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1997 1998

Starved Rock State Park Run

(Story by Don "BlckChrome" Soland, photos and embellishment by Rick "Wolfman" Jakubas)

A great Illinois run occurred on Saturday, May 16, 1998, to Starved Rock State Park and to the J.C.Whitney plant. A big thank you to "Jake" VROC #465 for planning and organizing the complimentary lunch and a great discount at the plant. Don't know how you lined up those playboy bunnies with the pink boa's but "YOU DA MAN, JAKE." I'm not sure who won the "guess the pink boa's owners I.Q. levels" contest, but let's just say the IQs were in single digits. We all had fun wondering how they didn't fall out of their outfits.

Saturday dawned beautifully after a blustery Friday night with high winds, tornado warnings and scattered hail. Was not looking forward to riding in hail, scattered or not.

Sally and I met up with 5 other bikes for breakfast at IHOP; Evan "Bulldog" Breyn and his friend Bryan, "Ace" Acevedo and member page Webmaster "Wolfman" Rick Jakubas. Just as we were getting ready to ride, two more bikes joined us, Ted Krug, his S.O., Debbie, and her brother, for the ride to Starved Rock.

14 miles of road construction, had us eating some dust and small stones, but it couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces.

We did have one breakdown as Ace's speedo cable decided to detach itself. It gave us the opportunity to sight-see the river. A short stop had us up and running again, though the Harleys riding by laughing at the trusty Vulcans broken down wasn't easy to bear.

Arriving at the lodge at 10:32 (yeah, Jake chewed us out for being 2 minutes late), found another 9 bikes and 3 S.O.s, some of whom included run organizer Jake, his S.O. Diane, Midwest Run organizer Don Diehls and Dave "WolfriderV2" Bechtel, and Miles Meador. Andy and his S.O., Lynne that we met at the Highland house took a lot of good natured ribbing for running in on a loaner WING. (His Muzzy-fied Classic is in for the fix). Some group shots were taken and as we started to walk in to the lodge, our own Taz came rumbling in.

A little tour of the lodge and all 14 Vulcans, 2 sport bikes, (damn, we got tired of waiting for them....hee hee) and Andy's token WING (he even had air conditioning on that boat, hee hee), and their 4 S.O.'s rumbled on for the short ride to J.C. Whitney.

A beautiful sunny and dry day accompanied us for the great ride and we rode up to the plant with a car show going on. We enjoyed looking at all the great old classics and wandering through the J.C. Whitney showroom. Jake had arranged a complimentary lunch and a 15% discount for all purchases and we all enjoyed some hot dogs, soft drinks, chips and feather Boa's. It seems that a little T.V. coverage had been set up for the car show and some out of work Playboy Bunnies in itsy bitsy teenie weenie pink outfits with limited I.Q.'s were wandering around thinking deep thoughts about why cars need 4 wheels and why bikes didn't tip over with only 2. The S.O.'s all enjoyed making fun, while all of us were enjoying the scenery.

Thanks to Chris (lady in the center in the white shirt), the manager of JCW, for the kind hospitality shown to VROC.

Some serious plastic meltdown fed by Leather and Chrome feeding frenzies at the JCW cash register finished our time at the plant. More than a few goggle purchases had us all looking like an alien biker gang as our group slowly pulled out of the lot.

From there we rumbled back into the small town and we visited a nice leather and tye-dye shop.

Some more plastic meltdown left us all short of breath, and we adjourned over to Duffy's Tavern, the local watering hole, for some cold beverages of choice. Ice cold beer, some munchies and more than a few cokes seemed to quench our thirsts and some started wrapping up and sliding back to their homes.

The day came to a close with Sally, I, Wolfman, Andy and Lynne riding another 30 miles back to a restaurant for some more appetizers, cold drinks, great conversations and lots of smiles.

Again, as always, VROC is a fantastic group, it's a pleasure and privilege to ride with any of riders in this great organization, even if they're on a sport bike or a loaner WING, (hee hee, couldn't resist, Andy). Thanks again, Jake, for organizing the day and discount at JCW, thanks to all the new found friendships made and old time friendships nurtured, and thanks to the Founding Fathers for creating what has grown into 1000+ member strong VROC.