Welcome to all you new members who have just recently joined Rose City Motorcycle Club. We hope you will feel welcome and join in on the activities and fun we schedule for you throughout the year. We encourage you to come to our monthly breakfast meetings on the third Saturday of each month at HomeTown Buffet 13500 Sw Pacific Hwy Tigard, Oregon at 8 a.m. There is usually at least a half-day ride after breakfast for those who want to ride with some friends.

I said: "Volunteers Needed!!!!" And you said: "Here we are."

Rose City members sure know how to answer the call. Thanks to everyone who stepped up to help to help with the Oregon 500 and the 250. Without the Check Point crews, A.M. setup & send off crews, Course Ambassadors, P.M. check'um in crews, teardown & clean up crews we would not have had such GREAT event(s). So to all of you

THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!

This morning, May 15th, after the May breakfast, we had 16+ motorcycles along with the pickup truck driven Jerry & Sharon of Beaverton Motorcycle pulling a "Beaverton Motorcycle" trailer loaded with about a ton of food for Vernonia. We made delivery to the Vernonia Food bank right on schedule. As always, great snacks were served to the RCMC riders after the unloading.

With out such a wonderful group of individuals RCMC would not be what it has grown into day. All members are necessary and appreciated. It is my privilege to be the President of such a wonderful organization. Thank you for sharing you time and your spirit with me. O.K. enough, let's go ride our motorcycles. See you on the road,

Dear Rose City Motorcycle Club Members,

Thank you for your generous donation of food and its delivery on May 15, 2010. You brought out 1,269# of food to us. Than you so much! We always look forward to your ride here to us. It's nice to see familiar faces and spend some time with you.

We would also like to thank Bob Lanphere's Beaverton Yamaha for the use of their trailer and for the driver and co-pilot Jerry and Sharon Lenz. Again, please accept our special thanks for all the planning and completion of this annual project. Thanks, Den Bair, for remembering Vernonia and your faithful support ever since the first flood of 1996.

As I mentioned to some of you when you came out, we are assisting 300-400 people per month through this food bank. The numbers continue to remain high. At first, we attributed it to the flood recovery but now we think it's due to the down turned economy. Whatever the cause, the need for food continues. Although we provide only three days worth of emergency groceries per month, Care's clients are very grateful and often find ways to stretch the food to feed their families for more than three days. Thank you for joining in our mission to feed the hungry in and around Vernonia. You're a generous and caring group of people.

As I type this we are preparing (getting ready to load-up for the test ride) for the 22nd annual Western States 1000, June 5 & 6, 2010. So the usual chaos, with everything else mixed in.

After the WS1000 I will be focusing on the annual charity fund raisers, the Sunriver Pacific Crest, MS 150 Bike Tour, and the Hood to Coast (HTC) events and the volunteers we will need.

Annual Sun River Pajama Party - June 25, 26, 27, 2010 - Volunteers needed

We're looking for 30 RCMC members, families and friends to go to Sun River and have a good time. We will be helping AA Sports with a half Ironman Triathlon. For this help AA Sports will donate $3,000 to the RCMC treasury to support our member benefits programs. AA Sports provides housing ('3' large houses with hot tubs) and Tee Shirts. RCMC provides breakfast Saturday & Sunday at the 'Main House', and dinner at a local restaurant Saturday night. This is 3 nights and 2 days at Sun River. Some folks stay over and ride home on Monday.

First group leaves from the I-5 Wilsonville Southbound rest area at noon on Friday. Other small groups and individuals will follow later. Sun River is about 180 to 200 miles depending on where you live in the Portland area.

We need to be helping with the event early Saturday morning, 8am-ish. Please contact Char with any questions and/or confirmation. We need to let AA Sport know how many Tee Sizes by June 10th. This is a good time and thanks for your helping hands.

MS 150 Bicycle Tour - July 31 + August 1, 2010, - Volunteers Needed!!!

at Mt. Hood Community College, 26000 Southeast Stark Street, in Gresham, OR.

Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic, often disabling disease that randomly attacks the central nervous system. The progress, severity and specific symptoms can't be predicted, and symptoms range from numbness to paralysis and blindness, among others. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50.

The MS 150 is the Multiple Sclerosis Oregon Chapters' big annual fundraiser. Trust me on this, this charity event cannot happen without help. Staffing number have not yet been confirmed, but I am expecting to need 12 volunteers on Saturday, and 6 volunteers on Sunday for the 2010 Oregon MS 150 Bike Tour. You can volunteer for one day or the other, or both. This year's tour is a two-day journey through Oregon's wine country and woodlands with the Start/Finish Stayton, Oregon.

For every one who has helped with this before, I want to encourage you to make every effort to do that again. Your experience is valued. Doing this for the MS 150 is pretty much an all day commitment each day, so plan accordingly. You get the same meals on the course and at the Start / Finish as the MS 150 bicyclists do and a T-shirt. So please include your T-shirt size and cell phone number when you reply. Please consider this one and let me hear back from you.

Hood to Coast Relay Friday, August 27 & 28, 2010 - Volunteers Needed!!!

Our part in the Hood to Coast Relay event is to deter assaults against the female walkers and runners by our riding presence and vigilance at night along the HTC course. The HTC history is that before we got involved, these assaults happened. Since we have been involved they have been successfully ended. So we really are making a difference in the lives and safety of the HTC participants.

