It turned out to be one of those absolutely perfect days... 10 Days before the trip, Joel e-mailed us and said: we ride rain or shine. Well, works for me. I packed my rain suit and didn't even check the weather. I never needed the suit, because the weather turned out to be perfect. If you ride, you know -- just the right temp, just the right humidity, just perfect. My first bike was a Triumph. Carbureted. Kick start. "Unusual" controls: gear shift on the right and rear brake on the left. Fantastic! I have never ridden a street bike with a kick start before. Starting it while on a slight incline is an adventure! Imagine -- clutch out, rear brake out (you really need your left foot on the ground while you are jumping on the start lever with your right). Front brake in, to keep the bike from moving and as you jump and the motor kicks over, you have to blip the throttle, while still holding the front brake in. All of this takes surprising amount of coordination and is great fun! The second bike I rode that afternoon was the Gold Wing GL1000. Great bike! Smooth power in every gear, awesome handling. A 1976 and yet feels totally like a modern bike. Quick off the line, well planted and confidence inspiring in the curves. Just a solid, great performing, comfortable bike. As for the hosts, and I should have started with the hosts -- Joel and Lynn remind me of my Mom and Dad. I felt as I was spending a night at home. Awesome company and awesome experience. We are already planning our next tour.

Alex Rosenbaum

Joel,

Joel,

Ever been at a motorcycle show, thinking how you’d love to ride an old Triumph or Ducati or Enfield? Here’s the answer to that dream! Ride old bikes out on the open road. This is no gentle parade route where you never get out of second gear. You are *riding*! If it’s raining, you’re wet. Hot, you’re sweating. The bikes are real riders, not pristine show queens. Transmissions clunk, engines act up, if the shifter is reversed you have to learn it. Wonderful! Want to live out a multi-day ride? He does them. Can only do a day? He does those too. You can find a ride to fit you and your schedule and wallet. Joel, the owner, rides with you. He’s not in an air conditioned chase vehicle, he’s riding an old bike in the same weather as you. In fact, there is no chase vehicle. If a bike acts up, it has to be dealt with. Cool! Just like the old days. Joel is darn good at keeping these bikes going, and working it out when they act up. He also doesn’t treat himself specially. If the night is at a flophouse, that’s where he’s staying too. I’ve done two rides with retrotours so far, and will do more in the future. I’m riding bikes I would otherwise never ride. Banging gears, eating bugs, swooping through turns. This is heaven for a rider like me. If you too are a rider, it’ll be heaven for as well. I can’t recommend Joel and his Retro Tours enough. Get out there and ride!

Nolan, July 3, 2018

What a terrific day!  The opportunity to ride six vintage motorcycles on the windy back roads around Kennett Square was a dream come true.  Add to that the fellowship I enjoyed with likeminded individuals AND some great food - breakfast, lunch and dinner!  Having waited several years for the chance to do a Retro Tour, I was not disappointed in any way.

Cameron 7/3/2018

Good morning. I trust you slept well. I know I did after that wonderful meal. Had another great weekend. Accommodations were super and bikes worked well weather good company great. All good. Thanks for doing this.   

While taking a walk with my wife this evening I was expounding about the meal I had last night at your home and said I wish I had the recipe for everything. She suggested a Retro Tours Cookbook. It would be a great gift to bring home after the ride.

Andy 7-17-17

Joel: 

Can’t thank you enough for an incredible and memorable adventure. 

I have made clear to Diane that her gift was everything she imagined and more. 

For me it was like paging through old Cycle Worlds and getting to pick and ride my favorites – all the cool bikes that stopped at our package store headed north of Hartford to the motocross races. (All way out of reach for a 13 year old.)

Waking up with the bikes and the wonderful aroma of tire, gas and oil was total nirvana for me.

Your guide skills and conversation are first rate; your love of a curvy unmarked road to a covered bridge both admirable and infectious. 

