Magazine of the Thames Valley HOG Chapter

MARCH 2015

Hotline: 01753 578616 www.thamesvalleyhog.org.uk

Sue

Silly me. I was under the impression that this was the quiet time of the year but since I wrote last month’s bit, we haven’t stopped! We have had the Winter Bash, which I thought was one of the best I’ve been to. It was great to have some of the Oxford Chapter along and it was good to see Mike and Tania, too. Almost 50 people had a great night, with superb food! Well done to all those who gave up their time to help with the preparations. Club Night was busy with a few faces that we haven’t seen for a while. The Saturday Social was amazing. The smallest Pub we’ve ever been to, with the largest attendance - ever! I counted 45 people but there could have been more as people were outside, too. A great social! Then we had the Ladies of Harley meal, Sue D’s first event in her new role. Not only did the ladies enjoy a great evening, upstairs in The Bear, but most of the boys stayed downstairs and had their own social. They joined us towards the end of the night and a great evening was had by all - 35/40 people, I guess. The weather has been kind to us and we’ve been out on the bikes. We’ve met up with Chapter friends at Guildford H-D on a couple of Saturdays and it really feels like the winter is behind us.

On a personal note, I’ve been into hospital for a heart operation. I was awake for the whole 3 hours they worked on my heart! Dave and I celebrated our Ruby Wedding Anniversary a couple of weeks ago, been married for 40 years! And so, this ‘quiet’ month draws to a close. Goodness only knows what the ‘busy’ months hold in store!

Inside this issue…

Front cover: Thames Valley Massive Rideout

Page 2 Editor’s thoughts

Page 4, 5 Assistant Director reports...

Page 6 , 7 Chapter Challenge - Don

Page 8, 9 LoH - Sue’s Section

Page 10, 11 Calendar

Page 12, 13 American Legends - Malc

Page 14, 15 Reading Update - Mike Wilson

Page 16, 18 National LoH Rep. - Elaine

Page 19 Welcome… , Fine Pig

Page 20, 21 Winter Bash

Page 22, News

Page 23 Photo Gallery

Page 24, 25 Saturday Social

Page 26, TV Massive @ Reading

Page 27 Advert Back cover: Meet the committee

March/April

Birthdays

Grant Oxtoby 4th Mar

Michael Benson 5th Mar

Don Wibberley 20th Mar

Janet Smith 21st Mar Deb West 23rd Mar Andrew Wayte 25th Mar

Gordon Pike 2nd April Kieth Edwards 4th Apr

Hazel Wibberley 5th Apr

John Grist 6th Apr

Paul Major 11th Apr Glen Harger 11th Apr Dave Brown 16th Apr

Happy birthday to

all of you!

Thank You to those who have sent copy for this month magazine: Elaine, Pat, Don, Sue D, Mike, Malc, Jessica & Linda

4

Hi Everyone, We have had a busy month! Well, the weather has been tempting us lately with some blue skies and sunshine. Let’s hope it’s a taste of a great summer to come. May I take the opportunity to welcome new members, Lesley Lederer and Jamie McLaughlin, who joined us just a couple of weeks ago and have already attended a Saturday Social, bought their SofER tickets and have signed up to come to the Chill-Out weekend in May. Someone certainly must have the ‘powers of persuasion’. Our Social event calendar kicked off with our popular Winter Bash and, although ticket sales were a bit slow to start with, we had a good crowd and DJ Robbie provided music and his usual banter. The club put on a great buffet supper and if you didn’t come I have to say you missed the best trifles ever (thanks to Hazel). The Saturday Social at The Royal Oak pub at Knowl Hill must have attracted the most members (over 40 I believe) and the venue was probably one of the smallest pubs we have visited! What a great event, and the landlord did us proud even though a lot of us only had a bowl of chips for our lunch in an attempt to take off some of the pressure. I would like to thank Oxford Chapter who came to the Quiz held at the Pelican Inn in Froxfield on Friday 6th Mar. They made up two teams and Andy Spindalow’s team man-

aged to come second, which was a fantastic achievement as the questions must have been some of the hardest we have ever had – worse than University Challenge! Well done and no hard feelings, even if they did post it on Facebook that they had beaten Thames Valley!! – there is always the next time! Over twenty of our Ladies of Harley met on Sat. 7th March at The Bear in Maidenhead. We had a great evening and also celebrated Di’s birthday. How she managed to cut that cake into 50 pieces I will never know! Chill-Out weekend at the Unicorn Hotel, Bridgnorth – there is still plenty of camping available. Barry will soon be contacting everyone that has booked to let you know how much and when you will need to pay the balance for the weekend.

