February Chapter Ride

2012-02-06T15:41:00.001-08:00

What an incredible day – Let me start by saying that I knewthat we were going to have a couple of visitors to our February 4^th chapterride. But as the week before theride played out I was more than surprised by the number of people that wantedto join in.

Shari Wendt, the Eastern LOS Coordinator and her husbandDave (they are both from Chapter 193 in Woodstock Illinois) were visiting thislast weekend and I don’t think they could have asked for better weather. We had a great ride planned and it seemseveryone within LA, Orange, and Riverside Counties wanted to join in on showingthem a great ride. All in all wehad visitors from 5 Chapters (422, 415, 500, 435, and 109), 71 STAR members inattendance, and 62 bikes on the ride!

I am happy to say also that we had a phenomenal showing fromour own chapter – 51 members at the meeting and 41 bikes made the ride! So glad you all came out.

Our day started with everyone gathering at the Starbucksparking lot, we were prepared with lots of ride waivers and a pretty goodplan. Everyone seems excited –there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was warming up nice. We started the meeting welcoming allthe visiting officers – of course Shari and Dave from 193, Marge Cunningham(the West Coast LOS Coordinator) and her husband Colin from 422, Frank Alvarez,president of 415 and his VP Jim Holland, Rac Cossart the president of 500, TonyBarbano, President of 345, Terry Bishop our Southern California (North) StateAmbassador, Ron Lopez our Southern California (South) State Ambassador, and BobBarbano our Western Regional Director. Whew!

We also welcomed a new rider to our group, Mike Fry!

We wished Happy Birthdays to Minita Vasquez and John Ruland.Amazing how loud that many people singing happy birthday can get! That was followed by abrief overview of the upcoming rides and adventures we have planned.

I presented rockers to Susan Palaoro for Chapter Webmaster,Richard “Taz” Green for Safety Officer and Chuck Giambitti his rocker for STARVet Rep, and a Past Officer rocker to Stacy Limbach. Terry presented Dan Dobler with his IBMATE (I Brought my A**to Everything) rocker.

After Taz Green's safety briefing, Dan Dobler did a presentation of HandSignals for the group. This seemedto be well received and I think we will have him do this at everyride – maybesome hand puppets next time. Lol.

We ended our meeting with the Raffle and 50/50 drawing. The lucky raffle winners were DanSauerwald, Brian Hefter, Mark Pinkney, Gabby Peres, and Marie de Putron. The 50/50 drawing was won by none otherthan Taz Green who went home $115 richer!

So we broke off into our 6groups – 6 groups! I still can’t believe it. A lot of people triedto get photos of the whole thing but you couldn’t stand back far enough to getevery bike in the picture. Once we were all saddled up, off we went downthe 5. A great view of the pacific and San Onofre, clear enough to seeCatalina.

As we made our way downthe 5 we found ourselves right next to a white tour bus – yeah, we know wherethey are going, and all we can do is laugh. We stopped at the rest stopsouth of Camp Pendelton and of course, met up with one of those white buses andas usual we found ourselves surrounded by Japanese/Chinese tourists. Wetried to warn some of our guests about this – but I think you have to see it tobelieve it. About 30 piled off of the bus, cameras in hand, rushing to see ourbikes. A suggestion was made that we should charge for eachpicture. After a short photo-op with our “fans” we headed down the 5 to the 76and then inland to Fallbrook.

There was no way this daycould not have been more perfect, 68 degrees and clear skies. I asked ourvisitors from Illinois if they were enjoying our weather – they tell me theydon’t start chapter rides until after April because of the weather – so I thinkthey appreciated our climate. The ride through Fallbrook, Bonsall,and DeLuz was incredible – winding, tree covered roads. We were able tokeep a nice even pace as we rode and it was great. The scenery (lots ofavocados and grapefruit) was awesome with lots of amazing houses and views –well except for the bit with the cows and chickens; that was a littlestinky.

At the gas stop we allstood in the sun and just smiled from the great ride. It was a quick stopand then on the rest of the way past Lake Perris and Lake Matthews. Ofcourse we had to pass the gigantic arrow in the hillside – I think Chuck isstill looking for the big Indian that goes with it…

We reached the top of thehill and were able to pick out Chili’s in the distance – lunch! I reallycan’t explain to you the sight of 60 plus bikes all parked together –glistening in the sun – really amazing! And what a surprise to arrive andfind Vinnie Grieva (ISC) waiting for us at the restaurant. Ihave to thank the staff at Chili’s big time. We started out three weeksago telling them we were bringing about 35, and then we called last week andsaid we thought it would be about 50, and then we told them Friday about 70 –they were great, brought in extra staff and set the whole side of therestaurant up for us. A few decided to try the other places in the mall –but most of us stayed in Chili’s and chatted, and reviewed the ride sofar.