Lynn’s meals and company were perfect and particularly welcome on Sunday evening.

I hope to join you again for a ride in the near future.

Warmest Regards, Bruce.

Hey Joel-

                   Just read your comprehensive Ride Report on Seven Springs-Ride EM don't Hide EM-Which is Just What                

                   You and Lynne have been REALLY DOING for 10-15 years! Your efforts at the event were again...

                    Fantastic...getting bikes there alone would have been enough...but you conducted a tour from Kennett

                    Square...then ran a group at Seven Springs!

                    NOW I HOPE TO SEE Rick Backus and MC Classics magazine do a feature on Retro Tours...I know of

                    NO OTHER group this side of civilization that can do it like you do it!

                    Amazing....

                    Rob Roth

                    Wyomissing,Pa 19610

August 16, 2016

Hi Joel!

Jun 28 at 8:59 PM

Hey Joel,

Thanks again for a great 2-day ride... great route, great group and good weather.  I had a damn good time, and your .pdf-travelogue lets me relive the whole adventure again.

I'll definitely be back, 

Scott

Joel,

Thank you for a phenomenal tour.  Your collection of retro bikes is impressive.  I enjoyed every aspect of the

weekend.  It was a great ride with great people.  Your hospitality was equally enjoyable.  Thank you for welcoming 

me into your home.  Your wife did an outstanding job feeding us.  I could not stop talking about the tour prior to 

the 18th from the anticipation.  Now I can't stop talking about the memories with my friends and family. I can't 

wait until I can go on a second tour.  My Uncle has not ridden since the 60's.  I'm trying to talk him into travelling 

from Pittsburgh for one of your day trips in 2015.

Lynn and Joel - 

Thank you so much for an incredible weekend! You were such amazing hosts, creating a warm, inviting and fun experience. I was expecting to enjoy the Retrotour experience....but you blew my expectations out of the water! WOW! I can't even express my gratitude with words....almost speechless. 

Thank you,

Bob, kelly, Joe, Carmen and Bud

Click here for David Blasco's Blog about his ride on the Rickman Matisse:

http://www.royalenfields.com/2013/10/take-retro-tour-on-rare-rickman-metisse.html

06/02/13

Dear Lynn and Joel,

Thank you for your hospitality on Saturday. I had a wonderful time and felt welcome in your home and on your great collection of motorcycles. The day exceeded my expectations. I hope to ride again with you sometime soon.

Mason

--------------------------------------------------------------

2013

Joel - I am sorry this is arriving late, but I wanted to sincerely thank you for your hospitality and guiding one of the most memorable and fun trips I have ever taken. 

The experience of riding your bikes through the beautiful PA back roads was incredible. My confidence grew everyday on the bikes and I really appreciated your patience and willingness to teach. 

The dynamic of the group was fantastic and I know that my Dad, brother and I will be back for another RetroTour in the future.

Please stay in touch and let me know when you head west to San Francisco.

Best,
Peter

-------------------------------------------------------------------

9/27/2012

Joel - What a ride! It was absolutely spectacular. I don't know how you can do it, watching all those ham-fisted riders crunching gears and hacking away on machines you've poured over for hours to keep running. And they all run fantastically. It just amazes me.

Anyway, thanks again for everything; looking forward to seeing you at the Barber Vintage Festival.

Best regards,
Jim Backus
Editor, Motorcycle Classics

Hi Joel,

I just wanted to let you know that the ride was one of the best events I have ever experienced related to motorcycles.
This was a very exciting ride with some of the rarest and most well maintained bikes from the era we focused on (Brit versus Ital). I believe based on thrill per dollar, you offer one of the best experiences available. Excellent bikes, wonderful hospitality and expert guidance through one of the most beautiful areas of the country. I will never, ever forget the experience of actually riding a Rickman Enfield or a SILK! The Triumph, BSA, Moto Morini and Laverda were very well maintained and actually better than they were back when. Obviously your skills go far beyond riding, guiding, and entertaining. I have lived with a few of those machines when they were new and hope to make others aware of just what level of effort and energy is required to keep an elegant and exotic fleet like that running (much less in top order) - and made available for others to experience. You far exceeded my expectations and have created a canvass for many wonderful memories. Your wife is a wonderful cook and presented a beautiful meal that was absolutely perfect: she is a jewel!

