Route 66

All posts tagged Route 66

…and it’s not the one I chose.

Having had the Road King Classic as my first choice, I was a little disappointed when we turned up at Woodstock Harley Davidson after an hour’s bus ride to collect the bikes to be told that as they were out of Road Kings I’d have to ride one of their fleet of Electra Glide Ultra Limited bikes instead.

Woodstock Harley Davidson, Illinois

I consoled myself by thinking about being able to hook up my iPod – bought specially for the trip – to its sound system but was horrified when I saw the colour: “root beer”, aka ‘horrendous metallic brown’.

Harley Davidson FLHTK Electra Glide Ultra Limited

A ride back into central Chicago with traffic jams on a hot day revealed that it started to pink when hot…

Arrived!

Well I’ve arrived here in Chicago at the start of Route 66. My fellow travellers will be gathering later today and the plan has changed slightly in view of the high temperatures around at the moment: we will be picking the bikes up on Sunday morning rather than Monday, so we can be on the road first thing Monday morning.

The flight was fine but it did take United Airlines 35 minutes to check my bag in which, coupled with the mile walk to the gate, meant I had no time to grab a coffee and breakfast at 6.00am. Grr!

US immigration was also sadly on a par with the UK Border Agency so more delay getting through there, exacerbated by an Air India flight which seemed to have mainly wheelchair-bound passengers…

Off to explore now, I think!

Sadly, Global Enduro had to cancel the Sturgis trip as a group had had to cancel. Thankfully, there was another authorised trip on Harley Davidson’s website: Route 66 Westbound – 2400 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles with more or less the same dates, so definitely do-able.

This was on my bucket list and whilst I still want to do Sturgis at some time in the future, doing Route 66 will be an amazing ride with some sights along the way like Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

So I’ve booked with Italian organisers Bikers American Dream and waiting to hear further details now. Still aiming to book a Road King but I may have to go for an Electra Glide if not.