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Webmaster’s Note: We have a lot of great photos of Victory
riders and Victory events accumulated from the past several months and
we’ll be posting them under the banner of “Victory Summer 2005,” which
has been our best riding season ever. Look for photos of Victory Rides,
rallies and Victory riders and their bikes under the “Victory Summer
2005” banner.
Victory Summer 2005: 3rd Annual Baggs, WY, Overnight Ride
Boy Howdy, What a Ride!
By A.J. Gest
The 3rd annual Baggs Overnighter is in the books, and it was a giant
success. This year the attendance set a new record, 22 people on 15
bikes.
Volunteer Victory Ride Coordinator Ross Thacker led a
group of six riders from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to the breakfast
kick-off at our home in Aurora, Colorado. After getting acquainted, we
enjoyed a delicious breakfast put on by my wife Jann (riding and
knitting partner of 23 years) and my two daughters, Maren, and Tovah.
At 9 a.m. sharp, 10 of us on seven Victory motorcycles quietly paraded
our way through my sleepy neighborhood to the sound of car alarms
sending us on our way. Man I love that.
Soon we were heading 40
miles north on the interstate to Twin Peaks Motorsports to pick up
another group of eight riders at the Victory dealership, making us 13
strong. That was the last time we would be on interstate slab for the
next two days and 650 miles.
From there on out it was nothing
but the foothills and canyons of the Front Range, the open prairies of
the Wyoming Basin, and topping it off, riding the to the top of the
Rockies on Trail Ridge Road at 12,183 ft. We couldn’t have asked for
better weather and nicer companions.
Along the way we picked up
two more couples, one at a cattle guard along a stretch of road that
had more twist and turns in it than a screwdriver. The last couple
joined us at our lunch stop in Laramie, Wyoming. They get the mile
marker award, coming from Crawford, Nebraska. Our group was complete:
15 bikes, 22 people with one thing in common: We like to ride!
Looking back, the memorable parts are hard to describe. We dodged open
range cattle on a road in the Medicine Bow National Forest somewhere
between Riverside and Baggs, Wyoming. We watched a flock of Sandhill
cranes in an emerald green hay field. They beat their wings as we
strung along like iron pearls on that last section of asphalt before
pulling in for the night. We shared stories of the day’s ride,
recalling with friends that certain part of the road when you looked in
your mirror and saw 14 bikes carving up Rabbit Ears Pass with evenly
spaced precision. What about the 15th bike? Well, somebody had to tear
ahead to get the photo.
If you didn’t make this year’s annual
Baggs Overnighter, you missed a doosie There’s always next year. Just
get your reservation in early because there are only 34 rooms in the
town of Baggs, Wyoming. See you next year.
-- A.J. & Jann Gest
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