Harley Davidson Ride Planner Interface

Harley Davidson recently launched a new ride planning website. The idea is that you can input locations and waypoints and it will chart a course for you. There are also extended features that allow you to find good roads, Harley dealerships, hotels, events, and fuel stops. There even 105th anniversary routes preset for out of town’rs headed to the big show.

Check it out at: http://www.harley-davidson.com/rideplanner

The concept is just what I’ve been looking for – but upon review I’ve discovered that there are a few pieces of the puzzle that are still missing.

The core component of the site works alot like Google maps. It’s easy to pan around the world and look for roads – both user generated and Harley approved “Great Roads”. You can input address data or right click on the map to create way points that join together to plan a personalized “My Ride”.

One of the best features that I found was it has the ability to join roads to “My Ride”… so for example you can simply plan a route from one city to another and then view the nearby “great roads” and if it looks like this road is worth a detour, you can add it to “My Ride”. The site will recalculate all the associated information.

Sharing your saved rides or routes is possible via the website by using an email input form. Unfortunately I didn’t see any ability to link directly to a route or embed your saved maps into a webpage or blog.

The biggest disappointment is the events functionality. I was hoping for a map that displayed events and rallies by location and date, but the events listed are limited to Dealer events, Harley-Davidson Motor Co. events, and H.O.G. events. So don’t expect to find the defrost yer nutz run or the dam saloon bikini contest listed on this site.

The hotel listings show only Best Westerns. Fine for some. Not acceptable for those of us who seek out the classic small town motels.

I didn’t see any indication that the website is available on mobile devices, which is key for us riders, but it does have import and export functionality for GPS systems in a .gpx format. (Haven’t tested that yet)

Summary:
The Harley Davidson Ride Planner could be used a good resource if you’re route takes you into unchartered territories and you want to rely on route suggestions from those who have gone before you. I like that this website has the potential to harness user input and opinions, but unfortunately its not the end all solution for rider information. Perhaps it will evolve to meet my expectations.

Side note:
In the future I expect some type of low jack system installed on all Harleys allowing the brethren to see, in real-time, a map of where everyone’s riding. Without crossing the “invasion of privacy” boundaries I’d like to be able to see where my friends are at, catch up with a rally that I don’t have a map to, or just watch the convergence on Sturgis. Who’s with me?

I love the Flood Run. Here’s the quick 101: There’s two Flood Run’s. One in the spring and one in the fall. It starts at the Beach Club Bar right outside Afton, MN. From there it meanders down the river road, on the Wisconsin side between Prescott and Nelson, then on the Minnesota side from Wabasha down to Minnieska. It’s one of the largest local motorcycle rallies. Its thousands of bikers. Its kick-ass.

Here’s how the Driftless Riders do it:

Well, well, well…what can I say but…. my guts hurt, my ass is sore, I did throw up once, and my head is still ringing, but what the hell…it was all worth it! All hail the Flood Run. http://www.floodrun.org/ Guess there’s no where to start except the beginning:

7:00 a.m. Awake to overcast and 45 degrees (Its going to be a rough day)…Place Egg Bake in oven.

8:30 a.m. Driftless Riders arrive at St. Paul Headquarters, weather still shitty and cold, after some counsel we all decide to put on chaps and long underwear for the day.

9:15 a.m. After some good egg bake, links, toast and bloodies, bust out of town on I-94 to St. Croix Trail to The Beach Club, the official start of the Flood Run.

Beach Club Line Up

9:45 a.m. Arrive at the Beach Club just in time for the line-up…check out the pics. Now the actual run was scheduled to leave at 10:30 a.m. but the Driftless Riders got a little antsy and decided to get ahead of the group. This usually wouldn’t be the case, but we had a little wrinkle this year. It seems that one of the Driftless Riders, who will remain unamed (Chopper) has a wedding coming up shortly, and he agreed to his lovely fiancee to be back in Minneapolis by 1:30 p.m for the wedding shower…while he took some good natured ribbing about this, we all thought it best that we ride south to Prescott to take in the No Name Saloon… gotta love the Monkey Bar (it’s open air annex).

Streets of Prescott

10:00 a.m. I think it actually got colder and wetter riding to Prescott, and we all were pretty happy to roll into town, things were just starting to build-up…check out the pics.

The Nauti Hawg Bar and Grill

10:45 a.m. Roll-out to Diamond Bluff… Now this is where things started getting a little bit interesting, because unlike other years, there was a mechanical bull present. After a whiskey coke, low and behold, the bachelor of the day rode that mutha.

High Noon: On to an unsanctioned stop at the Boder Lounge in Hager City, Wisc… You all can fill in the blanks, but the highlights are the pork fat sandwiches and the scenery.

Let’s not forget Maiden Rock… we did stop here, too.

1:30 p.m. After the bachelor peeled off, the two remaining cowboys were left to plot the rest of the day’s devilish dealings… we did not fail… Usually our route would have us making a stop in Nelson, Wisc. This time, we decided to forgo this stoppage and head straight to Buck’s Bar in Minneska, Minn.

The view from Bucks Bar

2:30 p.m. We’ve reached the last official stop on the run. Buck’s (Bar) patio offers a great view of the river valley. This (with a cold beer) was a perfect cap to the Spring 08 Flood Run. We were ahead of the crowd, so we grabbed a picinic table, relaxed and watched the waves of bikes roll in. In the midst of all of this a unique event unfolded: There was some negotiating and I think that a hat was exchanged… long story short… we now have a photo of the Driftless Riders stickers being used as pasties. All in the name of advertising.

Driftless Riders stickers being used as pasties.

4:00 p.m. After the fun at Buck’s, we cruised down to Winona, fueled up, and headed across the river to the infamous Four Mile…This is a great place, good drinks, and a great place to layover, especially on a shitty weather day as this one.

????? p.m. Headed out of Four Mile to the Jailhouse Saloon… Full of bikers, cold beer and good burgers. www.jailhousesaloon.com/

Super-human Strength

9-ish Started getting dark, so we needed to hang our spurs up in the river town of Trempealeau, Wisc. There’s alot I can say but here are the highlights:

1. stopped at the historic and haunted Trempeauleau Hotel Bar (you can stay here, even though it used to be a hospital, or you can get a room down by the Marina…we chose the later)
2. got lost trying to find our over-night accomidations, talked to drunken fisherman who hadn’t ever heard of the lodging we were looking for,
3. found the Kingfisher (our room) less than 100 yards from the drunken fisherman;
4. walked a mile back to town to take in the two local bars;
5. witnessed a bad heavy metal band, talked to crazy local girls, and witnessed a hometown barfight;
6. went to Vet’s and met local girls who were gracious enough to take pictures of their cleavage;
7. ate a twice warmed pizza;
8. walked a mile drunk off my ass through a marina;
9. somehow made it back and fell asleep;
10. woke up at sometime in the morning and expelled the twice warmed pizza.

Trempealeau Cleavage

The Next Day: We felt shitty as expected, but what the hell, take a shower, suck it up, and get back on the horse and put her into the wind.

We managed to get our groggy selves to Centerville and Beedles Bar for brunch…Great place, good food, biker friendly, and nice folk. http://www.beedlesbar.com/

After eating we pretty much pointed ourselves home…we headed up Highway 35 to Nelson, jumped across the river to Highway 61 and then onto Highway 52 back into St. Paul.

Another awesome and memorable Flood Run.

Cheers!