THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 4, 1994 TAG: 9407040044
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HARBINGER LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
When Michael T. Carter's wife tells him to sell his beloved Harley Davidson motorcycle, he reminds her that it's an investment.
But it's hardly the money value of the bike that makes him yearn to ride it every day until his cares blow away with the wind.
It's the way the sun glints off the sparkling chrome. It's the feel of straddling the smooth, leather seat, like an old-time cowboy mounting a dangerous, unbroken horse.
It's the engine roaring to life, then settling to a steady throb that tickles the skin and vibrates the bones. It's accelerating and hitting 50 . . then veering into a quiet neighborhood and watching suburbanites' heads turn toward the unmistakable sound.
It's the same feeling that draws people like Paul ``Halfstep'' LeColst, 40, a welder from Gatesville, N.C., who lost his left leg in a motorcycle accident 10 years ago, but rides now with a prosthesis. And Willie ``Gus'' Saunders Sr. of Wanchese, a retired commercial fisherman who at 83 still rides most days and who takes long trips to Harley Davidson conventions around the country.
And Alexis T. Breaux, 42, of Nags Head, who bought her real-estate-company-owner husband his Harley a couple years ago for Father's Day, mainly so she could ride on the back.
It's the love of the open road that has banded together such an otherwise diverse group this year into the Outer Banks Motorcycle Association, a loosely organized club that already claims 75 members among the 100-or-so Harley owners on the Outer Banks.
``If you stop and think how small the Outer Banks is, that's a lot of people,'' said Michael Carter, part owner of a construction company in Kill Devil Hills.
As far as anyone can recollect, it's the first such group of its kind in the area, aside from pockets of more hard-core biker clubs like the Pagans.
Organizer Doug W. Carter (no relation to Michael Carter), 37, who opened the Outer Banks Cycle shop in Harbinger at the tip of Currituck County about a year ago, said it's meant to be more of a social group. For $20 annual dues, members get newsletters and a chance to ride together every six weeks.
They're also earning a good name on the Outer Banks. Carter estimates that the new association has raised about $3,000 this year for charity, mostly donated to groups that help underprivileged Outer Banks children.
The association also lobbied the North Carolina Department of Transportation to change the sensors on Outer Banks traffic lights, so that two-wheel vehicles can trigger light changes.
The premier attraction for association members, though, is the cycling.
Riders come from as far away as Hampton Roads and central North Carolina for the chance to hang together on the highway.
Bob S. Wootton, 42, a shipping agent in Virginia Beach who also rides with a prosthetic left leg, likes the Outer Banks group because they don't give him a hard time about his Honda motorcycle, which in less-tolerant Harley circles is sneered at as a ``rice burner.''
``They rib me, but their philosophy is it's better than not riding at all,'' Wootton said.
On a recent Sunday afternoon ``poker run,'' Wootton was among 43 bikers who gathered on the gravel drive in front of Carter's shop. In spite of the heat, they were clad in denim and black leather.
At the appointed time, the riders revved up their engines and pulled onto the highway, preceded by friends in cars who blocked traffic so the bikers could pass.
The idea was to stop at various Outer Banks restaurants: At every stop each rider would pick a card from a deck. At the end of the day, the rider with the best - and worst - poker hands won a small pot of money.
It was an awesome sight, 43 hogs roaring up the two-lane Beach road, bikes riding side-by-side in two neat rows. Onlookers waved or just stood, dumbstruck.
Not everyone was impressed. A wizened man at the Avalon Fishing Pier, where the bikers made their last stop, ran out ordering the cyclists to ``get the hell out.'' Some Kitty Hawk town police officers, angry that the motorcyclists were stopping traffic at intersections, pulled over some riders. No one was fined, though.
It didn't spoil the mood.
``People will talk for weeks about all the Harleys,'' Carter said. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by DREW C. WILSON, Staff
Willie ``Gus'' Saunders Sr., 84, gets a welcoming kiss as he arrives
at Outer Banks Cycle for a recent Outer Banks Motorcycle Association
poker run. There are 75 members in the club; most own Harleys.
Members of the motorcycle club cruise along N.C. 12 Beach Road in
Kitty Hawk last week.
by CNB