Dorothy: [00:00:00] Today, we’re going to hear Mike Hazelrig’s story of his 11,000 mile motorcycle trip from Florida to Alaska to raise money for The Rose. But you’re not going to hear the same Mike that you heard before he went on this trip. Mike tells us that this is a life changing event that he never expected. He’s doing it all for his fiancée, and he’s raising money for The Rose. Listen as you learn more about what’s important in life.
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Mike, you made it. I am so excited. I want to hear so much more about your ride. And just for a little For our audience, you know, you decided to make a ride, a motorcycle ride, that is one of those most phenomenal things, to raise money for The Rose, for the women that we serve. So first, just give us a little overview of what this ride is all about.
Mike: So the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge, this was the 10th anniversary that it has run. This was a event thought up by Jim Red Cloud to challenge warriors in the community, basically to break them down and to ride for the community. So, this year we had about 234 [00:02:00] riders. Everybody had a charity that they personally supported.
And then, The Hoka Hey organization supports the indigenous peoples in certain localities. In this case, it was the, the people of the Kenai tribe up in Alaska. So the whole event is about charity. The whole event is gathering the very best riders in the world to do something meaningful and to make them understand that life is so much more than what we live now, so we can go back out into the community and provide inspiration, provide strength, provide guidance, provide the wonder of what this world really offers instead of what we do every day back to the community. [00:03:00] And that was Jim’s calling. One of the many things. He was an artist and just an incredible human being.
He’s passed, but his, uh, Beth, his, his significant other, wife, whatever, has continued the tradition along with everybody that’s part of the Hoka Hey community, when you look at things like Iron Butt, when you look at, which is an organization that recognizes extreme long distance riding, this is a different venture.
This is a more spiritual, it’s not more meaningful. But, but to each individual, we are a subset of the biker community that nobody ever hears about. You don’t hear about somebody riding 1,500 miles in a day because they’re out riding 1,500 miles in a day. They’re not telling you about it. But when you get 230 people and you gather them in an area and everybody’s riding for money, and I know we raised over a quarter million dollars for charities this year, [00:04:00] um, It’s a personal challenge.
It isn’t about riding together. We don’t ride as groups. We may ride with our best friends, which I did in my case. Um, and picked up many more on the way. But, it opens up the whole nation for you to understand that we’re all in this together, for us to traverse from Daytona through a hurricane down to the Keys and across the nation, you know, to Arizona, Utah, to South Dakota, and then up through Canada to Homer, you were hitting so many people, so many cultures and so many different lifestyles and you’re hitting them fast. But, I’m babbling and I’m sorry.
Dorothy: No, no, no.
Mike: It’s just the most amazing thing.
Dorothy: So a lot of that journey, yeah, a lot of that journey and how many miles total?
Mike: Uh, I think I did 11,017 miles in 14 days.
Dorothy: Wow. Now that was the part that we were all [00:05:00] watching you and, and the 14 days is kind of the goal, right? You’ve got to make it within 14 days.
Mike: To get a elite rider status. Uh, that’s the goal. And we made it with the last minute to, I mean, the last minute to spare at midnight in Homer. Um, it wasn’t by design. Uh, that’s just the way it worked out. That’s, to me, that’s a memory I’ll never, ever — that, that highlights me to be able to share that with my best friend and for us to ride brother, brother to brother side by side through construction, maybe at allegedly higher speeds, to make it to the, the roundabout at the very end of the Homer spit and come back to Main Street and be greeted by people that you know and you love. There’s just nothing better. So, it, it, that was to get elite status. There are still people [00:06:00] coming in that have done incredible things. Hyde, who, uh, wrote a panhead the whole journey. This is his third attempt and he successfully completed that today or yesterday.
Dorothy: What’s a panhead?
Mike: It’s a very old motorcycle. It’s a very old Harley and um, takes a lot of maintenance to get it to, to make the journey. And uh, to us that there’s different things that people will get respect for, far beyond just the fact that we’ve completed this. When you take something like, like I wrote a very modern motorcycle and stuff and beat the heck out of it, and I owe it a big apology, but, um, to have somebody ride, uh, Don’t quote me, I want to say it was a 48, but I could be totally wrong. But somewhere in my age range, motorcycle, and make it that distance, to me, all the respect in the world to him, to couples that rode this together. I know of at [00:07:00] least two couples, that husband and wife, two separate motorcycles. I can’t even imagine the logistics of two bikes and two people as a couple riding it together. But, it’s just incredible what people can do.
