The magnificent seven

Friends from the Prague and Isartal H.O.G.^® chapters embarked on a three-week adventure through the American Southwest

Words: Karlheinz Wedhorn

We started planning our US trip in summer 2023, and when we attended Prague Harley Days with the Praha H.O.G.^® Chapter, we told them about our plans. The guys seemed interested, and we soon realised we’d be going on this adventure together!

Flights, visas and international driving licences were sorted. We reserved bikes at Eagle Rider in Phoenix, Arizona: two Road Glide^® and five Street Glide^® models, and on 1 April 2024 our adventure began. From Munich, we made our way across three time zones to arrive at our hotel in Phoenix shortly before midnight.

Next morning, we picked up the bikes from Desert Wind Harley-Davidson^® and Eagle Rider. We were given a warm welcome and picked up some patches and T-shirts before inspecting the bikes and hitting the road. We started with the Apache Trail, enjoying its sweeping curves and saguaro cacti waving to us from their rocky stands.

The following morning it was time for the eagerly awaited Arizona Bike Week. The shopping village presented booth after booth offering everything that makes a biker’s heart beat faster. We headed to the foothills of Cave Creek, where a city dweller set up shop with his Harley more than 20 years ago and has been spoiling the biker scene with barbecues in an airy wooden shed since. After tortillas and enchiladas, plus a visit to a gift store to embellish our H.O.G. vests, we rode back to Bike Week to watch the live bands.

The next day, we stopped for lunch in Wickenburg and visited Ben’s Saddlery, where cowboys order their boots, belts and gloves. Then it was off towards Prescott, the former capital of Arizona. Through reddish rocks with pine trees we reached the artists’ village Jerome, before finding ourselves on the road to Sedona. The mountains shone in the evening sun, but we couldn’t enjoy the slow descent as it was already getting cold. We checked into the motel at Flagstaff before exploring the town.

After a cold night, we set off in the direction of California, turning onto Route 66. We were making progress through forests and wondered why we were alone on the road. The answer came almost immediately as the road abruptly ended in a dirt track, with no sign of the historic part of the road, so we returned to the I-40. Our next stop was Seligman, home to Westside Lilo’s Café and Angel Delgadillo, former barber and saviour of the legendary road. Then we rode to Kingman via Hackberry and Antares. After dinner, we took the bikes through the Route 66 gate for a photo, then rode towards Lake Havasu City. It was windy but we quickly got into our rhythm on the beautifully cut bends and headed up to Oatman. The tourists were out, but the donkeys that made the place so famous were absent, so we continued.

In Topock, we drove past the bridges next to the I-40, where the intro for the 1969 classic Easy Rider was filmed. At Lake Havasu, we inspected the London Bridge and went to bed. The next day, we headed for the Needles, back via Topock, entering the second stage of our trip – California. Our first highlight was Roy’s Motel and Cafe, a gas station in the middle of nowhere that has appeared in films, adverts and music videos. The second cinematic backdrop we came across was Bagdad Cafe, the location for the eponymous 1987 film.

Joshua Tree National Park was our next stop, where we were enchanted by the little trees that stretched their arms into the sky as if emulating the prophet Joshua. Crazy rock formations feature throughout the park and we climbed Skull Rock, keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes.

Death Valley National Park was on the itinerary for the next day. The name conjures up images of oppressive heat, burst tyres and animal carcasses, but it wasn’t that bad. We were travelling in April when it isn’t that hot, and it had rained before we got there. Badwater Basin was underwater, with only the salt crusts along the lagoon giving us an idea of what it usually looks like.

After a visit to another national park – Red Rock – we rode to the man-eating juggernaut of Las Vegas. We checked into our hotel and headed into the sea of people, but five hours on the bikes had taken their toll and we soon fell into bed.

The next morning we took the shuttle bus to Harley-Davidson Las Vegas, where we enjoyed the air conditioning, patches and an assortment of T-shirts, looking forward to getting back on the bikes the next day.

We made our way to Tucson in two stages, covering almost 500 miles, stopping to visit Pima Air & Space Museum, home to the World War II US bomber B-17 Flying Fortress and the Wright brothers’ fabric-covered experimental model. The San Xavier del Bac Mission in Tucson is a must-see, and I finally saw the 1692 church without scaffolding, standing radiantly in the barren landscape.

Almost 100 miles later, a cold shiver ran down our spines as we walked through Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, before strolling past the OK Corral along Main Street, picking up patches and T-shirts in the nearby Harley-Davidson dealership. We stayed in Sierra Vista.

We decided to breakfast in Bisbee, a few miles south, and the copper mining town greeted us with its deep, shimmering red pits. We turned into a small street and parked in the 1950s with limousines from the same era. The Harley-Davidson store displayed the latest models and a billboard showed the UFO incidents in Roswell.

Las Cruces was one of our longer stages at 290 miles, and we stopped in Shakespeare, a ghost town below the I-10. On a tour, a cowboy out told us about the harsh realities of working in the nearby silver mine, revealing a diamond scam by resourceful residents. We also enjoyed the first steak of our trip in a Mexican-style atrium – a perfect finish to a great day.

The White Sands National Park greeted us with a yellowish haze in the air and we rode through the gypsum desert. The dunes invited us to hike, so we walked over the hard sandy surface, and as the wind picked up, we set off on our next stage.

In El Paso, Texas, a huge sandstorm whistled around us. We found shelter in a motel and rested before the mammoth trip from El Paso to Santa Fe the next day. We covered the 375-mile distance in time for a well-earned beer and dinner with some cowgirls.

We had a relaxing day following in the footsteps of the Wild Hogs (in the 2007 movie) in Madrid. After a little refreshment in the artists’ village, we returned to Santa Fe, where we visited the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and purchased new cowboy boots in Kowboyz. The bikes were packed, ready for Route 66 the following day.

We made our way through Albuquerque and stopped in Gallup to visit the El Rancho Hotel, which has hosted many Hollywood stars. The road led us through the Petrified Forest National Park along the Painted Desert. In Holbrook, we passed the Wigwam Motel, and as we drove into the late afternoon, we approached the town of Winslow before heading to our motel in Flagstaff.

Following in the footsteps of Easy Rider, we rode up to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, Arizona, where black lava from a volcanic eruption 1,000 years ago shapes the landscape. We headed to Kayenta, part of the Navajo Nation, for the evening. The Four Corners Monument – the point where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet – was on the agenda the next morning. Group photo done, we headed to Bluff. After the Mexican Hat, we crossed the plateau to reach Monument Valley. Totally blown away, we forgot we had one more destination to go – the Grand Canyon.

We rode to the first large viewing platform via Cameron. Looking deep into the canyon we saw the sparkling ribbon of the Colorado river that had created this natural wonder. We drove along the park road to the other viewpoints before arriving at our motel in Williams.

We left our accommodation late the next morning and drove into the valley, feeling a little sad. It was 37 degrees, so we spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool. When we returned the bikes to Eagle Rider the following day, they were surprised at our performance. We’d done the “magnificent seven” – more than 7,000km through seven states, visited seven national parks and bought an estimated seven patches each day in three weeks. Cheers to fellow travellers from the H.O.G. Praha and Isartal chapters – thanks for the fun, camaraderie and the ride!