Cycle Connections

Wishing You Good Health and Hope That We All Get Back To Having Fun, Safe Adventures Soon, And Invite You To Share Them with Us!

Remember, Wash Your Hands and Practice Social Distancing, Stay Safe & Well

Cover Design By: Lisa Bonta

In This Issue:

  Wow! It’s hard it’s hard to believe that we’re already starting another year!

2019 had its ups and downs, that's for sure. The highlight for us had to be the Zoo Run Safari for Children’s event. We had more Star families this year and hope to increase that again in 2020.

We’ve once again, been happy to have all of you on board with us. We enjoyed sharing stories and adventures with you and having some of you share your adventures with all of us!

We appreciate each and everyone of you and hope that you all have a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year and that you will continue to share your adventures with us!.

Footnote:

We’re very grateful to our Graphics Artist and my "Ride or Die" friend for life, Lisa Bonta, for continuing to bring us some awesome covers and event fliers, and just generally grateful for your friendship girl, that goes way beyond all that!!!

Motorcycle Custom Paint Specialist!

Custom Paint That Rocks!

Kansas, City, Mo

(816) 916-4995

I arrived at the Westside clubhouse and the heat of the day was gradually kicking up in the 80s. As I entered the clubhouse I greeted my brothers and sat down to cool off because my truck has no AC and it was an hour-long drive to get there from Huntsville.

This poker run of course had 5 stops the first was Saints MC Westside clubhouse, 2nd was Stells Sports Grille, 3rd was the VFW of Florence, 4th was Stagger Lee's Lounge before returning to the clubhouse. Kickstands up was originally timed for 11:30, but later pushed to 12 because there were other charity runs going on as well. The clubhouse was packed in and outside as brothers talked of old stories from past events partying, some just as crazy and fun as others. 3 trophies lined the island countertop for the bike show scheduled after the run. Prospects were running in and out of the clubhouse to help with the event and doing a great job. Looking up at the ceiling you saw Road names throughout the clubhouse where brothers from other MCs or friends lined most of it.

This ride, or the thought of this ride, was brought to my attention in January 2020 when a fellow friend, rider and close friend of Stephanie, told me and some other friends about it and asked us to keep our calendar open to do this ride for her.

  I'm glad we at least KNOW someone who was able to make Sturgis this year. Our friend Christopher Litteral from the Alabama Law Tigers, set out for Sturgis around August the 7th, headed out to do some PR work for the Law Tigers, tough gig huh!

While organizing a PR event in the middle of the Sturgis Rally was a huge undertaking, Chris made it look easy.

From the American Legion Post #107 in Leeds, Alabama:

“They left Oregon and traveled across country staying at various places overnight. This is an excerpt from an email from them about their visit to us”….

“This is our annual ( 22 day - 4,000 mile ) cross country motorcycle ride in which we escort the Fallen Soldiers Memorial Flame from Eugene, Oregon to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C to honor and pay tribute to America's fallen service members.

Apple TV+ Unveils First Look at “Long Way Up,”

New Original Series Starring Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman

“Long Way Up” to Debut Globally September 18 on Apple TV+

Apple TV+ today unveiled a first look at “Long Way Up,” an epic new motorcycle series, starring and executive produced by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, which reunites best friends after more than a decade since their last motorbike adventure around the world.  The first three episodes of “Long Way Up” will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on Friday, September 18, and new episodes will roll out weekly.

PHOENIX, ARIZONA – January 2, 2019 – HawgWilde Cosmetics, LLC’s (HWC)

online late 2018, was a very exciting milestone for Andrea Bates,

CEO/Co-Founder and Shari Weisman, COO/Co-Founder of HawgWilde

Cosmetics,

  Once again, everyone worked diligently for days, preparing to welcome visitors in from all around for good fellowship with friends and Good Eating!

       (Article Collaboration By: Lynn Lilly & Michael Thomas Hodge, Photos, courtesy of the Saints)

  Everyone has been anxious to get out and about and do some really fun stuff, and what better really fun stuff is there in this heat than a Raft Race, you're outside, plenty of space around you and WATER to float in to cool off!

