Glenlivet: Refresher Training | Travels with Barley

The winter had been long and brutal. It ended – concurrently with my finishing the sidecar rebuild – just a few weeks before we were scheduled to ride to Tennessee for the 2019 BMW Motorcycle Owners of America Rally. I was torn between the need to get Glenlivet up to speed quickly…and an awareness that pushing him too hard might sour him on the idea of adventure travel.

Every training ride featured play time. On weekends we found school grounds good places to romp. On weekdays churches filled the need.

Glenlivet likes the water so much I had to switch to a waterproof dog bed!

Initial rides were leisurely trips along the roads of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, a part of the state considered rural even by Vermont standards

We completely disrupted the orientation for new students at Sterling College

The new graphics arrived and were carefully placed. Glenlivet’s name on the side of the cockpit, paw prints over the nose, and Barley’s wings starboard side aft

And finally, though I had skipped checking the lean and toe-in, I declared the trip a go and started working on proper weight distribution for the trip.

The last few training rides were taken with a full load of gear so I could evenly distribute the weight, a critical factor in sidecar operation.

My dog was ready. I was ready. But because our training rides were all conducted at low speeds on rural roads, the sidecar was not yet properly dialed in. I would not discover how bad it actually was till we reached Pennsylvania. Stubbornness would carry me to West Virginia before I reached out for help.

But that’s part of the 2019 Rally story.

THE 2019 TENNESSEE RALLY

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