CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES

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1 Gold Wing Road Riders Association - Southcentral Region H Arkansas District - Chapter L Conway, Arkansas CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES APRIL 2010 Directors Bud & Jan Danner (501) danner@cyberback.com Asst. Directors Jerry & Marilyn Dailey (501) jdailey57@yahoo.com Chapter Couple/ Webmaster Charlie & Debi Wirges (501) cwirges@swbell.net Treasurers Lee & Goldia Wilkins (501) cbchief17@yahoo.com Rider Educator Allen Holloway (501) Allenholloway@hotmail.com Newsletter Editor Vicki Humphrey (501) Bickyhum@aol.com Chapter Ambassador Harold Wilson (501) From the Toad Masters Hello Toads, Well we blinked a couple of times and a fourth of the year is already gone. It just seems like last week we took over as Chapter Directors. We were able to have a more active month in March then we did in January and February. What a great day Maintenance Day was, working on and cleaning the bikes and the good meal and fellowship that followed. Thanks again to Allen and all the ones who helped prepare the meal. We had a great day to ride in the St. Patrick s Day Parade as well, a bit windy but no rain and again good fellowship together. Roberta said that one of the organizers told her that she appreciated the way we get involved and decorate the bikes. We look forward to doing it again next year. We had another good meeting, our special guest were David & Sherry Fowler from Chapter C and Will Elder. So glad to have them with us. The last Saturday of the month we had a great and windy ride to THE HUB to see our friends Randal & Debbie. We had a good time with them and presented them with a chapter T Shirt with all our names on it. They will add it to the restaurant wall with other T Shirts they have collected through the years. April will be a busy month with Rider Ed. weekend the 16th - 18th at the UA Morrilton campus and Officer Certification Program the 24th - 25th in Morrilton. Maybe we can get a ride in between our two dinner rides. Anyone going to the Arkansas 2010 District Rally don't forget that preregistration deadline is April 15th. Chapter P in Mt. Home will have their Rally May 1, and we will get a ride together for this event. Spring is here and the weather is getting right to ride and enjoy each others company. We look forward to having a great riding season. Have a Happy Easter as you spend time with your faith, family and friends. Lets make time to ride. See you on the blacktop, Bud & Jan Chapter L meets the 3rd Sat. every month at Ryan s Steakhouse on Hwy 65 in Conway. Eat at 5 PM Meet at 6 PM

2 Page 2 CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES MAINTENANCE DAY AND FISH FRY Chapter L met at the College in Morrilton for a maintenance day to get ready for the riding season. Then Jerry fried up some good crappie that Charlie brought. With the rest of the food that was brought we ate every bite we could hold!

3 CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES Page 3 April Birthdays 8th John Sides 16th Vicki Humphrey 18th Jerry Sessions 4th - Jerry & Brenda Sessions 11th Frank & Debbie Likert

