Gold Wing Touring Association cruises through Corvallis on luxury bikes

When this motorcycle gang rides into town, they're not looking for beer or whiskey shots, but they might clean you out of ice cream. And maybe marshmallows.

They're the Gold Wing Touring Association, an international motorcycling club, and the bikes they ride are comfy and cozy. The bikes have well-padded, heated seats, and the favorite activities of passengers are reading, sleeping and knitting. Gold Wings are Honda touring motorcycles, and owners say they can ride an average of 600 miles per day with ease. The bikes cost from about $20,000 to $25,000 new. They have Global Positioning Systems, heated handlebars, and you can even buy them with airbags.

But GWTA members - about 9,500 in the United States alone - don't stop there. They usually customize their bikes, adding pictures, stuffed animals and chrome, among other details.

"We're just a bunch of nut people," said Scott Peabody, director of the Oregon chapter.

Most of the 92 members who gathered this weekend at the Benton County Fairgrounds for their annual Oregon rally were in the middle-age range. Many are retired. But that just feeds their wanderlust.

"Last spring we left April 25," said Evelyn Carroll of Skamokawa, Wash. "We got back in May, and we put 16,000 miles on it."

Evelyn and her husband, Calvin, drove to Key West and back on that trip. They go somewhere pretty much every weekend.

GWTA members have toured Australia and even Russia back when it was the Soviet Union, according to Regional Director JR Phillips. They travelled across the USSR accompanied by a tanker truck filled with gas just in case they wound up someplace where they couldn't get it.

Their motto is "Destination Friendship."

"It may be the motorcycle that got us together," said Randi Kobernik, "but it's the people that keep us together."

The schedule for this weekend's rally included a pancake breakfast, church service and, naturally, an ice-cream social. Much of the proceeds from this weekend's registration fees will be donated to the Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis.

They are not strangers to the perils of the road. Carmen Warren and her husband got thrown from their motorcycle by a car that crashed into them while the couple inside were fighting. The couple drove off never to be seen again, while a truck driver and other motorists stopped and helped the Warrens, who were both seriously injured. It took months for Carmen to be able to drive a car again. But she still rides her Gold Wing.

"Yeah, I got back on - you bet I did," she said.