Wild Hog’s trip 2025

This year we will ride for nine days. We are off to New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Lake Placid New York where the winter Olympics were held in 1932 and 1980. Over summer they dump the shaved ice outside from the ice rink shavings for the tourists in summer to make it look like snow. Lake placid is famous for the 1980 Olympic games where a Soviet Union “professional team”  was beaten for gold by amateur college kids from the USA.

This year we will have six riders. Three from Buffalo, two from Syracuse and one from Denver. Three of the original group have now retired. Two have sold their bikes and one young one had babies.

Wild Hog’s wives normally complain that we are away far too long at nine or ten days but my wife asked them to keep me away longer. We have had a few breakdowns over the years but we have never had an accident and never had the cops stop us for any reason.

This year the estimate ride will be about 1,994 miles or 3.209 kilometers. The boys from Buffalo will ride an extra 332 miles (534 kilometers) to meet us in Syracuse and on the return home. Our favorite long distant rider, Dudley, will ride from Denver and meet us in Syracuse. Dudley is know for a ride of over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) to get home in one go.

We aim to average 250 miles per day or 400 kilometers per day. Last year in 2024 we rode 3,234 miles (5,204 kilometers) down to Missouri and Arkansas  in the Ozarks and we rode in mostly 98 degrees (37 Celsius)  Sitting on a hot bike with the sun beating down was tough.

The group has been riding each year for seventeen years. This will be my fourteenth year as I missed the first two and missed two in the middle.

I have ridden over 32,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) with the group over the years and have been through 33 states. I have now visited 48 of the 50 states in the U.S.A with North Dakota and Delaware to go. Delaware is easy but I don’t see me ever getting to North Dakota.

My 2009 Harley Road King Classic has now done 82,065 miles (132,070 kilometers) and has never let me down. I had a noisy primary on the last trip but I had it serviced when I came home. Other guys in the group have had a blown engine, had a faulty relay, wet weather issues, a clutch linkage issue and even split boots.  I understand the group has hoped I might fail to start one time so they could pick on me for not having the most reliable bike.

Below is the standard countdown I send to my fellow Hogs on a regular basis. Pictured is the best looking bike in the pack as voted for many times.

The Hogs regularly share pictures, comments, cartoons and snide remarks via texts or emails during the year. Most of the time we comment on humorous incidents that happened on previous trips such as motor issues, flat tires, broken rear view mirrors, temper tantrums and spilt gasoline to name a few.  Sometimes they even bring up events such as dropped ribs that slipped but it was erroneously suggested it was caused by a temper tantrum when they were delivered raw.