![]() This is one of the highest elevations that Dukunde Kawa serves, with farms passing 2100 meters. Today there are over 800 contributing farmers and Ruli is Dukunde Kawa’s largest station. Ruli was established by Dukunde Kawa in 2004 and originally served 300 local coffee farmers. Today the cooperative has over 2,000 farmer members and 4 washing stations in the Gakenke District north of Kigali. Since first organizing in 2000 with a single wet mill, years before the majority of washing stations in Rwanda even existed, Dukunde Kawa has received sustainability awards from the SCA as well as placing in the top positions in Rwanda’s Cup of Excellence competition. Not only that but the organization is located in the Northern province, which, despite its closeness to Kigali, tends to be little-known in specialty coffee compared to the west and south. One I will never forget.Dukunde Kawa is a well-known producer group in Rwanda, as much for exceptionally bright and memorable coffees as for its exceptional business structure: the cooperative carries multiple certifications for its various washing stations including Fair Trade, Organic, Rainforest Alliance, and UTZ, and more than 80% of its workforce is women. I wish I could say that every day in the life of a motorcycle journalist is similar to the one I spent with Kawasaki and Jay Leno recently, but that could not be further from the truth. The only difference is he has plenty of money to indulge his fantasies. The guy loves bikes and cars as much as any of you do. Everything from vintage bikes and automobiles dated from the dawn of their eras to modern stuff (including several of the latest supercars) is in his personal collection. If Jay thinks a car or a bike is cool, he finds one and buys it. I won’t begin to try and describe his entire collection of vehicles (which certainly approaches 1,000), but I will say this. He is extremely passionate about both motorcycles and cars. As you might expect, Jay Leno, despite his wealth and fame, is a very nice person off stage. That would come after the show when we received a personal tour from Jay of his collection, and even watched him kick start a couple of bikes, and offer rides to a few of the journalists in an old steam-powered automobile. Frankly, however, it was far from the highlight of the day. I have never attended the Tonight show before, and it was fun. Parked in the number one parking spot for “Jay Leno” was none other than a Kawasaki Vulcan 2000, which Jay would later ride over to the storage facility for his automobile and motorcycle collections. As far as I am concerned, the Vulcan 2000 is still the class of the V-twin cruiser field.Īfter eating, we made the short trip over to the NBC studios for the taping of the Tonight Show. The big bruiser felt like it was on rails, and even the brakes failed to fade after repeatedly scrubbing off speed for tight corner entries. That is, powerful, smooth and remarkably nimble for its massive size. What a blast! The Vulcan 2000 is the same bike I remember from our first ride reported on November 19, 2003. We rode the big cruisers both stock and modified (I was on a bike for a while that featured a Corbin seat - very comfortable), through some serious twisties with the faster group battling ground clearance issues (as you do on every cruiser) scraping the floorboards of the big 2000 through virtually every corner. Despite frequent stops for water (it is still very hot in California, and extremely humid), we got quite a bit of riding in before grabbing lunch. Despite the rather hectic weekend we had in Laguna Seca, and the quick trip back to Southern California for this ride (combined with little sleep in the hotel room the night before) I felt relaxed, and rode fairly well.
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