Mid South Report: Day 1

Early on Thursday morning a dark colored SUV pulled up in front of my house with Justin Michaels and Marty Larsen inside of it. I said to myself, "Well, this trip is actually going to happen.", and off I went.

The trip to an event I hadn't ever been to, but I had heard a lot about it. The event in question is run by Bobby Wintle and his wife, Crystal Wintle out of Stillwater, Oklahoma. 

I was with the Northfield Crew: Ben Witt, Marty Larsen, Michael Lehmkuhl, and Justin Michaels. They had been down to ride the 50 mile course of the Mid South before a few times and they were stoked to have me along. 

My mission was to ride the King Fabrications Honeman Flyer in the 50 mile event and then hook up with Erik Mathy who was part of the reason this whole deal went down. Erik was riding the 100 and then doing some side gig work projects, one of which was about my bike. 

Ben's mission, along with his crew, was to spread the word about the Heywood Ride and bring people joy with his tall bike. I would say he nailed both assignments. But you will see in the images coming soon.

The weather could not have been better. I maybe would have wished for lighter winds, just for the sake of fuel mileage. Other than that, it was Sunny and getting greener as we went South through Missouri and Kansas.

Apparently Kansans love their roller food.

We stopped in Kansas City at Cycle City downtown and I got to chat for a bit with an old gravel grinder named Joe Fox. He is an owner at the bike shop there and he has done Trans Iowa before. He also used to put on an event called the Farmhouse Classic back in the day. I tried to convince him to start it up again. 

The Starcross Party on Thursday evening

Ben had told me that after driving about 12 hours that we would immediately go to the Air BnB that they had procured for this trip, dump off some stuff, then we were to go directly to this party that, all I know is that you "have to know someone to get into it." Apparently it was sponsored by Cedaero Bags 

We got there after all this travel, with one stop to eat, where I had a six inch sub, and maybe a handful of potato chips, and that was all for the day.  I'm not blaming anyone but myself here, but I was really tired! I hung out in the darkened room with some wild bikes that Cedaero had made custom bags for and were showing them off. A couple were Ben's bikes. A tall bike, previously mentioned, and a 1939 Elgin cruiser. 

This is an Esker long-tail Hayduke with a custom bag that makes it look like the outfit is from a Harley bagger bike.

This is a custom demonstration of Cedarero's capabilities. The bag is clear, filled with water, and set up to look like an aquarium.

There were shenanigans, bicycle riding, and a cool rendition of a Prince song done ala karaoke style.  But nothing to eat! But wait! Someone said there was a pizza. I was able to grab a slice, which - better late than never - served as my second meal for the day. 

There would be good fare straight out of the gate for Friday though. Bobby Wintle made us promise to meet him at a new restaurant called "Hatch" in Stillwater for breakfast at 6:00am. It was nearly mid-night at the party when this happened. Off to bed!

But not before Marty and Ben decided to pull over because of the following.....

Transformers!

And this! Ah.........yeah. Moving on!

We got back to the house which was a mile off a blacktop road outside of Stillwater a few miles on a gravel road. It was the perfect place as it was dark, quiet, and had almost zero traffic. We could hear coyotes yipping over the prairies and a big orange tabby was there to great us. 

Then I hit the sack, I think by 1:00am, and a short night of sleep before we were off and running again.