The Many Stops of the HDForums Mascot in the Early Years
More than ten years ago, the members at HDForums started to circulate a Harley-Davidson flag around the country, passing it biker to biker, as an excuse to ride and meet up. Here's some of the places it's been.
1. HD Forums Mascot - Year One
In 2005, just a couple of days after April Fools, Mac (pilot1996 on the Forums) started this whole grand adventure by riding 120 miles from Yuma to Salome, AZ to hand off the flag to Tripper. As you can see from the map, that mascot got all over the south, and even up as far as New York in its first year, and more than 6,000 miles of travel. Tripper handed it off to rgerber in Prescott, after a short 100 miles ride, who then carried it all the way to the Laughlin River Run in Nevada, 230 miles away. There, at the annual bike week, it was passed to BillNourse, who had quite an adventure both getting there and getting back. Just the first few weeks and already this mascot was better traveled than a lot of people.
2. Travels in 2005
The HD Forums mascot really gets around, but unfortunately, many of the pictures from 12 years ago have vanished from the threads. The next hand off had harleyrulz (orange hat) riding 90 miles meeting 12stones (black leather vest) who rode 250 miles to a rally in Austin, TX in June of 2005. In March of 2006, after being passed all over Texas and Oklahoma, Skos (red hat) and ameristo (denim jacket) met up in East Texas to exchange the flag and shared some conversation and buffalo burgers. Ameristo rode all the way from Shreveport, 295 miles to Van Zandt each way. Ameristo and Mac11 met up and traded the mascot, then a week later Mac11 (gray hat) rode out and met up with Mikeeeeeeeeee (orange hat) and a bunch of other bikers in Mississippi, who headed back to Alabama.
3. Sweet Home Alabama and Georgia on My Mind
Mikeeeeeeeeee (black jacket with a stripe on the sleeve) took the flag and met up with Bryon, Brian, and Heath about three weeks later also in sweet home Alabama, but the picture is not very clear which is which. Brian next handed off to ApeKing (all in black with skull cap) in Oxford, AL, who ran it up to Clayton County, GA and handed it off to Dexo54 (checkered bandanna).
4. The Carolinas
Dexo54 took the mascot in Georgia and eventually handed off to a crew from South Carolina; JonHanna, and Rahlow. Those guys headed back north and continued all the way to the other Carolina, where RedHawk, SgtDiesel, and capn_buzzcut took charge of the mascot. Some of these members became long time contributors, and some vanished from the board after a few months, but they all signed the mascot and helped it make its way around.
5. Myrtle Beach Meet and Greet
FBFletch was the next major player in the mascot relay, and he met a bunch of members and got signatures during a series of get-togethers at Myrtle Beach. LT753's wife graciously lent her back as a table, among the members who signed were:
- LT753
- Mikeisglidn
- MikeinNC
- Softbutt
- Turn55
- solorider
- Chuck
- Mary
6. Ground Zero
With the mascot now in the northwest, the handoff took place at ground zero, the former home of the Twin Towers. AcidRayn still had the flag and rode to bruce00 house, then went on into the city. Once in the city, they met kjriv, phat03 and Geronimo, signed it, handed it off, and then all celebrated with a beer. From there it went to Rhode Island, then headed west again to Ohio, Indiana, Sturgis and beyond in 2006, but that is a story for another day. You can read more about the early days of the mascot on this thread.
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