"Being shot out of a cannon will always better than being squeezed out of a tube."

Or so says one of my favorite writers, Hunter S. Thompson, who quickly followed the statement with “That’s why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba.”

Hooray for fast motorcycles and hooray for motorcycles that will help you get to the arctic circle and back!

Shockingly, there are only two days left before we depart for Alaska. I’m vacillating between uber excitement and staving off the surge of panic that inevitably comes with taking 34 days off from work to ride over 11,000 miles across country – much of which will be cell phone/internet dead zone. Oh the horror! Oh the joy!

So much to do, still. I realize that that amongst my few ramblings here I have not devoted anything remotely close to what would be considered an appropriate amount of information on our bikes of choice.

Ah, the BMW F800GS. Two of those babies are currently nestled in our garage. They’ve been farkled, lubed, given fresh oil changes and are currently getting all the beauty rest they can before Saturday when they will finally get a chance to stretch their legs and do what they were bred to do – adventure riding.

They were not simply “made.” They were bred. Someone did not show up one day at a motorcycle factory in Germany and decide to spit out an F800GS. Oh, no. Like a fine equine line that has seen generations of breeding for just the right height, speed and form, the F800GS is a product of fine selective breeding. It’s paralell twin engine creating enough power while not being too big and unweildy. A fuel tank situated under the seat to keep the center of gravity low. Shave off 50 pounds compared to the bigger 1200GS and you have what Goldilocks would be exclaining is “just quite right.”

You can check out more here on the bikes if you like. I’ve also included a standard picture of what Jame’s bike looks like. My bike, Ludwig, is the dark magnesium metallic color. I chose that color because at some point I’m going to add big hot pink GS stickers on the side. I chose the name so that it would sound manly enough to be able to suffer the indignity of being adorned with something pink. Be on the lookout for pictures of the bikes loaded and ready to go in the next day or so as well as pictures of the trip and updates along the way. I hope you’ll join us. I hope you’ll enjoy what we can share of the trip. And well, if I rample too much I hope you’ll forgive me.

On that note, for all you other Hunter S. fans out there, “Ho, ho…. we are motorcycle people.”

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