Gophers and Cheese

Here's a quick rundown of a few events in August that you might be interested in checking out. 8/4-8/10: 74th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (Sturgis, SD) Obviously, this is huge and a lot of people will make the 600 mile trip from the Twin Cities.  I went to the rally in 2007-2009 and had a blast each time.  I was just out in the Black Hills on a moto-fishing-camping adventure at the end of May and will post pics soon.  It's a phenomenal place to ride and can't recommend it enough. 8/7: First Thursday at Dulono's Pizza / Moto Mania at the Uptown VFW (Mpls.) According to Dulono's Facebook page, they are planning a big party for August so we'll see what that entails.  Moto Mania is growing fast and the buildings are practically across the street from each other so swing by both.  The blog is filled with photos from these events so if you've never been, go! 8/9: Ride For Larry Pierce (St. Paul / Monticello) Around the country, memorial rides ...

You may notice a BIG change to the blog. For the first time in a long time, I have switched Blogger templates and tweaked the layout. I made it look very similar to the old layout with two BIG differences. The page is now wider I am using that added width to display much larger photos - twice as wide and twice as tall so they now take up 4X the space! New photo size: Old photo size: You can still click on any photo see a larger version like before (I upload nearly all my photos 1024 pixels wide) but this change should reduce the need to do that.  I have gone back and updated all my blog posts from June and July to automatically display the photos in this larger format and may go a little father back than that (I'm not going to go back through all 900 posts on the blog as the process is very manual). I hope you like the BIG update!

Here are some of the more interesting bikes I saw at The Joint 's Hog Feed.  The one that really stood out to me was the bike that I was parked next to, this hardtailed 1957 panhead.  I had seen it before, but it's been a while.  I really like this bike. Here's a pair of shovels. Raked out Triumph with a massive headlight. Cool Softail. I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I kinda like this one: This Road King looked good: Here's another bike with a bird on the fender: I'll get to Sportsters later but some stunting photos are up next.

The Joint threw it's annual pre-Sturgis party called the Hog Feed this past Sunday.  This was the 22nd year.  This year wasn't as wet as last year, but it did rain a little.  I rode my Sportster. The event drew a good size crowd, which wrapped around the nearby streets.  While this event definitely attracts the bagger crowd, there were a lot of cool bikes in the mix. I know some of these photos look like they were taken on different days but the clouds were moving fast.  One minute it was sunny, the next it was cloudy, then sunny, then it rained, then sunny again. My bike and I got a little wet. The event starts at noon and there is free food at 2pm (hence "Hog Feed").  I skipped the chips & potato salad but couldn't pass on the cornbread. There's live music and vendors. Pie Essentials was selling their wares out of their piemobile again. Donnie Smith also hosted a ride-in bike show, Authority Stunts put ...

I took a ride downtown Saturday night.  I wanted to ride along the river but ran into a ton of traffic and blocked off roads as I guess there was a fireworks show going on.  I cut over to Lyndale and took photos behind the Intermedia Arts building... again.  I love this spot and the ever changing graffiti murals make an excellent backdrop for photos.

To wrap up the Evo Sportsters at Full Tilt, here are mine and Scott's. Scott's bike went by "project pink eye" for a while and later "droopy eye" and it probably has lots of other names too. Is it an homage to Then Came Bronson? I have no idea and never asked him that. I've never seen the show anyway. The color is hard to describe and was a bit of an accident as I understand it. It's sort of like hot pink meets fluorescent orange, but mostly orange. Regardless, I think the bike is very cool. I think that's dirt on the tank.  Scott might have brought part of the commune with him to the show. As I've said before, it's a shame it rained so much but it was still a fun day and I'm glad so many people brought their bikes out. Overall, Full Tilt was awesome again.  This was the first year without live music so I hope they bring it back next year.  Hopefully the weather is a little less wet next year t...