Harley ‘Rides Home’ for 115th
Riders nationally on their way here for anniversary
They’re riding home to Milwaukee, even if they’re not from here.
Starting Tuesday, Harley-Davidson enthusiasts began leaving far-flung destinations, such as San Diego and Seattle, on a cross-country pilgrimage that will culminate with Harley’s 115th anniversary party in Milwaukee Aug. 29Sept. 2.
It’s been a long wait for many riders craving another celebration in the city that Harley calls home, as the last big event for them here was the 110th anniversary five years ago.
Early Tuesday morning, about 20 bikes left a Harley dealership in San Diego and headed for Milwaukee, some 2,118 miles away.
The balmy, overcast weather on that journey soon turned to 103 degrees in Yuma, Ariz.
Two of the riders, Lyn and Curtis May, of Beaumont, Texas, have been riding together for 28 years.
The secret to a long-term riding relationship?
“I trust him and what he does,” Lyn said.
“She doesn’t complain, so she makes it easy,” Curtis said.
On the ride from Seattle to Milwaukee, about 2,000 miles, is Greg Amyotte from British Columbia.
He enjoys the camaraderie of other bikers and meeting new people.
“It’s all about loud bikes, beer, and I’d say women, but I’m married,” Amyotte said.
For Harley-Davidson, the world’s largest manufacturer of heavyweight motorcycles, homecoming events are a company tradition, and not just during anniversary years.
For instance, in 1981, nine of the company’s 13 top executives took a four-day trek on bikes from Harley’s assembly
plant in York, Pa., to Milwaukee — celebrating their buyback of the company from AMF Corp.
And there have been many other company rides, some of them several thousand miles, over the years.
The first of the “Rides Home” was for the 85th anniversary in 1988, according to Harley.
“There’s a history of Harley-Davidson jumping on the road to celebrate things,” said Steve Piehl, a retired Harley executive who started the Harley Owners Group, a worldwide network of riders that now has more than 1 million members.
To kick off Harley’s 100th anniversary, in 2003, Piehl joined a group ride from Las Vegas to Milwaukee, led by Willie G. Davidson, the grandson of company co-founder William Davidson, and other members of the Davidson family.
That ride grew so big, it was divided into two groups to keep it manageable with things like fuel stops and traffic flow.
During the 105th anniversary, in 2008, Harley executives led group rides from 105 dealerships.
“Every one of us had a different starting point, and that ride grew as we got closer and closer to Milwaukee, Piehl said.
For many Harley enthusiasts, the journey is as much about the people they meet along the way, as it is the destination.
“The one thing that comes out in almost every Harley event is you build relationships. I have friends I made on the 105th (anniversary) ride that I still stay in touch with,” Piehl said.
“It’s totally spontaneous. For the most part, you have no idea who will be on the ride. And you feel like you’re arriving home every day of the ride when you roll into a dealership that’s hosting a party,” he added.
Wauwatosa Mayor Kathy Ehley, and her husband, Kent, aren’t on any of this year’s Rides Home, but they can relate to friendships made on the road.
They’ve taken some epic motorcycle trips, as far as 2,200 miles, across icefields in Canada, down the Oregon coast, and through Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons, to name a few.
Their major trips began 15 years ago when they met the “Rubber Knife Gang” during Harley’s 100th anniversary.
That group of Iowa motorcyclists, far from being outlaws, welcomed them into their homes and riding experiences.
“We love it. Every year there are some new people in the mix,” Kathy Ehley said.
On their travels out West, the Ehleys encountered bison in the Black Hills of South Dakota. During one ride, they went through dense fog all the way to the top of a mountain in Glacier National Park, only to have the skies clear at the top for a magnificent view.
But the best memories come from the people you meet, Ehley said.
“When you have a Harley, there’s a camaraderie everywhere you go. It gets the conversation going,” she said.
For the 115th celebration, Harley-Davidson has four organized group rides to Milwaukee from the “four corners” of the U.S.: Seattle; San Diego; Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; and Portland, Maine.
Some people will make the entire journey to Milwaukee, while others will do part of it based on their interest or other commitments.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and USA TODAY Network has a journalist on each of the rides, including the San Diego ride led by Bill and Karen Davidson, the great-granddaughter and greatgrandson of company co-founder William Davidson.
Amanda Kingsbury, a writer and editor at the IndyStar newspaper in Indianapolis for 10 years, is on the ride from San Diego.
She doesn’t own a motorcycle, so she’s following the bikes in a rental car. But she hopes to ditch the rental at some point, pick up a pair of leather pants and hop on the back of someone’s bike.
Coming from Seattle is Mark Hoffman, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel photojournalist since 1992. He calls motorcycling “two-wheel therapy” and has done two rides of at least 1,000 miles in 24 hours or less certified by the Iron Butt Association.
On this trip, his motorcycle’s odometer will hit 100,000 miles.
Coming from Ft. Lauderdale is Joe Sneve, a metro watchdog reporter for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, where he has covered local government and politics in the southeast South Dakota region since 2015.
Sneve says his first passion in life was motorcycle riding, having raced dirt bikes as a child. He prepared for the Rides Home project by taking a long vacation — on his Harley.
Coming from Portland is Mandi Wright, a Detroit Free Press photojournalist who has been riding motorcycles since the late 1970s, and who covered the Iraq War in 2003-04. She’s also a certified Iron Butt, a feat she first accomplished on a Harley-Davidson Sportster in 2012.
On this assignment she hopes to capture “the rich culture of riding motorcycles and the people who have deep meaningful roots — not just in brand loyalty, but in their stories from the road and the goal to get somewhere bigger than themselves.”