Gophers and Cheese

Ever since Moto Mania (yes, a huge write up and many photos are coming soon...), I have been wanting to get my 883 out on more gravel and dirt roads to go adventure riding.  The trick has been finding places to ride near the Twin Cities but thanks to some recommendations and gravelmap.com , I found some good spots over the last two weekends.  If you have additional recommendations, please send them to me!!! The first place I found was the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area near Ham Lake and East Bethel, MN.  I visited the park two weeks ago and it was beautiful!  While I know snowmobiles and ATVs are clearly banned, I didn't see any reason I couldn't ride a motorcycle through it so I did. After that experience, I wanted more and planned a full day down in the Red Wing, MN area this past Friday.  Here are a few sunrise photos along the St. Croix Trail between I-94 and Prescott (which is now freshly re-paved by the way - go check it out)....

This past Sunday, I partook in Speckled Egg Sunday Funday... at least for most of the day.  Scott (aka @choppinflour) organized the run and it sounds like it's the 2nd year he's done it.  The rendezvous point was Wyatt's Twisted Americana in Hastings, MN.  I thought I was at the wrong place when I was the first to arrive.  Thankfully, they served both hot and cold beverages so I didn't have a problem waiting. Scott was next to arrive and we ended up with a small group of 10 people on 8 bikes as we headed out.  We hit a bunch of fun, curvy roads first including a few I've never been down before.  We also hit some favorites of mine too including the road between Welch and Vasa.  I didn't take any riding photos this time but @ettelmn8 posted this one on Instagram of about half the group at a stop light.  If you can stop laughing at Reinhart and look closely, that's me in my mirror bubble shield in the back-left. Our first stop was the Harbor...

My wife and I took last Tuesday off and the weather was absolutely beautiful so we took the Road King for a ride.  It was sunny and while the temperature was only about 40 when we left, it was nearly 70 by the afternoon - amazing riding weather for Minnesota in mid-March. We started at (of course) Bob's Java Hut .  It was the fourth day in a row I had ridden to Bob's for coffee, which was a personal record. We headed east on I-94 and dropped south on the St Croix Trail, crossing over to Wisconsin at Prescott and we continued on to Red Wing where we had lunch at Liberty's Restaurant & Lounge .  They had two Harleys hanging from the ceiling, a 1973 Harley Davidson X-90 (also known as the Harley Shortster) and a 1948 Harley-Davidson Model 48S. From Red Wing, we headed to Welch to do the run between Welch and Vasa (highly recommended if you have never been).  Even though they are now closed for the season, there was still snow on the slopes at Welch Village ....