LEWISTON – They arrived in a wave of black leather and exhaust.
A dental hygienist. A preschool teacher. Retired business people.
All on Harleys – 350 of them.
“Had to ride with the brotherhood, man,” said Dan Rainville, a burly Vermonter who works with cows.
Escorted by 18 police officers on motorcycles, Harley-Davidson enthusiasts swept through Lewiston on Thursday to stop at Schott Harley-Davidson.
The group, on its way to the annual Maine State Hog Rally in Caribou, planned to visit each of the five Harley dealerships in Maine. They started the trek in Portland before 8 a.m., stopping traffic and flustering some local police officers as they rode up the highway and through Lewiston.
At Schott’s, they grabbed doughnuts and bottled water, taking the chance to chat about new bikes, old gear, good roads.
It didn’t matter that they were from 20 states and Canada, that most knew only a handful of others. They loved Harleys. They loved to ride. They didn’t need anything else in common.
“Everybody’s the same. Everybody’s on the same page. No one cares what you do for a living,” said Bob Metrick, a retired Coca-Cola service manager from New York.
The 340-mile ride would be long for some. For Melody Moretti and her husband, who covered 7,000 miles during a 22-state tour last year, it would be a snap. She stuck a small stuffed moose on the back of their gold bike and looked forward to a scenic ride through Maine.
“I just love the breeze blowing. It’s a little sense of freedom,” she said.
For Kari Drain, a sign language interpreter from Sanford, Harleys took over her life more recently. Her fianc gave her a Harley-Davidson club membership for their first Valentine’s Day. He asked her to marry him at a Harley shop in southern Maine last year.
She had a Honda at home. Thursday she got the urge to upgrade.
“Hogs are the best,” she said, perched on an $18,000 Harley in electric blue.
The police, who escorted the group on motorcycles, felt the same way. The officers, from more than a dozen departments, planned to ride the entire day. No one got paid. And no one complained about it.
“I love it. It’s part of my life,” said Old Orchard Beach Sgt. Timothy Deluca, a Harley fanatic who routinely oversees group treks.
After an hour of mingling around the doughnut table, inside the shop and in line for the bathrooms, the riders meandered back to their bikes. As the skies darkened overhead, they took off for the next shop, in Augusta.
The forecast called for thunderstorms. No one seemed concerned.
“We ride in anything,” said Linda Magnusson of New Hampshire, tying a pink Harley-Davidson bandanna tied around her head. “We’re true bikers.”
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