Monday, January 01, 2007

What a Month

December is always a busy month for the Harley Rides industry, and 2006 was no exception.

The first weekend of the month saw the demand for sidecars stretched to the limit for Corporate Family Christmas parties. We had 3 on Saturday 3rd Dec and 4 on Sunday the following day. I started at 9 am on Sunday doing a 3 Sidecar job for Tourism Victoria, where we took a group of Travel Agents from New Zealand for a familiarization tour of Melbourne, then did several hundred short rides at the GTV 9 Family Christmas Party and ended the day taking an 80 year old and two of his grand children for a sidecar ride.

From time to time we get some pretty special requests. On Wed 6th December I received a call from the Herald Sun newspaper to take a special little boy for a ride. Tyler Fishlock lost his sight to cancer early in 2006. He is only 4 years old and had asked Santa for a Harley ride. The Herald Sun obliged and I was called upon to do the job. Tyler is an amazing child. But it was his parents Georgette and Brad who impressed me most. They have given up a lot this past year and are facing the challenge with amazing strength.




This is Tyler seated on John's Heritage Softail

Then not one week later I took another visually imapaired girl out for a Harley Ride. Krista loves Harleys and was given a Gift Voucher for a 1 hour ride by her friends as a birthday present. It was a pretty interesting experience for me as we cruised up into the hils and she took in the smells and felt the wind in her face.

The month ended as busy as it started after Christmas Day. There were a massive number of tourists in Melbourne for the Boxing Day Cricket Test. We picked up quite a bit of work from them and one afternoon after the match (and the game) was finished took Ian Botham away from the MCG to Pier 35 where a helicopter was waiting to fly him down to his home on the Mornington Peninsula.

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