GOAT Ride with Gene April 14-16, 2023
I invited my old riding buddy from Texas, Gene, to come ride the GOAT Rally (Green Country Oklahoma Adventure Tour) at the end of the month. He wanted to bring along his step-son, Stephen. Stephen couldn’t get off work (paramedic) that weekend, so they came up to ride the route with me a couple weeks early.
The plan was to come up on Thursday night, stay at my place (I had to work a half day Friday), then head over to the Illinois River to camp and ride. We would ride the South Loop Friday afternoon, the North Loop Saturday, and finish up anything leftover on Sunday morning.
Nothing went right on Friday. First, we were running about an hour behind schedule. We made it to the campsite and just as we finished unloading, Stephen locked his keys in his truck. A couple hours later, they finally got it open. We decided to ride as much of the South Loop as we could, before dark. We got less than a mile from camp and Stephen threw his chain. Of course, it got his case and his Yamaha suffered an immediate Exxon Valdez on the side of the road. We went back, got his truck, and hauled it back. I didn’t want them to have come all this way and not get to ride, so we went back to my place (65 miles away) and picked up my daughter’s DR200. Gene would ride it and Stephen would ride Gene’s KTM. It was dark by then, so the riding would have to start Saturday morning. After that, everything went well, and it turned out to be an excellent ride.
My ice chest pulled double duty while Stephen tried to open his door.
While they worked on that, I set up my camp, then rode around the campground checking out the river.
Finally, time to ride. We didn’t get far.
2.32 miles for the day. I was worn out.
I invited my old riding buddy from Texas, Gene, to come ride the GOAT Rally (Green Country Oklahoma Adventure Tour) at the end of the month. He wanted to bring along his step-son, Stephen. Stephen couldn’t get off work (paramedic) that weekend, so they came up to ride the route with me a couple weeks early.
The plan was to come up on Thursday night, stay at my place (I had to work a half day Friday), then head over to the Illinois River to camp and ride. We would ride the South Loop Friday afternoon, the North Loop Saturday, and finish up anything leftover on Sunday morning.
Nothing went right on Friday. First, we were running about an hour behind schedule. We made it to the campsite and just as we finished unloading, Stephen locked his keys in his truck. A couple hours later, they finally got it open. We decided to ride as much of the South Loop as we could, before dark. We got less than a mile from camp and Stephen threw his chain. Of course, it got his case and his Yamaha suffered an immediate Exxon Valdez on the side of the road. We went back, got his truck, and hauled it back. I didn’t want them to have come all this way and not get to ride, so we went back to my place (65 miles away) and picked up my daughter’s DR200. Gene would ride it and Stephen would ride Gene’s KTM. It was dark by then, so the riding would have to start Saturday morning. After that, everything went well, and it turned out to be an excellent ride.
My ice chest pulled double duty while Stephen tried to open his door.
While they worked on that, I set up my camp, then rode around the campground checking out the river.
Finally, time to ride. We didn’t get far.
2.32 miles for the day. I was worn out.
