20 years ago to the day ( where did the time go?) I first swung a leg over the seat of a motorcycle on day one of the MSF basic rider course.
I never ridden a motorcycle before that day, and inspired partially by the fact that a couple of my then co-workers rode motorcycles to work, and a false rationalization on my part that it would save me on gas money I decided to try it.
Little did I know the places, the motorcycles, the people and the adventures that I would end up having over the next 20 years!
My first posting on this blog was on August 12th of 2006 so it won't hit the 20-year mark till then.
Since my first motorcycle, a Honda Aero which I quickly outgrew, to a BMW r1150 RT, to 4 Ural sidecars, a Suzuki DL1000 with a sidecar, a BMW R80 classic and finally my Yamaha TW200. You might say there's been a few motorcycles along the way.
From my December 31, 2023 post: I had ridden (roughly) a total of 238,563 miles ridden. That works out to be a bit over 9 times the circumference of the Earth in 17 years and on nine motorcycles. I've only ridden an additional 5424 miles since the end of 2025 and 2026 is not looking that good in terms of a lot more miles on a motorcycle.
Though my riding has tapered off quite sharply in the last few years since 2023, I hope I have another decade of riding in front of me at least.
Thanks for riding along with me. It truly has been the people I have met along the way that I have met and become friends with in the last 20 years that made these years so much better.
I will be spending today riding with Steve of scooterinthesticks and his friend Paul R.
This is cool and slight troubling at the same time, I asked Gemini to generate a short story after searching the blog for reported travel destinations and got this:
The open road has a way of turning a simple journey into a life-long story, and for the author of A Redleg’s Rides, that story spans an impressive map of North America.
It began in the high, thin air of Colorado, where the mountains served as a constant backdrop for two-wheeled exploration, before the tires inevitably wandered toward the rugged landscapes of Utah and the vast, sun-drenched expanses of Arizona. From there, the adventures stretched across the plains and borders of the American West—through New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, all the way to the rugged terrains of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.
The journey didn't stop at the mountain passes. The rider navigated the heartland—Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—finding unique routes and hidden gems along the way. Even the far edges of the continent felt the hum of the engine, with travels extending to Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada, and dipping down into the southern heat of Texas and Oklahoma.
Whether it was navigating a Ural through a desert wash, testing mechanical limits, or simply chasing a sunset, A Redleg’s Rides serves as a journal of a life spent in the saddle, proving that for those who choose to ride, the destination is never just a dot on a map—it’s the miles that come between them.
Note: very little editing was needed.
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