4 CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES Page 4 RIDER EDUCATION Protective Apparel Road Rash, aside from the popular game, is the scraping away of your skin, etc. from your body parts as it slides along the road surface. Abrasions and possible lacerations are extremely painful. Your best choices for protection are thicker leather and abrasion resistant advanced technology lightweight fabrics such as Cordura, Gore-Tex and Kevlar. Keep in mind that Cordura nylon fibers will stretch over the bumps and snap back to shape. Kevlar fibers do not stretch and will grab the surface bumps and pull apart. Kevlar is always mixed with other fibers. Denim will not protect you! The clothes that you wear when you are riding are best when they meet certain requirements that depend on the current weather; keeping you warm, not making you too hot, fit well when in a riding position, protecting your skin, not flapping in the wind, letting the air flow through, keeping you dry, keeping the cold wind out, buffering an impact, not interfering with the control of your bike and making you visible. Wearing a leather jacket and denim pants only gives you half of the protection you need. Chaps are easily taken off if you stop and get off your bike to do other things. You can buy perforated, vented leather or the synthetic mesh for hot summer days. The roads abrasive surface is just as effective at removing your skin on hot summer days as it is on the cooler times. A good practice on those days that feel like you are driving in front of a hair dryer, is to wet down your shirt under your jacket. It may be comfortable to ride with short sleeves, shorts and sneakers in the summer, but there is a risk involved that can affect the rest of your life. Some manufactures offer body armor or jackets with air bags. Some have a ripcord that attaches to the bike. This implementation could cause serious injury if the airbags malfunction or some factor would cause them to fire off while the rider is on the bike. If a rider is in a slide, the bag does not need to activate as in this situation, the bike is usually what receives the damage. Another idea from an Italian company, Dainese ( is the airbag vest, which is worn over the rider's jacket. It consists of an electronic unit mounted on the bike and a control unit set into a front pocket on the vest. The vest has three air bags. Co2 cans cold inflate the vest in about 30 milliseconds and maintain appreciable pressure up to 20 seconds after inflating. The vest protects the parts of the body most vulnerable to traumas; the entire upper half of the torso, neck and head. Sensing, triggering and memory is run by a CPU that monitors sensor data and triggers the airbags inflation under certain conditions. It has built-in memory that will record the speed at impact and rate of deceleration. The system has a self-diagnosis procedure that prevents undesirable inflation of the air bags in the event of a malfunction. It provides status information continuously to the rider on a graphic display. A vibration is used to maintain rider alertness during normal riding conditions and alerts to signal a malfunction. Cost is approximately $2K and is difficult to find in the US. Drivers wearing reflective or fluorescent clothing had a 37% lower risk of crash related injury than other drivers. Compared with wearing a black helmet, use of a white helmet was associated with a 24% lower risk, and daytime use of headlights was associated with a 27% lower risk A brief note about underwear. Many riders wear silk boxer shorts when they go on rides. The smooth surface glides versus drags during movement. Tighty-whitey's have seams and leg bands that can end up pressing themselves into your skin and chaffing. Long leg knit briefs are also popular. Bicycle pants, worn without underwear are specifically made for long periods of sitting, sweating and rubbing. They also have a sitting pad. Sheepskin seat covers offer additional padding and also help airflow. A sweaty butt on a leather seat can get very uncomfortable.

5 CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES Page 5 From the Safety Toad: Hey guys if you didn't make the group ride Saturday to the Hub you missed a great time. Weather started off cool and cloudy, and the wing was pretty gusty, but all in all the trip was great. The sun broke thru, and everyone enjoyed the ride. Our friends at the hub, opened up for us and fed us a wonderful lunch and showed the hospitality that we've come to expect from such wonderful folks. We had 18 folks present and 10 bikes, two groups came together at Walmart in Clinton, broke in to two groups of 5 bikes and headed out. Can't tell you how much Rue and I enjoyed riding with you guys again. Just like the good old times. We look forward to many more rides this summer. Allen & LaRue Holloway Rider Educators Although the weather wasn t great, we had a good ride to The Hub on Since we had 11 bikes, we broke up into two groups. Debbie and Randal from The Hub were so gracious in opening the restaurant for us and feeding us lunch. We presented Randal and Debbie a Chapter L tee-shirt after lunch on Saturday. It didn t take them long to get it hung. That night when we went back over to have an absolutely wonderful grilled prime rib, it was hanging and you can t miss it. As you walk to the cash register, it is hanging on the panel looking right at you. Since Linda and I stayed the night, it was our intent to ride and enjoy the rest of the day when our Chapter left. When we got to Ponca (no elk), we could see the clouds rolling in and it started sprinkling. We did a U-ie and went back to The Hub. Right when we got back, it started raining and did it ever rain, hard!!! We thought maybe Sunday would be a really nice ride going home, but again it was cloudy and windy. By the time we got to Conway, the sun came out. We hope to get a ride together in April, when there is no rain or wind. We will let you know in advance so you can plan to go with us. Peace. Frank and Linda

6 CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES Page 6 Parade We had a great time at the St. Patrick s Day Parade in Little Rock. The weather was a little chilly, but it was still a fun day. At least it wasn t raining like it has done in years past. Chapter L had 9 bikes plus 3 bikes from Chapter J. We have the honor each year of leading the parade!