Dorothy: Now I’m, just trying to to make sure our our listeners know exactly what what this involved. You started in Florida. You ended up in Alaska with a whole bunch of little bits and because we we’re going to show the map on with this this video. But you also did a lot of back roads, like you said, you weren’t writing in a group, you were writing with maybe one other person, and you went through a lot of towns that welcomed you, that, that really, they were there for you. I mean, they, they were anxious to see these, these riders come through and everyone kind of knows that this is all for charity.
Mike: I think it develops. I think first off the [00:08:00] the route is not announced and as riders, we don’t get the route. We never get the full route. We only get sections of the route. So the first section in florida was seven pages.
It’s turn by turn directions It is not any major thoroughfares. You’re on basically two lane going through towns that people will all of a sudden realize, there’s a lot of motorcycles around with numbers on them. What the heck is going on? Well, when we were in Florida, we started in Daytona and none of us believed with Hurricane Debbie, I believe it was, and realized we have no really contact with the outer world to understand what is going on.
We really didn’t think we were going to be sent into Debbie. Uh, we knew we were supposed to go to the Keys, but we didn’t know. Well, sure enough, we went directly into Debbie.
Dorothy: What was that like?
Mike: Um, it, so I always wanted to ride the Keys. It was a bucket list thing. I’m definitely not impressed after riding the [00:09:00] Keys in a hurricane. Um, didn’t really see much at all. The rain was literally sideways. It got to the point where we were riding through water that was up to my cases, the, the engine cases and stuff. And we kept on pushing. Uh, the rain was sideways. We had pulled off to one side. And, um, there were three of four of us together and it was, the wind was blowing so hard. We couldn’t put the bikes on the kickstand. So we just had to sit on the bikes and wait for a gust to let up so we could move a little bit further down the road. And as I’m watching that, shout out to Shell Feddersen. Her and T motor by on the, the high rise right by us. And it’s like, you know, this is stupid. Let’s go. So we took off too. So that was motivation, but you had everybody doing that. And then the directions, in Florida, particularly, I think what they were trying to do is get us used to following turn by turn directions. So there were several big circles. So, [00:10:00] so not only were we in the hurricane, but we’re repeating the same roads and finding, you know, I clearly remember calling Mama Beth and saying, look, we can’t get through this intersection.
It was right down by where the big famous buoy was and stuff like that. I said, so. We rode to one side of the puddle, and then we rode to the other side of the puddle, and it wasn’t a puddle, you couldn’t, I couldn’t stand up in it. Um, is that good enough for us to go on? Got clearance, so we were able to go on. Uh, typically we didn’t talk to anybody. Uh, comms pretty much got washed out during the, the hurricane, so my communication ability with my best friend and stuff really wasn’t there for the whole ride. But we were able to call out for directions if we needed it. As far as, as missing things of, Hey, there’s been a diversion because as hurricane has knocked down all the trees on this street, you know, we’re supposed to go this way, just to let you know, so other riders will know. And then they’d send out a text. So, uh— [00:11:00]
Dorothy: And you never left your bike. You had to stay with bike.
Mike: Uh, the, so you have to sleep on the, the ground next to the bike, outside, um, I have stories about that too, but God, people are so, so open and wonderful about how they want to help. Um, Swamp Rat in Fargo, Georgia is the bands of the Hurricane are hitting.
We’re at a two pump station and these are the old pumps where you pull the handle up and the lever over and everything and it is pitch black. We’re trying to fill up our gas and he pulls up his little truck. He says hey. What’s up with all the motorcycles around here? He’s getting drenched because his windows open and we said well, you know, this is charity ride, dot dot dot. I asked him, I said, is there anything like a gazebo or something that we can get under because we’re, we’re beat up.[00:12:00]
And uh, he said, better than that. So Swamp Rat turned out to be the fire chief, the fire brigade, all the fire department and just about everybody in every character that lived in this town. So, the fire chief went and opened the fire department and left the doors open so we could sleep right by the edge where we were right by our bikes.
Dorothy: Oh my gosh.
Mike: And we were at least out of the torrent of water that was falling on us. Another example is when we were down the keys since we hadn’t left Florida yet, um, we were following a group and everybody was lost. Once you get down to the very end of the keys, especially when you’re in a hurricane, everything just becomes wild.
