Mid-Big Ride Update

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Greetings from the middle-of-nowhere, Arizona. Day 4 of our “Crazy-Awesome Motorcycle Adventure III” is complete.

We picked up our rental bikes on Tuesday September 12. Unfortunately, they did not have the Harley model I reserved (a Street Glide) and gave me a similar model — a Road Glide. I don’t like it; it does not fit me well. But I will manage.

Our first day out found us riding on poorly-maintained roads, but not terrible. We made it to our destination safely.

However, the next two days of this ride have not been so awesome.
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Next Big Motorcycle Ride

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Readers of this blog know that I am an avid touring class motorcycle rider and enjoy opportunities to ride in scenic places in the United States.

A long, long, LONG time ago, when I was on a first-name basis with Julius Caesar, I rode a cousin’s Ducati from Rome, Italy, to Naples, then on to Sorrento, then on the most iconic (and frightening) ride to Salerno along the Amalfi Coast (dodging sheep, goats, and trucks on very narrow, curvy roads.)

However, that was NOT the most adventurous ride I had ever done. A few months later, I found myself in Anchorage, Alaska. I rented a bike especially built for off-road motorcycling. Together with three buddies, we rode the Alaska Highway through mud, snow, rivers, and a million mosquitos to arrive in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Two weeks, 2,000 miles, 20 million bugs removed from my teeth later, we arrived.

Ah man, what great experiences to have had. These days, there is no way I could endure or want to take such rides. Honestly, I do not know how I survived those two awesome adventures on a motorcycle. (Age of being “invincible,” I guess.)

Then I went to work; real work; real job; didn’t leave much time for motorcycling except for commuting and weekends around home.

I renewed my interest in adventure riding back in …
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Cowboy Boots on a Motorcycle

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Over the years, I have written posts on this blog expressing my opinion about wearing cowboy boots while operating a motorcycle.

Like other guys, I like to wear cowboy boots. I began wearing them at age 10 and didn’t stop. Over many years, I developed quite a large cowboy boot collection.

Most traditional, dress western, and older cowboy boots have smooth leather soles. Such soles are a bad choice to wear while riding a motorcycle because the soles provide no traction at all. The slightest amount of water or oil on the road makes these boots slide on those soles.

Back in 2013 or so, more boot manufacturers began applying rubber soles, Vibram soles, and/or lug soles on cowboy boots. I bought my first pair of Chippewa cowboy boots with a Vibram sole that were perfect for using on my Harley.

Nowadays, many boot manufacturers offer a cowboy boot / work boot with rugged rubber soles.

As an experienced rider, I choose …
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Photos from the Canadian Rockies

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While I was on the trip-of-a-lifetime in the Canadian Rockies one month ago, I took well over 2,400 photos. Many were duplicates using different settings of my camera and from different angles and directions.

I teamed up with two professionals as guides to help me learn how and get the most out of the features of my Canon 80D DSLR.

Since I returned home, between volunteering gigs and routine stuff around the house and community (and rides on my Harley), I culled, cropped, and edited my photos.

Editing these photos took …
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Tribute: Hotboots.com

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My engagement with the internet boot world began with hotboots.com. This was a website that Larry Kenney and his (then partner, later husband) Bill created on March 3, 1997, at the early stages when the internet was just beginning to be available. Larry and Bill were pioneers in developing websites, this one being the premier site for men into boots. This is the introduction from an early page of the site written by Larry:

This is the web site for the man who loves BOOTS . . .the man who enjoys wearing them for work and for play . . . and who likes to look at ’em and talk about ’em, too!

These pages are designed primarily to entertain and inform bootmen, but everyone is welcome to come on in, look around and enjoy whatever interests them.

This site was started on March 3, 1997, and it has been growing continuously since then. It’s a labor of love for me, and it’s a great way to combine my boot fetish with my interest in computers and the internet.

I first found this site in 2000 and like many other guys, was a “lurker” for years.

Back then, I worked in a job where I hid my sexual identity as a gay man in the closet for fear of what homophobic superiors might do if they found out. When I left that job in 2004, I was more free to “come out.” That’s when I became more active on hotboots.

Hotboots.com meant a lot to me in my early “coming-out as a gay bootman” process. Through this site and the people I met, I…
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Old Videos–Delete?

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The other day, I received a namby-pamby message from YouTube that said:

Hi BootedHarleydude, We have reviewed your content and determined that it may not be suitable for viewers under the age of 18, per our Community Guidelines. As a result, we’ve age-restricted the following content:

Video: Harley Davidson Bike and Cop Boots

We haven’t applied a strike to your channel, and your content is still live for some users on YouTube.

The message rambled on about why they apply adult content warnings to some videos uploaded on their site.

The video they changed access to was uploaded 15 years ago — yep, in 2008. Why suddenly 15 years later they decide a video showing a boot on a Harley would be inappropriate for children under age 18?

Annoyed, I decided…
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Styling Boots with Jeans in 2023

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Way back in the day when I wrote my “how to wear boots with jeans” tutorial on my website, I once said that a guy should “stack” his jeans, which means

the jeans are long enough to come down to the foot of the boot, but not so long as to drag on the floor behind the heel. The jeans may form a soft fold along the foot of the boot. That is “stacked jeans” — simply, the jeans are long enough to stack (or fold) on top of the boot foot.

Usually that was done with straight-leg jeans.

I never recommended or wore “boot-cut” jeans. A “boot-cut” has a wider opening, which looked like old-style flared jeans. It never was necessary to have a wider leg opening to accommodate a traditional western boot. Straight-leg jeans would stack just fine.

These days, most men (including me) choose tapered-leg jeans. Why?
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Suits and Boots 2023 Update

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I have written posts on this blog about wearing boots with suits. Over the years, I have received questions from men who had concerns that “a man does not wear boots with a suit!” Poppycock.

I have provided gentle counsel along the lines of “wear what suits you best.” Generally along the lines of “wear what you like; to heck with the opinion of some style queens or your mother. Be your own man!”

During my working career, I wore suits for important and high-level meetings with the Big Cheese and his direct reports. However, I admit, I never quite felt comfortable in a suit. To me, a suit felt confining and hot. I felt ill-at-ease, and that would show on my face.

After I retired at the end of 2019, I donated the suits I had to charity, and thought…
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Canada Rockies

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I enjoyed one of the best visits to Canada I’ve ever had. Now that I am back home, caught up on the laundry, restocked my fridge, and took care of other things I had to do, I thought I would show you where I was and what I did.

I have visited every province and territory in Canada during my working career. My husband and I enjoyed celebrating a long-delayed honeymoon in Toronto in 2019.

I returned after the pandemic restrictions were lifted last year to the Canadian Maritimes.

This year, I ventured to the west and spent most of my time in the province of Alberta. What a stunning and scenic place!

My trip began with a return to …
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