 Beautiful area, great ride and a wonderful experience! Absolutely 5 stars! I will find a reason to go again.

Most appreciatively,

Steve

PS - Every single person in attendance mentioned that this is one of the best deals in motorcycling. I never heard a single negative comment, and that is coming from a very picky crowd.
 

Hi, Lynn & Joel Just like to thank you for a great trip. The ride to WV was awesome, even the dirt roads.Thanks Lynn for your great breakfast & dinner....Awesome!

Hi Joel, 

Having participated in many of these amazing Retrotours, I can say emphatically, that they are well worth many times more than the actual fees charged, which are incredibly reasonable for what you provide, and for the level of exhilaration, and for the overall experience. I love these tours and will certainly be riding many of the other ones that are scheduled for this season. Every tour that I have participated in has been a valuable and invigorating experience that gives the type of adrenaline rush that becomes so much rarer as we age and become obsessed with the obligations and responsibilities on out adult lives. The only possible downside is that they do become addictive, and I find myself wanting to ride in every one of these Retrotour events.

Your knowledge of the motorcycles, and especially of the roads is nothing short of incredible, and your abilities as a tour guide and ride leader as amazing. You have an uncanny ability for finding the curviest and most satisfying motorcycle roads anywhere, and incredibly they tend to be almost devoid of Winnibegos and cops! You set the pace at an appropriate level to encourage less seasoned riders to strive for a bit more speed and exhilaration, while allowing the more seasoned riders to have a more aggressive pace and experience. The accommodations for our well deserved rest, and all of the wonderful stops for food and relaxation, as well as interesting destinations like Bill's Bike Barn, set the perfect balance between obsessive riding and necessary diversions. I don't know how you do it, but you make it work out just perfectly for all levels of rider capability, and tolerance in the saddle.

I love riding the old bikes, and they bring back such nostalgic memories. The machines are well maintained, and properly tuned and cared for, to ensure almost completely trouble free performance, and when the occasional gremlin causes a slight delay, I feel like "MacGyver" fashioning pistons out of styrofoam cups by the side of the road. On almost every single tour that I have ridden, we have gotten every bike home under its own power, which is a testament to the machines and your capabilities, and some of these machines were ridden quite hard through the length of the tour.

I'm always surprised when we make these machines do things that I never had the skills to do, back when these machines were contemporary motorcycles. The performance is impressive and exciting, and it certainly demands much more skill from the rider, to make an old bike go relatively fast, than it does to make a modern sport bike go incredibly fast. That allows for an entire weekend of skills development, and appropriate challenges, at speeds that are much more reasonable than would be challenging on a modern sport bike.

The routine of swapping bikes at each fuel stop (approximately 80 to 100 miles) is anything but routine, and allows for multiple rider's impressions of these great old bikes, and allows for comparisons that we might otherwise never be fortunate enough to experience. I am always fascinated by how much my impression of the same bikes, can be changed and influenced by the order in which I rode them, and by what I rode before and after any particular machine. It is also an invigorating mental exercise to change from unusual shift patterns, and engine characteristics, including two and four stroke machines, and (on tours other than this Japanese specific tour), to experience the differences which are inherent in the machines produced by each different country's approach to motorcycle technology of the period. 

I also love that you include all of the riders in the proper care and feeding of the bikes, by allowing each rider to adopt responsibility for a particular machine on each ride, so that they are charged with checking fluid levels, and lubricating chains, etc. It is a great rider involvement that is also very satisfying.

