I said MIGHT. (nope, but I am doing something different and giving a quick recap and info for any other motorcycle group who may consider parade participation, then the long wordy version afterwards.)
The group shot before stepping off for the parade...tell you a little later how we got a couple of volunteers from another parade entry to carry the banner, which, by the way, was a stroke of GENIUS on someone's part to bring it!!!
Website: http://asalutetoveterans.com/
Flirty; Barry, Jim, Paul, Chuck, Wayne, Richard, Rick's friend, Rick, Stan, Cinnamon. Notice that all the guys are wearing their "I served" medals. WAIT A SEC, whereinthehell is Dave Culmer??? DUDES, I gotta photoshop him in there SOMEWHERE. Maybe the pic after this one will suffice, if you squint and don't look to closely...
Our leader, the one who made it all happen, Stan the Man. Nice pose, Stan, do you do lingerie as well?
Here's the short version of the day-well, shorter than I normally do:
-If you have a banner, bring it: if you don't have one, MAKE ONE. It helps because even though the reviewing stand has your information, the people 2 1/4 miles before the reviewing stand have NO IDEA who you are. It gets the word out. An idea for banner bearers might be to bring a couple of pillon riders (you know, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, whoever doesn't ride their own but usually rides with you) and have them wear sturdy tennies and make sure they KNOW what they're getting into .
-If you have colors, wear them. If not, get with the other riders and wear the same thing. Better for parades, makes a nice showing.
-Have business cards in your wallet to give out to people if you take their pics (or they take yours) so you can exchange information.
-GIRLS-see if you can get by with a wallet-a purse is a PAIN. I brought my tank bag, that was enough.
-GIRLS-I have one of those little leather tool kits on my handlebars ( I call it my makeup bag) and I have some small sunscreen packets, lip chap stuff, some eyeliner and undereye concealer, a small brush and one of those T-helmet holders.
-It's a good thing, if you have enough riders, to do your own entry vs. riding with another group.
-If you have add'l pillon riders, they can be waving flags and waving at the crowd. If women/girls, wear makeup. (see below)
-Probably a good idea to buy those flag holders that clamp onto the back of the bike and put flags on. They can always be used for Memorial Day, 4th of July, or all the time.
-Have everyone in the group know where you're going and the staging area number. We were F-108, and I had looked us up, so when Stan told us to go ahead into the staging area, I knew our staging area and could go there.
-Dave had his stereo going, which was VERY COOL and playing Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries". Next time maybe have him put Sousa's "Liberty Bell March" on his MP3-CD. The Liberty Bell March, by the way, is also know as the "Monty Python Theme Song".
-Got there early, had time to walk around, get pics, get volunteers to carry the banner.
-Have a plan for lunch afterward, to discuss how well the parade went and what to do for next year. (figure that there will be some riders who will SWEAR to never do it again because of the heat, but they'll forget.)
-Prepare for the possibility that a couple of the bikes MAY overheat at parade's end, so have a luncheon backup plan. It happened to 3 bikes, and luckily Rick saw a Carl's Jr. 1 1/2 blocks away.
-Even though the roads are closed off, it's ok to go thru the barriers if you're in the parade, vs going around legally. What are they gonna do, pull all of us over? All the cops are at the staging area, either being in the parade...ok, THEY WERE ALL in the parade.
-We were in a 1-2-3-4-1 formation (Christmas tree) with Stan at the head. Discussed different formations, like side-by-side; 1-2-3-3-2, etc. We were going to have the entire street, so we figured the pyramid +1 would work. Have a formation in mind. EVEN BETTER, get the riders together a couple of days early to practice formation riding. EVEN BETTER BETTER, have the best riders to a little fancy-schmancy ride demo. Or at least the ones that don't fall over, which lets ME out. And Felkel.
-The engines would get hot ; we'd start, stop, start, stop, and the stopping with the hot engines burned some riders' legs. I put my left leg down and put my ride leg on my floorboard so I didn't have my leg so close to the exhaust or the engine.
-It's not allowed to throw things to the crowd, you have to hand them out.
-It was totally sunny, 88 degrees, I brought sunscreen. Afterwards, I was so sweaty I could've entered a wet T-shirt contest. Bring extra deodorant next time.
-Vet riders WILL be saluted by the crowd, and so they need to be able to salute back.
-GIRLS-Wear makeup, even though you have sunglasses on. You can always take the sunglasses off, for the crowd photo ops. Just make sure you check the weather and use waterproof if it'll be hot.
-I took a page out of Barry's book and wore a L/S t-shirt under my thermal t-neck under my jacket, plus brought lighter gloves. I could've worn a S/S t-shirt, but the MSF training kicked in and so I wore the LS Pink STAR T-shirt. The guys mostly wore S/S T-shirts.
-Word was that helmets were optional in the parade. Sometimes they aren't optional in other parades. I wore mine anyway, being a half-helmet, but didn't wear gloves.
