STURGEON BIKE WEEK RIDE

Smelty, Trash Talk'n Soul Man, Pretzel, and Impress from foreground to background (photo by: Kickstand)

In mid September 2007, the Nobodys took their inaugural Sturgeon Bike Week Ride. It was a partly sunny day with the temperature holding in the low 50's. Since we will probably never go to Sturgis SD., we figured we needed to create a ride that sounded very similar. Perhaps people may misunderstand and get the impression that we actually participate in the Sturgis Bike Week ( http://www.sturgismotorcyclerally.com/). Conveniently for us, there is a town south of Duluth called Sturgeon Lake. We made the ride into a 110 mile loop by taking State Highway 23 down to Askov then cut across on a couple of county roads and headed north on State Highway 61 to Sturgeon Lake. The picture above was taken in Askov. We stopped at Lena's Coffee and Gift Shop. It is a unique shop run by a very interesting lady. Going down 23 to Lena's is one of my favorite rides, as it is very scenic with low traffic. It is 50 miles from my house to Lena's so it is an afternoon ride that I especially enjoy in the fall, when all the maple trees and popular trees are in color.

Smelty, Trash Talk'n Soul Man, Impress and Pretzel are getting ready to enter Doc's Sports Bar and Grill. Like any good motorcycle gang, we called a week in advance to notify them of our arrival and to caution them that we would be taking over their establishment.

Before getting back on the road, we posed at the Sturgeon Lake city limits. I was finally able to get in a picture. On the way back north, Highway 61 goes through the following cities: Moose Lake, Barnum, Mahtowa, Carlton, Scalon and Esko. It is also a low traffic State Highway, but lacks the scenery, curves and rolling hills of Highway 23.

The car you see in the background is part of our entourage. The driver is the Trash Talk'n Soul Man's wife. She has come on a couple of our rides. This particular ride she chose to drive a car rather than ride with her husband, because of a head cold. She (The One Who Is Yet To Be Named) has yet to go through our Nobody initiation, so consequently does not have her club name. No we don't need a support car with hot chocolate, cookies and handy wipes!