The Chicks Run 2003

On Friday June 20, 2003, 10 women gathered at Bad Boys Cycle in Billings, MT. They were preparing to ride to 250 miles to Casper Wyo. These gals were headed for the opening events of the 2nd annual Chicks Run.

The Women on Wheels members leaving that day were, Denise Everson, Renate Arneson, Sheila Nelson, and Kenda Bruget. There was two women riders from the Billings Police Department, Rhonda Fox and Kelly Klein. Two of the gals belong to the local Ladies of Harley group, Mish Kratovil, and Jaime Vadic. Other gals that went that day were Karen Mills and Cheryl Metters.

Roy Mills, proprietor of Bad Boys Cycle in Billings, had graciously offered to do free checkups on all womens bikes that would be attending the Chicks Run in Wyoming. Roy’s wife, Karen invited all the gals to meet at their shop previous to leaving that morning.

Cindy Black and Maddy Harmon showed up at he bike shop that morning to see these gals off and take some pictures of the riders. They would be leaving the following morning with the Saturday Bunch. As this bunch prepared to leave, DJ, stepped out into the South Billings Blvd. to stop the traffic. The Ladies pulled out, one after the other, all ten of them. The excitement was thick. Maddy said the hair stood up on the back of her neck as everyone left. Cindy thought the tears of joy were welling up in her eyes.

The next morning the weather was not quite as nice as the day before. It was a little dreary, like it might break out and rain at any time.

The Saturday Bunch Genna, Sandy, Maddy, Cindy LynnDee, Ester, Gidget, Terri, Bea

The Saturday Bunch meet at 7:00 am. They were riding 160 miles to Buffalo Wyoming that morning. They would be meeting up with the entire bunch of gals that were attending the Chicks Run. There was to be a Rodeo Parade in Buffalo that day at noon. The local authorities had agreed to lead the lady bikers down main street before the horses.

The Women on Wheels members that left on Saturday included Genna Pylman, Maddy Harmon, Cindy Black, LynnDee Schmidt, and Bea Rice. Two members from the local Ladies of Harley were Gidget Henderson and Teri Mundahl. This group was joined by one of Maddy’s coworkers, Sandy Law. Cindy’s third daugher, Ester Weis would be riding with the group.

These gals met at the Burger King on South Billings Blvd. They left and headed for Hardin, MT riding on the old highway instead of the Interstate. They had planned to stop for fuel and Breakfast in Hardin. Were they ever glad when they made it the 60 miles to Hardin. They ran into some rain and wet roads. It was nice to stop and get warmed up. When they left Hardin, the plan was to run on the old highway into Wyoming. The rain continued for only about 15 miles. It then turned into a real nice morning.

Maddy , LynnDee, and Sandy had decided to ride the Interstate to Sheridan. They did not feel comfortable riding the two lane highway that they had not riden before. It was decided to meet in Sheridan at the Best Western where everybody would be staying later that night. The Saturday Bunch thought if they got checked in to the motel before going to Buffalo, they would not be standing in line with the 160 women that would be converging there later in the afternoon.

The six that were traveling the old highway pulled over at the State Line to get a picture. They had parked in an driveway of some sorts. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as they got down in the borrow ditch for pictures, here come the rancher. He motioned to them, “no hurry”. He then came and operated the cameras.

Ester, Bea, Terri, Genna, Gidget, Cindy at the State Line

Upon pulling into Sheridan, they all stopped and fueled up before heading to the motel to meet up with the three that had run the Interstate.

After they checked on their rooms, they got ready to head for Buffalo. Maddy’s Bike would not start. Dead. They tried to push it and nothing. Maddy insisted that everybody go with out her, "Go, I am a big girl." LynnDee and Sandy just could not leave their partner. They decided to stay in Sheridan with Maddy. They figured they could round up some help. These gals belong to the Gold Wing Road Riders Association. They knew they would have help soon. The other six took off for Buffalo. It did not look like they would make it into the town before the horse parade. And they did not. As they pulled into Buffalo, they came up behind the horses. They needed to get to the City Park for lunch. That is where all the other women on motorcycles would be. The horse parade was moving slow. Cindy had an idea, there should be a way to sneak through the residential streets to get to the City Park. She went in to motel office to ask. It was easier than she had thought, turn right, two block, turn left, four blocks to the park! Away the six of them went, headed for lunch.

