2009-04-19 Riding with the GWRRA

kinda like a shark in a sea of seals..

No pix, sorry.

Decided to try something completely new, ride with a bunch of Gold Wing dudes and dudettes.
Woke up early, arrived 10 minutes late from advertised 0800 start time.

First observation - unlike FJR pilots where 0800 would mean kick stands up, the ride starts..
this was the soft touchy feely arrive time. OK, that's cool.

Paid my 15 bucks, had some coffee, a donut, and 7-11 provided ham sammywich breakfast for champions.
Came back, and Crzy8 was completely surrounded by Wings. No escape route. Guess I have to wait now.

So 2 hours pass and I've examined every farkle known to the Wing crowd. Frankly, I'm getting itchy to ride.
About then, two Wingers take off, leaving me *just enough* room to escape.

Oh, the short ride was 20 miles, the long ride 60. WTFO? I thought Wingers were LD riders? Not this group. A cursory review of plates revealed no IBA plates.. But who cares, I'm on the road.

Shortly, I ran up to a group of ~ 12 bikes.
And I've never rode slower. Found myself running waaay deep past the normal apex, then flicking into the corner. Decided to run sweep, even behind the BMW chase car. LOL.

Then got bored... I'll never see these folks, again, I'll toast them, but legally, on approved passing zones, and do it politely.. 6 bikes, 5 bikes, 6 bikes, finally clean air.

Then the entire pack heads into a winery? WTFO? So I turn around, off route, laughing, and into the parking lot we go.
Where a Winger drops his bike, 2 up.
On a Wing, that's no big deal.
Unlike our precious FJR's, Wings have functional crash bars. I jump off, help get the bike righted, Zero damage. Nada. Think about that..

After the winery, off to the lunch spot.. a RETIREMENT HOME! Can this get more weird?

Of course, them Wingers know their biz, and after I had a wonderful meal of bbq yard bird, salad, diet pepsi, beans and cake, I realized how smart it was to use a retirement home for a biker food joint - they fed 155 folks in less than 40 minutes... and in an air conditioned building too.

Met a unique Winger.. when I passed him, he was puffing on a pipe.. blue smoke drifting backward with every puff. As I glided by, I could see he had 3 pipes, pre-loaded, secured with velcroe and read to go. TurboDave, you got nothing on this dude!

At lunch, asked about the turn out.
155 riders, a 'light' turnout for the Wingers. Holy crap, batman, these guys know how to promote a huge ride and eat (by fjr standards) and this was from the *smallest* chapter... 155 bikes.. no problem. No assholes, (except me on the fjr passing everyone) plenty of food, really cool prizes, including a 200 buck drawing and tires and plenty of goodies.

We, the FJR community, could learn plenty from the Wingers about promoting and holding a party..

Just sayin'