At the end of our first day of the "Ride to Alaska" leg of my Epic Ride, Jim Rau and i got to Lovell, WY, and checked into a motel. I just looked back at my blog of the Epic Ride to see what I had said about that day. I was kinda' surprised that I hadn't mentioned one of the most unusual characters we met anywhere. His name was Pete Chester and he was riding a TU-250 that he had turned into a mini-ADV bike. He had waylaid Jim while I was getting us checked into the motel. When I came out, I got waylaid, too.
Pete told us about his ride to Ushaia, also on a small bike and about how he was doing another long ride on this trip. His little bike was pretty neat. He'd made a windscreen out of a headlight protector and panniers out of a couple of small Pelican cases. He was having trouble with his fuel injection, which he had modified for some reason, and had had to be hauled into town.
As Jim and I went to our room, Pete followed us... not just to our room, but into our room. One of us finally invited him to leave. About a half hour later, as we came out to walk to dinner, there was Pete. He invited himself to join us for dinner and we didn't find a way out of that. As we ate, neither Jim nor I was able to get a word into the "conversation." [I understand that if you know me, you may find that hard to believe, but I think Jim will back me up on it.]
After dinner, Pete followed us back to and (again) into our room. We finally got him out. The next morning, we sneaked out early so he wouldn't invite himself to breakfast with us (although I think we could have ditched him because his bike wasn't running).
So, I opened this month's American Motorcyclist (the AMA's magazine) and there was a letter from good ol' Pete, extolling 250cc bikes as long-distance rides. Jim and I figured that the AMA editor must have seriously edited the letter since it was only about half a page.
Pete told us about his ride to Ushaia, also on a small bike and about how he was doing another long ride on this trip. His little bike was pretty neat. He'd made a windscreen out of a headlight protector and panniers out of a couple of small Pelican cases. He was having trouble with his fuel injection, which he had modified for some reason, and had had to be hauled into town.
As Jim and I went to our room, Pete followed us... not just to our room, but into our room. One of us finally invited him to leave. About a half hour later, as we came out to walk to dinner, there was Pete. He invited himself to join us for dinner and we didn't find a way out of that. As we ate, neither Jim nor I was able to get a word into the "conversation." [I understand that if you know me, you may find that hard to believe, but I think Jim will back me up on it.]
After dinner, Pete followed us back to and (again) into our room. We finally got him out. The next morning, we sneaked out early so he wouldn't invite himself to breakfast with us (although I think we could have ditched him because his bike wasn't running).
So, I opened this month's American Motorcyclist (the AMA's magazine) and there was a letter from good ol' Pete, extolling 250cc bikes as long-distance rides. Jim and I figured that the AMA editor must have seriously edited the letter since it was only about half a page.