The Official Newsletter of the Women in the Wind Ladies of Chrome and Leather Chapter April 2016 www.ladiesofchromeandleather.com Our Purpose: To unite women motorcyclists with friends of common interest To promote a positive image to the public of women on motorcycles To help educate our members on motorcycle safety and maintenance Inside this issue: Calendar 2 Heading on down the Highway 3 Greetings from the Vice-Pretzel 5 LOCAL Chapter Ride April 16,2016 Borrego Springs Tales from the Road 8 Safety-Wise 9 March Ride Picture 11 Secretary s Notes 15 Financial Footnotes 17 April Birthday 17 Member Snapshots 18 WITW Summer Natilonals 19 L.O.C.A.L. Officers 20 Flo s Restaurant Van Buren Blvd Riverside, CA Breakfast 7:30 Meeting 8:30 KSU 9:15
April 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 LOCAL Ride Borrego 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 May 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 2016 Ride 14 California 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 LOCAL RIDE 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 2
Heading on down the Highway Karen Scott President Hello Ladies, Spring has sprung for us in Southern California and it has been and promises to be a great riding season. I know from all the feedback, everyone had a great time on the Amazing Ride Season 2 and I believe it is a keeper and will continue to be an all-time favorite for our chapter. This month, is our annual ride to Borrego Springs and I look forward to joining all of our great chapter members on that fun and challenging ride. I know for myself, and I am sure for you, there are always take away nuggets, experiences and skills that we can improve on and continue to work on as we ride. I appreciate so much that we continue to talk about safety and we look for trainings/classes/discussions that can build on our individual experiences. Sandy has been doing a great job as Safety Officer but because we are a large chapter, she could use a partner to help her provide even more of these helpful activities. If you feel that this is a passion for you, step up and volunteer to help in this worthwhile area in our chapter s progress. As we talked about at the meeting in March, we are providing help for a great cause that Trish Smith-Lewis brought to our attention. We will be collecting items that can be brought to our monthly meetings for Family Services Association. We will be collecting the following items: 1) Feminine products (wipes, pads, and tampons), 2) Toothpaste and bar soap, 3) Crayons and pencils, 4) Diaper wipes. After each meeting, the items collected will be dropped off for this fine charity. Thank you, in advance, for your commitment to giving to this worthy cause. We have talked in the past few months about trialing and possibly changing the venue for our general meeting. That is still in the discussion phase, so for now plan to meet at Flo s with breakfast at 7:30, meeting at 8:30 and KSU at 9:00-9:15. 3
19 Chapter Heading on down the Highway eating and Ride Karen Scott Ride California is quickly approaching! I hope you all have cleared your calendar for May 13-15 and plan to join with your LOCAL sisters and sisters from afar to experience what makes us the awesome women we are, on and off the bike. I have no doubt that Sol Sisters will bring it and make it a memorable weekend for all of us as attendees. Hope to see you all there! Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one s courage Karen S RIDE CALIFOR- NIA in San Diego, California May 13-15, 2016 at the Residence Inn San Diego Rancho Bernardo/Carmel Mountain Ranch (858) 673-1900 11002 Rancho Carmel Drive, San Diego, CA 92128 $100.00 to $150 USD/night 1 & 2 Bedroom Suites Rate available 05/10/16 to 05/18/16 Book by April 21st www.witwsandiegochapter.org Please print, complete and mail application and release, page 1 & page 2 with a check or money order made out to WITW Sol Sisters Send to: Carol Kropp 16983 Boulder Oaks Drive Ramona, CA 92065 4
Greetings from the Vice Pretzel It s That Time of the Year Kim Airs Vice-President Happy spring everyone! As they often say, you can take the girl out of Boston but you can t take Boston out of the girl. Just look at my Boston Red Sox tattoo on my right forearm! I started my riding career in Boston in 1995 when I took the MSF course to get my license. It took me a few years to get my butt in the saddle, getting my first 1973 Honda CL175 in 1999 to learn how to navigate the roads in Beantown that are built on ancient, early settlers cow paths (no kidding, look it up) where the car drivers NEVER look for bikes and NEVER use their turn signals. After a few months on the little putt putt (with an aluminum block that kept spitting out spark plugs), I hopped on my 1987 Yamaha Radian for a few years of trouble free riding. But because of the geographic location of Boston, I was forced in the autumn to make my annual slog into my auto parts store to buy a bottle of Sta-bil to add to the gas tank to keep the gas fresh over the cold winter months. It