  This event has been taking place on the river in memory of one of the fallen Saints brother, "LL" for 21 years now and it's definitely something that most of the bikers around northern Alabama look forward to every year. People come on Friday and just camp out and make a full weekend getaway out of it.

Saturday, September the 26th, 2020

Zoo Run Safari for Children's benefiting Children's of Alabama, Alabama 's Center for Childhood Cancer & Blood Disorders

Registration starts at: 10:00am at the Barber Motorsports Museum

$25.00 per rider-  $15.00 for the passenger.

We will have kids from around the state diagnosed with cancer, brain tumors, leukemia, and blood disorders, that we will escort from the museum to the Birmingham Zoo

All expenses paid for the families, gifts for the families, and entertainment for them while the riders are registering and swag bags for the riders. The riders will get to do a few laps on the world famous track before leaving with a police escort to escort our stars to the Zoo where there will be lunch.

There will be a follow up event...the Raffle/Booze Raffle on Saturday, October the 17th, 2020 at the Veterans Brotherhood

Proceeds from both events go to Children's of Alabama

  We've all been experiencing a little bit of "cabin fever" with the Covid-19 shut down, but now things are slowly starting to re-open, people are coming out of hibernation and some of the rides that had to be rescheduled are starting to take place, still others that unfortunately just had to be canceled for this year.  

  On Saturday, June the 13th, one of the more fortunate rides that were able to reschedule was the Saints MC of Cullman Alabama Miracle League Ride. Between them and the Friends of the Miracle League, they were able to pull together a pretty big ride for the riders to get back in the groove on, also a pretty important ride as the biker community all rally together for those amazing athletes from the Miracle League.

  The country has come to a screeching halt for the past several months due to the Covid-19, which has been bad enough on this country and the people who live in it, it's going to take a while for everyone to recover, but now we are having to recover from riots and protests that have disrupted that whole recovery process and added a whole new recovery process, some businesses won't even be able to recover from the destruction of their livelihoods and some lives won't even have that opportunity.

  Some people still don't get it, but ALL lives are important....ALL LIVES MATTER! And there are those that would like to see this as a "Lawless-Godless" Country! That's not somewhere I want to live. 

  The police in this country put their lives on the line to protect and serve us all, their families know that every time they walk out the door, there's a chance they may not be coming back. 

We've been falling a little short on finding events, rides etc to cover, so we've enlisted the help of some of our friends to share some of their adventures with us. This article is one of those adventures, which turns out are a culmination of a few adventures. I asked our friend, Christopher Litteral with the Alabama Law Tigers to share some pictures from a day trip he told me about, well come to find out, he had been doing a few little day trips with friends and family. The pictures peaked my interest, so I asked him to give me a little article to go with it, since the article sounds a little like what most bikers are probably feeling, I decided to share it with all of you, along with the awesome pictures that will surely make you want to go find these places, I know I do!

Life during the pandemic has taken on a different look. We are streaming church services; holding virtual graduations, drive by Birthday parties and so on. Riding during this pandemic is no exception. We are now doing parade laps in front of houses, hospitals and nursing homes; this is a brief look at one such event put on by one of the local H.O.G members. Thank you for doing this, I’m sure those people there really enjoyed that, and thank you for sharing with all of us!

   As is the way of everything these days since the Covid-19 shutdown of the world goes, so does the Bike Shows in the motorcycle community. 

One of the best things about being a biker is that our passion opens up opportunities that the poor sad saps stuck behind car steering wheels never get.

Sure, it’s nice renting a car in the south of France and driving around some vineyards but nice is boring. Try rocking up in Kyrgyzstan or Vietnam and renting a nice family hatchback. Good luck to you buddy!

Nope, some countries and some roads either require heavy-duty off-road vehicles or something more nimble, like a motorbike. Below are five of the most scenic motorcycle tours you can do anyway in the world!

