I vote that we start some dialogue in a thread here, and perhaps plan a first ride in the Dubuque area sometime when winter breaks to shake out the cob webs before summer kicks in, meet in person, etc.
One thing I've found odd around here is that you see tons of people on motorcycles, but everyone seems to go it solo. I used to have a bunch of buddies and we'd ride with 10-15 of us at a time. We'd even split the group and take different routes to destinations so there would be plenty of room on the road and to mix it up a bit. Don't see much of that in these parts.