And I flat out busted a red light. I just went through it, but you couldn’t stop because of the rain and everything else. And of course, officer was immediately behind me, but, um, he pulled me over. I got off the bike and I said, look, I, I did this. [00:13:00] This is what I’m doing. Little, uh, Jamaican gentleman. He says, no problem on, uh, the, he says, you do this for charity. You go on. So all I could do is hug him and tell him, you know, that would have been the end of my ride. That would have been the end of my ability to bring in more money for charity and everything else. And it’s things like that that we become so jaded with humanity. And when you start meeting people that will give, um, Galene? Hang on, let me get, get a name for it.
Dorothy: Yes. Give me a name.
Mike: So, um, Galene Martinez in Taos, New Mexico. I was with a group of about six people. We had just gotten up. It was early in the morning. We’d only written probably an hour or two and we’re going through Taos and the directions were not clear, which was normal and all that. But apparently no roads in the United States are ever labeled.
We can’t label roads within Georgia can only have three labels and they can’t [00:14:00] be at intersections. It’s ridiculous. But anyway, so this car pulls up behind us and we’re kind of off to the side of the road and we figure, okay, well, we’ll move our bikes a little bit more. And Galene gets out. She has little baggies of treats for us and blesses us and tells us, no, you’re, you’re on the right route.
You just go down this road and turn right. And I’ll never forget that. It just resets your, your belief in humanity that, you know, nobody knows what we’re doing unless you’re somehow connected to Hoka Hey. You have no idea what all these people are doing, all of a sudden appearing for three or four days coming through your town. But that was just a, an example of the Goodness of People.
Dorothy: What about the one story I heard was, uh, you’re somewhere, gas station somewhere, and the policeman came? Was there, was there a time?
Mike: Oh, uh, this was the Dead Man story.
Dorothy: Oh, the Dead Man story.
Mike: And, and there actually is somebody known as Dead Man that had done similar stuff, and it was [00:15:00] funny. So apparently, cause I was a player, but I didn’t talk to the policeman. Apparently because we’re all sacked out next to the bikes, the police came to check on us because a lady had called saying that there’d been a shootout of bikers on the side of the road. No, we’re just tired. So, But that’s, that’s all part of the stories and the, the things that happen and it happens to all of us as we go through this, just different things.
God, the beauty of, I had a, I was very poorly managed as far as my services on the bike. Um, I think I’ve, um, stayed within my warranty, but it’s close and I had to go backtrack off course, which you have to ask permission to do to go to this little bitty dealership in, um, And, uh, as I was going, the sun was [00:16:00] coming up in the Red Rocks as you’re going through the, the canyons and everything.
And I was by myself. And it was just the most beautiful site. I took more pictures there than probably anywhere else. And if you can’t find beauty in nature when you’re doing something like that, it’s just incredible. But then again, you get to Grand Canyon with all the people there and the road, which by the way, whoever the Grand Canyon road people are, you’re not supposed to ride a road for 150 miles labeled something, something East and change it to North just because you feel like it anyway.
Dorothy: So that was just one of the, the things that you came up against was this, these road signs.
Mike: The road stuff was, it was a constant. It was, it is so crazy how roads will dogleg and they will change names. Um, and you’ll have the list of, okay, this road is called these four things, but there’ll be an east and a north and a south.
And it still connects to the same one that [00:17:00] you need to end up on. And we don’t have any way of knowing that. So you have to run to the end. I think in the grand scheme of things, we had probably three 60 mile diversions, which is not terrible in my mind, but you double that, that’s 120 miles. That’s a good portion of a tank of gas, and then you’re fighting getting gas at certain times, and we’re out in the sticks, and stuff like that.
There’s a lot of logistics involved in just plain luck, too.
Dorothy: Now, Mike, not only did you have to have the desire to do this, you actually had to, like, pass a test you were only a hundred new riders were allowed each year?
Mike: Correct. They’ll take 100 new riders and uh, then, there’s a waiting list and from what I understand, the 100 new riders applied in February of 20 — two years ago or something like that. And then [00:18:00] uh, as the time, you, you pay your 750 and as the time wears on, you know, people fall out for different reasons and stuff like that. So they go to the waiting list. And as I understand it, they went through the waiting list and then started going through additional people that had wanted to do it because this was such a big undertaking.
Typically it’s within the connected United States, but this one going out of country and stuff was, It’s the classic, you’re going from Florida to Alaska through Canada. And there’s way more people that have done it in the past. Very low number of people, you know, three digit numbers that came back to ride this ride because they had ridden it in the original.