7 CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES Page 7 Dear Fellow Toadsuckers, On the last Saturday in February we visited Chapter E in Hot Springs for their breakfast meeting. We were able to hand out some fliers for our Rally in May. We also made a lot of new acquaintances while we were there. That group is a busy little group they talked about all the rides and events that they would be attending in the coming months. They also discussed their group riding safety techniques. We sure enjoyed visiting with them. Debbie and I have had another busy month in March. We attended the Maintenance Day in Morrilton where we were able to add a flew new BLINGS to our Goldwing. Thanks to the help of our friends in Chapter L. We enjoyed the day, eating fish, working on our bikes, and going for a short ride afterwards. ( Don t the pictures tell the story). On March 12 th we participated in the St. Patrick s Day Parade in downtown Little Rock. We decorated our motorcycles with all the glory of the festivities, in the colors of the Irish. This was our first trip doing this and it showed, we know that next year we ll be more ready for this holiday. We ll shop early and be on the watch throughout the rest of the year for all those special little things that will make the parade a Special Event. Debbie and I are planning on visiting some more groups before the Rally in Rogers, if we can fit it into our schedule. We are looking forward to Spring when we can get out some more and enjoy riding. Hope to see you all very soon. P.S. Debbie and I would like to thank everyone who kept her family in their thoughts and prayers during her father s illness and passing. They meant a lot to all of us. Thank you so very much. Your Couple of the Year 2010 Charlie and Debbie Wirges

8 CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES Page 8 April Dinner Rides 9th - O Henry s Restaurant 283 HWY 365, Conway 23rd - El Rancho Mexican 1122 Main, Vilonia Friends for Fun, Safety and Knowledge 90 million chocolate Easter bunnies are produced each year Peeps are the most poplar non-chocolate candy bought Easter eggs are painted with bright colors because they represent the sunlight of spring. Why does the Easter bunny have a shiny nose? Answer: The powder puff is on the wrong end

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10 From your CHAPTER L S TOAD TALES Page 10 District Directors As I am writing, Pam has gone to bed already (6:30 PM), as we are preparing to leave for the Region Rally in Marshall Texas in the early AM. As I am thinking of the Rally I am reminded that the rally season has begun, and if you look at the calendar you can see all that is happening in the District and the Region. WOW here we go again!!!! We encourage you to take part in all that you can and to know that if you can't make an event or two, we all understand, but promise yourself that the ones that you do make you will enjoy to the fullest. As we close out March and begin to look towards April we have our goal as an association on our mind. As many of you know, our education programs are the driving force for our organization. We have scheduled a MAD Day at the Capital on March 30 th. We will have a table set up in the lobby and be talking to anyone that will look our way about motorist awareness from 9-4. With the help of Brenda Sessions (Thanks Brenda) we will be taking our picture with the Governor at 11:30 as he has signed the proclamation again this year for Motorcycle safety month. I also will be at the Capital early that same morning for a TV interview with Channel 11 (Thank you Steve Reed for your help), discussing our efforts to promote safety and education, and the importance of sharing the road. We remind you to do your share at the chapter level also. If you need any info just let us know. As we close out this month's newsletter we want to remind everyone that Fun, Safety, and Knowledge is our motto. We often get caught up in all that is going on in life and forget that we all have joined this group to have fun and to learn ourselves or teach others about safe riding. We have volunteered to promote all that this association stands for and life continues in the midst of that, but we need to always go back to the beginning and re-focus on the fun that drew us here in the first place. We are hoping to see you in Marshall, but if not we hope to see you soon. Remember, If it looks like a good day to ride, it probably is. Chris and Pam DePriest

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