Thanks for providing so many wonderful memories and experiences for all of us over the last several years. Looking forward to seeing you for the May vintage ride to Renovo, PA!

Kind regards,

Chuck

PS: I am hot on the trail of a 1937 Scott Flying Squirrel water cooled two stroke, which, as you know, is the predecessor of your incredible Silk motorcycle!

October 30, 2003

Hi Lynn & Joel,

Thanks for welcoming us into your home!!!!

The bike ride was outstanding!

Every time I go I think of this as a once in a lifetime trip and this is my third. I would not miss it for anything!!!

What a great bunch of guys.

I just loved the Yamaha and the Suzuki and the Moto Guzzi (the couch)

And the Norton and the BSA and the Triumph and the ……..

I just can’t pick a favorite and let’s not forget the Harley and the BMW

Wow what a great time.

Thanks Lynn & Joel for a great time

Don O’Connell

 September, 2000

Subject: Vintage Tour

Dear Mr. Joelly Mon,

This is the letter in which I will attempt to express both my gratitude and feedback for the New River Gorge Vintage Ride, which was in my estimation a great success. The high level of anticipation among the vintage cycle boys was easily met and exceeded. Ultimately I can only speak for myself, but I certainly observed some most satisfied, happy and tired cycle boys on the return trip to Boston. In fact Alan was so excited that he recounted every minute and detail of the trip to a helplessly captive audience, a young, attentive (polite) couple, who either did a great job of feigning interest, or were genuinely engrossed in the exploits of the cycle boys.

Here are a few more thoughts.

Luggage:I actually enjoyed flying with a suitcase and packing for the bike when I got there.

Breakdowns: I personally derived great pleasure in witnessing your considerable expertise and creative solutions to the generally minor and nearly major problems we experienced on the road, although I’m sorry I missed the soldering of the BSA jet.

Chase Vehicle: You know a vintage sidehack may provide more room for luggage, spares, or a passenger if a bike goes down.

Food and Lodging: Those cabins in the state park where we saw the BMW in a trailer might be a really cool place to hang out for a couple of days….beautiful roads in all directions. Man, I long to return to WV and beyond. Econo Lodge in Elkins was COOL. No interstate, park in front of or inside your room, hot tub and pool at the end of a long day of really sweet roads. Good picnic lunch. Great breakfast and dinner. Eat to ride, ride to eat!

These are my thoughts for now. I believe that a number of the points I’ve made or questions I’ve raised require further research, which would suggest another ride through WV and beyond as soon as possible. How did the bikes survive the trip? Are you and Lynn OK?

Thanks again Joel. It was a special ride as riding with you always is.

Bob Gould

Hi Joel

I wanted to send you a note of thanks for a great ride. As I said every ride is good for my head: having to concentrate on just what is ahead always releases my mind from work, etc. Riding older and unfamiliar bikes requires even more concentration. You do a great job of shepherding the group with out feeling like we were herded at all! Being the most conservative rider of the group I did not get any sense of pressure to keep a certain pace which was nice. The homestead cabin was perfect and should be a regular stop; it allowed everyone to spend time together and share the common bond of motorcycles. I hope to join you again in the future maybe fall at this rate. Please tell Lynn thanks for a great dinner when we got home, I think we all needed it.

See you soon,

Bill H. Wells

Thanks for a great time! Good riding, food, time to talk and reminisce, what more could one ask for? Well, maybe just a little warmer…… J Great party too.

Joel, the bikes were wonderful, the riding pace just right, the rides never too long, the roads beautiful, I could go on and on.

With Lynn riding behind me I could pretend I was actually ahead of her on the track for once. Now if I can just remember which way the shift pattern goes on the Kaw!

Thanks, Peg

Peg Preble….Moving Violations

Hello Joel,

  Thank you very much for another excellent adventure! You have made this very memorable by bringing together a great group, having truly exciting machines to ride and by adding in a comprehensive history lesson: the smallest church, the big hearted town, the oldest brewery, the Pagoda, and as a side benefit, seeing a for real ‘texting Menonite’.