always made me sad. I d kiss my bike when I garaged her, gently covering her and letting her know I d take care of her and wouldn t let her gas freeze in the tank. The taste of spring would begin to rise in mid-winter with the New York Motorcycle Show, tempting us in January to ride a few hundred miles south to the show. Most of the time, getting there happened in a car with snow tickling the windshield on the way down and back, while carrying the fantasy in our minds of which bike we wanted to buy in the spring. Then came Daytona in early March. Woody, our intrepid member of my Boston club Moving Violations MC, would make the 1200 mile ride in 2 days on her BMW, sometimes in a winter snowstorm because, well, she just HAD to be there. She finally got to the point that she left a bike at a friend s house and flew down there later years to have a bike in Florida for the week. Me? I attended the late winter ritual gathering twice, once with Woody and one year with several members of my beloved Moving Violations Motorcycle Club from Boston. 5
19 Chapter Ch Vice Pretzel rambling eating and Ride Kim Airs Then I changed my life because of my incurable addiction called motorcycle riding when I moved to Southern California in October 2006. And while the rest of the country goes through the seasons in much more defined ways, we here in SoCal have the year round luxury of riding when we want to without the burden of avoiding treacherous weather that would force us to buy electrics to keep warm when we ride. But I still think I m in Boston sometimes. Around this time of the year, I start planning my rides for the year that is something I do ever since I began riding. It starts with the annual pilgrimage to Laughlin for the last weekend of April, the 27 th to 30 th this year. That s it kick off the riding season with a big ass motorcycle rally! Not sure if I ll go this year but I always add it to my calendar. Check out www.laughlinriverrally.com for details. Then it s Overland Expo in Flagstaff, Arizona. As many of you know, I m a fledging dual sport rider, wanting to conquer the rocky roads and smooth ones too, on a 1991 BMW R1000GS that will soon be mine. It s a gathering of basically everyone who wants to be a land wanderer, on two wheels or four (or sometimes more). Everyone camps there and last year, it actually snowed, surprising everyone and earning the name Snowverland Expo! When you want to be an adventure rider (or ADV as we call it), you experience weather when you ride, eat, and sleep, so what s a little snow when you re gathered with hundreds of like-minded explorers!? This year will be my first OX and I m looking forward to it immensely, snow be damned! Overland Expo is May 20-22 and the website is www.overlandexpo.com Of course, I ll be at the amazing WITW Sol Sisters Ride California in San Diego the weekend before, always a do-not-miss event on my calendar! If you haven t registered, make sure you do, even if you get there in your car. It s three great days of sisterly love with my favorite women on the planet. The summer will be packed with riding, of course, breaking in my dual sport with a few lessons for riding in the desert from my ADV pals in the desert. That will be fun! 6
19 Chapter Vice Pretzel rambling eating and Ride Kim Airs Then the last weekend of September finds me riding up for my annual Horizons Unlimited gathering near Yosemite, loaded with my trusty tent and sleeping bag on the back of my bike. My fellow riders at the gathering have done RTWs (round the worlds), left the event to launch their rides to the tip of South America, shared road recipes and done many, many adventures. I go there to learn more about this wide, wide world and dream of where I want to go next. Check out www.horizonsunlimited.com for world wide, wild adventures.you can spend HOURS on that website and I encourage you to do so. When I ride back home from the Mariposa County Fairgrounds where the Horizons Gathering is held, the cool weather will be tickling my helmet, the gloves will be thicker than earlier in the season, and a smile will be on my face from ear to ear. Kim Airs Vice President Why? Because I know I can ride year round and don t need to buy another bottle of Sta-bil ever again. Bring it on! Kim A 7
Road Captain Gail Schrenk Hello Sisters!!!!! I know we all had a wonderful time at the Amazing Ride Season 2 last month. Thank you so very much Sandy you did an amazing job putting it all together!! We will be meeting at Flo s for the April meeting. We need to be on the road by 9 as this is a longer ride and we are meeting up with the Sol Sisters. Our typical chapter ride for April is Borrego Springs. We are always hopeful to catch the flowers blooming. We will be heading down the 215 (new route) to our normal Shell gas station at the 79 South exit for a quick break and fuel up. It is only an hour from Flo s so plan accordingly. A quick trip further south to the 76 (new route) and then we will be traveling east past Pala through the valleys, rolling hills and all the