Sportster Cross Country Trip: MN to the Home of Harley-Davidson

Welcome to Ride & Rally with Fix My Hog. Brought to you by Dennis Kirk, we ship today. What's up everybody I'm Nate Beck, and welcome to Fix My Hog Riding Rally 2021. We've been teasing a little bit, but we're kicking it off here today. We're in Prescott, Wisconsin.

It was a short ride over from Minneapolis and we are officially kicking off our cross-country ride on a Sportster. In this episode we're going to be going from here in Prescott, Wisconsin, following route 35 in Wisconsin. Also known as Great River Road. All the way down to Prairie du Chien. Were going to be spending the night in Prairie du Chien, make some stops along the way.

And then we'll be hitting 18 across to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The home of Harley. I've always wanted to ride my Harley Davidson to Harley and check it all out, the history there in Milwaukee with Harley. So we're going to bring you along for all you action. Spending so much time riding around the Twin Cities and especially on this road, Wisconsin 35, Great River Road.

I absolutely love this road, the entirety of it. It changes a lot. It goes from farmland, there's dips through valleys with curves. There's straights, there are river views, there's trees. It really is kind of packing in all the different scenery into one road.

All right we're gonna lunch stop here in Wabasha, Minnesota. Just across the river from Great River Road in Wisconsin. That we were riding down today. We're stopping at Slipper's Tavern and Ristorante. If you've seen the movie Grumpy Old Men, you'll recognize it.

It is from Grumpy Old Men fame, which is of course based in Wabasha. So let's get some grub. Not only are the views great on Great River Road, but every 20 to 30 miles you go through these great classic old school small American towns that really break the ride up nicely. Like this one here. All right everybody we've made it to Prairie du Chien.

What an awesome ride right along Great River Road the whole way. Staying comfortable, thanks to Dennis Kirk. We are going to hit up some local establishments. Now that the bike is parked and we will be back on it in the morning to head to Milwaukee to take our Harley home. All right, stay tuned.

What's up everybody we're here in Prairie du Chien Wisconsin, and we were headed to Milwaukee today. This is a ride I've wanted to do since I got my Harley six years ago, and I'm so stoked we're doing it on Fix My Hog Ride & Rally 2021. It's going to be a pretty easy ride today. We're heading east on 18 hookup with 94 and Madison, and it's only a couple of hundred miles. So we should be getting into Milwaukee with plenty of time to hang out, see the sites.

And then we will also be in Milwaukee tomorrow, visiting the Harley Davidson museum, going to the Juneau factory, and going to where the original shed was at the Davidson home. So we're going to get suited up, get on the bike and we're going to hi the road. Luckily today here at Harley Davidson they're doing demo rides. So I am going to go demo ride a brand new Pan America and take you along with. First jumping on a Pan America.

You know I'm so used to riding my Sportster or Heritages, Low riders, Road Kings, Choppers. You know, my riding position has always been legs out in front and kind of stretched out. When you hop on a Pan America actually though the riding position is more like a sport bike. Your legs are tucked up under you and the pegs are a lot more narrow. So it was a little weird getting used to, but the riding position was actually pretty comfortable.

All right so the lady was telling me about the Pan America, was telling me about the different modes. We just tried sport mode and then she was saying we can flip over here into off-road mode. Now, Milwaukee's terrain that I've experienced so far has been a little, been a little off-roady. So lets see what this feels like on some potholes. Yeah I think she was saying that this bike likes to ride higher because it's an off-road bike.

And when you're coming up to a stop it will automatically lower and you can feel it. And it feels pretty cool. All right here's a pothole lets hit it. This must be the only time in my life on a Harley that I've actually aimed for potholes. Wow what a killer, absolutely killer machine coming out of the mo-co.

Wish I had this suspension on my Sportster. What a machine, I am floored. The different modes they have on the new Pan America is rain mode, regular mode so like your regular bike. Sport mode, we saw how well that went. And then off-road mode, and like I said I never aimed for potholes in my life and it just right over them.

