8-22-09

Beartooth Rendezvous

I got Little Red running again for the summer. I had to take the battery out of the tractor and it cranked right over and I have been using it to go up and down the hill to check the mail. Wow, what a sweet little car. I had such a good time in it when I went down to Mexico in it a few years ago. I actually went back and read my dog logs about that trip and am considering taking it down for another trip into the Mexican back country. The Mexicans really liked this little car and almost every time I stopped for gas someone would come up and tell me how ‘bueno’ it was.

This is Chris who is a friend of Keith’s. He had come over to the Nez ride over in Idaho and Keith had him stop by on his way back home in Ohio I think it was. He had bought one of those damn cowsucker klr’s and parked the damn thing right in my yard. Darn it!! Some folks just have no class eh? My BMW dogs didn’t like it, so it had to spend the night out of the shed. Hell, it is mostly plastic, so it shouldn’t hurt it eh?

He had put another rubber grip on the throttle control which acts like a cruise control which I thought was a pretty good idea.

This is my friend Dave and his son Levi. I met them in Miles City in the morning and we headed out for the Beartooth Rendezvous up by Red Lodge, Montana. I led the way and took the old highway most of the way to Billings. Here we are stopping for a break at the Custer Cemetery. They both ride those darn cowsuckers and seem to like them for some reason.

 I was happy to see that some of the grain was being harvested. I missed most of the grain harvest this year for some reason but it sure has been going strong as evidenced by the stubble fields.

Lots of the straw is being baled in the big bales.

When I got there Thursday night there was already a pretty good group already there.

This is the North Dakota group camp. For some reason they don’t camp down with the rest of the group. They are nice enough but I guess they must be somewhat sort of ashamed to have so many of those cowsuckers in camp. The only BMW is this nice rare Boxer bike. The panniers are homemade out of Peterbuilt truck hood material. The really weird thing is the front wheel is only an 18” rim which makes it hard to find tires for it.

I guess this is another reason to camp away from everyone else. It is a cowsucker Tengai and they only imported them for a year. It has the homemade panniers too.

This is an interesting rack made for this R100. It just sits on the back of the bike seat and rack.

It is tied down to the back foot pegs and maybe the rack.

Doctor Bob hid his Ninja 250cc out back.

Dr Bob was making the T-shirts  for the rally.

This gal was riding a R80ST and her husband behind was on a R100GSPD. She has two of the ST’s and you will find out later why this is important…..

Amigo Bob and Anne’s camp. He pulled the tent trailer out with the car and NOT his R100S.

I took a ride up on the Beartooth pass and when you are up there you can see a little dirt road that goes up the valley floor down below. when I came down off the pass I decided to take a ride up that little dirt road. It sure was a nice ride with mostly pretty good road.

Traffic wasn’t too bad…..

You might be able to see a fisherman working the creek.

Up at the end of the road is a parking area and a foot trail goes on up from there. The weather was perfect and the mountains are always nice to be in up close.

A pack string hanging around camp along the road.

This sure is a magnificent boulder along the road.

The stress that this must have been under to make this rock.

Back at the rally site was this guy doing some fine tuning on his rear tire setting.

I went down to Red Lodge to use the computer at the town Library. This is one of the old Carnegie Libraries.

Across the street from the grocery store is this old house. Just a few years ago I was looking at this house and thinking that someone would probably scrape it off and build a new one on this prime lot. It was in really bad shape and was sagging pretty bad. The porch was about to fall off. Someone sure has put a lot of money in it and I am pleased to see that they must have set it up to be ‘off grid’ with that large display of solar panels. It sure is Grand now eh?

Back at the rally now a guy was getting his bike packed up with an interesting rack. Notice the strips of plastic on top of those panniers.

This rack mounts on the back and on top of those panniers. He can then strap his tent and sleeping bags on to that and leave room for his wife between.

Wane was waiting for the frost to melt on his bike seat. It got a little chilly Sunday morning and a lot of the guys were having trouble getting their panniers open because the locks or latches were frozen. 

The guy on the right is Grahm who is one of the people I was going to meet down in Australia. He as gone when I rolled through his town but I had the chance to meet him here. He is just like all those Australians and great company.  The guy on the left is Paul and he is from England and is on a world tour. He is headed to Alaska and from there down to the end of South America.

Grahm’s R90

Pauls R100GS PD. Paul was having a few problems with his bike and was put in touch with Bob and spent a few days in Bob’s shop to get the bike ready for such a trip.

I had to take a picture of Wayne’s panniers. He goes to Sturgis and gets a few stickers for his bags which are a lot of fun.

It was a little chilly in the morning but it turned out to be a really nice ride home.