Motorcycle Views

Polar Bear Grand Tour - Motorcycle Video Clips

Short videos of motorcycles in action on Polar Bear Grand Tour runs

Both my wife and I are members of the Polar Bear Grand Tour based in New Jersey. This is our 16th season riding with this group and it's also the 29th anniversary of the founding of the club.

I happen to be the Webmaster for the Polar Bears and I spend quite a lot of time taking pictures and videos of the various runs. I'll be featuring these videos on this page throughout the Polar Bear season so check back every week for updates.

The Polar Bear Grand Tour consists of 550 motorcyclists from all over the NJ, NY, PA, and DE area who each ride his or her motorcycle to a designated destination each Sunday during the winter months from late October to late March.

This is not the Polar Bear Club that gets on TV every year swimming in the ocean on New Year's Day or other suitably cold occasions.

Points are awarded for each ride. When a rider reaches a destination, he or she signs in and records how many round-trip miles they traveled to get there.

There is usually a restaurant at the site or nearby where small groups will congregate. There are no planned routes or group rides to get to the destination. The sign-in is usually between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. unless otherwise posted. There are no planned rides after the sign-in.

The Polar Bears represent many individual clubs as well as single riders who simply come together to ride during the winter under the Polar Bear banner.

The Polar Bear Web site contains a complete discussion of all the rides planned for the season. Also provided are the rules for getting points for the various runs.

The Polar Bear Web site also contains pictures of the individual runs. The following video clips are also referenced on the Polar Bear site and are listed here to show glimpses of the fun of riding Polar Bear when others have put away their bikes for the winter. If you'd like to just look at the still pictures for the runs this year, click here.

The following video clips were recorded at Polar Bear runs using the movie feature of the Sony Mavica digital camera. These are short clips no longer than 15-20 seconds. They are in MPG format and have pretty good quality sound. If you don't have a capability to play MPG files on your computer, you should consider upgrading to obtain this feature. If you use the Windows Media Player or Real One Player, you should have no problem with these files.

If you play a lot of MPG files, you may eventually notice that they won't play anymore and you get warnings about your temporary file space. This just means you need to clear your temporary file space. For the Internet Explorer browser, this means you go to the Tools -> Internet Options screen and click Delete Files.

There is one video at the end -- not Polar Bear related -- taken at the Wheels Through Time Museum in Maggie Valley, NC.

Polar Bear Video Clips:

• Start a Harley Panhead and listen at Fort Dix.
  
• Exit the parking lot at Bahr's Landing
  
• See the rainbow through the window at Bahr's Landing
  
• Dresser waits at the Dawn Patrol for a spot in the exiting line of bikes and goes.
  
• BMW rider stands on the pegs and does trials at Dawn Patrol.
  
• Debbie and Clyde depart Dawn Patrol on their Harleys. She always goes first.
  
• The last Sporty leaves the Dawn Patrol.
  
• I stand and hope not to get hit at Garvey's Pub.
  
• This single Harley and sidecar rig leave together at Garvey's Pub.
  
• Voyager trike arrives and parks next to my trike at Garvey's Pub.
  
• Silent Gold Wing leaves Hooters.
  
• Camera sees arriving rider outside Hooters and then pans to see Hooters inside.
  
• BMW R100RT starts quickly and rides down the hill at Landslide Inn.
  
• Riders come up the hill and arrive at Landslide Saloon.
  
• Panning around at the Chatterbox Drive-in.
  
• Sportbike chaser at Sonny's Drive-in
  
• Harleys depart Sir John's and accelerate.
  
• Leo, 87, takes a lap on a scooter at Dawn Patrol.
  
• Two-up couple leave Chatterbox Drive-in amidst snowbanks.
  
• Six riders arrive at Fire House Eatery.
  
• Mack leaves Fire House Eatery.
  
• Mack arrives at Long Valley Pub one week later.
  
• Five arrive at Jenkinson's Pavilion.
  
• Barbara arrives on red PC at Long Valley Pub.
  
• Group leaves Long Valley Pub.
  
• Debbie and Clyde leave Long Valley Pub. Deb and I talk (So long ... Take Care).
  

• Dale Walksler of Wheels Through Time Museum, starts up a 1910 Harley.
  

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