orchards that smell amazing!!! If only we could bottle that smell!!!!! We will be meeting the Sol Sisters at Lake Henshaw. Please be aware at the stop in Lake Henshaw the parking lot is on somewhat of an incline. Make sure your bikes are in 1 st gear to prevent the bike from rolling and try to park facing uphill. From Lake Henshaw we will head to San Felipe Road and down Montezuma Valley Road all the way to the valley floor. For those that have not been on Montezuma it winds down the side of the mountain face. The views are amazing. We will be stopping just past mile marker 12 at a pullout that is marked by a rock wall. There is plenty of room for everyone. We had a photo taken there before with the valley floor behind us. Continuing down the grade to the valley floor we will have a lunch at a called Pablitos Mexican Bar & Grill. We will be taking the 79 back to the 15, please note that is roughly 1-1/2 hours to Temecula. It is a great ride with beautiful scenery!!! Hope to see you all there!!!! Gail S. Road Captain LOCAL 8
SAFETY-WISE Sandy Wietecha Safety Officer Look Where You Want to Go or, How Not to Hit What You re Actually Trying to Avoid Have you seen the recent video of the biker up on Glendora Ridge Road who hit the fire truck? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qicjddbgzga Most of us have ridden Glendora Ridge, so we know it s a road with two-way traffic but no center lines. I don t want to comment on the way this biker was riding before the crash; the point of watching the video (taken with the rider s GoPro) is to see as good of an example of target fixation as you are ever going to see. It s a difficult video to watch (it s actually terrifying) but we can learn a lot by watching the actual accident frame by frame. Target fixation occurs when you identify a hazard - a pothole, the curb, the CAR COMING AROUND THE CURVE TOWARD YOU ON THE CENTER LINE!! - and you just can t take your eyes of it! Or YOU may be taking a curve at what you thought was a realistic speed for the curve and halfway through the curve realize it s a bit tighter than you thought. The natural tendency for an inexperienced or uneducated rider is to think, Uh oh, and apply the brakes (while still staring at the guardrail at the edge of the road she is fast approaching), almost guaranteeing she is not going to make the curve. So we probably have all heard this old adage, Look where you want to go. But what does it mean in the context of motorcycle riding? How can it get you out of tight corners (no pun intended)? Practice snapping your head all the way to the side when you approach any turn or curve you can move your eyes a bit, but keep your head pointing in the direction you want to go. It s almost impossible to look one direction and have your bike just head off on its own in another direction after all, your bike is just an extension of YOU. If you don t look where you want to go, your bike is just going to go where you re looking instead. 9
SAFETY-WISE (Continued) Sandy Wietecha You may have to WILL yourself to look where you want to go. For sure, if you keep looking at impending doom, you re going to have an up close and personal experience with it. In the case of the biker up on Glendora Ridge, instead of looking at the side of the road where he needed to go (you can see there was actually room for him to go around if he reacted immediately), he froze and watched the truck right up until he hit it. Target fixation applies to U-turns as well as mountain curves. This is a skill I have to work on constantly. In fact, U-turns are actually NOT one of my skills! It s SO tempting to watch the far side of the road to see how close you re getting to it until you finally either hit the curb or have to brake and walk your bike around the rest of the way, all the time just KNOWING all the other riders and drivers are watching you and thinking, Oh, it s a girl. So for planned maneuvers (like U-turns), snap your head to the left and look back at the way you came. Your bike will surely follow you around! And if you find yourself heading towards a hazard, IMMEDIATELY will yourself to look away and where you really want to go. Your motorcycle will go right along with you and immediately move in that direction. Like every other riding skill, this one needs to be PRACTICED. Don t wait for that unexpected object in the road or a car that swerves into your lane. Practice looking where you want to go so it is a completely automatic response. The other day my grandson was getting ready to go for a bicycle ride. He got on his bike on the sidewalk about 3 or 4 feet from a stop sign. Of course when he started up, he wobbled a bit getting up to speed. I could see him looking at the stop sign and thinking, I need to miss that for sure, and sure enough, he ran right into it. Just like the video of Glendora Ridge, it was a perfect example of target fixation. (So, after we picked him up and dusted him off, he got the 5-year-old s version of this safety tip from Grammy.) Look where you want to go applies to life in general! Don t let your eyes wander away from your ultimate goal! Sandy 10