If you have not done this before, I ask you to seriously consider doing it now, in 2010. For those that have done it before, we need you back again.

I am expecting the same criteria in 2010 that we had in 2009. That means that we will need 42+ motorcycles to patrol the 127 miles from Portland to Seaside on that Friday night, August 27th. I have every reason to believe that trying to recruit 42+ riders in the month of August will be just as challenging as ever.

To the dual-sport riders who helped last year, I am hopeful that you will be available again this year. We will need you again. For all of our other riders, you will be on paved roads as before.

Any of you who have not already done so and are ready to commit now for the 2010 HTC, please feel free to contact me now to get your name on the 2010 HTC list.

As always, if there are any questions, please ask

By the time you read this, the Memorial Day Campout will be over so here is information on other coming events for this year.

The Thank Goodness It's Over (TGIO)/Picnic will be after the breakfast meeting on July 17. More info as to time and place once it is available.

The Breakfast, to Lunch, to Dinner, to Pie Ride will be held on August 22. Be thinking if you want to volunteer your home as a food stop this year. The cost for all the food you purchase will be reimbursed by the club.

The Labor Day Campout will be held at Fort Stevens. The reservation dates are beginning on Wednesday, Sept 1 thru Monday, September 6, 2010. Our site numbers are I86, I87, I88, and I89. One of the events held at Ft. Stevens over this Labor Day weekend is the Civil War re-enactment battle. It is quite interesting and enjoyable whether you have already seen it or not.

We have express check-in for this campout, so once you sign up for this I will give you a card which you will need to fill out and insert in the Express Check-In kiosk right past the check-in booth at the entrance to the park.

I will have sign up sheets for all these events at the breakfast meetings. You can also call me at 971-344-0834 or email me at virginiaberkey@yahoo.com to let me know if you will be attending any of them.

We will see you at the Western States 1000 and/or at breakfast on June 19.

Our own Mick Kleiman passed away Saturday, May 31 in a single vehicle accident. Per the OSP report Mick was travelling south on Hiway 31 near milepost 77 with a group of 3 other riders from a Salem club. Mick lost control on a left downhill curve and was thrown from his 1992 Yamaha. He died instantly. As usual Mick was fully clothed in his protective gear and helmet.

On the last weekend of April, Ric and I embarked on a journey to New Mexico. Because of the 18 rabbits we were transporting to the National show in Belen, we had to use four wheels for this adventure but we couldn't help but look at it from the perspective of doing the trip on two wheels in the future. One of our general observations was this long recession/depression is obviously taking its toll on the roads. The highways are in truly awful shape once you leave the borders of Oregon. Overall we both agreed, the sights are worth seeing but if we were on two wheels, audio entertainment would be a must since there's a lot of flat nowhere between here and there. Utah and New Mexico are dry enough and the vegetation sparse enough that it appeared it could spontaneously combust all on its own. We could only imagine what it was like come summer.

Portions of the roads we travelled on to and from the show were part of the Historic Route 66. Often the old highway was incorporated in to the newer highways, but there are still lots of the original highway left. In places it was almost as if you were stepping back in time, so little had changed over the years with small business eking out a living in remote areas. In some places, you could see evidence of the original highway off to the side of the newer highway, now abandoned. Someday I would like to take the time to see what's left of the rest of Route 66.

While at the rabbit show, we met some wonderful fellow motorcycle enthusiasts from Texas. We had a great time exchanging adventures on two wheels stories. One thing they have on their "bucket list" is to explore the coast along the Pacific NW and up into Canada. We invited them to stop by when they decide to do it. On the way home we were pondering what routes we would take them on for maximum impact our local area, making a list of must see's. As we were chatting, I reminded Ric I needed a pit stop before entering the long stretch on the Navaho reservation with no place to stop.

At the gas station we found a fellow fueling his BMW Explorer obviously packed for a long road trip. I struck up a conversation with him while waiting to pay for some liquid refreshments, asking him if he was wearing heated gear under the mesh jacket (thinking he was probably getting a bit chilly if he wasn't). As soon as he answered, I realized we weren't talking to just any rider.

Turns out, the fellow was from Perth, Australia. He had just sold his house and he was taking a year to travel from Los Angeles up to Alaska and back. Thanks to old western movies, he wanted to see America's west so he's taking his time working his way up north, camping most of the way with the occasional break in a hotel along the way. He commented that renting a bike would have been cost prohibitive for the amount of time he would be on the road so he had his BMW shipped with him. He landed in L.A. and hit the road on his bike taking in the desert areas first. His comment that everything, literally everything, was different from Australia got us to thinking, what an adventure! He figures he'll be coming down the coast sometime in August/September. We gave him a business card and invited him to stop by on his way through. We'd love to hear about his adventure from an Aussie's perspective. He commented that all of the American's he's met along the way have been amazingly wonderful to him.

So if you bump into an Australian fellow by the name of Allister (Al), buy him a beer and ask him what he thinks of our home and I'd bet you'll learn something new about what we pretty much take for granted living here. Look for the BMW with the Australian license plate on the back. PS - He wasn't wearing heated gear. Yet.