Farewell George

Yesterday afternoon, there was a short group ride from the College Coffeehouse to the memorial service for George Rahn being held at Trails End BMW. Leading the ride was George's daughter and son-in-law riding his Harley V-Rod. George has been a fixture in the motorcycle community and had started Trails End BMW as one of the first BMW motorcycle dealers in the country and for several years was also the highest volume dealers as well. It was kind of ironic as George kind of despised this type of group ride and preferred to just ride on his own leaving everyone else in the dust.

There were quite a few impromptu speakers at the event with some great stories told. The dealer had moved most of their inventory of BMWs and Harleys out or to the side to make room for the crowd. The owner of Trails End BMW and the Harley Davidson Farthest North Outpost generously provided great barbeque for the event.

George will be missed by many. I had been meeting him for coffee at College Coffeehouse for a number of years and he has provided me with a lot of advice and information on just about all things relating to BMW airheads and sidecars. His current bikes in addition to the V-Rod were several Royal Enfield's one with a Cozy sidecar.

The following video was put together from the GoPro and Bridget's iPhone video.

Last week I was in Barrow and initially sad that I would miss the memorial service until someone (thank you Cee) reminded me that I could simply fly back. The thought had never occurred to me (Bridget said "hmmm, typical..."). I headed to Fairbanks on Friday afternoon and returned to Barrow on Sunday morning. The ocean view has changed dramatically in the last couple of days. You may remember all of the sea ice in my last post. The wind changed directions and there isn't any ice to be seen today. I'm told that the barge in the photo is part of the project to lay undersea fiber along Alaska's northern coast. This phase of the project is Prudhoe Bay to Nome to be completed by the end of the calendar year.