Cruisin' for a Cause

Sunday, July 26th turned out to be a perfect day for a 112-mile motorcycle rally to benefit Rochester's Ronald McDonald House. There was over 1000 bikes participating in this rally and here's what we saw at the RCTC parking lot as bikers from around the region gathered to register for this ride.

There were four stops on the ride and each community rolled out the red carpet and shut off their downtowns just for the bikers. Here's the scene in the little town of Millville, MN.

Next stop was Pine Island, MN. It was a great chance to see lots of different bikes and also ride some roads and visit some towns we normally don't take the time to see each summer.

Here's me and my friend Sharon from work. You can't read it very well because her little flag bracket covers it, but her license plate says BKRMOM!

Here's me and Mr. Johnson in our "leathers."

I wore my my special keyhole-cleavage revealing top (cuz you really can't be a true biker chick without showing a little boob, right?) Needless to say there were many more biker chicks showing ALOT more boob than this and all's I ended up with was a nasty little sunburned circle right in the middle of my chest!

Here are a couple of pretty custom bikes I saw.

The H-D's definitely outnumbered all of the other bikes at this rally!

Here's a short video I captured as some of the bikers were leaving Pine Island.

This rally raised over $125,000 for the Ronald McDonald House in Rochester. You can also see the coverage from our local TV news by going to this link (click on the title "Cruisin' for a cause" with a little video camera icon next to it)

"The Cruise"

Today we participated in "The Cruise" a motorcycle rally to raise funds for the Ronald McDonald House here in Rochester. There was a 40% chance for rain and after an early morning shower, a check on the weather radar showed that other storms out in South Dakota were heading southeast and probably wouldn't affect us, so we decided to take part in this motorcycle event.

When we arrived at the registration site around 9:45, we found there were already quite a few other bikers there. This event gets bigger and better organized every year and this is the first time we've ridden by ourselves--not as part of a much larger group. We did see some familiar faces of people we knew from work out on the ride, so it wasn't like we were riding with a bunch of people we didn't know.

This year's route went through Fillmore, Winona and Olmsted counties--about 132 miles total. It was nice to travel some familiar roads and also ride down some new ones we've never been on before.

Our best reception was in Fountain, Minnesota--a small town in Fillmore County about 6 miles from where I grew up. The good folks of Fountain actually had their main street blocked off so bikers could park right on the main drag.
We also had a stop in Rushford, Minnesota--a town hit by a devastating flood only a year ago. It was strange to sit at the Kwik Trip and eat our lunch remembering last year's pictures of the same Kwik Trip store almost completely covered by flood waters.

My odometer turned over to 10,000 miles just outside of Rushford!

There is a large Amish community in Winona County near St. Charles, Minnesota and my best memory of today's trip was riding past the residence where the Amish families were having their Sunday worship and fellowship......seeing all those buggies parked along the driveway and waving to the little Amish boys in their white shirts and dark vests and trousers waving back at us!

By the time we got back to Rochester, the sky had completely clouded over and there were even a few sprinkles falling. We decided it would probably be best to head for home ASAP, but by the time we got halfway there, the sprinkles were getting more frequent and heavier. About 4 miles from home it was pretty much pouring and had been for a while as the pavement was pretty wet. In addition to the discomfort of wet clothes, rain spotted eyeglasses and windshields, the greater danger is losing control on slippery pavement when only on 2 wheels. Fortunately, we made it home without any mishaps.

We just heard on the local news that there were about 1200 bikers on this fund-raising trip, but no mention of how many dollars were raised for Ronald McDonald house. I will post that amount tomorrow as soon as the information becomes available.

Monday Update: Here are the results of yesterday's ride (an excerpt from today's local newspaper)
• 1,200 riders raised a record $104,392 this year.
• Rider participation has nearly quadrupled since the first official Cruise in 2001, when 340 riders raised more than $14,000.
• In eight years, the event has raised more than $500,000.

You Meet the Nicest People on a Motorcycle

Years ago, we used to hear this advertising slogan: "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" but I think that should be revised to say, "You meet the nicest people on a motorcycle" and here's the story......

This morning, while it was still cool outside, we were going to head down to the deer hunting woods again and get a ladder constructed for the tree stand we built a couple weeks ago. Because Mr. Johnson also had to make a stop at the bank, we decided to grab a breakfast sandwich at a nearby convenience store (KwikTrip). When we pulled into the store around 9 AM, there were a bunch of motorcycles refueling.....nice bikes too, big Harley and Honda cruisers and touring bikes, and the people outside refueling were wearing matching black and orange vests and jackets. So I asked one of the guys if they were headed to a rally and he told me that they were just headed from Minneapolis down to Waterloo, Iowa to visit some friends.

I checked on Mapquest and it's about 200 miles from Minneapolis to Waterloo, so Rochester is a good halfway point for a pit stop. And if they got to Rochester by 9, that means they had a really early start from Minneapolis too.

Since I was lucky enough to have my camera along in the car (and to Mr. Johnson's embarassment), I asked if they would mind posing for a photo, and since I was taking their picture, would they mind if I posted it on my blog? Of course not, was the response, but only if I would also e-mail the photo to Hank (that's him, right in the center with the orange t-shirt & black helmet). So we exchanged cards and here are the members of the "Just Us Motorcycle Club."

Ride safe my friends, and have a wonderful weekend!

I googled "Just Us Motorcycle Club" and found only a link to the club in Southern California, but I wonder if the Minneapolis club is one of the affiliates?

Anyway, it was a chance encounter--if we would have been 10 minutes earlier or later--we would have missed meeting this fine group altogether. And I guess to get back to where I originally started with this story, I just want to say again that behind all the black leather, chrome and loud pipes, bikers (at least all of the ones I've met) really are nice people. So don't be afraid to wave to us, talk to us and most importantly, watch out for us.