Market Overview:

The term motorcycle can be defined as a two-wheeled vehicle and it’s primarily driven by an Internal Combustion Engine. They are also known as motorbikes or bikes and nowadays, consumers are also opting for electric motorcycles. The motorcycles are built with strong metallic and fiber frames integrated with many mechanical and electronic components along with an engine. Few examples of motorbikes are Piaggio Vespa and TVS Jupiter among others. Global Motorcycle Market is expected to grow in the forecasted period, in 2018 market size of the Motorcycle was XX million and in 2028 is expected to reach at XX million with growing CAGR of XX%.

  Well, just before the country was shut down due to the Corona Virus, On Saturday, March the 14th, the Veterans Brotherhood hosted a St. Paddy's Day-Chow Call, with all the Irish fixings to eat and even out-of-state visitors from the Massachusetts chapter.

The times we are living in at the moment, are very scary for the whole country; we know this is all temporary but in the mean time people are left wondering....what can we do to fight the boredom, the cabin fever that so many are experiencing and try to keep some sense of normalcy in our lives. Well for the biker community, there seems to be a rather simple fix to that, something that one of our facebook friends posted about to remind us, so I thought we would share that with the rest of you.

It's coming up on a year since the tragic accident that took the lives of 7 wonderful people, and injuring many others on their way to a benefit motorcycle ride in New Hampshire, The lives of the survivors and the families of the Fallen 7 will forever be changed, but they also gained an extension to their families, who will never let their loved ones be forgotten.

  Thanks to wonderful people like Brian DeSimone and his crew, who quickly got together immediately after the accident to organize a ride that had to be a record attendance of a motorcycle ride ever....... to honor the fallen and survivors. Brian also helped to organized the "Fallen 7 Memorial Ride And Foundation" as a way to keep their memories alive, and to show the great love coming from the whole motorcycle community around the country, not just in New Hampshire.

The World of Wheels coming to town in Birmingham is always an excellent way to kick start the ride season around here. On Friday, February the 7^th, the World of Wheels rolled into Birmingham for the 49^th time....WOW!

January always brings the only motorcycle show that Atlanta sees all year and, although having attended for more than a few of these of the years, it’s always good to catch up with old friends in a motorcycle atmosphere and this year did and did not disappoint. With the usual Atlanta motorcycle dealers in attendance, the parade of new and unique bikes, custom builds, and street racers was good to see as always as well as a few unique street racers that were the epitome of attention to detail and with that, that’s about where the unique aspects wear off.

  Representatives from the "Ride for the Fallen 7 Foundation" presented officials from the Department of Safety and the Department of Transportation with a custom- made, wooden United States flag, etched with the names of the Fallen 7. The flag will be displayed permanently in the Incident planning and operations Center; a state building that houses agencies from both the Department of Safety and the Department of Transportation.

  On January the 23rd, 2020, the Ride for the Fallen 7 Foundation president, Brian DeSimone, made the presentation to Department of Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn, Department of Transportation Commissioner Victoria Sheehan, Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Jennifer Harper, NH State Police Colonel Christopher Wagner, DOT Director of Operations David Rodrigue, and other State Agency Officials at the Incident Planning and Operations Center, in Concord, NH.

  Well its official, with the completion of the Raffle/Booze Raffle, the last portion of the 2019 Zoo Run Safari For Children's event is complete, this years Raffle was graciously hosted by the folks at the Veterans Brotherhood.

    Thought we would share some shots from this years Fall Thunder Beach Rally, courtesy of Mrs. Cindy Marsh.

   Chow Call at the Veterans Brotherhood calls in bikers from around the area to come together over a meal. The members have spent the better part of the day preparing for company, cooking food, cleaning house, and making everything nice for the arriving guest.

  The Eldridge Children's Home run is always done on the first Saturday of December and for 9 year's now, the Gintown Lowlife Society has happily participated and generally just made a day out of it, starting at the Club House with breakfast. They also do a "Mayor's Run" that they take the proceeds from along with tips collected throughout the year, and take a substantial donation with them. They never know just how much they will be taking with them until the week before the ride when the council members get together and count all the proceeds and go to the bank for a cashiers check.