The Following 1st Officers

 

by Dates of Office

  

History of Texas Chisholm Trail

(by Tony Terrell)

Since I was 14, I have always had a motorcycle in the garage. The early years were just for the freedom and fun factor. As I grew older and went out on my own I then moved to the midlevel bikes as transportation but the fun factor remained. In 1997 I finally got my dream bike, a 1500 Vulcan Classic big cruiser. This bike was purely for pleasure, a weekend ride to escape the job and small problems of life.

 

While I had always been in and out of the various bike shops over the years, I began to spend more time at the shops, in particular the Kawasaki shop, visiting with other riders, drooling over the latest chrome accessory, and seeing what others had done to customize their bikes. I met a number of local riders and became friends with many. As those friendships grew I began to crank up the phone late in the week and organize Sunday rides from a group of about 8 riders. We always had a good time and usually just went for short local rides with anywhere from 2 to 6 bikes. 

 

During this timeframe I met Lew Foster from Georgetown. Lew was also riding a Vulcan and began to visit the Kawasaki shop in Killeen. We became good friends and enjoyed each others riding style. In the course of many miles shared together we began to discuss a better method of organizing rides and possibly getting a few more riders involved. Lew came across the Vulcan Riders Association on the Internet and since almost all of the people we were riding with were riding Vulcans we decided to start a local VRA chapter during the summer of 1998.

 

Lew served as 1st Officer and I took the role as 2nd Officer. Most of our group thought it was a good idea and joined the VRA. Nothing really changed in our ride structure. Lew and I still made a few calls but our method of communication changed to email announcements. The Internet VRA link did allow other Vulcan riders looking for someone to ride with the ability to find us. Over the coming months we added a few more members and eventually our membership maxed out at around 20 members.

 

Those riding times were great fun. We had a good group of riders that enjoyed each other’s company and felt comfortable with our group. In the following months, we put a lot of miles on the back roads of Central Texas. Our membership had stopped growing and we still had good participation but occasionally only a few bikes would be able to ride. While we still had a good deal of fun, Lew and I began to talk about how we could up our membership numbers to about 40 members so that at any given ride there would be at least 6–8 riders who could make it. We came to the conclusion that as a “bike specific” riding group there would be a limited amount of membership potential available in the local area.

 

Once again, Lew scoured the Internet and came across a riding group called the Southern Cruiser Riding Club. There was a chapter in San Antonio headed by Kirk Dockery. Kirk was serving as 1st Officer of the Central Texas Chapter (and State Officer of Texas) that stretched from Beeville all the way up to Waco and had about 90 members scattered throughout. The SCRC appeared to be a riding group similar to our VRA group that had no interest in being a “Motorcycle Club” and was only interested in getting together with friends for a Sunday ride. We contacted Kirk and discussed the SCRC with him. We liked what we heard and it seemed the SCRC was just what we were looking for in an all-inclusive riding club.

 

The SCRC sounded good but we needed to see for ourselves just what this group was about before making any commitments. In Jan of 2000, 8 riders from our area headed down to San Marcos to attend one of San Antonio’s Sunday rides and meet the folks involved.  They met at a restaurant (even then they were an eating group with a riding disorder) and had about 20 bikes ready to ride. We rounded out the field and made for a nice group. It turned out to be an excellent day of riding and we came away quite impressed with the group. It was a fine bunch of people that we felt we would be proud to call our friends. They rode in a safe organized manner and we felt no hesitation in giving the SCRC a try.

 

Upon our return we organized a breakfast with the VRA members. We shared our findings and our intention to start a SCRC chapter. Discussion basically centered on a new name for our chapter. My wife had suggested Chisholm Trail and I liked it. I wanted something more distinctive than the usual Bell County Chapter or such. After batting it around during the meal, we agreed upon Texas Chisholm Trail.

 

Lew contacted Kirk and initiated a request to start a chapter in our area. This prompted Kirk to decide it was time to start breaking up the very spread out Central Texas Chapter. As a result, the Hill Country Chapter (Austin) and Blacklands Chapter (Elgin) were created. The Central Texas Chapter was renamed the San Antonio Chapter and thus began SCRC chapters spreading throughout Texas.

 

The Texas Chisholm Trail Chapter of the Southern Cruiser Riding Club was formed in February 2000 with myself as the 1st Officer and Lew Foster as 2nd Officer. Our first organized ride was to Boerne for the Gypsy M/C’s St. Valentines Day Massacre Rally that month. (It was so cold that only 4 of us started the trek and only Ben Alvarez and myself made it to the Rally.)

 

Over the next 6 months our membership grew to about 40 members. During the summer of 2000 I created the Chisholm Website to assist with ride announcements and simplify organization. After the first year, we had grown to about 60 members and were enjoying a great deal of riding time. On occasion we even had some rather large groups show up to ride.

 

Membership slowly crept upward and we had gathered a number of riders from the Georgetown area. During the summer of 2001, Lew decided to break off and form the Williamson County Chapter with about 30 of our members from Chisholm Trail because of the distance involved in bringing the Bell County and Williamson County groups together on each ride. Vince Johnson, who had been riding with us for some time, stepped in as the Chisholm 2nd Officer. This dropped our membership back into the 40s range but shortly thereafter word of mouth began to spread and our local membership began to skyrocket. It still continues to grow at a steady pace. In addition to our current membership, we have spun off several additional chapters, Cedar Ridge, Teague, and Bosque River.

 

There have been many changes in our chapter as we approach our 6-year anniversary. In November of 2002, Vince and I relinquished the reins and allowed others to guide our direction. The Officer ranks have changed hands since and been expanded. The website has been upgraded to allow more member input. As a group we have participated in numerous charity events, motorcycle rallies, and parades. Through it all we have explored thousands of miles of Texas blacktop.

 

We continue to grow but we began as a few friends going for a putt. I am happy to see that as Chisholm Trail and the SCRC organization have grown we have continued to maintain that tradition. We just have a lot more friends involved now.

 

Tony Terrell    

1st Officer, Chisholm Trail #82

Jan-2000 - Oct-2002

 

I would like to thank Tony for taking the time to write this history of the Chisholm Trail Chapter 82.  I really appreciate knowing our history and I know all the members do.

 

Thanks Tony.....  Diesel & Members