Blue Ridge Parkway Trip: George and Charlie’s Bikes

Welcome to Ride and Rally with Fix My Hog. We're getting ready for this trip and we thought we should take a little bit of time and talk about our rides. This is my first Harley and I gotta say, I love it. Charlie told me for years, go and get a Harley. You're really, really gonna like it.

And not that I didn't believe him, but you know I tried this bike and this bike and this bike, other brands and I bought this one used about three months ago specifically for this trip. It's an 09 Ultra Classic, 40,000 miles. And I came back and I said, you were so right. Like in the first hundred yards of my test drive the center of gravity was great. It just felt so good.

It was such an easy drive. So no changes on it. I recently took it in for service, got new tires on it. Other than that, as far as the bikes go the only thing we've done, and there'll be more on this later, Charlie and I have both put on front and rear mounted cameras. And that's specifically to provide you with video that will come from this trip.

The front mount is here and then the rear mount just under the trunk, on mine. So you have a much deeper motorcycle history and I'm gonna say this, Charlie is really the motorcycle guy in the group here. You know, I ride a lot. My history with it is shorter than Charlie's. He's been spinning a wrench on Mike's for a really, really, really long time.

So I lean on him heavily for advice on repair and maintenance stuff too. So, that's your lead in. Now you can talk about your bike and then also the cool project you got going here. So what we got here is a 2019 Road Glide, and this is my first Road Glide. I've had Street Glides and Ultras, but this is my first Road Glide bike and it's a different ride and everybody I've talked to says once you do this, you'll love it and I'm learning to love it.

And you do, I mean, you were pretty enthusiastic about this one from the start. Right, just something different and something that I haven't tried. I've got friends that ride Road Glides and they keep telling me once you get on this and I've ridden theirs, but putting miles on a bike it takes a while to really appreciate the differences. And the Road Glide does ride different. In my mind it's riding a lazy boy down the highway.

It is so smooth and so relaxed and laid back. Little difference handling that you gotta get used to, but Over, different over your Ultra? Right than your 110,000 mile bike. Right. Yes.

That one I could put anywhere on a dime. I got very confident and very comfortable in that bike. This bike here, it's not as nimble. For me yet, it may get there in time. It's getting better and better, but just the ride and the way you sit is a whole different thing on an Ultra versus the Street Glides and Road Glides, or Street Glides or Ultras.

But enough about that for now. 2019 Road Glide. I bought it a year ago. It's a cool story. With 200 miles on it.

So it was a brand new bike to me. I bought it with 231 miles on it. It was laid down. It didn't look like this at all. In fact it was green.

Somebody laid it down. I bought it from the insurance company crashed and I brought it home and I bought plastic, and last year it was green, it was black, it was blue. It was the most colorful bike out on the highway because I just put parts I had on it to get me through the rest of last year. And then last winter I stripped it all down, repainted the whole bike and put it back together to what you see now. And the color is crazy cool.

As we do the trip, you'll probably see some of this when we're outside in the sun, but what is it technically called, black cherry pearlescent or something? Yes. Black cherry Pearl is what it's, yes, the color and inside it's more of a brown. My daughter calls it the plum bike, but it does have a purple hue to it in certain lights but then it's got the black cherry pearl that comes out in the sun. Well when I get it washed, it'll look a lot better.

George's is shiny and mine is kind of rode hard and put away wet last night. So now we'll get it cleaned up for the trip, but it's a 2019 Road Glide. Now it has 2,500 miles on it. We're gonna double that here in a couple weeks. But a cool story that it was brought back from the land of salvage and on that note, Charlie's got another project bike here that has nothing to do with this trip, but I think it's cool to look at this, and as project bikes go, he's done quite a few of these.

So next we're gonna have a look at this other Harley that he just picked up. All right, Charlie, I'm looking at, they can't see it, but I'm looking at a little bit of damage to the fairing over here, you're missing a bag. So what's your best guess on this guy? This is a 2009 Street Glide and looking at the colors and what you can't see but we can is the badazzles that are all over this bike. There, there, there, there, there All over.

I'm calling it the chick bike. We don't know the history of this bike. It was laid down. I bought it, again, off insurance. Salvaged bike and I will rebuild this one here this winter and paint it up and then who knows where this will go.

So our trip next summer this might be. It could be on next summer's trip. Yep. Yep. It's a 2009 Street Glide, laid down and the fairing, inner outer fairing, bags on the other side, gas tank on the other side's got a a nice scar in it.

The funny note is this bike has brand new tires. I mean brand new. There's not 30 miles on these tires. When this poor bike went sideways, wheels up and so it'll be a project for this winter and who knows what it'll look like next summer? We'll see this next spring what color it'll be and place your bets, make a vote.

On color? Yeah. So for the trip, 09 Ultra Classic for me and again, you're riding a 19 Road Glide Road Glide and 3000 miles from now we'll have them back in this building again.