‘Happy Hogs’ hit the highway

By Gloria Austin
Staff Writer
    They aren’t Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence or William Macy of the Wild Hogs, but their humor, energy and fun matches the 2007 movie.
    Three local men and two friends from Mars Hill, known as the “Happy Hogs,” recently hit the highway on their motorcycles for an adventure of a lifetime.
Randy Lincoln
    Randy Lincoln, Grady Tidd and Ricky Tidd, all of Hodgdon, along with Dana Chasse and Dana McQuade of Mars Hill took on the challenge of the Four Corners Bike Tour. The tour allows bikers 21 days to ride their motorcycle to four corner cities in the United States — Madawaska, Me., San Ysidro, Calif., Blaine, Wash. and Key West, Fla. — visiting in any sequence and by any route.
    At each checkpoint, riders must mail to Southern California Motorcycle Association proof of the visit such as a gas receipt, with the odometer reading; one phone number from a location listed on the provided corner map and a photograph of the riders with a landmark that clearly show the checkpoint city name in the background.
    The local riders’ journey went from Madawaska down to Florida, over to California then on to Washington and back to Maine. They completed the tour in 15 days, taking six days to enjoy the return trip to Maine.
Ricky Tidd
    During the trip, students at Fort Street Elementary School in Mars Hill tracked the bikers’ progress.
    “They gave me a bunch of postcards,” said Dana Chasse. “I mailed them from each hotel. The fourth-graders in Mrs. Boyd and Miss Kimball’s classes tracked the trip. As I would send the post cards out, they had a map and put them where we stopped each night. They took the weather, route and state. The fifth-graders did the math of each day’s mileage.”
    But, how did these guys find out about the tour and how did they all hook up?
    “I knew about the ride from seeing it on the Internet, and seeing the park in Madawaska last summer, convinced me that I wanted to do the ride even more,” said McQuade. “One rider did the Four Corner Bike Tour 13 times. I finally got Grady to agree after I shamed him by telling him a lady completed the course four times and she finished the last one at 82 years of age.”
    Eventually wearing Grady down, they convinced Randy to go and then Chasse and Ricky joined in, as well.
    “It’s a chance of a lifetime,” said Ricky Tidd. “It’s a good chance to see the country, be in the open air and see neat sights.”
    The group had very little preparation to make.
    “We didn’t do a great deal,” Grady Tidd added. “Obviously, it took a little planning in advance. But, basically, I just packed up and went.”
    The fun-loving riders were able to communicate with each other through their CB radios.
    “We just rode until we felt like stopping,” said Grady Tidd. “Then, we would find a place to stay.”
    All five men agreed there wasn’t one point of the trip better than another. It was a conglomeration of sights and events that made it special, and none more than the camaraderie.
Grady Tidd
    “We don’t have a best part,” said Lincoln. “There were so many great parts. The Blue Ridge Parkway and Blue Ridge Mountains would be a highlight …  going across parts of Florida were pretty … Louisiana to crossing desert mountains … the San Joaquin Valley and all of the farmland …. The Redwood Forest to crossing Montana to the winds of South Dakota. There are so many parts, we cannot come up with one best part.”
    Chasse, who is very detail minded, said it took him 269 gallons of gas to complete the trip or $900 of gas. He estimated the trip cost between $2,500 to $3,000 for all expenses … gas, motels and food.
    “We averaged 525 miles a day,” said McQuade. “Our shortest day was 380 miles and our longest, 770 miles.”
    Lincoln added, “We had no thought pattern,” as laughter overtook the room.
    “We drove until someone wanted to stop,” Grady Tidd said.
    McQuade interjected, “We stayed a fair amount of time at Hoover Dam, taking the hard hat tour and at Mount Rushmore.”
    Other than that, the boys rode on.
    “We didn’t stay in an area long enough,” Ricky Tidd added. “There were a lot of things we passed that caught my interest.”
    They went by a NASCAR race, while a motorcycle show with 30,000-50,000 bikes, as well as a car show were going to be held the day after the bikers left.
    “If things had been different and we had more time to stop … to hang out a day,” Ricky Tidd said. “But, you could literally spend a summer doing this trip,” said Lincoln. “At the Blue Ridge Parkway you could spend a week there,” McQuade said. “Just around that area, taking side roads,” added Lincoln.
    With any trip, everyone hopes for good weather, no injuries and no breakdowns.
    “We had great weather,” Grady Tidd said. “We had two and a half to three hours of rain out of the total 21 days. We had some cool weather. We rode in the low 40 degrees a few days out West. We had windy weather in South Dakota and Wyoming.”
Dana Chasse
    “The biggest trouble I had, was a nut came off the exhaust,” McQuade said. “As far as body affects, other than gaining a little weight, it didn’t have any affects on my body. We ate good and rode a lot and didn’t get much exercise.
