Sunday, March 15, 2020

Meet The Rider Chris Drake # 190



Chris is another of the five warriors who has taken on every Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge. Not a Harley guy, he actually went out and bought a Harley so he could do the challenge. His wife Sue who is his biggest fan, read about the HHMC in a motorcycle magazine and knew this was something he would love. She was right! The most attractive thing to Chris about the challenge was simple, "you ride, get up and ride some more."  The only obstacle that gets in his way is financing the ride. Without any electronics to distract him it gives him lots of time to think.

Chris had left the Decatur check point in the 2016 challenge with his riding buddy Terry when at around midnight  they could see lots of bugs flying around the street lights and a police office called out to them and said there were flies on the bridge they were about to cross. Okay, they had ridden in Alaska before where the mosquitoes are the size of hummingbirds so how bad can this be? Well there is something called  May flies and these slippery little buggers where a foot deep and both him and Terry started sliding and both ended up crashing on the bridge. It took both of them to pick up each of the bikes because the flies have an egg sack that made the bridge like an ice rink. Chris hurt his hand and his bike took a pretty good hit so him and Terry did some work on his bike and were able to continue on.


His favorite part of the challenge is the people he meets and the parts of the country you wouldn't normally see. The trials come but he always seems to find people who are willing to help. He remembers a time when he had a problem just after returning to the USA with a wheel sprocket and saw some bikes parked outside a bar. One of the patrons took him and his bike to his garage, helped fix it and got him back on his way.

His friends think what he does is "pretty cool."  They enjoy tracking him on the US Fleet Tracking site on the internet the HHMC has to keep up with the riders.

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