Pat Adams

Assistant Director

5

For those of you that are attending the Cider Rally – we need to nominate a Head Boy and Head Girl for the Friday night. And on the Saturday night Snake Pix will be on hand to take our ‘Class of 2015’ picture. I have also heard a rumour that we will need volunteer swimmers, as part of the Chapter Challenge will be synchronized swimming. Floral swimming caps will be provided but you have to bring your own bling! I hope you have all signed up for the Mileage Programme and have bought your miles of fun cards for this season. You can also sign up to the new Reading Dealership mailing list to receive your personal invitation to our grand opening: www.lindhd.co.uk/pages/reading/signup.htm

Lady Riders There has been a lot in the Press and even on the BBC’s One Show about a ‘sudden upsurge’ in the number of ladies that are taking their bike test. It seems that lady riders have been around in Froxfield even before I moved there! Born to be wild! I must have biking in my blood as the nun on the right of the picture was actually my aunt. Needless to say she got in an awful lot of trouble

for this – no change there then! Apparently, 20% of Carol Nash’s customer base is now women and 25% of motorcyclists are now women and 40% of these women ride cruiser style motorcycles! Situations Vacant… Harley-Davidson has started a search for one rider who will tour Europe, all expenses paid, for Discover More 2015. The winner will be paid €25,000 (about £18k) for travelling through over 20 countries and taking in the best biking roads Europe has to offer. They will be accompanied by a professional film crew and will share their experiences through social media and a dedicated website. And they'll even get to keep the bike afterwards. For more information on the rider search, visit www.h-d.com/riderwanted

Pat Adams TV Assistant Director

6

2015 H.O.G® Chapter Challenge

The Chapter Challenge.

For those of you who have not heard of the challenge, quite simply,

it is a national competition run by the Harley-Davidson® Owners

Group (H.O.G®) to see which individual and chapter can accumulate

the most amount of miles during a given timeframe.

Our dealership chapters, Thames Valley, Fenlanders, Hogsback

& Iceni, have many members covering many thousands of miles per

year, and we would like to make a big effort to get as many of our

members enrolled in the Chapter Challenge as possible, to give the

rest of the UK chapters a run for their money!

For 2015 we will be holding an all-day kick-off event at Reading

Harley Davidson on Saturday March 14th

from 10am (there will be

some doughnuts and hot drinks throughout the day) so put the date

in your diary and simply pop down on your bike with your

H.O.G® number, and one of the team will do the rest for you.

Don 7

Don’t worry if the weather is bad, you can collect a Mileage form

at club night and arrange for it to be signed at any Dealership.

Besides being a great challenge and having the chance to win a

Chapter Highest Mileage Award, there are National & Individual

awards & prizes, too. These are given in the following categories:

Chapter Categories:

Greatest Number of Miles Accumulated

Greatest Number of Participants

Greatest Average Number of Miles travelled per Participant

Top Ten Award - Chapter with highest top ten mileage riders

Individual:

Greatest Number of Miles Accumulated by an Individual

(will also receive a £100 voucher from HOG UK)

Chapter Challenge Photo Opportunity – In addition to the mileage,

we can also gain additional points by taking an amusing photo, with

at least five chapter members displaying our patches at one of the

eight flag events, including: The East of England Rally, The Cider

Rally, Ireland Bikefest, Wake the Lakes, SofER, Thunder in the

Glens and Blazin’ Twenties. Plus, the eighth event is a “wild card”

and can be chosen by the chapter. More news on our nominated

wild card very soon!

Finally, new for 2015, H.O.G® UK are to allow all mileage

covered since the end of the 2014 challenge to count towards the

2015 challenge. So, if you have your end mileage from 2014, that’s

what goes on the form.

8

Hi Girls,

I've started writing this the morning

after our LoH suprise birthday meal for

Di which was at The Bear in Maidenhead.

Twenty fab ladies were able to attend

and, hopefully, had a fantastic time.

I can't believe we all (incl CJ x) managed to keep the

surprise a secret form Di. Also, many thanks to

Hazel for her help in organising the evening. For the

ladies that couldn't make it, you were sorely missed.

