Around the Lake
Battling Mother Nature proves a returning-bikers mettle
By D. David Morin
Photos by Mike Berger

When MRCA Web Editor Wes Thomsen called and invited me to go on the Club’s ride around Lake Superior this past July, I jumped at the chance. I grew up riding motocross and had mini-bikes since I was 13. I got into bigger bikes in the early 1990s when I bought an old FLH to ride in my buddy’s gang. We lived in the Hollywood hills and rode two or three times a week with our enthusiastic posse of characters nicknamed Acid, Bones, English and Skel-traco. (With me being a working actor, they dubbed me Olivier.)

We rode Heritage Classics, SoftTails, my FLH – then later my FXR – and Bones had an old Triumph Bonneville. We all had loud pipes, no windshields, wore lots of black and generally terrorized the Sunset Strip on Tuesday nights after riding from a burgerjoint meeting-place out in the Valley. We would cruise the Pacific Coast Highway on Sundays up to Malibu and the Rock Store off Mulholland Highway. We rode fast and loud and raised hell in that Hollywood biker kind of way. And while we were mostly style over substance, we had a blast. (The highlight of those days culminated with serving as motorcycle chauffeurs for Nicolette Sheridan’s batchelorette party, taking her and her friends on the back of our bikes down Sunset Strip.)

But alas, I sold my FXR in 1994 to buy an engagement ring (a story more suitable for the Oxygen Channel than here), and I really hadn’t ridden much since then. Sure, I test-drove a 1600cc Kawasaki Mean Streak a month before the trip, I was still rusty and nervous. But I was also determined to make this ride, so I hopped on a plane and flew from Los Angeles to Minneapolis, where Wes picked me up.

Wes let me warm up on his 2005 Electra Glide, riding around his block before taking me to St. Paul Harley Davidson to pick up my rental – a brand-new 2008 Road King. Fears too numerous to count ran through my mind as we drove to the dealership. Would there be some form of written test perhaps? Maybe an on-road test to prove I could handle the machine? But my worries were for naught, for as soon as I had finished the paperwork, the gentleman behind the counter just handed me the key and said, “Have a great trip.”

As I rode that big machine back to Wes’ place, I slowly grew more comfortable, both with it and with my own rusty riding skills – that is, until I came to a stop in front of his house and dropped the bike. Boy, did I feel sheepish. Here I was hoping to keep up and not look out of place, but instead I wound up looking like the new kid on the block. I didn’t want to appear the fool in front of the other Club members who were participating in the ride. I certainly didn’t want to embarrass Wes. And I wanted to represent the West Coast, even though the longest trip I had ever taken was 400 miles up Highway 1 to San Francisco in one day from L.A. Luckily, the only thing damaged was my ego.

The following morning was the beginning of the trip, and all of the participants met at MRCA Headquarters for the first leg of our journey – Minneapolis to Duluth. In Askov, MN, we were joined by a few members of the Thunderbirds MC who gave us a grand escort to Duluth’s Canal Park. After dinner, I hit the sack for what I knew would be a great adventure come the morning. Little did I know how much I would come to appreciate why Harley Davidsons are built the way they are, and why so many of them have windshields.

See, in Southern California, we don’t get much bad weather. In fact, no one rides if it’s raining, and if it starts, you take shelter until it’s over. If you want to know the truth, we’re pretty much fairweather bikers, and don’t really like getting our bikes dirty. We keep the chrome clean and the tires black. And we never, ever get wet. Period. Rain gear is absolutely unheard of. So in short, I didn’t expect rain on the trip around Superior, even though Wes kept reminding me to remind him to get me rain gear (which he did at Club headquarters). I just never thought I’d actually use it.

Well, I did. A lot. And for the new guy who wasn’t even absolutely sure a bike could actually operate in the rain, I got baptized in a hurry. Heavy rains on one whole day, and three mornings of intermittent showers proved the necessity of the rain gear. (I eventually upgraded my rain gear and purchased some lined waterproof gloves with longenough gauntlets to go over my jacket sleeves to help fight the gnawing wet and cold.)

Over the course of the weeklong trip around Lake Superior, we had rain, wind, I swear a little hail, cold, more wind, and equal parts clouds and sun. And the sheer size of my bike (and its windshield) came in handy in dealing with all that weather and wind. I really needed that low-end power to keep me up straight. And I was glad I was 1100 pounds of combined flesh and steel to power through the elements. This wasn’t a road trip – this was an expedition, and you never knew what the weather or the road was going to do next. Our windburn faces at the end of the run was testimony to our arduous outdoor adventure. We had battled the elements and lived to tell the tale. And I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Download the PDF to see more pictures from the trip