Ahhh, the 2009 ACE Tourer rally is getting closer! We had really hoped to attend the Honda Shadow ACE Tourer rally last year so that we could meet some of the fine folks that make up the Tourer forum, but circumstances prevented us from attending.

Fast forward another whole year, and John now has a Tourer, too, purchased from one of my forum mates! We decided that heading to the T rally was a “must” trip this year, and we’ve already made our reservations in Elkins, WV. It will be so wonderful to meet our fellow T riders in person, after talking with them online for almost 2 years.

We’ve attended the last two Honda Shadow dot net forum rallies, and there are just enough folks to make it interesting and fun, and not so many that it’s overwhelming. We had approximately 30 bikes at the Virginia Beach rally in 2007, and it was amazing to ride the Chesapeake  Bay Bridge Tunnel together.

I will never forget coming up out of the tunnel to see the lightning and dark clouds – riding back to Newport News in that downpour was a harrowing experience, but we all made it safely. Last year, the HSN rally was in Asheville, NC – beautiful countryside and great riding! John and I snuck off to see Biltmore while the rest went on a long ride, and that was a great experience, too. We met up with everyone later for dinners and chats – what a great group.

If you belong to a motorcycle forum, and you’ve never been to one of these gatherings of forum members, you are really missing out on something special. Meeting forum members in person is a wonderful experience – you get so much more out of a “face-to-face” than you do from reading typed words…PLUS, you get to RIDE!! And eat, and laugh, and swap stories, and hassle each other, and SHARE the experience in person.

To get to our Tourer rally, it’s going to be just over 250 miles for us to wiggle up over the mountains to Elkins, so I’m really trying hard to get this bum shoulder back in shape for the ride. I just recently felt like I gained enough strength in the shoulder that I could hop back on the Jasmine Wind and ride. Thank God for physical therapists!!

I’m already planning what clothes and bike items to bring, I’m airbrushing t-shirts (for the drawing and for sale), and printing maps for our ride. I always get nervous before a big ride, but because we don’t have any big cities to ride through this time, I’m just itching to get rolling and enjoy the view…and give some hugs to my forum friends!

Till next time,
RIDE SAFE,
EclecticDawn