We also had a lovely opportunity to give Shirley her

Get Well present from all of the ladies - a beautiful

patchwork quilt in Harley colours… personalised for

Shirl. Gill Major had been working on it for some

time - thank you Gill, from all of us. Well done x

Later on Sunday 11 bikes & 4 lady pillions (Pat J, Janet, Jess

& I) joined Malcolm P for the American Legends Parade at

Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium, to lead the Legends on a

parade lap... followed by the racing (go go go no. 98!) & banger

racing. Absolutely brilliant night! Thanks Malc, & thanks also

to Jess for posting your fab

photos on Facebook x

Well, a few weeks ago I had

my first, albeit brief, ride-out

of the season…

The plan was for Bern & I to

ride over to the Guildford

dealership. However, when I

stepped outside… corr, was it

chilly, lol !

9

We came to a compromise & rode to the site of our new Reading

dealership instead, ha ha! The building work is progressing along

very nicely, can't be long now before the opening, whooo hooo.

Reminder to me… I must sort out some heated gloves!! Also, to be

fair, it must be said that Bern did carry out his early season

checks on both bikes before we set off, tyres/tyre pressures/

brakes/lights… corrr, the list goes on!

Here's wishing Hayley lots of luck for her sponsored run in the

Reading Half Marathon on 22nd March (fundraising for Bernardos)

xx

Girls: dates for your diary - Sunday 26th July (while some of the

boys are away for their weekend the girls ought to play)

I've "penciled" in a date for the LoH weekend away - Fri 27th, to

Sun 29th, November - I'll be emailing you soon for ideas.

Please try'n keep these dates free, thanks.

See you soon

Sue D x

Ladies, if you wish to be included in the LoH email list, please go

to our LoH page on the Thames Valley website & click on the pink

envelope… I promise I won't bombard you!

If you have any ideas for ride-outs or gatherings or would like

anything brought to the commitee's attention, feel free

to contact me at: ladiesofharley@thamesvalleyhog.org.uk

WOMEN WHO BEHAVE

SELDOM MAKE

HISTORY

Club Night

Thurs 18th, 7:30

Ride to Guildford

Sat 21st

7th Birthday Party

S’Able 10:00 leave10:30

March

Military Air Museum

Middle Wallop Sun 22nd 10:00

Meet S’Able

Ace Café

Thurs 26th 18:00

April

Easter Egg Run Sat 4th

10:00

Bilbury Trout Farm

Mon. 6th

9:15 S’Able

Committee Night

Tues 7th, 8:00

10

Sat Social 11th, 12:30

Toy Run John Radcliffe

New Riders’ Ride

Sun 12th, 10:00

Club Night

Thurs 16th, 7:30

Reading Dealership

Ride Sat 18th, 10:00

Poker Run - No. 1 Weds. 22nd

Venue TBC

Black Bear Dealership Sat 25th, 10:00

Ace Café Thurs, 30th, 18:00

FRIDAY, 1ST MAY -

CIDER RALLY!

April Cont.

Club Nights

April 16th

May 21st

June 18th

July 16th

August 20th

Mag contribution

Deadlines

April 9th

May 14th

June 11th

July 9th

August 13th

Dates, events, ride-outs and activities

Details correct at time of going to print. Check the website for updates and amendments

www.thamesvalleyhog.org.uk

11

Entries for your Diary 2015

Cider Rally - 1st -4th May

(Club event)

Harley-Davidson Euro Festival

Grimaud, St-Tropez

7th - 10th May

Chill-Out Weekend

22nd - 25th May

Ireland Bike Fest

29th May - 1st June

Fenlanders Rally July 23rd

Heart and Soul Rally

31st July - 2nd Aug

SofER Aug 14th

Blazin’ Twenties

25th - 28th Sept

Check website for Changes / further

details on all events

Having left Fleet with drizzle falling and thinking, ‘Oh sh*t, this could be a bad day’, by 3.30 pm, when we arrived at SportsAble, the rain seemed to have stopped. There were 12 bikes and 16 peeps and we had a very pleasant, dry and traffic free ride via M4, M25 and A3 to the Wimbledon Track. We arrived at 16:20 and after a cuppa and sorting out free tickets, and a quick briefing from Speedworth, at 17:20 we led the 20 cars onto the track. We received a great welcome from the crowd, and after posing on the centre green we returned to the pits. The TV crew then went to the stands to watch the racing but to my surprise I was asked to act as the pace car, and as each race finished, rode out onto the track to take the winner around for a lap of honour.

Bloody fantastic!

