Riding in the USA
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My passion for riding a motorbike made me buying one shortly after I arrived for my two year assignment in the USA. And it became a great time, an opportunity to discover the country and an opportunity to make friends.
All started with getting my new bike, a 2007 BMW K1200R in April 2007
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After riding around on my own for a while I discovered the internet community www.i-bmw.com. This gave the whole riding thing a new direction. All in a sudden there were others which liked riding like me and which revealed to be a great bunch of guys.
First I met Jim, Chris and Kevin.
Jim is one of the Jersey Boys (Bill, Bill, Jim, Pete and Paul from NY) which I rode with the most.
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The next ride brought Paul, Bill and Bill into play. On this picture there is me next to BillA and BillG.
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By far the most rides I did together with BillG. It is always a pleasure to follow his smooth and safe but still quick line and most of the times I was able to follow. In addition Bill is a good guide and showed me hundreds of nice little back roads in the area. And he helped me a lot with changing tires and other bike related stuff.
Pete appeared (to me) a little bit later. On this picture on the right together with Bill.
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Other good things to mention
We did tours like this one to Vermont with Chris and Kevin
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We had our preferred places like Hawks Nest (here with Bill, Paul, Bill and Pete)
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or the diner in Port Jervis (here with Jim)
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I learned to cope with cold by using heated clothes
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or using head phones combined with GPS, MP3 player and radar detector which is unfortunately illegal in Germany
From time to time new riders appeared for a ride like for this one to the Hudson Valley
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Or this one to the Delaware Water Gap
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But again and again we had our great tours into the area (here Catskills with Paul, Tom, Pete, Bill)
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And Bill was always there to help with tire changes and other technical issues.
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The highlight was the Blue Ridge Parkway ralley where Wolfgang joined us
Here Kevin, Wolfgang, Tom and Jim on the way to Snowshoe
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The group on the Blue Ridge Parkway (Tom, Jim, Bill, Randy, Kevin, Jim, Wolfgang)
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Jim, Tom, Bill, Randy, Jim, Wolfgang (guess who took the picture)
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Tom at the Blue Ridge Parkway
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And there were the gatherings like this one in Stowe, Vermont
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It was a wonderful time and I am very happy that I made this experience. It was a great additon to my work experience in the USA and it gave me some feeling of belonging to a family while on my own in a foreign country. I will miss all of my good friends. I hope we will meet again.
The Jersey Boys gave me a big farewell party hosted by Jim and his wife (which is an excellent chef).
Tom, Jim, Paul, Jasna, Ann Marie, Bill, Bill, Chris, Pete
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Karte 2008_09_us_summary
Details of all my rides in the US are available at my tracklog page.
P.S.: The bike has been sold. I will get a new one next year back in Germany.