Thank you for picking Don and I up at the airport, we didn’t miss the 7-8 hour drive; discovering the air routes makes RetroTours much more accessible to me as I just don’t like long car trips. $81 round trip (plus luggage fees) is a pittance compared to the long drive, especially after coming in on Sunday. Please pass my sincere thanks to Lynn for her gracious hospitality and super delicious food, in your comfortable home.

Pennsylvania is truly a motorcyclist’s bounty with all those twisty roads and , literally, no speed limits. I look forward to my next trip; RetroTours ‘Light’ was just right for me. 100 miles or so a day plus scenery/history/camaraderie was just perfect. 4 days would be the cat’s meow.

Most sincerely,

Bill Blake

2011

                                                                                                            2010

Dear Joel,

……………I was impressed with the group in your tour: their ease, enthusiasm and pleasure in each other and in the moment I found not only infectious but remarkable when I realized that most of them had not known each other before. While it is a compliment to them, it was you who set the stage and created the atmosphere which made it special.

  Bridgette and I thank you for your generous words and the opportunity to meet such an attractive group. Thanks especially for the ride in the sidecar; I felt like a WWI pilot—with the same unfavorable odds for survival! I think I could into the experience.

Thanks again Joel,

Ed George

(the proprietor of a primitive log cabin where we stayed in the mountains of West Virginia)

                                                                                                       10-30-2003

Joel,

Thanks a lot for giving us the opportunity to ride together. It is always a lot of fun, and every time in a unique way.

By the way, we covered 1100 miles, times 11 bikes equals 12,100 miles total.

We done good.

Ilya K.

                                                                                              June 2, 2011

Joel,

Thanks for a great time. The ride was great. I’ve passed info to a few friends who ride and encouraged them to grab a couple of buddies for a tour. Not sure if your site has a place to post favorable comments but I’d love to send one along.

Thanks again,

Eric Vaughn

                                                                                                  June 10,2011

Joel,

Thanks again for putting together, maybe even EPIC ride. Good guys, good route, good food and great bikes. I thought it was a smart plan to set apace for the first day until we got ourselves sorted out and then crank it up for the next two days.

RetroTours is confirmation that it’s way more fun to ride a slow bike fast that a fast bike slow. Hope to be back again.

Regards,

Eric V

Raleigh, NC

                                                                                                                03-27-2001

Joel,

See this smile on my face?

You put it there!

Thanks!

…..and I’m STILL smiling from the trip.

Thanks again.

Alan

                                                                                           02-19-09

Joel,

  Thanks for a great Retro Roar vintage biker journey! I had a great time and enjoyed riding the bikes you provided: a fun time with good weather, great food and an inspirational group. Hope to be able to come back on another trip soon.

Best Regards,

Shipley Allinson

                                                                                              April 8, 2011

Hi Joel,

We made it back safely last night. Thank you for a wonderful tour. The bikes and routes were great and Bill’s Old Bike Barn was the perfect destination. We would like to thank your wife for the delicious meals and for the hospitality.

Colin Sheldon

       Note: Collin gave the one day RetroTour to his dad for a 50^th birthday gift.

                                                                                           October 30, 2003

Hi Joel,

Thanks again for the Confederate tour. I heard banjos, I swear!

The yellow bungee chord is mine.

Doug Snyder

Thanks for a wonderful time. You've made these static museum pieces come alive! Now I get it - So many bikes...So little time.

Your hospitality is 5 star. Lynn is a wonderful cook and we LOVED everything she served. Your unflappable attitude about issues coupled with your lets-fix-it-and-go-have-fun outlook makes the day great – no matter what happens. It's all part of the journey. Thanks for doing this. We had a great time! Sincerely, The Brit Bikes crew and a girl