    “But, it’s nice to have home cooking,” he added. “Restaurant food gets tiring.”
    To be more cautious, Ricky Tidd adjusted his brake light.
    “I was worried in the cities someone might not see my brake light quick enough,” he said. “I adjusted it to come on quick when I touched it.”
    All the others chimed in good humor … ‘it hurt your eyes … it was bright.’
    But being alert is significant when riding on a motorcycle. Nothing major happened on the highway, but some riders got cut off.
    “Three different times cars cut across in front of me,” Ricky Tidd said. “I would lag back to look around and those four would ride ahead. They would think four bikes went by and that there was nothing else coming. They would start to pull out to pass and I’m right there.”
     One day, a trailer truck driver missed his exit and whipped over in front of Ricky Tidd.
    “He didn’t even have a glimpse of me until I swerved to miss him,” he said. “He came on the radio and said ‘I don’t know if you have a radio or not, but I’m sorry about that.’ I said, ‘I do and I accept your apology.’”
    The mention of Worcester, Mass. brought lots of laughter, too.
    “I couldn’t get my speaker in my headset to work right,” Lincoln sheepishly admitted, “and I crossed into the other lane in front of a dump truck coming. We were going slow.”
    Not only did sights stay with the bikers, “We met some very nice people,” Dana McQuade said. “It’s small town America all the way out there.”
    “The trip turned out better than expected,” Chasse said. “Dana and I had been talking at one time that we were going to have a bad meal or bad accommodations. None of that took place.”
    “I think we all had the attitude when we left, the trip wasn’t going to be perfect for any of us, it was going to be a group trip and we were all trying to do what we wanted, but sacrifice for the group as well,” Grady Tidd said. “I think that’s what everyone did.”
    “There wasn’t a cross word at any time,” added Lincoln. “It seemed like everyone wanted to do the same stuff,” said McQuade.
Dana McQuade
    Jokingly someone said, “There might have been words over Hondas and Harleys.”
    Grady Tidd rode an HD Ultra Classic 1573; McQuade an HD Ultra Classic 1800; Chasse, Lincoln and Ricky Tidd all rode Honda Goldwings.
    “It was a really fun trip with an excellent bunch of guys,” Ricky Tidd said. “The sights were really neat. The biggest thing I remember are the farms out West. It was impressive to see how big they are and all the equipment they use.
    “And, everyone we met was friendly and they always pulled up and stopped,” he added. “They wanted to know where we were from and the first thing people asked was ‘How are your butts?’ It didn’t bother us a bit.”
    “We had some of the best riding,” McQuade said. “It was a pleasant surprise no one was sore or that someone didn’t want to ride at any time. I thought there would be times we wouldn’t want to ride for a day. But, that never happened.”
    “It wasn’t about an accomplishment,” Lincoln answered. “It was the joy of seeing the country and having the camaraderie of some great guys. Completing the trip doesn’t mean that much, seeing the country means more to me.”
    “I can’t top any of that,” said Grady Tidd. “I agree completely. I can’t say any more.”
    Chasse said, “I saw part of the United States that I hadn’t seen before. It’s beautiful and I couldn’t have gone with a bunch of nicer guys.”
    Lincoln said they saw green mountains to bare mountains. Deserts to Redwood trees. Snow covered mountains to sand dunes at the bottom of Arizona next to the Mexican border.
    And bugs.
    “Every state has bugs,” Ricky Tidd said. “You can talk about Maine, but every morning, we cleaned our bikes  and our windshields. Sometimes, it was the middle of the day, just to see.”
    “We had to be ready for every season,” he said. “You had to be prepared for winter and summer, and even allergies. My eyes watered as everything was blooming.”
    But, that depends on the time of year a biker takes to the highway.
    “We went in April,” McQuade said. “It was the only time to get away.”
    The group never got tired of riding.
    “I thought I might get tired of the motorcycle,” Grady Tidd said, “But, when I got home, my wife wanted to go for a ride and we went again. I wasn’t tired of it at all.”
    During the interview, there were plenty of laughs and playful digs at each other.
    “You’ve heard us laugh and joke here,” McQuade said. “That’s what we did the whole time.”
    “But, if I had to do it over,” Ricky Tidd said. “I would take an extra week in there. If you have three, you might as well take four … there’s a pile of stuff that I would have loved to stop and see. It’s too bad to miss a lot of it, but you are kind of on a schedule.”
    So, any future bike plans?
    “I’m trying to talk Grady into 49 states in 10 days,” McQuade said. “Sooner or later, he will talk us into it,” Grady Tidd responded. “We probably can get away at the end of September or October,” McQuade retorted.
    So, did Grady agree?
    “Not today,” he said.