So it’s, um, I feel very privileged. I love the idea that we started in a hurricane. Didn’t like it at the time, but you know, at least it’s unique. We’re going to, as I understand it, we’re going to getpatches of hurricane debby start and [00:19:00] stuff like that. But everybody’s going to have just tremendous stories and it’s all about the people.
Dorothy: Well, let’s talk about why you did this.
Mike: So, um, my fiance, Kathy and, and I’ve been dealing with breast cancer since she was first diagnosed. That’s when our, my best friend and his wife put us together. And, um, I don’t know, that sounds silly, but really they just said, look, y’all need to get together because this is ridiculous and you’re good for each other. So, um.
Dorothy: That’s what friends are for.
Mike: That is. And they were right. And, uh, we’ve been together now for 12 years, I don’t know, long time. And, um, She’s recently been, in the last year and a half, been diagnosed with, uh, metastatic and, and we know that’s a whole different approach than when we went through the original with the [00:20:00] double mastectomy and the reconstruction and stuff like that.
So because I’m a man and because I want to fix things and I can’t fix this, I had to do something, and I’m not saying I’m a talented biker, and I’m not saying that, that I couldn’t find some other way. But what I did know from my heart was that we’d had a lot of support from, from all my friends and workers when, Kathy and I got together with Bikers Against Breast Cancer and everything else.
So immediately I thought of The Rose and, and, and stuff for me to do this Hoka Hey thing. And when I approached my daughter and Kathy about doing this, it was, uh, cause it’s a huge effort on their part to put up with the hours and, and all the money and stuff like that. Uh, both were a hundred percent supportive. So I knew I was on the right path.
Dorothy: [00:21:00] Yeah.
Mike: And when I approached y’all, Oh my gosh, it’s like, this is totally different. How awesome is this? It was so encouraging. And Shannon’s just been outstanding to work with and stuff. It’s like, oh, don’t worry about all this. It’s, we got it all.
Dorothy: I think she’s your biggest fan. I mean, you know, it’s like wow!
Oh, you
Mike: need a website. No problem. No problem. You know, and then I’d start coming up with ideas like the, the, Uh, Dot Bands and everything else, so the word got out, and, um, We changed our, our, our goal a couple times and I think we’re at 27 now.
Dorothy: So let’s say, let’s say the whole thing, $27,000! Oh my gosh, Mike, we were just stunned.
Mike: Well, it’s, it’s never enough, but, um, I’m, I’m so appreciative to everybody, you know, executives giving a thousand. Uh, [00:22:00] I’ve had a little girl come up to me with a cup. With a cup full of coins that just wanted to help. And uh, the thing that, that I guess angers me more than anything else is everybody’s been touched by this and it, we’ve got to do something about it. This is insane that we’re spending money on stupid things and people’s health doesn’t matter. The people that, that, uh, That we look up to to run things are doing it totally wrong.
And, and living through this, you may need to mute this. I don’t know, but living through this journey and seeing how people are out in public and how caring they are and how much they’ll comfort one another and how much, it’s about people and what we have available to us. It isn’t about what you own and everything else, that’s—
Dorothy: We’re not cutting [00:23:00] any of that, Mike, I guarantee you. We all need, need to hear that.
Mike: It just brings you back and, and when you’re removed from all the politics and you’re removed from the news and you’re removed from all the things that that don’t matter, and you see people in reservations struggling to eat or, you know, when stores close and everybody’s jumping into the, the, the waste containers so they can get food or, you know, just, So many things, but then on the other hand, you see the beauty of somebody helping her carry that they have no earthly idea who these people that, that police officer. And, and I’ll never forget him. That is a nicest guy. And he has no idea the plant that he planted just by being a good person, you know, in the middle of a hurricane. But, um. Met some incredibly accomplished riders. I [00:24:00] still don’t know why they let me in, but I’m happy I got to go. Um, we have stories for forever about, mainly about people. Uh, yeah, nature’s beautiful. Uh, the roads are stupid. Motorcycles are wonderful if you get a chance just to get away.
Dorothy: And you had to ride certain kind of bike?
Mike: Yeah.
Dorothy: Yes.
Mike: It was, uh, you had to have an American V-Twin, which limits you to Victories, which are out of production, Indians or Harley’s or something custom. So, uh, very few. Um, I mean, I have a BMW at home that I would have loved to ridden this with. It would have made the Alcant a whole lot easier, but, um, I think that goes back to the whole spirit of the, the journey is we need to support those things that are important.
