Today is the annual Polar Bear Club bike ride sponsored by one of the local Harley dealerships. Most are Harley guys and I bet about a quarter of them are wearing Colors. Serious Colors (multicolored biker gang leathers). Leather on their leather. The whole drill. WW II German helmets, skulls & xbones, All sorts of evil incantations in print. Couple of members of the Western Pa Airheads Club (vintage 70’s BMW air-cooled boxer head bikes) attended to show support. Bikers of all species are welcome even “furriner bikes”, but I don’t think you’d want to show up on a Vespa. A bunch of them checked out my ’76 BMW R90/6, shook their heads sadly, but they all gave me big smiles and a Laurel & Hardy handshake.
By the time it all got rolling, I would hazard a guess there were about 200 or so bikes lined up. Weather was rainy but not too cold, about 40 degrees F. We’ve had a mild winter here so far. They have been known to do it in the snow in years past. I’ve never ridden with a really big group before so I tucked i behind my experienced buddy Tom Furey and watched my Ps and Qs.
Few if any of these machines had anything resembling mufflers (some had tomato cans) so after a brief riders meeting outlining the drill, everyone fired these things up and other than sounding like Rommel’s advance at El Alamein, everyone proceeded in an orderly fashion. And when I say “proceeded”, I mean advance without any obstruction. Red lights ignored, pedestrians get the collective stink-eye. Mob rule with me right in the middle of it (Hi Mom!!).
Somewhere Gil Ross is smiling.
