GILROY – For any motorcycle enthusiast who loves leather, chrome
and the roar of an old chain-driven engine, a trip to biker party
capital Sturgis, N.D., or the home of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles
is like a journey to Mecca.
And on the centennial birthday of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles,
it is an epic tale for anyone lucky enough to make their way to the
celebration in Milwaukee. Just ask Mike Malinao.
GILROY – For any motorcycle enthusiast who loves leather, chrome and the roar of an old chain-driven engine, a trip to biker party capital Sturgis, N.D., or the home of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles is like a journey to Mecca.
And on the centennial birthday of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles, it is an epic tale for anyone lucky enough to make their way to the celebration in Milwaukee. Just ask Mike Malinao.
“Biking is such a freedom. When you’re on a bike, when there’s big sky around you 360 degrees, there are no boundaries,” he said. “It’s the 100th anniversary. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Malinao, who bought his first Harley in 1999 and now rides a 2001 Heritage Classic, has been riding motorcycles since he was 15 years old.
“I had a friend, a neighbor, who came riding down in a Honda 90 Sport,” Malinao remembers. “He said, ‘Let’s go.’ We took a ride and that was it.”
Malinao had been planning the trip for a year and a half: seven states and more than 6,000 miles for the three-day, 100th anniversary celebration that would bring a quarter of a million visitors to Milwaukee Aug. 28 through 30. Harley was promoting the event, called “Coming Home.”
While the member of the Monterey chapter of the Harley Owners Group (HOG) had made trips to Laughlin, Nev., for the Laughlin River Run and had gone to Reno before on his bike, this would be Malinao’s longest journey on a bike – and he was doing it solo.
“Part of it was just talking to people who have ridden and then coming up with your own game plan,” he said.
Malinao also had help from a friend in his neighbor Ed Perkins, a retired California Highway Patrol officer who had made several cross-country trips. While Perkins, who was in his 60s, couldn’t ride a motorcycle anymore and was afflicted with cancer, he loved to talk about bikes and riding with Malinao. While Malinao told Perkins they would sit down and talk all about his trip when he returned, he somehow felt that his friend wouldn’t be there when he came back. And he thought Perkins knew that, too.
“He had so much to offer, a lot of good traveling advice,” he said. “Before he passed away, he gave me my last piece of advise, and that was that I needed a riding buddy.”
Perkins said that even when he was riding alone on trips, he would bring something along with him to be his riding partner. Malinao got a little stuffed animal from Perkins to take on the trip.
“So I got a little chihuahua Beanie Baby,” Malinao said. “When I stopped off, I always had someone to talk to and enjoy the scenery with.”
In honor of Perkins, who passed away on the second day of Malinao’s trip, the chihuahua was given the name “Big Ed,” and indeed the plush puppy went everywhere Malinao did.
The Journey
While Malinao only had Big Ed with him on the road, he quickly found that when you ride a Harley, you’re never really alone.
Malinao left for Sturgis and Milwaukee Aug. 21, starting toward Reno to stay the night with a friend.
“I encountered a lightning storm on the way to Reno,” he said. “I had to pull over and put my rain gear on.”
His five-hour opening day jaunt turned into an eight-hour-trek, and there may not be anything more scary than riding out in the open when lightning starts hitting just a little too close.
After spending the night in Reno, Malinao set off again in hopes of better weather as he headed toward Utah, but again he was hit with bad weather – this time in the form of strong wind that forced Malinao to lean the bike against it in order to stay on the road.
“You’re at a 70-degree angle going 70 miles per hour, one hand on the handle and on the the shield because it kept flipping up on me,” he said.
Whenever Malinao took a break along his journey, it wouldn’t be long before a group of riders would stop too, just to check to make sure he was OK or just to stretch their legs and meet another rider. At one point in Nevada, Malinao said there were about 20 bikers stopped together, most from California and all of them heading for the 100th anniversary, including Rich Furtado, of Gilroy.
“All of them were going to the same place,” Malinao said.
Malinao didn’t make it to his next stop in Utah due to the weather, but he was invited to stay at a motel in Elko with some other bikers he met along the way – one of many encounters he had with bikers who instantly became his friends.
Finally finding good weather, Malinao made visits to Sturgis, Devil’s Tower, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse on his way to the Harley celebration, and made countless friends along the way, which easily can be seen by looking at his address book, which was completely filled by the end of the trip.
There also were strange experiences along the way. During the wind storm outside of Sparks on his second day, Malinao saw a weird sight while stopped under an overpass to get out of the wind.
“This woman from Oakland was riding a Fatboy and she just got stuck,” Malinao said of the rider, who had been blown off of the road by the wind but instead of crashing, was stuck upright in the mud. “She was just pulled over, stuck in the mud. It was the oddest thing.”
The festivities
After a week of traveling across the country, meeting new friends and seeing the sites, Malinao pulled into Milwaukee and was blown away by the welcome.
“When I first rode into town, there was a family out on a bridge, and whether it was a group of bikes or just one, they would wave American flags and cheer,” he said. “That’s when you realize what coming home is all about.”
Malinao, who had just begun working for Indian Motorcycles before going on the trip (He would be laid off just 11 days after he returned when the Gilroy plant closed down.), said the pride that people have in Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee was even stronger than the sense of pride he felt being a part of at Indian.
“In the short time I was there, there was a lot of great people and a lot of care going into those bikes. We’re building an American bike and here it is in Gilroy,” he said. “But Harley has a history of continual production, and the level of loyalty is a lot higher. The way the people of Milwaukee make you feel when you come in, you get goose bumps. I realized what I was a part of. It’s not just a trip or a bike, it’s a family.”
The Harley-Davidson event featured a concert, a special proclamation from President George W. Bush and thousands of bikes and Harley riders, Malinao said.
After the event was over, Malinao returned home not just with hundreds of pictures and memories, but with new friends and new adventures to come.
Malinao plans to return to Sturgis next year, and he quickly became friends with a group of riders from Australia that he stayed with in Milwaukee. He and his wife plan to visit them in Shepparton, Australia, in two years.
“The riders I met on the road were an inspiration. Everyone you meet has something to tell you about riding,” said Malinao, who along his adventures met riders from all around the world including New York firefighters, Japanese riders who had their bikes shipped overseas to ride in the event and personalities like 6-foot-5-inch tall Tiny and a Harley rider who is known simply as Mother. “For me, it’s a good stress reliever, bonding with other bikers. It’s not what you ride, it’s that you ride.”