Dorothy: Yeah. Right here. Yeah. You’re right. Wow. So I want to hear more about that last day.
Mike: Okay. So we’re. [00:25:00] I don’t want to call it delirium, but you almost become a robot probably by about the fifth or sixth day. You’re used to sleeping at best broken sleep. Four hours a night or so you’re riding 20 hours a day, which I thought would really be tough.
Dorothy: 20 hours a day!?
Mike: Yeah, but you know you stop for gas which is about every 200— Well, about 150 miles, cause we’re having to be conservative when you get out west.
You gotta be even more conservative, especially in Canada and Alaska and stuff, because, sweetest people, middle of the night in Canada will wake up and, oh, you want some gas? It’s midnight. They don’t, they’ll come turn the gas on for you so you can fill up your motorcycle and keep going. Doesn’t always happen, but we were lucky and it happened that way. Um. I’m getting way off track.
Dorothy: So wait, how many, how many miles a day was average? How many, what was the longest?
Mike: So, so if, the [00:26:00] longest day, I couldn’t even begin to tell, whatever, take 14 days and divide 11,000 miles and we’re there. But the thing is you’re not making huge mileage because we’re not on interstates or anything. We’re on back roads. And if you take the fact that we had a hurricane with downed trees and divert or detours and stuff like that, that slows it down even more. It isn’t so much about the miles. It’s about what’s in those miles. So, um, You know, riding across again, through Utah and Arizona and stuff, through the Red Rocks and stuff, you’re going to make good time there.
But when you’re in Florida and a hurricane and you’re just trying to cross the bridge, it’s, life’s tough, man. So we were, you turn into robots. I thought that it’d be much more painful than it was, because I’m used to riding, you know, we’ll go to Sturgis and ride two weeks in a row and you know, eight or nine hours a day or something like that.[00:27:00]
But it really wasn’t because you had so much going on and you knew you’re concentrating on your directions. You can’t just read the line that you’re on. You have to read the line That you were on because it may change and then two lines ahead because okay, well your turn may be in less than a mile and you may have to—
Dorothy: And this is this is all written. Is that what I’m understanding?
Mike: It’s written. It’s a it’s like green bar computer paper. And you get your directions from there were four Harley dealerships you get from your first Harley dealership, you get the first seven pages. And then I think the least amount we had was I want to say one page from the last one, and that was from like, uh, uh, Montana all the way up to Homer, and it was just one page of instructions, but there’s only two roads, so, you know. But, um—
Dorothy: So, what a contrast to the way we normally live.
Mike: Yes.
Dorothy: Where you’re putting something into your GPS, and how fast can I get there, and, you know, it’s always the fastest route. This certainly wasn’t the [00:28:00] fastest route.
Mike: No, and not only that, but if you take the roads and you take away the signs, which truly is what you’re facing a whole lot of times, what that forces you to do is interact with the community. And I think that may be part of what they designed the challenge for is because you have so much interaction with people asking about direction about, you know, any kind of of stuff like that. I remember clearly talking to a sheriff, couldn’t tell you in the world where it was, but I was looking for, say, I 43, not I, but whatever, 47, and this road was 36.
It was the same road. He had lived there his whole life. He was a sheriff. He didn’t know. And he’s like, well, now I know. So this is great. But the roads themselves were a challenge. And then of course you got constant construction and, and roadways that have detours and stuff like that. Uh, weather plays into it a little bit.
We didn’t have [00:29:00] terribly cold weather. I know a couple nights I shivered because I was too lazy to get my bed roll out. I just fell out on my, uh, I had a cot I took. We were always wet. We were wet. Because of the hurricane, we couldn’t get dried out. So that, you know, you were wearing your same clothes for four, five, six days. I think I took two showers. It was so wonderful. Uh, wanted a really good friend of ours in, in, uh, Rapid City. And that gave you a little bit more oomph. Its. Again, keep asking questions cuz I’ll keep on rambling.
Dorothy: Well, I’ll tell you what. This is a good place for us to take pause, and we’re going to come back to Mike and his story about how he has raised $27,000. But I think more importantly, you’ve, you’re bringing us the story of America. [00:30:00] You’re bringing us a story of, Goodness and people caring, and it was all about charity. It was all about raising money for someone you love. We’ll be right back.
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