Claim Jumpers Motorcycle Club

My wife saw a promo for the ride on KFRE TV and suggested that this might be something I would like to attend for the purposes of posting a page recording the event. I called the number listed on the KFRE website and to my surprise Kirk recognized my pitch from an encounter we had in June of '05 in La Grange. (You can see a picture I took of his patch on my "Coulterville Ride" page.) Anyway, Kirk gave me the particulars and I made plans to attend. The signups were at the Crossroads in Fresno and when I arrived I heard some "Grateful Dead" playing inside and knew I was in the right place. I paid my fare and received a raffle ticket and an oil rag with the event logo (so ya know that I won't be using it as an oil rag...) and was introduced around, including Moe the Chapter President. I went inside for a soda and then shot some of the hardware and doings in the parking lot. After a bit it was getting to be about that time so I tagged along with a group of about 5 or 6 bikes and headed up the route for the ride, first stop the Friant Tavern...
As ever, while you're here you might want to check out my other pages with Biker content.
Also, a CD with all 500+ MB of unedited images and video clips may be purchased for $10.00 + $3.50 S&H, go to the home page and send an email for further information.
-The Old Man

				He was telling us there would be a meteor shower this night

Well, we got to the Friant Tavern and lo and behold the folks from the bar weren't aware that the ride would be this early. The story I got from the nice ladies there was that the person that made the original arrangements had sought employment opportunities elsewhere some 2 months ago and so no one told them when to expect us. The girls, Katie and Katie Too (Ha! Ha!) hadn't even had their breakfast and were just there to clean up... apparently arriving in their sleepwear... They did what they could, grabbed a quick breakfast (the breakfast of champions isn't what it used to be...) and even put a pot of coffee on for me. 

	Breakfast!

Well, the lobby for staying here wasn't too strong so after getting the raffle ticket for that stop the last four scooters including the Road King trike seen just above headed for Casey's in Madera, the second stop along the way. I wasn't prepared to photograph as we crossed the river and I regret that because it was very nice and if I was more familiar with the route I would have just stopped but I didn't want to hold anybody up... Then I tried some video and you can see the results of having to have both my hands on the bars and having to just let go of the camera. And as for the "wow"... not sure really where that came from... As Carlton and Vanessa were leading our group at this point there are lots of shots of them out front, I tried to get some shots of the guys behind me without killing anyone but that can be kind of problematic and the results less than inspiring. One shot I missed was on the way into town, I saw a mailbox post that was made out of what looked to be a Honda buried vertically up to the foot pegs and the mailbox where the headlight would have been. Anyway, upon getting into town the brother on the trike sensed our tentativeness and took the lead. The nice folks at Casey's were expecting us and already had hot coffee and cold drinks waiting.

Well, I guess we were running a little behind because just about the time we got there everyone else was leaving so after getting our raffle ticket for that stop, Carlton, Vanessa and I headed out for the next stop on the ride, Casey's in Herndon. So we say goodbye to Casey's and hello to the highway... I tried to get some pictures of Carlton and Vanessa while we were running down 99 but it's much easier to snap a picture when we're going zero then when were going 70 mph or so...

This leg of the ride was over pretty quick as evidenced by the number of pictures I took (8) or by the number of decent pictures I took (2). And of course, as soon as we got there I started taking pictures of the bikes and the doings there. 

That was all for Casey's and that's all for this page... There will be a link at the top of the page for the next pages when they are uploaded.
-The Old Man

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