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.
![](http://travelswithbarley.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Play3.jpg)
![](http://travelswithbarley.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Training6.jpg)
![](http://travelswithbarley.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Training4.jpg)
![](http://travelswithbarley.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Training9.jpg)
![](http://travelswithbarley.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Training5.jpg)
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.
![](http://travelswithbarley.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/WtDistribution1.jpg)
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.