We said our goodbyes toour visitors after lunch. A lot of the folks from the other chaptersheaded home from there as well, while those of us from 230 continued on to ourusual place at El Torito. Lots of hugs and congrats for a ride welldone. We promised to look Shari and Dave up at STAR Days in July.

We left there and made ourway up the 15 to the 60 to the 57 and back down to El Torito where we thankedour new rider Mike Fry, and thanked everyone for a job well done. Aftersome reminders on the upcoming rides and events the ride was called.

January Chapter Ride

2012-01-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

I left the house Saturday morning thinking it would be nice if we gota good turn out for the first ride of the year. Knowing that we weredoing the charter reading and ride waivers I thought for sure some of you wouldstay home and wait for next time – I was so wrong! I arrived at our usualStarbucks location at about 7:00 am. There were a few of us there earlyto get everything set up. A few bikes arrived early and I thought thiswill be easy, a few at a time – then everyone started showing up. By theend we were 36 bikes and over 40 members. Everyone was prepared and quickto get the paperwork done. We were able to start the meeting at 8:30 –can’t thank you all enough for all your help and cooperation!

The first meeting was called to order. I introduced Terry Bishop(Past President) and he presented me with my new Chapter President rocker. Allof the new officers and appointed leads were announced and rockers presented(Chuck Giambitti/Vice President and Vet Rep, Patty Giambitti/LOS Rep, JimRawlinson/Sergeant-at-Arms, Johney Harper/Lead Shephard, John Ruhland/LeadTailgunner, Richard “Taz” Green/Safety Officer, Susan Palaoro/FirstLady). Rockers were also presented to past officers (Terry Bishop/PastPresident, Keith Limbach/Past Lead Tailgunner, and Stacy Limbach/Past LOS Rep[although Stacy wasn't present]). Officers who are continuing in their currentpositions were also announced (Scott Hamilton/Treasurer, Ken Indorf/Secretary).

We had some visitors this time as well – Barry Shapiro with hisdaughter Jackie, Doug Cort and Pat Jacques, Michelle Russell, and Carl Artinianand his daughter Alex.

After a rousing round of Happy Birthday to Rose Cossart and LarryBarton, raffle tickets were drawn. The four lucky winners were Keith,Luis, Glenn and Gary. Congrats guys! Then for the first time in afew years we had a 50/50 drawing with Charlie being the lucky winner of $50.50.

We finished up the business at hand and split up into three groups of11 bikes each to head down the 5 fwy to San Diego’s Mt. Soledad. Westopped at our usual rest stop on our way and as usual were greeted by a busload of Chinese tourists – where was Dan when we needed him to translatelol. After a quick stop there we were on to San Diego. Iadmit that a lot of the trip was freeway – but the view from the mountain isamazing and surely made up for that. From the top you have a 360-degreeview of all of San Diego county.

Wish it had been clearer but still anawesome view.  When we arrived we parked in the lower parking lot and walked upthe hill to the memorial. If you don’t know the story, Mt. Soledad wasbuilt in 1931 and the cross has stood at the top of the mountain for all thattime – in the 1990s a group decided that they wanted the cross removed (thatwhole separation of church and state) – so to protect it, the site wasdedicated as a memorial to our veterans in 2000. The memorial itself consistsof a large, white cross and placards dedicated to servicemen (and servicewomen)on the surrounding walls. Plaques were located for Jimmy Stewart,William Holden, General Pershing, Ronald Reagan, and a lot more.   Asurprise to us was the Channel 8 news van. Okay – we saw a bunch of bikesand lots of vests – wondered what we were walking into but…relief it was agroup of Christian riders that was having a “blessing of the bikes” event onthe mountain as well. Pretty cool.  Once everyone had achance to look at the view and the plaques, and Scott Hamilton was able tolocate his grandson Colin, we all saddled up and started our decent down themountain. The ride up was really smooth and sweeping – the ride down is apretty good grade with a little bit of twisties – really fun. Next stopwas lunch. We all arrived at Islands in La Jolla Village and it wasreally awesome. Although we had warned them how many of us would behaving lunch (around 35) I never thought they would pull it off, but theydid. We were seated and served and out in around an hour! I can’tthank them enough they were great. I hope everyone had a good lunch – Ihear most of you did.   After lunch it was a quick stop at the Mobil anda jump onto the 5 north. Now originally we were supposed to take a littletrip up through Torrey Pines and Del Mar, but just the morning before the ridewe found out the bridge between the two would be closed and that wasthat.   

We all arrived around 3:45 at El Torito with only a few peelingoff on the way. After some heartfelt thanks to all of you, the ride wascalled! Funny though, it took almost an hour for people to say theirgoodbyes and leave. I trust everyone had a great time. Can’t waituntil next months ride on February 4th.

Ed's Ride Recaps

February Chapter Ride

January Chapter Ride