Harley Social

Hopefully your weekend included a great ride, food, drink and a some enjoyable times!

The current ‘Rave About Your Ride‘ contest for a $50 H-D card is in it’s last week, and so far we’ve got 4 really great entries.  They’re listed below in the order in which they were received, so if you’ve got some time tonight or over the next week, give them a read, vote and enter your ride if you haven’t already.

Oh, yah – and before you read or submit your contest entry, give a shout to your friends and family about the Harley Social Network.  We’ll continue to release great new features and contests in the weeks to come, and having your friends aboard the network will only help to increase your chance of winning some H-D Cards and other cool pizes we’ve got coming.

And if you’re in need of the lowdown or just want to hear some good biker radio, checkout The Biker Lowdown with L.J. James and Chuck D.

Contest Entries:

West Coast Thunder 2010 by PeteLeClair

How I Got The Name Cookies by snackdog

Readying For The Ride by BobByington

Long Distance Coffee by Spadgesmum

Have a great night.  Ride long and prosper!

The Harley Social Network

The following story was written by hclay.

“Riding in China is unusual to say the least…..tags are impossible to get so therefore most bikes are ridden “outlaw” with no legal status….Foreigners here often smuggle bikes in through Hong Kong or buy existing bikes from expats that are leaving….

Having traded my shovel plus a little cash for a twin cam to a “Black Harley” dealer..Black in front of a business such as Harley or Taxi denotes the owner has no business license, I started to ride on my own with the one guy who seemed not to be a “Rolex Rider” (most Legal Harleys in China are rather expensive with no used market for 2nd hand buyers that is legal) and he was one of the only guys who I could tell had lived “da-life”  back across the big pond.    We both had our own tales to not tale as to the circumstances that led us to take up residence in the “Big Slanty” and found a brotherhood in our “likeness” and our preference for chasing Chinese Tang, “get’n’ toasted” and riding out by the Great Wall..

On one particular ride to a section of the wall that had a coffee shop nearby we were cruising along at a good clip when I noticed a “crowd of dirty thunder” approaching our tail pipes fast.  The roads in China are not that clean and often the locals use the road for drying corn for the live stock so it puts a lot of particle dust in the air and sometimes makes visibility poor…as we continued on .. a car whips in front of us and the group closes in…feeling a bit apprehensive I started to slow down to see if the group would “flash” by but to my disappointment they seemed to fall in behind me and my “road dog” with the exception of one rider, later I would find out his name was Qu and I named him Qu Po Po for reasons that will become clearer later.  He motioned for us to pull over and as I was negotiating the gravel at road’s edge, out of the side of my eye, I could see a girl with a camera with one of those massive lens and several others in the car that was directly in front of me and my partner.  He ask me where I was going and I told him in the best Chinese I could muster.  With a  flip of the hand he indicated to proceed.. and I offered him the lead position which he declined preferring to watch our riding style, later comparing it to that of the American Cowboy even though my partner was Canadian. All along the route, the “photo-vehicle”  churned out shots that were later featured on a Chinese biker website…Upon reaching our destination I learned that this was a club, the V2s, and that a good portion of them were law officers. ….nervous due to the quasi legal/illegal status of my bike and tag, I was somewhat baffled as to why they were not checking numbers and paperwork til I found out that they too were on bikes that were not legal.  Qu the one who approach me was a local cop who later helped me get my 2nd Twin Cam and jump into action when a thief made my life more difficult by trying to steal one of my motorcycles…I nicknamed him po po as a private joke and have been riding with these guys on an occasional basis every since.  Even the cops ride “outlaw” in the PRC…”

This weeks “Rave About My Ride” contest winner is BobByington who squeaked out a win ($25 H-D in the mail).  Nevertheless, hclay has a heck of a story to tell, so we’re re-posting it front and center.

Stay tuned for the next HarleySocial contest we’ll be announcing shortly.

With about 2 hours remaining, we’ve got one solid contest entry from BobByington.

Click here to see entries.

Fellow riders have until 11:59PM EST to upload a ride and grab some ratings.  If you don’t have time to enter in this weeks contest, don’t worry.  We’ll launch a new contest next week!

The following is a list of current contest entries:

from hclay: “Riding in China is unusual to say the least…..tags are impossible to get so therefore most bikes are ridden “outlaw” with no legal status….Foreigners here often smuggle bikes in through Hong Kong or buy existing bikes from expats that are leaving….” read more

from BobByington: “On Feb 1, 2001, I embarked on the ride of my life. I road from Portland, OR, to Key West, FL and back. I went down the coast to San Diego and then headed east. The first day only making Coos Bay due to a late start that day. I could hardly sleep that night and packed up the bike before dawn and headed down 101. Well what started as a bit of mist turned into rain and I stopped in a small cafe for breakfast waiting for the rain to let up and a little more sunlight. Well, the only thing that changed was the amount of light and it was still pretty grey out when I continued south.“  read more