ABC’s of Touring – To the Edge of Alaska

In the spring of 2002, even after speaking to several of my riding pals, the situation of the ABCs of Touring got here up. The ABC of Touring is a contest subsidized by HOG, the Harley Owners Group, in which you take pix of your motorcycle in front of a kingdom or county sign, a HOG rally banner, or another event distinctive, all with a modern-day issue of HOG Tales within the picture for evidence.

We pointed out how it might be acceptable to get into the list of the ten runners-up due to the fact we did not suppose we may want to truly vicinity in the pinnacle three spots; one of the men had met the rider who posted 166 factors a few years earlier, during the Route sixty-six excursion while it got here thru metropolis, and that appeared like an unreachable goal at the time.

Someone else referred to the fact that it wasn’t often that everyone was given that many factors, and after checking Hog Tales for the preceding year’s listing, we noticed that the runners-up list seemed accessible, so off we went.

My pals and I had several trips planned throughout that year, and we figured we might start seeing how many points we may want to gather. One journey caused another, and before I knew it, I had made it to 47 states and the third area, and my friend Warren got to 7th.

After the list of winners was published in 2003, I thought about how much fun I’d had seeing the United States and all of the places I’d by no means been, so I decided I was going to make a plan for 2004 and see just how many different new places I could visit. And being a bit aggressive, I decided to peer if I should match that 166 point general that on time I, the idea became excellent that had ever been becoming in.

I observed later that two human beings in the 1990s evolved in 172. I realized that the significant distinction between quite a few factors and something virtually magnificent, like the 3-factor totals above, had to be the state HOG rallies. So, while the January difficulty of Hog Tales came out, I sat down and began making plans the entirety around while the rallies were. I devised a workable plan using Microsoft’s MapPoint software program and the list of protests from Hog Tales, coordinating with the rally details inside the HOG participants’ location on the internet site. With four, five, and six rallies all scheduled on the same weekends, I knew it might be a task, but it simply intended there might be some weekends of hard use. From Memorial Day until Sturgis weekend in August, there have been over 25 rallies and many miles to cover.