Lap of Honour with Aaron Lee, 1200cc winner

Photos by Jessica Sweeting

Reading Harley-Davidson Update

It would seem, from the majority of comments I have been receiving, that there has been a constant satellite of Harley riders rotating slowly around the Reading site. For me, personally, it is fantastic to receive all the updates and thoughts from prospective visitors on how all the work is coming along. I am trying to be at the Dealership at least three days a week so that I can assist (please read ‘assist’ as interfere) with the professionals in their efforts to make this a one-off store. All the internal walls are going in place and the flooring should be going down over the next week; a lot of the workshop equipment has arrived and will, hopefully, be placed next week, also.

We are now awaiting on the ground works and the immeasurable ‘fiddly bits’ to be finished and should still be on target for an early April soft opening. We will probably hold off for a few weeks before our Launch Party as we need to make sure everything is working as we want, and that we can match the level of excitement that is surrounding the Dealership. I am very much looking forwards to inviting and involving you all in everything the Dealership is and does. I am also looking forward to seeing you at the Chapter Challenge sign-up on the 14

th of March and also the ride to Guildford Harley-

Davidson’s 7th Birthday on the 21

st of March.

Not long now !!!

Mike 11

Reading Harley-Davidson Update It would seem, from the majority of comments I have been receiving, that there has been a constant satellite of Harley riders

rotating slowly around the Reading site. For me, personally, it is fantastic to receive all the updates and thoughts from prospective visitors on how all the work is coming along. I am trying to be at the Dealership at least three days a week so that I can assist (please read ‘assist’ as interfere) with the professionals in their efforts to make this a one-off store. All the internal walls are going in place and the flooring should be going down over the next week; a lot of the workshop equipment has arrived and will, hopefully, be placed next week, also.

We are now awaiting on the ground works and the immeasurable ‘fiddly bits’ to be finished and should still be on target for an early April soft opening. We will probably hold off for a few weeks before our Launch Party as we need to make sure everything is working as we want, and that we can match the level of excitement that is surrounding the Dealership. I am very much looking forwards to inviting and involving you all in everything the Dealership is and does. I am also looking forward to seeing you at the Chapter Challenge sign-up on the 14

th of March and also the ride to Guildford Harley-

Davidson’s 7th Birthday on the 21

st of March.

Not long now !!!

Greetings fellow cousins! Many of you have been asking about my National Ladies of Harley role, within H.O.G, and what it entails so I thought it was about time I put finger to keyboard as now there’s more to tell you…

I guess you all know, or have heard of, Marjorie Rae, Customer Experience Manager UK & Ireland. But if not, she’s the lady that gets to write the first article in your glossy H.O.G. magazine that lands on your doorstep each quarter. Many simply know her as Marj. Over the past couple of years Marj has developed a (volunteer) H.O.G team to support her with aspects of her role, such as Safety, Events, H.O.G Officer Training (HOT), Communications, Chapter Challenge, Road Captain Training and more recently, myself as N a t i o n a l C h a p t e r L o H Representative for UK & Ireland. This is a new role within H.O.G and within the first few months it is already proving to be a thoroughly exciting and interesting one. But, bizarrely, going back 5/6 years

when I was LoH Officer for Oxford UK Chapter, my current role was one that I would have liked to have been able to have referred to/linked in with for ideas & suggestions… Who’d have guessed, eh?

So far, I have been involved with planning local Oxfordshire routes for the Road Captain training, the New Members/Group Riding day and a promotional day of filming with Henry Cole for his TV show. This was followed by a weekend’s HOT Communication course that was also attended by our very own Director, Editor and Webmaster, positions held by Don, Sue & Lee respectively.

During this time, my first main task was to identify each of the LoH Officers within the 38 H.O.G Chapters and make contact with them to introduce myself. This led on to planning and hosting the first Ladies of Harley Officer meeting at Oxford’s Harley David-son Europe office in October last year. I was supported by Marj and also our very own Jean ‘Jeannie’ Harding who was our note taker for the day. This was a successful day with 27

ladies in attendance representing 20 Chapters, including our very own Sue Brown and Sue Dodds. Each lady was asked to provide figures of their total Chapter membership along with how many female riders and non-riders. The results were interesting. .The day’s focus was about encouraging women (riders and non-riders) to become more active members of H.O.G and their existing local Chapter. The results of this day were many; the desire to do more was clear. We established connections, gathered ideas, suggestions for future events, built the foundation for future work and tapped into resources for future communications content.