It was funny I was hitting those potholes and I was like, man if I had this suspension on the Sportster coming over here today. But no, what a killer, what a killer opportunity to be able to ride and bring to you the new Harley Pan America. But now it's grub time and we're heading to the Motor Bar at the Harley Restaurant. All right so we just had an awesome lunch at the Motor Bar and we're going to now head to the hotel, check in, get settled in and then head to Fuel Cafe and we will bring you along with. The plan is tomorrow we're going to go to the Juneau Plant and Factory, and then we're going to go to the site where the original Davidson home was with the original shed.

And then were going to come back here to the museum and go through it and bring you all the goodness. All right we've arrived in Milwaukee, we've got to hotel and there's actually a motorcycle centric hotel in Milwaukee. It's called the Iron Horse and its awesome. If you're coming into Milwaukee, especially on a motorcycle, this is really the only option to stay. We have the Harley Davidson museum just across the bridge.

You saw how short that ride was. And the Fuel Cafe just a couple blocks down where we'll be taking you next. But first let's take a look inside this awesome motorcycle centric hotel. So I'd actually been to the Iron Horse Hotel previously when I was here with Fix My Hog, right as the pandemic was hitting. And no one really knew where to go because actually the Governor of Wisconsin shut down the state as everyone was checking in.

And the owner of the Iron Horse was so cool that he was like everyone come here let's hang out. You know cause the whole motorcycle industry was in Milwaukee. And that was when I first walked into the Iron Horse and thought it was the coolest hotel I've ever been in. I mean how do you beat this? Now of course many places build themselves as like motorcycle centric, motorcycle friendly that kind of stuff.

But the Iron Horse Hotel here in Milwaukee has gone so far as they've put some of the best parking spots available for bikes. And the best part about that is they keep them covered too. But right now we are headed to Fuel Cafe. Fuel cafe is actually right down the road from the Iron Horse Hotel and really close to the Harley Davidson Museum as well. Fuel cafe is actually owned by Scott from Mama Tried.

Mama Tried is a chopper show that happens here once a year, and it started, I want to say seven or eight years ago. Of course, Corona kind of screwed that one up. But yeah, but I mean he wanted to celebrate and he started Fuel Cafe before Mama Tried and he wanted to continue celebrating old school Harley, DIY do it yourself, wrench on your bikes, that passion that we all at Fix My Hog have. And so he, so he kind of branched out from Fuel Cafe, started Mama Tried, it's exploded. We've covered it a few years now.

Make sure to check those videos out if you haven't seen them. So anyways, we're headed to Fuel Cafe right now. While it won't be as crazy as it is during Mama Tried and I doubt this is going to be anyone jumping bikes off the bar, which has happened. We're going to go check it out and get some grub. So we'll see you there.

So Fuel Cafe has become one of the spots in Milwaukee to be, if you are a motorcyclist, not only do they have great food, great bar, bikes in the bar, and of course the parties during Mama Tried at Fuel Cafe are insane. They also host awesome bike nights through the summer. And it's just a great place to like roll to with all your buddies on your bikes and hang out and get some grub and just be surrounded by like-minded people. That's really what the, I mean this is what the motorcycle industry is all about right here. Good morning everyone.

We're here in Milwaukee and we're starting today here at Harley Davidson Corporate. So this is their Juneau address. It is where the original factory was up until 1973. They still produce bikes here. And it's where the offices are still.

Now this building was actually started to be built in 1910 from when they moved out of the original shed. That unfortunately was demolished during the building of this, which now they have the rep the shed at the museum, but today's Harley day so we wanted to start it here at the Juneau factory. Now we all know the legend of the first Harley Davidson. It was built in a 15 by 10 foot shed at the Davidson home. Now Harley is all about heritage and that's why we love it so much.

