the l.o.c.a.l. informant

Issue 191 The L.O.C.A.L. Informant

The L.O.C.A.L. Informant

The Official Newsletter of the

Women in the Wind®

Ladies of Chrome and Leather Chapter

Calendar 2

Heading on down the Highway 3

Greetings from the Vice-Pretzel 5

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

www.ladiesofchromeandleather.com

Inside this issue:

April 2016

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

LOCAL Chapter

Ride

April 16,2016

Borrego Springs

Flo’s Restaurant

Van Buren Blvd

Riverside, CA

Breakfast 7:30

Meeting 8:30 KSU 9:15

http://www.ladiesofchromeandleather.com/


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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


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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 con-

tinue 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 appre-

ciate so much that we continue to talk about safety and we look for train-

ings/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 activi-

ties. 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 Associ-

ation. We will be collecting the following items: 1) Feminine products (wipes,

pads, and tampons), 2) Toothpaste and bar soap, 3) Crayons and pencils, 4) Di-

aper 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.

Heading on down the Highway

Karen Scott

President


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19 Chapter

eating and Ride

Heading on down the Highway Karen Scott

Ride California is quickly approaching! I hope you all have cleared your calen-

dar 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


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Kim Airs

Vice-President

Greetings from the

Vice—Pretzel

It’s That Time of the Year

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 Motor-

cycle 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 mem-

bers of my beloved Moving Violations Motorcycle Club from Boston.


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19 Chapter

eating and Ride

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Ch Vice Pretzel rambling Kim Airs

Then I changed my life because of my incurable addiction called motorcycle rid-

ing 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

27th to 30th this year. That’s it… kick off the riding season with a big ass motorcy-

cle 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 fledg-

ing 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 every-

one 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 explor-

ers!? 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!


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Kim Airs

Vice President

19 Chapter

eating and Ride

Vice Pretzel rambling Kim Airs

Then the last weekend of September finds me riding up for my annual Hori-

zons 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 adven-

tures .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 Ho-

rizons 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.

Why? Because I know I can ride year round and don’t need to buy another bot-

tle of Sta-bil ever again.

Bring it on!

Kim A


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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 1st gear to prevent the bike from roll-

ing 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

Road Captain

Gail Schrenk


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“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?

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 rid-

ing 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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qicjDdBGZGA

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 in-

tended)?

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 al-

most impossible to look one direction and have your bike just head off on its own in another di-

rection – 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.

Sandy Wietecha

Safety Officer

SAFETY-WISE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qicjDdBGZGA


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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 oth-

er 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 side-

walk 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


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March CHAPTER Ride

The Amazing Ride Season Two


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March CHAPTER Ride



13

March CHAPTER Ride



14

March Chapter Ride

Amazing Ride Season Two


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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

2nd highest mileage Nationally – LOCAL -82,109 miles

Congratulation to Kim Airs who won Sister of the Year at this year’s Inter-

national 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 Asso-

ciation.

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

Secretary Update


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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


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April Birthdays

Shirley F. 4-4

Andi T 4-6

Jamie C. 4-15

Jerianne E. 4-17

Kim C. 4-28

Financial

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 easi-

er. Oh Yes,,,,and most important...we are still a solvent chapter..

Patty Z

909 225 4152

al Footnotes

Financial Footnotes

Patty Zagata

Treasurer


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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

Member Snapshots

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

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


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Registration and further information can be found in STB and

the national web site


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L.O.C.A.L. OFFICERS

2015-2017

PRESIDENT:

Karen Scott

[email protected]

VICE PRESIDENT:

Kim Airs

[email protected]

SECRETARY:

Karin Whitehead

[email protected]

TREASURER:

Patty Zagata

[email protected]

ROAD CAPTAIN:

Gail Schrenk

[email protected]

SAFETY OFFICER:

Sandy Wietecha

ASST. ROAD CAPTAINS: Cathie Siglow

HOSPITALITY:

Linda Trowbridge

NEWSLETTER EDITOR:

Karin Whitehead

[email protected]

WEBMISTRESS:

Dee Norman

Mark Your Calendars!

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

To Order

WITW Name Tags

Go to:

LOCAL Website

www.LadiesOfChromeAndLeather.com

“Members Only” section

And click on:

http://www.ladiesofchromeandleather.com

the l.o.c.a.l. informant

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