The Tour Members

 

• Starting with myself.. I'm a 67 year old retired computer engineer with a strong interest in restoring a small collection of classic Japanese motorcycles. Riding experience is mainly local rides with some past off highway and a few touring trips. I love cooking, vege gardening and caring for our apple orchard. I've been married to a very understanding wife, Kathy, for 46 years.
• Jim is retired from ship building, has been on quite a few long trips. This was his first off-highway experience. He has a good selection of interesting bikes, including a couple of Honda Transalps. He's married to my cousin Jo. They're into over 40 years of marriage also and live in Coronado, CA.
• Don is the Wyoming cowboy, who had never been on an overnighter before the trip. He has a great piece of property in Cody, with a cabin, companion pup, horse and mule for back country trips..
• Tom is retired from building bridges in Pittsburgh, where he got to boss the workers around as foreman. He's got an assortment of bikes, including a Harley(now with a side car for his wife, now with a bad back). He refers to his BMW GS1150(ridden on the trip, as his small bike(sheesh)) and his Harley as the big bike(I can understand that).
• Kenny is a real character.. A hard drinking Buddhist from Alamogordo, who was a cable splicer at White Sands for years and now retired. Big, tall, and strong as an ox, he's a great mechanic and a softie for all animals(He took a 50# bag of dog food on the trip to feed all the hungry pups). Aero is his latest addition to “the herd”. He has an assortment of motorcycle and vehicle projects that should last him to the end of this century. Oh, he's the president of the local EAA(Experimental Aircraft Assoc.) chapter and active in the Civil Air Patrol. He must be bored with the lack of things to do..
• Roger is a graceful and very patient leader. I say graceful, because the guy rides a stock VStrom with NO skid plates or crash guards. He never needed them on the trip. Amazing!.. I used the skid plate constantly, and made good use of my guards. A very patient man with all the varied personalities, he managed the good times and the problem times with the same grace and talent he demonstrated with his riding. He's an experienced rally rider, winning a Tecate Beer sponsored bike rally from Mexico City to El Salvador in'91 on a Kawi KLR he prepared, with Kenny wrenching along the way. The dream is to enter the Dakar. It's only an entry tariff $85K. Hey, if I had  30 million extra pesos, I'd throw the entry ticket his way, just for the fun of it.. He's married to Kerrie, a world class trials rider. Both are heavily involved in recreational land stewardship in Taos Ski Valley, promoting responsible hiking and biking.