So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna take you on a ride from the factory here on Juneau Avenue in Milwaukee to the location of where the original shed was. And it's really not that far. They never strayed that far from their roots. So let's hop on the bike and we'll head over there. So here we are at 38th and Highland Avenue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Right here, you see behind me is a parking lot that's gated and we're at, this is actually Miller-Coors now, but this is the site of the original Harley Davidson shed and the Davidson home. Where everything that we love was started. Now, as I said, we didn't really go that far. I didn't even make it out of first gear after leaving the Juneau Plant. But you can see how much Milwaukee means to Harley Davidson.

It started here and then it moved to here, and it was still there 100 years later plus. So that, I mean, that's awesome. That is heritage. That's everything that we love as Harley riders. All right so next we're going to head to the museum and check out all the history there.

All right we're here at the Harley Davidson museum and we're going to go inside and check out everything from Serial Number One, they have a bunch of bikes from 1903 all the way up until modern times. But one of the most impressive is the 1903 to I believe it's into the 1940s section up top down a big row, those are really cool. So we're going to check that out. They have an awesome Board Track exhibit that we're going to take a look at it as well. So let's head inside.

So the first time I came into the museum was probably five or six years ago and I still see stuff, every year that I didn't see before. Obviously serial number one is like the number one thing for me. I think that it is such a beautiful machine and the fact that they came up with that so many years ago and it's, they were able to restore it into this condition is just phenomenal. And it's, you know, I, I could spend 15, 20 minutes just staring at Serial Number One alone, but it's stuff like this right here. It's that's on the walls that the first time you go through, if you're not really thorough, you don't really see, but the amount of history they've got even down to blueprints, original pictures is absolutely mind-blowing.

Now it's really this era like early 1906 through the 1910s, through the 1920s were Harley made so much advancement in technology and design in such a small period of time. That this is really what blows my mind. I mean, you're going from a belt-driven single cylinder motorcycle, basically in a bicycle frame. Up into, you know, you get the knucklehead at 36, but between those years there's so many different models that you just don't know about until you go to the museum and you just see the vast amount of changes and forward progress the mo-co made through these early formative years that actually turned them into Harley Davidson. The tank art, the early art deco hand painted Harley tanks that are there are phenomenal as well.

You know, and as people who wrench on their own bikes, seeing the early blueprints like this, and, you know, the left side, right side lubrication charts where you had 47 lubrication points. That's, that's insane. I also really like how the Harley museum decided to include a lot of the, maybe the, the, you know, the models that haven't gone down as legendary, like the Servi-Car, you know, there's not a lot of, unless you're a actual original collector, you know, there's not a lot going on for Servi-Cars, but they actually played a vital role in Harley's history. And that's reflected here too, with all the army bikes and the military bikes that they have here. You know, explaining Harley's influence and the War effort, and then even going on to their Board Track Racing heritage and the Hill Climbing heritage.

You know, that really not, I mean, the early bikes put Harley on the map, but it was things like this that solidified Harley as a reputable and amazing machine to buy, own and really be a part of that continues to this day. Yes of course the early Sportster I love seeing, you know riding to the museum on my Sportster here and then seeing the early Sportster obviously is insane. On the bottom floor here, they have a lot, they really go into the customization era of Harley getting into like the sixties and seventies when people were just going crazy. Like we see here in this double engine knucklehead creation that's just, you know out of this world. Like showing, there really isn't a limit to what you can do with your bike and Harley loves that.

Of course Harley has cemented themselves in American movie history as well as seen here and celebrated by one of the Terminator's bikes, the Fat Boy. All right and that's it for episode one. Thank you so much to the Iron Horse Hotel for having us. Man this is a great place to say when you're coming to Milwaukee to check out all the Harley history. Not only are the rooms great, but the food's great, The staffs is great.

And I mean how can you beat it when you get a Shovelhead in the lobby? So that's it for episode one, we're going to take our boots off. Kick back for one more night here before we hop on our bike and head to Lafayette, Indiana. Make sure you stay tuned to fixmyhog.com to watch for that next episodes coming. And again, thank you so much to Dennis Kirk for keeping us comfortable and looking good on the road.

Until next time, ride safe, wrench safe, and We'll see you from the road. For more information on products featured in this video visit Denniskirk.com.