By the end of the day the ladies had defined their mission statement, “Share the Spark”, and each lady was presented with an early release of the new LoH patch. The LoH Officer Meeting will become an annual one held each October… Sue D, make sure you keep the 25

th Oct free

This was then followed by attending the annual January Directors’ meeting. This year it was held in the lovely Scottish city of Edinburgh. Hours of planning and preparation were put into the weekend’s events & presentations, for which I got to do a 30 minute LoH presentation to an audience of 50+ that consisted of Chapter Directors and Dealership Principals, including our very own Don Wibberly and Mike Wilson… whilst Hazel, Ray & Tania were out gallivanting and enjoying the tourist stuff in the city. Communication is to be a key focus of my new role and gathering articles from LoH Officers and submitting content for the monthly H.O.G eMag has already started, for those of you who don’t currently receive the H.O.G eMag in your inbox please go to www.hogeuropegallery.co.uk to subscribe. The same goes for the quarterly HOG magazine and starting this year, LoH get to have a dedicated 1-2 pages of content... and our very own Thames Valley LoH made the first edition for 2015, well done girls!! So, what does it all mean? It means that I have a great hobby that provides me with a great deal of enjoyment & laughter, I get to volunteer for even more fun stuff that expands the whole Harley Davidson experience, it means that I get to wear a nice black personalised H.O.G shirt, I get to travel more, I get to do even more miles on my bike, I get to meet many, many more of our HOG cousins and lets face it, there’s a lot out there! Am I having fun within my hobby? You bet!!

Sharing the Spark, Elaine

(ChapterRepLOH@harley-davidson.com)

19

We hope you have a great time in our friendly club!

Thames Valley would like to extend a very warm welcome to our new

members:

Jamie McLaughlin

& Lesley Lederer

Who has done what this month?

PAT ADAMS - for wearing her top back to front and actually

changing it around while sitting at the table!

BARRY ADAMS - for taking much too long to buy his wife a

drink.

RAY SHEPHERD- for wearing his Oxford back patch on a

Thames Valley Parade ride!! (Double fine!)

RAY SHEPHERD- for saying (bragging!) he’d never been fined.

The Winter Bash, after a slow start with tickets

sales, turned out to be a great success.

The food was excellent, prepared by a great group of volunteers, and

there was plenty of it.

The music as ever supplied by Rob P was very good

The raffle prizes went down very well as nearly all of them were alcohol.

Mike and his wife, Tania, from the new dealership were there, as were

several members of the Oxford Chapter. Linda

nickwest@chilternelectrical.com

READING TOY RUN

If you took part in this event, you are entitled to buy a certificate. See Reading Toy Run FB page

for details.

A DATE FOR YOUR

DIARY:

WORLD RIDE DAY

27TH-28TH JUNE

LADIES OF HARLEY OFFICER MEETING

24

One of the smallest pubs we have

been to ( The Royal Oak, Knowl Hill )

for the monthly Saturday Social,

and 45 people attended including 7

people on 4 bikes. Lunches were

eaten, albeit in relays! Everyone

having a great time, very cosy and very noisy… all that a Saturday

Social should be. Linda

Saturday Social at THE ROYAL OAK KNOWL HILL

25

It was so good to sign on for the mileage challenge at our own, new dealership. It didn’t matter that it hasn’t even finished being built yet, it was our place, where more that 40 bikes turned up to register. After years of supporting ourselves we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. We had a tour around the skeletal building with Mike showing us the layout and describing how the finished place will look. A momentous day for the Thames Valley Chapter!

14th March 2015 - Thames Valley @ Reading

Pat Adams Asst. Director

PRIMARY OFFICERS

Nick West Asst. Director

youtube.com/user/ tvwebmaster1

Club Venue:

SportsAble, Braywick Sports Ground, Maidenhead, SL6 1BN

facebook.com/groups thamesvalleyhog

Colin Wilkins Treasurer

Sue Moyler Secretary

COMMITTEE

Third Thursday of every month

Don Wibberley DIRECTOR

Email: director(assistantdirector)@thamesvalleyhog.org.uk

Email: treasurer/secretary@thamesvalleyhog.org.uk

Sue Dodds Ladies of Harley

Sue Knight Editor

Lee White Webmaster

Chris Smith Membership

Barry Adams Activities

Toni Charles Activities

Linda Friend Photographer

Chris Earley- ‘CJ’

Photographer

Email any committee member at (position held)@thamesvalleyhog.org.uk