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Last night I attended Bike Night in Albuquerque. Garduño's on the Green is a local chain restaurant set in one of Albuquerque's more unique environments. The Balloon Fiesta Park is a ready-made tourist attraction, complete with Balloon Museum, golf ball driving range, hundreds of acres of soccer fields and generally much open space. In the middle of all this is Garduño's on the Green. And oddly, there were a lot of people at this large-sized family venue. Even before the motorcyclists arrived there were bunches of people, coming in from the golf course, sight-seers, and who else I really don't know.
The event itself was sponsored by R&S Motors, a large Yamasakiuki dealer in town. They had a sad little raffle where no one seemed to be too thrilled with what they won. In fact, it was not entirely clear what was being raffled, though they certainly made a big deal of announcing the raffle several times as a highlight of the evening.
I estimate that about 200 motorcyclists showed up. There were some of the oddball things like trikes, but the bulk of the crowd was Harley dudes and dudettes, squids on sportbikes, and a handful (perhaps 10) Ducati's. One of the more intriguing groups was the Ms. Behavin' gals, some apparently lesbian, some apparently not. They sported patches and tattoos of a buxom red woman brandishing a bull whip.
Most of the Ducati folks are in their twenties so they blended in well, only the brand advertising on their leathers distinguishing them from the others. A couple of middle-aged men tag along with the Ducati group, one of whom is accepted despite the fact he rides a Kawasaki touring rig.
Bike Night brought out a couple of welcome geezers—folks who have some miles under their belt, have done a bit of traveling and know their motorcycles. I had made contact with one of them earlier online. He and a friend are plotting a trip to the WSB races in Salt Lake City at the end of the month and invited me to come along. Chatting with these two was really the highlight of the evening, and I am tempted by the prospect of doing some regional exploration on the ST4S.
Posted by Underblog at May 8, 2009 11:55 AM
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