As soon as they turned into the entrance of the park. Cindy spotted her friend from Gillette, Kate, the hat lady. She could not get her bike parked fast enough. She wanted to hug her friend she had not seen since the Chicks Run 2002. The six kinda split up and found places to park among all the other bikes. It was time to go looking for their friends from Montana, the Friday Bunch.

The City Park, Buffalo

Lunch Time in Buffalo

There sure was a lot of bikes. And they were all girls bikes. Wow. Ester, Cindy's 20 year old daughter, was aw-struck. She knew she was part of an exclusive group, women riders, but she had never seen more than 10 or 15 of them at one time. Here, in the park in Buffalo Wyo, were over 150 women riders.

They found the Friday Bunch. They were missing two of their riders. Rhonda’s bike had broken a brake line on the way to Casper. They had a trailer following them, and had gotton the bike to Casper, but it did not get fixed in time to leave with the whole gang of women riders that had left Casper Saturday morning heading for points northerly.

Buffalo was the 3rd card stop on the Poker Run. These gals needed to pick up their registraion packs. There would be a poker hand in there that they could get started. Everybody scarfed up their lunch. It was about time to head to Story. The next stop would be a Scenic Turnout just north of Story, Wyo. At this stop, they would be lining up all the bikes for a group picture. As the bunch prepared to head out of the park, on their way to Story, Kate said to Cindy, "Do you want to take a long way around and out of town? I will show you our Buffalo house."

So Cindy, Genna, Ester and Kate turned left as they headed out of the park, Kate in the lead. They stopped on a hill out side of Buffalo, over looking a beautiful valley. Kate pointed down and should these gals where her and Joe's other home was. She had thought of riding back out of Sheridan to here to spend Saturday night. Cindy mentioned that she had an extra room, and Kate was welcome to bunk with the kid, (Ester). So the Four of them got bach on their bikes and headed for Story.

Kate, the Hat Lady and Ester

Now, the year before, the whole group had rode into the town of Story, to the bar, for the poker hand stop. Neither Kate or Cindy had read the directions to see that the group would not be riding into Story, but instead, past the turn off by about 1 mile was a large scenic turnout where the 4th poker hand stop would be. As these four aare riding up the road to Story, they are met by numerous other gals that had turned around and were headed down the road. There was probably 50 to 75 women that had just assumed they were going the same place that they had gone the year before. When they did get to the turn out, the Montana gals were really spread out. One bunch was in the back row, south end. Kate, Ester, Cindy and Genna wound up in the second row closer to the north end, then Gidget, Bea, Teri and Jaime wound up in the row ahead of Cindy and Ester. After parking and looking around, several gathered around Gidgets bike and got a picture snapped by one of the few men that was travelling with this group of women on motorcycles.

The photographer showed up, put a very large ladder on a trailer, climbed up on top to access the situation. Poker hands were drawn, some gals hiked up the hill to take pictures of the whole group, the photographer had a few people move bikes from the ends to make four rows. Then everybody stood by their bikes for about 10 minutes while he took the picture of the whole group! The Sheriff's Department sent some cars out to escort us into Sheridan. We would be allowed to ride two abreast, (against the law in Wyoming) and we would be travelling at a slow speed. It was approximately 15 miles into Sheridan. Every cross road that we came to, traffic had been stopped. People were out of their cars waving at us. We were honking our horns and travelling about 35 mph. At about half way, Cindy spotted the three gals that had been stuck in Sheridan with a dead battery. They were riding south to meet up with the bunch. They would turn around and join in the parade. As the group headed into Sheridan, traffic was stopped. It was a honest to God parade, over 190 women on motorcycles! They paraded right though Sheridan, all the way through to the motel that would be serving dinner later in the evening. What a day!

To be continued!