-When we'd stop, that's when the "Parade Wave" came out-'Wash the window, touch the crown, touch the pearls, blow a kiss, present'. (It's like a Disney parade float princess wave-I learned that when I went to a Disneyland audition about 500 years ago)
-Some of the guys' clutch hands and forearms were cramping up from the constant clutching 1st-neutral-1st-neutral. I'm used to it due to riding to work in rush hour traffic.
-I have a sense of history, so I take lots of pics of everything, then sort them out later when I'm editing/colorizing/cropping, etc. Plus if I take pics, I don't have to be in them.
-In the pocket of my vest, I had an extra SD memory card and an extra camera battery. We stopped quite often, so I was able to switch memory cards when I felt the other one was getting full.
-I had my camera on a long cord around my neck and wasn't wearing gloves, so I could grab it, take a photo or video, and then just let it drop back down. When we were riding regular, I'd just tuck it underneath my shirt/jacket so it wouldn't blow around.
-If you're going to post stuff on a blog, CONSTANTLY save your post after each few pictures, each video, and each paragraph or two. TRUST ME.
-When you stop (during the start-stop-start-stop parts of the parade), COULD have a pillon rider jump off with the camera and take photos/videos, then walk on ahead and catch up to the next stop. Better still, perhaps have one of the pillion riders (or if you have more than one, they can switch off) walk next to your entry to watch the riders; pass out things (if you have them, like flyers about your group); take pics, etc.
Here's some video below of our group in the parade. Yours truly zoomed ahead, parked the bike, and ran back so I could capture the guys on vid.
Ok here's the long version now.
We all got to Starbucks by 8 am as requested by our fearless leader Stan, and I was amazed that SO MANY BIKES WERE there to go! Turns out there were guys for the pre-ride for the club there, so that's why it seemed like more were going that actually did go. There were 11 of us-Stan the Man (of course!), Jim R., Bubski, Chuck, Richard VL, Wayne, Paul, Rick S., me, another rider friend of Rick's whose name I will get before I put this post to bed, and Dave C.
We left DEAD ON at 8 am and got to the staging area around 9 am-it was a little hard to find our staging area since all the freakin' streets were blocked off, but we made it, with Jim Rawlinson as our group leader, since he had a GPS. He did a wonderful job. (Jim, that is the ONLY compliment you're gonna hear from ME, dude, so don't get used to it.)
We got there, plenty of time, and draped the banner across Jim's bike. I was wondering how we could ride with the banner showing, and my anal and evil mind started buzzing.
Our suggested arrival time for our staging area/parade number was 8:45, and I figured that if there was a 30 second lag time between parade entries, we'd be stepping off around 10:45 or 11 AM, given the parade would start at 10:00. BINGO. So I had about 1 1/2 hours to be-bop around, see the other entries, kibbitz and schmooze with the other groups. One of the LARGEST GROUPS was the Patriot Guard motorcycle riders. What happens is that the Patriot Guard always has an entry and they invite other vets who ride bikes to ride with them. They must've had at least 100 or so bikes. They were the last group, so I'm glad we as a club were entered instead of going with another group.
Chuck practicing his 'parade wave'.
More parade entries.
Jim "Dorkbreath" Rawlinson.
A church group-cool float!
Below, the Patriot Riders, and a bicycle built for two plus dog. (The dog even had goggles)
You can see the size of this little motorized jet, and above are the Syndicate Roller Girls Roller Derby team. I was on the lookout for a group of a lot of kids, and these folks were close to us, so I walked over to their advisor and asked if they had a couple of spare girls who would like to march in front of our group and be bannerbearers. Had 5 girls run up and volunteer really quickly, so I grabbed two (they were going to ride in the stakebed truck and didn't have their street skates) and brought 'em over, gave them some "D-Day Doll" pins for helping out (more on the D-Day Doll in a little bit) and they were awesome carrying our 230 banner. Their group was F-98 (we were F-108) so they were only 10 ahead of us and could wait. At the end of the parade, all their friends were taking pics and videoing their buds. I'd like to publicly thank Flirty and Cinnamon, our banner women (Flirty and Cinnamon are 29 and 31, respectively!!!!!) and their coordinator, Lauren.
Tank and below is BERT!!!
Below left, I'm doing what I do best (or at least MOST)-take pics.
We're lining up, then we step off. They let us go at 30 second intervals.
On the parade route, coming up to the courthouse and the reviewing stand.
Chuck steals my idea and takes pics during the parade.
A well-deserved lunch at Carl's Jr.
Video of Rich leading a 'hip, hip hooray!" for Stan for planning this whole shebang.
Some of the entries (and there were about 130 in all) were...104 F Civil Air Patrol
105 F (Band) Riverside Concert Band
106 F MOAA
107 F Janet Goeske float
108 F Star Riding & Touring motorcycles
109 F Corvettes West
110 R Wings & Rotors Float
FLYOVERS
Ryan PT-22 trainer
Cub L-4 observation plane
Wings & Rotors Huey (these guys were cool-instead of a machine gun coming out of the door, they had a big American flag AND they waved back when I waved! Of course the pink shirt helped too, since everybody else was either in camo/green or red/white and blue)
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