Day 2 - Yorkville, IL - Cable, WI

I had told Kevin of Scrambler Cycles I would be at his place around lunch time on Friday.  Google had estimated 1170 miles from my house to Cameron but I hadn't realized I had gone further west than the route Google planned.  Google would have taken me through Chicago but I wanted to avoid it like the plague and had continued further west stopping in Yorkville the night before.  Since I had done 930 the day before I figured I only had another 240.  When I left Yorkville the GPS said I had 360 miles to Cameron, that's another 2 hours riding, crap I thought to myself, I better move fast and so I did.  I left Yorkville a little after 7am and hit the road at full speed stopping only for gas and to take a picture of the pink elephant.

On the way passed New Lisbon which I thought was interesting, I was Portuguese and Lisbon is the capital of Portugal, had to get a picture to show my mom and dad.

I made good time and arrived a little after 1pm, covering the 360 in record time, stopping only for gas and coffee, needed to stay awake, gets quite boring covering these long distances on the highway.

Kevin 's shop is out in the woods just outside of Cameron but the GPS took me to his door and when I saw this row of motorcycles outside I knew I was in the right place.

After meeting Kevin, a very pleasant young man, I quickly unloaded the bike and Keving got to work.  He had never worked or seen a Super Tenere but being the good mechanic he is, he quickly had things apart and started mounting the new Heidenaus.

While he worked on the tires I walked around admiring the old motorcycles he has, some he is working on , others are client motorcycles and others he just has them for parts for future projects.  The Honda 450 and the white Honda are customer motorcycles.

The others I'm not sure, there were some 750cc 3-cyclinders two-stroke of the 70's and lots of dirt bikes.  I had never heard of the BS motorcycle company (thought it was a joke at first, silly me) and was surprised when Kevin told me they were manufactured by Bridgestone.

Some of the other motorcycles laying around.

 Inside, the shop is full of motorcycles, I especially like this white Moto Guzzi with the soft bags.

Kevin's very friendly dog.

A Laverda with a weird custom paint job

The shed and the old Honda

I'm walking outside when I hear a motorcycle approaching and then coming up the driveway, a green Kawasaki 1400.  At first I thought he was another client but when the rider took the helmet off I immediately said Erik? and he replied, you must be George.  It was indeed Erik, you can read his blog here.

I wasn't expecting anyone, Erik rode the 80 miles to the shop to meet me and I was happily surprised and it was a pleasure to meet such a nice guy.  

Soon my bike was done and I was ready to depart, Erik asked what my planned route was, I hadn't thought about it other than north and west.  He offered a place to stay with a bed and his place was about 80 miles north in Cable, Wisconsin, how could I refuse? I said that would be great and offered a big thank you, I knew we had lots to talk about.  We took a few pictures in front of Kevin's shop and then headed north.

Kevin

Erik and his beautiful Green Kawasaki

Erik leading the way to Cable.

We arrive at his place and I meet his lovely wife Nancy and five of his cats, the sixth was nowhere to be seen.  We spend some time in the garage looking at his bikes, he has an FJR 1300 and a WR250 Yamaha, the bike I wish I had for the little off-road trips in south Jersey.  I hadn't had lunch and was starving, Kevin mentions he knows a good place to eat and we all head out to the Sawmill Saloon.  I had a wonderful cod fish platter.  

We return to the house and spend the rest of the night talking about motorcycles, rides and where I should be going next, Erik had brought out the big maps.  I decide to follow Erik's suggestion and ride out west on route 2 towards Duluth and eventually Grand Forks, North Dakota.

I retire to the beautiful bedroom after taking a shower and write a few lines on my blog but I had left the camera on the bike and needed to get the pictures from the card, I got up and while going through the kitchen on the way to the garage spot the 6th cat, a brown calico cat, he briefly looks at me and then takes off and disappears, never to be seen again.

I was tired, it had been a long day, about 440 miles, but a most enjoyable day too.  It was 2am when I switched the light off, in less than a minute I was asleep.

Map:

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To be continued......