Sooner State Valkyrie Riders

Author: Scott Oakes
Edited by: Gary Milburn
Published: 05-11-04

I awoke from a sound sleep at 7:10am. “I must be late, Gary is gonna kill me…” I thought as I squinted to see the alarm clock. Not the case this time as my internal ‘its time to go ride the Valkyrie’ alarm had gone off a little earlier than the real one. With the bike loaded for the weekend, I was off to meet Gary. After a good breakfast, we headed down I-40 to meet Tim(Rumblebee) and began our southern route to Robbers Cave State Park for “SixGuns Ablaze at Robbers Cave".

After a few gas stops, and a quick lunch in Calvin, Ok we soon found ourselves winding up the 5 miles of tree lined roads to the park. Upon arrival we met up with Tony on his BMW and Don aka “The one armed Bandit". We checked into our rooms, unloaded our gear, and kicked the tires for an hour or two as riders continued to arrive.

By 6:30pm we had almost 20 bikes lined up for the dinner ride to Pete’s in Krebs. As we pulled into the the parking lot at Pete’s we had even more bikes waiting for us. All total we had 29 people join us for a fine dinner in a private dining room at Pete’s. After dinner we made a quick gas stop, and headed back to the lodge for a few refreshments on the back patio. Doc gave us a quick tutorial on how to cross the Red River three different times on the way from Texas to Robbers Cave and spend 8 hours doing it. In other words, don’t select ‘Bicycle Route’ on the GPS or you might find yourself riding in circles…

Saturday morning my internal alarm was right on time again as it was time to head down to the Side Saddle Cafe for breakfast. After a fine home style breakfast, we began lining up to ride the Talimena Scenic Drive. We departed in three different groups and headed south from the park on Hwy 2 winding through the tree lined hills where we picked up Hwy 1 into Talihina for fuel. With the tanks topped off, our group began the journey along the Ouchita Mountain ridge where we caught up with the Texas group at “Panorama” for a few Kodak moments. The Texas group headed on as we enjoyed the view of the Valley and waited for Gary to take his yearly “Panorama” pics of Miss August.

We were soon back on the road enjoying the warm sun, beautiful view, and nice curvy mountain roads. As we made our way through the many curves I had picked up my pace a bit, with Tony on his BMW staying right with me. We had a slight lead on the group as we started into a 30mph curve and soon realized something was very wrong. A Valkyrie, shiny side down, was just ahead of us on the side of the road. We grabbed a handful of brakes and navigated off the road as the rest of the group followed suit. Our VRCC bro Jess from Texas had taken the curve at little too fast and went down. Luckily he came off the bike as it low sided and was away from the bike when it finally flipped up and landed upside down.

Dwight, our resident Holdenville fire chief, immediately took charge of taking care of Jess as the rest of us arranged the bikes safely off the road and got Jess’s bike back on the tires. Jess had some road rash on his back, and some swelling. We all felt it was best he went to the hospital to get checked out. Don buzzed back down the road and returned a few minutes later with two gentleman in a minivan that volunteered to take Jess to the Hospital. Jim Orr volunteered to follow him and make sure he was properly taken care of and Ken, a local Wilburton Valk rider, blazed back to his house and returned with a truck/trailer to haul the bike. In the end, Jess walked away with some minor road rash, and some pretty bad bruises but he did walk away in one piece.

Once we got Jess off to the hospital, and the bike loaded a few hours later, we were all ready for lunch so we decided to forgo a couple of planned side-trips and headed on to Queen Wilhimena Lodge. After lunch we made a stop at the forest service fire lookout tower before turning north to catch Hwy 270 back to Heavener to visit the Runestones. At Runestone State Park we all hiked down to see the Runestone, and browsed the gift shop before heading back to Robbers Cave for our group dinner.

As I was arriving at the Side Saddle Cafe I noticed a growing number of Valkyries parked outside. To my surprise many of them had ridden in just for the evening dinner. Darlene the owner of the Side Saddle Cafe had set us up in a private dining area in the restaurant, and had things all ready for us when we went in. The food was excellent, and so was the service as we visited about the days ride and made lots of new friends. We ended the dinner by giving away lots of shirts, pins, and patches donated by Mark of Cat Specialties, as well as a signed copy of Daniel Meyers new book Life is a Road, Get on it and Ride.

After dinner many of the riders departed for home, or their rooms to get some much needed rest as the rest of us retired to the back patio of the lodge for a few refreshments and fellowship. The lie’s got bigger and bigger as the evening went on but a great time was had by all.

Sunday morning we once again had a great home style breakfast at the Side Saddle Cafe before loading up for the journey to our respected homes.

We had riders from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and New Mexico join us for the weekend. To all of you who made the trip to Southeast Oklahoma to ride with us, I thank you for making it a very memorable weekend. Riding a motorcycle means something a little different to each individual, but riding motorcycles gives us all something in common. I hope we can get together again soon to share our passion of riding.

Until then..

Ride Pics can be found here and here.