March CHAPTER Ride The Amazing Ride Season Two 11
Issue 191 March CHAPTER Ride The Amazing Ride Season Two 12
Issue 191 March CHAPTER Ride The Amazing Ride Season Two 13
Issue 191 March Chapter Ride Amazing Ride Season Two 14
Secretary Update Karin Whitehead Secretary WITW - LADIES OF CHROME & LEATHER CHAPTER GENERAL MEETING MINUTES March19, 2016 Welcome to: New Member Alisa Marie Guests - Michelle and Mo from Fire and Ice Chapter, Fresno Rockers and Pins handed out by Sandy for Safe Mileage Congratulations to members recognized for Safe Mileage: 100,000 mile club member Bonn e Judge #7 Nationally, #1 for LOCAL Trish Carlson 21,517 miles #10 Nationally,#2 fro LOCAL Becky Torres 21,384 miles 2 nd highest mileage Nationally LOCAL -82,109 miles Congratulation to Kim Airs who won Sister of the Year at this year s International Meeting. Awards will be presented to winners at April meeting Charity Project Update 2 ideas proposed by Trish Smith-Lewis. The board decided that the chapter will collect specific items that they can bring to our monthly meetings that will be donated and delivered to Family Services Association. Specific items are: feminine products (wipes, pads, tampons), toothpaste and bar soap, crayons and pencils and diaper wipes. We will collect these items for at least the next 3 months Quaid Harley generously donated 3 bike rentals for a day to be used to raise money for charity. The board is still in the process of deciding how best to use these gifts. Will keep you posted. Renewals are done and we would like to update the website. Please check your personal information on the website and if you have any changes to be made (new bike or need a new picture), please send update to Dee and she will update your information 15
Secretary Notes cont. Business cards are available if members need them Next month s meeting will be at Flo s. Breakfast at 7:30, meeting 8:30 and KSU at 9:00 We are still in need of an Assistant Safety Officer. Please notify Sandy or Karen if interested. TJ announced a charity ride and music festival in Orange County on May 21. All proceeds will benefit the Patriotic Service Dog Foundation. If you are interested, website is www.theamericaride.com for more information Three WITW International SISTERS OF THE YEAR 16
Financial Footnotes Financial Patty Zagata Treasurer Hello Ladies Congrats to our Amazing Ride Winners Great job and good times for all. Thanks Sandy Memberships have been sent to Nationals...we had 43 renewals... Those of you who remember Joanna Gasca, she will be back in a couple of months when she retires from the US Air Force and returns to SoCal.. I really appreciate all of you getting me payments on time. made my life much easier. Oh Yes,,,,and most important...we are still a solvent chapter.. Patty Z 909 225 4152 al Footnotes April Birthdays Shirley F. 4-4 Andi T 4-6 Jamie C. 4-15 Jerianne E. 4-17 Kim C. 4-28 17
Member Snapshots Name: Trish Carlson My Ride(s): Honda 1300 VTX R My Riding Experience: Since 1969 Occupation & Industry: Property Management Hobbies: Traveling Favorite Ride: Anything with Twists Dream Motorcycle: On it Dream Ride: Swiss Alps Name: TJ Pillsbury My Ride(s): Honda 1300 VTX R My Riding Experience: : 20 years behind Trish Carlson Occupation & Industry: Trade show installer Hobbies: : Vacation Favorite Ride: Behind Trish Dream Motorcycle: On it Dream Ride: Dream Ride: Every Ride Name: Gail Gillo My Ride(s): 2012 Can Am red RSS-SE5 Spyder Can AM My Riding Experience: 1985-1997 2012-present. Bought my first bike from a woman who said take MSF course-best thing I ever did. Took the advanced course too. 1975 Honda CB400F, 1980 Goldwing GL1100 standard, 1982 Goldwing GL1100 Aspencade Occupation & Industry: Physical Therapist at San Antonio Regional Hospital 20+ yrs Hobbies: riding, reading, candy crush(addicted) Favorite Ride: PCH 1 San Simeon to SF, Skyline Blvd or La Honda Rd to Alices Restaurant up in the Bay Area Peninsula. Dream Motorcycle: 1982 Honda Goldwing GL1100 Dream Ride: -hundreds :) Hwy 550 the million Dollar Hwy Arizona up through Colorado, The Dragon, LA to Washington State along the Pacific coast 18
Registration and further information can be found in STB and the national web site 19
Mark Your Calendars! L.O.C.A.L. OFFICERS 2015-2017 May 7th Intl Womens Ride Day Newcombs Ranch May 13-15 Ride California 2016 San Diego May 21 - Chapter meeting and Ride Forest Falls via Oak Glen June 18 LOCAL Chapter PRESIDENT: Karen Scott karen6rn@earthlink.net VICE PRESIDENT: Kim Airs kim@grandopening.com SECRETARY: Karin Whitehead Karinkw27@aol.com TREASURER: Patty Zagata oldgolflady@earthlink.net ROAD CAPTAIN: Gail Schrenk GailBadKat@Cs.com SAFETY OFFICER: Sandy Wietecha To Order WITW Name Tags Go to: LOCAL Website www.ladiesofchromeandleather.com Members Only section And click on: ASST. ROAD CAPTAINS: Cathie Siglow HOSPITALITY: Linda Trowbridge NEWSLETTER EDITOR: Karin Whitehead Karinkw27@aol.com WEBMISTRESS: Dee Norman 20