Hey guys and gals

First off let me wish you all a Merry Christmas. I hope santa is good to you and your bike.

My wife and I have accepted a joint activities director position for our local HOG chapter for 2009.

I have a ride set already for New Years Day weather permitting to go and watch the polar bear club water ski in a cold lake but I'm trying now to plan some events for the coming year.

We will do some poker runs and a few rides up in the Blue Ridge Mountains but I'm looking for some suggestions that will really get folks excited and want to come out and support the chapter.

What type of rides and events have you done that you really enjoyed?

What would you like to see your chapter do?

Any input and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you
Doc

 

Pull up some of our old newsletters online (Chicago HOG), way too many activities to start mentioning. The non-riding ones alone are too numerous, I did manage to do the bicycle ride the past couple years but missed the last non-ride "1st annual train wreck poker run" which everybody raved about. Topless rides, friday night rides, "meet your Maker's(bourbon establishments)" and many more. Maybe you'll get some inspiration with the online newsletters.

 

We do a charity ride every year that is police escorted and all the intersections are blocked. 100+ miles and never have to put your foot down.

 

If you are thinking of riding hte blue ridge, go ride the dragon. Do a Rolling Thnder ride, an outerbanks ride and rides to all the big rallys. We do a chili cookoff early in the year. A gift and gobble ride in November, Toy and can of food for entry fee. Do some rides to eat,. eat to ride. Virginia creeper trail. Ride to nascar shops near Charlotte. MAny many places to go. Have the membership suggest some too.

Bubba

 

Pull up Fort Hood Harley Davidson, In Harker Heights Tx. web sight. That HOG chapter is very active and on the road ALL of the time. I'm not a member, but I read about them online a lot ! Think you will get some good ideas from their web sight news letter.

 

Our local dealer/HOG sponsored a ride to the finger lakes area of New York. The local HOG chapter there treated our members very well and escorted rides to the local sights. One year later, we reciprocated. Members of their chapter came to our area and we escorted them around. One of the best HOG events I've been involved in.

 

BRP is a no brainer.... Deals Gap, and that whole area, The Outer Banks, D-Day memorial in Bedford VA, Rolling Thunder,ASK the chapter.... short rides, long rides, week end trips, week long vacations. PA has many great roads, as do KY, W VA

personally I avoid the rallys.... too many fools

What I do, is ask for suggestions, if I get some great... if I don't get any... I just pick a direction.... I live in Raleigh, and I can spend as little as one hour, or as many days as I can take off.... I'm going where I want ..... plenty of good roads (to me) they want to join me, great, if not, it's their loss

 

we do a dinner ride friday evening. its a big hit with the wife.

i would like to see some more through the week short runs. something i could take the kids to.

at our church i plan on setting up things like a ice cream run.

 

Our chapter does one of the cruise and rides every year where you ride your bikes down to the cruise ship, they load them on the ship and unload them at your destination.

 

Thank you all very much for the suggestions and please keep them coming.

Yes I have asked all the members to give us feedback but I thought I would go ahead and get a jump on things and offer some suggestions also.

One of the officers suggested at least one overnight trip which they did not do last year and the wife just came up with a great idea to have a "Casino Run" and leave Saturday morning for the Smokey Mts and do the casino at Cherokee and ride back on Sunday.

We have another group in town called "Toolin N Town" that meets every Tuesday from April to October run my a local preacher and they get about 50 to 75 bikes every week and also have some special runs. We like to attend their events as do many of the other chapter members so I have to be careful not to compete with them also. They have an ice cream social at the church in August and the church members each bring a bucket of home made ice cream and it is simply a wonderful experience that everyone enjoys and we have yet to be able to eat all the ice cream.

I will check out the other chapters and get some ideas from them as well. I really like the idea of partnering with another chapter and doing a ride with them and they visiting us as well.

Yes the police escorted rides are wonderful. We did our first one this year to the Petty's Victory Junction Gang Camp and it was AWESOME with over 130 bikes attending. Our dealership actually works very close with the local police and sheriff and I think they did three police escorted events this year.

Thank you all very much for taking the time to respond.