Riding together…

For Jim and Terry, riding as a couple is a big part of what long-distance motorcycle riding is all about.

You could say that Jim and Terry Evans are committed high mileage riders. They’ve covered almost a quarter of a million miles on a succession of Harley-Davidson^® motorcycles in the past 15 years, riding some 25,000 miles each year. Almost all of that total has been on back roads and most of it from riding with their local Harley Owners Group^® chapter, and nearly every mile has been ridden together as a couple.

“We do easily 98 percent of those miles together on the bike as a couple, and we wouldn’t have it any other way,” says Jim. “The biggest advantage of riding as a couple would be that you can share the adventure with your partner. The passenger sees a lot more than the rider can, and they can take pictures to keep and share the memories. And two heads are better than one. It means you don’t have to worry about getting home at any given time. If we decide to stay out an extra few days, we just do it. I’m sure we’re safer on the road together than apart.”

Jim and Terry were high school sweethearts growing up in Massachusetts, and that bond has remained strong and unbroken. After Jim’s stint in the U.S. Navy, the pair spent 13 years in California, where the riding bug first bit. They were drawn to the allure of the coastal highways from San Jose to Monterey and up through the redwood forests and wine country north of San Francisco. Like so many parents, raising a family meant motorcycling was paused for a while, but after the children were grown and Jim and Terry had moved back to Massachusetts, the riding itch began again. And so, in 2010, Jim gave in to the urge and bought a three-year-old Softail^®, rapidly followed by a succession of Street Glide^® and Road Glide^® Limiteds.

Fast forward to today, and Jim is director of the Worcester Mass Chapter, a position he has held for seven of the past eight years. The chapter has won the regional high mileage award for each of the past three years, and Jim and Terry themselves are both approaching 250,000 miles in the H.O.G.^® Ride 365^® Lifetime Recognition program.

“Some people think that to rack up high mileages you have to do long trips on the highways, but we do almost all of our riding on back roads,” says Jim. “We typically do three or four rallies a year and plan extended trips from those rallies so we get to see as much of the region as we can. However, I would say that the majority of the miles come from riding with our H.O.G. chapter; we do three or four rides per week with the chapter and a couple of rides with just us, averaging around 150 miles per ride. I don’t usually think about the miles, but they sure add up!

“Riding allows us to see and do so much more than we could in a car. I guess you could call it the freedom of the open road, freedom from everyday life, freedom to explore new roads and new places. It may sound like a cliché but I just love the sound and feel of the bike, and that point where you get ‘into the zone’ and feel almost at one with the bike and the control seems intuitive and effortless.”

For Terry, riding as a couple has the attraction of sharing something together that they both feel strongly about. “It is about being with Jim and sharing the adventure together – I really love it, it is something we can both really enjoy together as a couple,” she says. “On the back of the bike I am an extra set of eyes watching out for things. I trust Jim totally as a rider and so I can relax and just enjoy it. We are linked by intercom so we can just carry on normal conversations, point out things of interest, or I can ensure that Jim is alert, which can be a great advantage to having someone else with you on the bike, maintaining that alertness.”

Jim and Terry’s current bike is a 2022 Road Glide Limited, now with almost 50,000 miles on the clock, which Jim describes as a great bike, very strong and reliable and one that has never let them down. Accessories and modifications to ensure long distance riding comfort are limited to backrests, adjustable highway pegs for both rider and passenger, mesh seat cover for the summer and heated hammock seats for comfort in winter, ideal because the couple ride pretty much year-round. “We have a personal challenge of getting on the bike at least once a month during the winter,” says Jim. “As a chapter we do the Polar Bear Ride on the first Sunday of December, then an I-Cycle Ride on January 1 every year where we ride out to lunch, then an Icebreaker Ride, which is the big kick-off ride of the year on April 1 – so yes, you could say we ride year-round!”

The revamped H.O.G. Ride Programs also help give additional purpose to some of Jim and Terry’s longer rides. “Every time we go out on a longer trip, we try to fit in a 50 Rides One Nation, or any kind of coin stop in the route, if possible,” says Terry. “Like the monument for the Woodstock Festival, or the National Memorial Arch in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, which is the next one we are doing for the 15 Rides for ’25 program during the ride to Pennsylvania we have coming up in June. We are also planning to stop at dealerships to get pictures for the Dealer Challenge and check-in for the Let’s Ride Challenge. We use the Harley-Davidson Ride Planner for plotting almost all the rides we do; it is very easy to use.”

Next riding plans for Jim and Terry are already being set. “We plan to continue what we have been doing, heading out to rallies and local riding,” says Jim. “We would like to add a little more ‘southern’ riding in the winter – the Carolinas, Tennessee, Key West perhaps, and we would like to spend more time out in the Badlands and try to get to the states we haven’t been to yet. We will be heading to Appalachian Thunder in Cumberland, Maryland, in June, the Valley to the Mountains in Monticello, New York, in August and then on to Iron Adventure in Bartlett, New Hampshire, continuing on to Caribou, Maine, for a Dealer Tour Card stamp, then to the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada before heading home. “I have to say we are very fortunate to be part of a chapter that is so ready to ride and that everyone in the chapter makes all of the rides so enjoyable. The camaraderie among the members is extraordinary. The support of our sponsoring dealer, Sheldon’s Harley-Davidson^® is truly exceptional too – they are more than willing to open early or even when they are officially closed, to support a chapter ride or an event, which is really appreciated by the chapter.”

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