Chena Hot Springs Ride

Today, the very loosely organized group of BMW riders met for the now traditional "first last ride of the season". It is called the first last ride to reserve the option of having a second, third, and so on. Two years ago, I believe they went up to a fourth last ride which occurred on October 23rd. There was a pretty good turnout with at least 25 bikes starting out. Several more joined in sometime during the trip. There is no structure or organization beyond everyone agreeing on the destination, which in this case was Chena Hot Springs. The ride was not limited to BMW's as there were a couple of Hondas and several Royal Enfields along for the ride. About half of the bikes were older BMW airheads.

This 1984 R100RT is not typical of the bikes as this one is absolutely flawless. Even the snowflake cast wheels have been powder coated white to match the fairing and the tops of the Bing carbs are chrome. A beautiful airhead. Most of the rest of the bikes were GS types of various vintages with the requisite aluminum luggage. There was one K bike in the group. Two sidecar rigs, an R60 and a one of the new new Royal Enfields. At around 1:00, folks started to head out and took off in just about every possible direction. Most were in groups of three or four and I ended up following a couple two up on an R60/5. Their speed was comfortable for me and when we arrived, they asked how fast they were going as the speedometer has been broken for years. (Though the tach did work). Other wise, their R60 had been meticulously gone through and looked and sounded great. No effort was made to "restore" the bike but just make it clean and reliable for them. It had a 2 into 1 exhaust that I've never seen before and powder coated valve covers. The bike was not spotless and does get ridden just about everyday during the summer. It was an absolutely beautiful ride out with the yellow leaves in stark contrast with the dark blue sky, the rivers and ponds along the road.

Looking towards the airstrip

The group right in front of us encountered a moose cow right in the middle of the road causing them to come to a complete stop as the moose refused to move off of the road. She was not intimidated at all by a bunch of BMW riders wearing hi-viz. A car came up behind them, pulled around and pulled up right to the the moose and laid on it's horn. She slowly moved off giving the car the evil eye. We sort of took over the dining room at the resort and had lunch. Some were opting to stay and go swimming in the hot springs but I had promised to be home by 5pm so I took off right after lunch. Only 134 miles and the weather out and back was beautiful. It warmed up to about 55°F by the middle of the day but was a chilly 34°F in the morning.


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BTW, I just noticed in the Google Maps image you can see the smoke from a brush fire north of the resort. This suggests that the image is probably at least a couple of years old.