By T. J.

In June I was honored to ride on the “Palms to The Pines Run,” aka “50 to 100”. It was a ride from The Boot Hill Saloon in Daytona Beach (Palm Trees) to Laconia New Hampshire Bike Rally (PineTrees), to commemorate 2 remarkable milestones. This trip was originally planned a few years back when Karin, the owner, and Alan had the Boot Hill open for Bike Week in Laconia, which has since been sold, but Covid derailed the plan until this year. The timing couldn’t have been better because 2023 just happened to be the 50th anniversary of “The Boot” and the 100th anniversary of the oldest bike week in the world, Laconia. 50 years in business is an amazing achievement and a 100-year bike rally demonstrates the commitment of generations of community leaders to bikers from across the world. In my mind I was riding as a tribute to both! This ride was to be an event!

Until someone can prove to me differently, the Boot Hill Saloon is the most famous, and well-known biker bar on the planet. When I moved to Daytona Beach in Feb of 1981 that is what I was told, and thru the 80’s and 90’s I witnessed a constant line of hundreds of people waiting around the block all day and night during Bike Week to buy T-Shirts. I had never seen anything like it and still haven’t seen that happen anywhere else. Laconia is always cool to me because I am a New England kid, and it gives me the chance to ride down to Mass and visit my people.

So, late last year Alan began to recruit a handful of sponsors to help with the group’s travel expenses and also invite riders to join us. As the June 5th departure date was approaching the itinerary was set. 4 days to Laconia. Over the final few weeks, the other guys all cancelled for different reasons. Alan and I set out on day 1, after a rain delay, toward Columbia S.C. to meet up with some of Alan’s old Boot Hill buddies. We made my usual Savannah lunch stop at Hooters right next to Savannah H-D and by late afternoon we met up with a friend of Al’s friend named Adrian. He rode with us up to the members only club called Kick Stands so we could remember “Bad Bob” who passed last year. Jim, Dave, the owner Hank, and the rest of the folks were waiting with open arms and treated us like family. Thank you all, and thanks to Grace for keeping the shots flowing. 450 miles in the books on day 1. Adrian decided to ride another beautiful, scenic 350 miles with us the next day to Charlottesville Va. We spent that evening in the hotel restaurant and traded stories over pizza and beer. I knew this guy had many years, and countless miles in the saddle just by his stories. We made a new friend that day. Adrian turned back Wed morning and me and Al headed toward Poughkeepsie N.Y. Well, we had a great ride going in perfect weather, but the smoke from the Canadian fires ended our day 3 hours early in Allentown Pa. We stumbled across a great bar named Big Woody’s and spent the smokey, rainy afternoon with Azilee and Steph. They were both very nice and the service was top notch.

Now Thurs had to become longer as we had to stay south and east of the fires. New England weather hit us that day in N.Y. and thru Conn. Smoke, cold, rain, clear and sunny, 57*, then a sun shower across Rt 9 in southern N.H. The mountain riding was worth it!

We rolled into Al’s best friend Herb’s and his girl Bonnie’s place on Thursday evening. They were our hosts for the weekend. It was a nice quiet place out in the country in Lebanon, Maine and was centrally located from Rochester H-D, Weirs Beach, Bentley’s, Iron Tails Saloon, and Loudon Speedway, and we partied at them all. Herb rode with us for a couple days and we had a blast. We may see him in Florida one day. We also ran into and hung out with some of my boys from Florida and Mass. I was also glad to see Thunder Road’s friends Rusty and Steve Wallace displaying their Southern Country Customs at Bentleys. These guys put out some beautiful bikes. I’m looking forward to my round of golf with Rusty in Daytona for St Jude’s. Throughout the weekend we had rain, and more rain, and hail, and beautiful sunny warm spells in between. 1,500 miles for the week and lots of memories. Overall, it was a great trip. When you travel on a motorcycle people notice and seem to be extra nice and treat you well, as was the case this time. Special thanks to Harley Davidson of Rochester, AMSOIL, TOPCOAT F11, Midwest Motorcycle, Twisted Tea, Brian Holt, and Rider Now Magazine for supporting us. I swore I wouldn’t go back because the weather sucks. But I probably will, who knows? That’s the biker life.