspen at a bar/restaurant where Hunter S. Thompson used to hang out (he lived behind the bar). While in Colorado we also rode up to the ruins at Mesa Verde National Park. After Colorado we skirted the SE corner of Utah so we could ride through Monument Valley and its vast sandstone buttes on the road that's in the iconic photos. We continued on across the enormous Navajo Reservation and stayed one night at a place called Cameron Trading Post, a Navajo trading post established in 1916. The last leg of our trip brought us back home though the mountains of northern Arizona and past some of the manmade reservoirs of central Arizona. It was truly an epic trip and one of the best things about it (among many!) was that it whetted my appetite for motorcycle travel.

Edit: I forgot to mention that we hit a low temperature of 30ºF at the top of Independence Pass and then the thermometer his 115ºF during the last day of our ride back home as we dropped down in altitude into the Phoenix area. We'd sort of anticipated that so had lots of gear and were pretty much ready for all weather conditions. We had rain gear too but amazingly didn't have even a drop of rain on that trip.

 

Sandi, this picture is epic! ❤️

 

Thanks, Daniel, but I didn't take that particular photo. That was a grab from the internet. But I did take these two on my iPhone! That's my 2012 H-D Switchback that I rode as my first "touring" bike-sort of a touring bike "lite".





I have so, so many great photos--and memories from that trip. I won't bore you with a bunch of them but this one is fun. It was taken at 30º F and at the highest point I've yet to be on a motorcycle. Highest as in "altitude" for those of you about to make a comment about being high.

 

I'd love to visit Monument Valley someday. It always makes me think of old Westerns (another passion of mine) and John Wayne.

 

A few I took of monument valley and mexican hat area

 

I think back to all the rides and trips. A few recorded but many not. Blasting along in WV near St.Mary every Sunday, just a little bit faster each week on a 90 mile loop. Some great rides and some hair raising rides, some a combination of both. Trying new roads in Ohio with a GSXR friend, and seeing him raise the rear wheel on a surprise off camber left and softly crash in the ditch. Taking my '74 Triumph out on a horridly cold Saturday evening with my best friend and freezing our stupid dupa's off. Riding with the same no-account friend and ending up in a flooded wadi, only to ride 120 miles to Rensselaer, Indiana for a cup of coffee in the middle of the night. many more... However consider 2012 when I bought Mr. Lucifer Orange RS and rode into Andersonville (Chicago neighborhood) from the dealer in Arlington Heights to see my daughter. New bike and unfamiliar surroundings with really no map. Had a drink / snack there and then following Lake Shore Drive though the heart of the city. My absolute favorite drive on LSD, from the north to south, joining the Ryan and into Indiana. No practical speed limits on the Ryan and Borman, only the traffic keeps the pace. Landed at my father-in-law's house in the region. Friends and family, drink and dinner. Rode it home to Iowa the next day, and sold my little Suzi on the spot.

 

All is about context

 

Found a few pics of the Vietnam trip while looking for a C90 pic. No pics of the madness of urban driving unfortunately. Or riding through a shop to get access to the hotel parking but gives a bit of a sense

 

My best and longest trip was back in the 70 a mate and our partners decided we would ride down the Bol d'Or for the race and then a trip around the med coast...as it turned out my mate bailed at the last minute so we decided to just go anyway pretty basic trip all camping all on an old iron head Harley Sportster we had to make the Paul Ricard Circuit in just three days about 1,000 miles so bit of non stop on the way down but after we had a leisurely trek around and wound up in Cannes and got stuck at a campsite for three days while it pissed down,

But some of the little bars/restaurants we visited along the coast of an evening where really memorable for the food and the wine, the French bikers at the time where a miserable lot and never wave and not very friendly the best encounter we has biker wise was when we where puled up at the side of the road just outside Marseille while i checked the gearbox oil which was leaking a bit when a couple of 1% ers pulled up and offered help even offered the oil out of his bike ....proper bikers!

We had a little encounter with the french police on our way through the stunning mountains there where shear drops on one side of the road at times...made for some careful and nervous riding but as it was on the steep side and made the Sportster grunt a bit especially with open pipes the law pulled us over and where droning on about how noisy the bike was but thanks to my girlfriend who spoke a little French managed to get them to give up trying to fine us as it was too much hassle because we didn't understand
We spent the last night in Grenoble and had to thaw the tent before we could pack it away and get going...great trip.

Another that come to mind for a completely different reason is when i rebuilt a Tiger cub at my girlfriends parents place in London and rode it back to Bristol where we where living in totally freezing weather left late afternoon after having a problem so it was dark pretty quick and as it was Sunday i had to wait until 7 pm before the pubs opened so i could stop and try and thaw out in front of their fires took me hours and i think i was on the verge of hypothermia when i got back as a mate said i just kept falling asleep.

 

The mountain section of the TT course on the Isle of Man , no speed limit, amazing corners, great scenery, took my Honda race replica , tucked down behind the screen and flat out at times I thought I was Mike the bike !

 

Although they rarely make a good anecdote most memorable rides involve shitty weather, a sense of relief that they're over, a wish never to repeat them and a gratitude for getting back in one piece.
Having to roll slowly into a wall to stop when I realised my fingers wouldn't work and couldn't move my fingers anymore on a cold commute. Riding with a hand smothering my face in an open helmet in the rain as the rain hurt too much to go above 40. Battling for a ferry two up with luggage in driving rain and brakes unable to cut the downpour.

But there are also weird ones like a ride home with no lights (I'd been running a blown main for a week then the dip went, teenage K4 days) so rode home for 20 miles by the moonlight and the indicator. Luckily only one side worked so it was constant orange glow. Took my lid off and just pottered back through the backroads in the early hours. Magical ride.

 

I really enjoy my monthly ride to the coromandel, but most memorable would be the ride to the South Island for the TRMCC AGM.
Involved mountains, seaside twisties, forestry, desert, and a sea crossing on the inter-island ferry which was my first

 

Horrocks pass in South Australia. It's only a handful of kms but memorable ! Did it on my America towing my camper trailer on my trip to Bundaberg Qld from Northam in Western Australia !
Another was Cunningham gap in Queensland , did that ride maybe five or six times on :- Honda 500 four, :-Suzuki GSX 750 (1978 model):- 1983 Laverda RGS1000 that run on the Lav two up (fiancee) against a Kawasaki six cylinder 1300 (solo) I pants'd him. Several over takes by him on some straights , then I really opened her up . got to the bottom well ahead ! Had time to get off and start refueling.!! He pulled up and his brakes were so hot they were black and red !! Almost glowing !

 

I've a big sentimental pull to Laverdas as a mate of mine (was roadside at the RTA he died in) ran a 180 Jota and an RGS when we were in our mid to late twenties and I had a big Suzuki. Ran round France and Ireland, sorted exploding batteries on the Jota in rural France, got my suzi gen cover welded in Tipperary after an off, towed the Jota onto a ferry in Dublin after a worse one for the Jota. Love a Laverda.



Not enough to be daft enough to buy one, mind.

 

What a spectacular photo!!

 

Wa

Was Hoi An about 40 miles south of DaNang on the coast highway ?? Spent a year there about 50 years ago !

 

How was the surfing?
Yep, that's the one.
My son ended up living out there for ten years in his twenties, although he lives in Germany now we've promised ourselves a 'boys only' Saigon to Hanoi trip on bikes in the future