Long Way Up

I took a little vacation with the family to the beautiful city of Asheville, NC. So many great places to explore, so many open, winding roads! We wanted to do a little off-highway riding and the Blue Ridge Parkway, both proved to be amazing experiences! It was difficult finding information online for well-maintained OHV (off [...]

Hi friends, it’s been a while since we’ve posted anything here. I was asked today how we made this adventure and fundraiser a success, so I thought I’d post my thoughts for everyone who might be looking for simple ideas to make their fundraiser a success.
(1) Start with the low hanging fruit. Leverage the utility [...]

I’d do it all over again! Our Long Way Up journey was a genuine, good time, once in a life adventure for me. It was at times hard work but the payoff made it unforgettably worth it. My most memorable and favorite trips were in Wisconsin, the sun setting slowly over the corn fields and rustic barns and [...]

…we’re done!  2000 miles in the books for the Long Way Up team.  (I like talking about ourselves in the third person.)  Mark and Ben are great.  (See?)  Anyway, we arrived back to where we started at 6pm this evening, having covered over 350 miles today alone.  Today was pretty fabulous, especially part of highway [...]

Today was a banner day for the following reasons:
*First time to eat Shepherd’s Pie for breakfast. Out of a bag,no less.
*We traversed the longest anchor-to-anchor span bridge in the western hemisphere- the Mighty Mac.
*After 1100-ish miles of north-ish bound travel, we are finally headed south!
*We ate local Great Lakes whitefish and chips for [...]

Today we got back on the road to complete the first half of our mileage for Long Way Up. Our butts were grateful for the two days off, but we were definitely ready to get back out and see some more countryside.
As the miles passed by today, the scenery changed from that of corn [...]

We hit our goal today of raising $4,000 for Riders for Health. And then you kept on giving! The total now is $4,245!  Wow. What a day.
Exceeding our goal is definitely the highlight of LW^.  It will make the second half of the trip, the largest chunk of miles, more enjoyable! Tomorrow we’ll embark on the [...]

So today we was our first day at EAA’s Airventure, 2010. No, this isn’t your average local airshow, but the queen mother of airshows. The biggest in the world. There are something like 20,000 private planes that fly in each year for the show, not to mention the hundreds of exhibitors and regular attendees (which [...]

Our trip includes an important stop at www.Airventure.org, we’ll be here Monday and Tuesday. We’ll hit the road again Wed, until then stay tuned for many pictures of shiney hand-built planes from around the globe. 
Get bored? Go check out my Airventure pictures from past years and learn more about the good stuff that general aviation is doing [...]

Another 300 miles under our belts! We arrived safely in Fond du Lac Wisconsin with no problems. The day began perfectly, after the extreme heat yesterday it was awesome to begin the morning with a chill in the air and nothing and nobody in front of us, only cornfields. There’s something really great about the smell [...]

If I lay here still enough, it almost feels cool. But not quite. I’m writing to you from the stuffiest, most humid tent here in Kickapoo State Park in Illinois, some miles west of Danville. Ben is in his own tent, already asleep.
Today was day 1 of our Long Way Up adventure. Ben and Rachel [...]

According to the clock, that’s how much time we’ve got left until we leave.  The bikes are packed and there’s nothing left to do but go to bed and pray for a good night’s sleep – despite of our spinning minds.  When I was just out there sitting on my bike, it felt like a [...]

Happy Wednesday everyone. It’s hard to believe that we’ve only 2 days left until we leave on this trip. Five or so months of planning and now we’re down to the wire, with not much left to do but put stickers on our bikes, pack up our gear and wait nervously.
So tonight my lovely wife [...]

Call this Ben’s time-saving chain tip. I spent a considerable amount of time attempting to feed my last chain during installation around the front sprocket of the TW200 because the housing makes it incredibly difficult to easily feed the chain through. At left is a picture of the very small space where the chain [...]

So I’m sitting here this morning thinking. Thinking about motorcycles and money.  I just read that one of our local country super-groups, Little Big Town, raised more than $55,000 for the TJ Martell Foundation this past weekend by doing a motorcycle ride / concert / auction.  This is awesome.  Awesome to see people give of [...]

It’s been less than a week since we put the site up and started asking friends and family to spread the word. Already we’ve surpassed 25% of the goal. Wow! Thank you. This makes the trip so much more fun and personally fulfilling knowing that we are going to actually do this, we’re making a [...]

For the second time we jumped on the Yamaha TW 200’s and headed out for another trial run, this time with our panniers completely built and fully loaded. We each carried about 110lbs total (includes weight of panniers). This is the estimated weight we’ll be carrying for the real trip, although we’re hoping this would [...]

In addition to experiencing the joy of heading out on our bikes and seeing the Midwest on roads less traveled during our Long Way Up, we’re hoping to spread the word and raise support for Riders for Health, an international non-profit organization that helps bring health-care to rural African villages by providing health workers with [...]

that seats were made for sitting.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently!  Once we got Fiona and Amy home and into the shop, it seems we’ve been working non-stop to prepare these bikes for Long Way Up.  So here’s a little run-down of all the maintenance, repairs, and fabrication we’ve been up to in the past month.
As far as basic [...]