Ready, Set, just need to GO

Just like Santa I’ve made my list and checking it twice… a day. When you travel by motorcycle for any  number of days you need to be strategic about what and how you pack. My panniers are packed as of two days ago. I’m ready. I heard someone say once that if you “stay” ready you don’t have to “get” ready. Good advice don’t you think?

As I write this a number of my RFTW friends are headed west. From their FB posts and texts I see many are hitting heavy rains, snow and dodging tornado warnings. Many have stopped to let the rains pass. Once we start out from Ontario heading east, we don’t stop for rain. As they say in the adventure bike community, “no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear.” This is my 5th year riding with RFTW and each year I have ridden with different gear, always trying to find the best combination of layers to accommodate various weather and riding conditions. All my gear has armor. I won;’t ride without it. In the 10 days we take riding to Washington DC we often hit weather in temps from the 20’s on up to 115 degrees. We ride through rain, high winds and hi humidity. It’s important to stay well hydrated as constantly being in a 60+ mile an hour wind can get you dehydrated quickly. Thankfully our hydration team, that’s right – OUR HYDRATION TEAM – is waiting for us at each stop with iced down bottles of water, gatorade, naked juice, snacks, fruit, granola bars, iced neck wraps for when it’s really hot and always with great attitudes and smiles. Did I mention that all these items are donated?  RFTW is a 501c3 non-profit corporation. Speaking of donations, I’m on the Central route and each morning on the Run there are donated items raffled off, there is a “Platoon Challenge”  and opportunities to raise money for a school up in the mountains of West Virginia. The town of Rainelle has fallen on very hard economic times and last year we donated well over $20,000 to the school.  So if you’d like to help out the school here are some options. you  can click this link https://rftw.us/donate/  and specify in the notes it’s for Rainelle school.  You can send it to me, brubartolomeo@gmail.com   via PayPal and I will make sure the school gets it. Or if you are local to me in Huntington Beach you can get it to me directly.  No pressure, just if you’d  like to. Here’s a couple of pics from Rainelle.

The stop at the school in Rainelle has been a part of RFTW for decades and is one of our favorite stops. I’ve talked with moms and dads who were kids in this elementary school 25 yrs ago who now have their kids here. They’ve told me stories of getting rides on motorcycles from the riders of RFTW. They make us feel like rock stars being greeted by adoring fans when we ride into town. Lucky for them they don’t ask me to sing.

OK, that’s enough for now. More to come next week.  Stay tuned and thanks for following along.

Please pray for our riders safety to and from.

Until next time,

Bruce