By
Richard Ostrander
What started as a brief conversation
between myself and a California AMCA chapter President, 4 years ago, has
evolved into this annual fun fest. We
thought it would be great to have all the California chapters (at the time, 3)
get together at a central location in state to ride and enjoy each other’s
company.
Craig Taylor, President of the L.A.
chapter, got on board and was instrumental in getting the 1st and 2nd
runs up and running. They were both
based out of Atascadero and included a Saturday ride up scenic Hwy 4 almost to
Big Sur and back. Short runs to the
beach on Friday night and Sunday morning rides to breakfast through the
ranchland east of Atascadero finish the weekends.
After the 2nd Atascadero
ride (on which we now had 4 chapters with the new Yerba Buena chapter (YBC) in
attendance, it was decided to move the event around the state every year or two
to a different location, one that would be in neutral territory for all the
chapters to enjoy. Hence the hosting of
the 3rd run by the YBC at the Cloverdale KOA, just above Napa
Valley. This was a familiar location for
them as they hosted their first big event there the year before to rave
reviews.
The Cloverdale KOA is well off the
beaten path. It contains a lake where
kids were catching bluegill, a nice swimming pool, cabins, RV camping as well
as tent, and a banquet hall. There was a
short ride of 45 miles down Geyser Road Friday after check-in and everyone did
their own thing for dinner.
Arvil and I lucked out and were
invited to a fine gourmet meal served up by Bobbo and Larry Nizuk (both YB
members). It consisted of venison steaks
and wild boar sausages with just the right wine. I can remember when a can of Bud and a hot
dog would do.
Saturday morning after breakfast we proceeded over
scenic HWY 128 through Boonesville to the ocean and the north coast. After Navarro, the last 20 miles to the beach
is through a beautiful redwood forest that blocks out the sun and the road is
lined by huge ferns,. Some riders like
SoCal/LA member Marc Gallin almost had a religious experience seeing the
northern redwoods for the first time. It
is almost overwhelming.
We then rode up the coast to the town of Mendocino
(background for the Murder She Wrote TV series) for a BBQ of hamburgers and hot
dogs with the works in a little park with the great name of “Friendship
Park”. About 50 machines were in attendance. Molly Pierson with Vince Spaddaro and Vince
Jr. took care of the grill and we furnished the appetites.
Just a note here about Molly and her boyfriend Mike
Irish. Mike lost his sight a while back
and couldn’t pilot his restored Panhead and sidecar rig any longer. Molly stepped right up and learned to ride it
herself thus allowing both of them to stay in the wind with Mike holding down
the side car. Both are a great addition
to the antique motorcycle fraternity. Both are members of the hard riding YBC.
After lunch we crossed back over the Mendocino River
and headed east to Ukiah over Comptche Road which eventually turned into Orr
Springs Road about half way. What a
ride, up and down, around. One stretch
rose a couple thousand feet over the coastal mountain range in just a couple of
miles. It contained at lease a dozen
first gear, read your license plate, switch backs.
After Ukiah, we traveled down the east side of the
valley on East Side Road (nice) then switched over to the west side and
Mountain House Road for a great ride through the mountains to Cloverdale. Total mileage was around 150 for the day.
That evening we had the banquet in the KOA dining hall
with close to 70 members and family in attendance. After everyone had eaten, YB President Rick
Najera thanked everyone and introduced National Director Jim Moore who talked
about the upcoming Regional Road Run in Tahoe in September hosted by the Ft.
Sutter Chapter.
Rick then presented some awards. To his son went the youngest rider award at
17 yrs of age. Oldest machine ridden
went to Arvil and 1926 original JD. Marc
Gallin got the hard luck award for his “tip over” on Geyser road on Friday
afternoon. Longest distance ridden to
the event was captured by Curt Hansen on his restored 1948 Indian Chief (130
miles) a close second was yours truly at 125 miles on my original 1930 “101”
Indian Scout. The oldest rider award
went to Norm Beam whose next birthday will put him at 80 years young. Norm can really put his late ‘30’s Indian 4
through its paces. All the awards were
hand made by Mark and really unique.
The rest of the evening was spent trying to locate the
“bad” bottle of Corona we had heard about and didn’t want anyone to suffer
from. After we sampled a lot of the beer
in question, we determined there weren’t any “bad” bottles in the area. Sunday morning after breakfast the hoard
started packing up for the trek in various directions for their own Casa de
Casa’s. We thank the YBC for a job well
done and for keeping this great idea in motion.
They also produced some nice run T-shirts that were distributed by
Jennifer and Kim Young along with the run packages at the sign-in table. Big thanks to Paul d’Orleans, Pete Young and
Bill Huth for all their work on the run.
Ricky’s group will be hosting a National Road Run next
year just a little south of Cloverdale.
For all you who enjoy the Napa wine country, great ocean vistas and the
valleys and mountain passes of northern California, be sure to attend.
The Ft. Sutter Chapter will take up the torch next
summer and host the 4th annual 4 Chapter run just outside of
Yosemite National Park. Ft. Sutter
members Gary Smalz who lives in the area and Arvil Miller and Dr. Sprocket are
already on the case. We hope the SoCal
Chapter will continue the tradition and agree to host the 5th 4
chapter run in 2005 somewhere like Kernville, Big Bear, Ventura or who
knows…Stay tuned.
P.S. It was nice to see Erhard and Judy Hirschfelder
with their cool Zundapp sidecar rig all the way from Southern California. They seemed to be really enjoying themselves.