Gold Wing riders enjoy their bikes and their fun

Local club centers around Honda touring motorcycle

Sometimes they get together to tell stories of the open road.

Sometimes they get together to share safety tips for dealing with animals darting in front of their bikes.

But there's almost always one thing the members of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association do when they get together: Eat.

"When Harley riders come to town, daddies are always told to lock up their daughters. When Gold Wing riders come to town, the daddies lock up their freezers," said Ardell Flip, one of the founding member of the local Sun Basin chapter of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association.

This club consists of owners of the Honda Gold Wing, a touring motorcycle built in Marysville, Ohio. Members gather monthly at the Golden Corral Restaurant to have dinner and enjoy the camaraderie created by the mutual enjoyment of the Gold Wing.

"We're a group that is drawn together initially with the principal interest in Gold Wings, friends and food," Roger Holloway, the chapter's assistant director, said.

The Sun Basin chapter was started in 1991 by Flip and her husband and Ronny and Peggy Lopez. Ronny Lopez serves as the current chapter director.

"We got together and decided it was a good idea," Ardell said.

Sun Basin is one of 23 Gold Wing chapters in Washington, boasting members from as far north as the Grand Coulee Dam all the way to Moses Lake.

The Honda Gold Wing is the largest luxury motorcycle on the market, boasting a stereo, plush interior and a high volume of storage space for long journeys, Holloway said. The average bike can run as much as $23,000, which is why the road riders association tends to attract older members, he said.

"It has all the luxury of a vehicle, but it's a motorcycle," he said.

Though only Gold Wing owners can become members of the association, family members of the owners can also join in on the fun, Holloway said.

The first Gold Wing motorcycle was built in 1975, featuring a six-cylinder engine and a 1,000 cubic-centimeter engine.

Gold Wing members take group trips to places as far off as Texas for the National Wing Ding gathering, or north into Canada.

But no matter where they go, safety is always a priority. At the last meeting, for example, one rider told the group of a ride where a deer bolted right out in front of his bike, and how he managed to minimize the potential disaster as best as possible.

All members of the chapter are trained in CPR, Ardell said, and members wear the Gold Wing Road Riders Association motto on the back of their official red coats: "Fun, Safety, Knowledge."

But it's not all about the bikes for the Gold Wing members. Every year, the chapter holds a fund-raising event for the Make-A-Wish foundation, and this year the Sun Basin Gold Wing riders donated $3,500 to the charity.

The group obviously enjoys each other's company during their last meeting at the Golden Corral, with laughter and good-natured revelry the dominant theme.

And that's just the way the Gold Wing Road Riders like it, Ardell said.

"It's just a lot of ho-ho, hee-hee fun," she said.