The Bombholders Motorcycle Club

Sometime in late 1975 me in some fellow soldiers stationed at the US Army post at Baumholder, Germany wanted to ride together for enjoyment and establish this as a sanctioned on-post activity. We formed a charter and solicited the post to sanction our new motorcycle riding club as a  post sponsored activity. The advantages to getting sponsorship by the Army was that we could get a clubhouse, monetary assistance and the Military Police would not freak out when they saw us riding en masse on post. We were successful in our endeavor and thus was born the Bombholders Motorcycle Club. Most of us who were stationed at this post had brought our personal motorcycles over. The military will pay to bring one vehicle over for members that will be serving for the three or so years. I took a Honda 750-4 over. I saw a lot of big Harleys on post and a riding club was inevitable. Danny Ewart of CSC 1/68 Armor and myself of C Company 1/68 Armor drew up a charter and passed it through to the post commander. With Dan as the president and myself as the Road Captain we gathered together the on-post riders and started doing mass rides all over Europe. Members included officers and enlisted alike, mostly US soldiers from Baumholder, but as our fame grew we drew in members from BK, Kaiserslautern and later, local German nationals. There were wives and kids on the rides and I remember giving some ones son the thrill of their life when he rode with me on a fide on our chopped "Easy Rider" Harley Sportster when we had no more room in the crash van. We opened the club to German nationals as I was leaving in 1978 and I understand that the club still exists and is running strong. Here is a site, http://www.bombholders.de/

The reason we got on-post charter sponsor is because the post allocated us a clubhaus, some funding and allowed us to maintain a club motorcycle (the Sportster) and a club van (crash vehicle). Our activities consisted of meetings, technical discussions and rides when the weather was good. We traded all this by providing defensive motorcycle driving classes on post for military personnel.

Our rides were Army sponsored activities and included England, Amsterdam and all over Germany. the Club sported colors (which got us in trouble in Amsterdam with the Hells Angels).

After I left Germany my contacts with BMC faded I did wear my colors everywhere in the US and I linked up with Dan Ewart a couple times for some rides in California which can be a bit of a mess if you are wearing colors. If you have ridden in the US under colors you know that it can be dangerous, especially with some of the blood clubs. It is a bit too bad because there are some cool touring clubs with neat logos. I have included shots of my riding jacket in it's retirement (it is draped across my chair at work) which is a bit unique in that it bears a patch from all the rides we did While I was there. I was obligated to do that as the Road Captain of the club. So my set is pretty unique. On 10/1/02 I got an email from a present member of the club who tells me it is going strong and asked for founding information. It was like hearing from a long lost family member. As i have mentioned I have continued my love of riding. I have not been able to keep up with the great bikes that are out now. The new Goldwings and the BMW tourers are awesome! But I love my 20 year old Aspencade and it can keep up in a run when it has too, plus I get to listen to the radio as I rock. I will be updating the BMC information here as time goes on. Check the link. I am slowly getting names from the later members, but would be very interested in getting information from the contemporaries I was in the club with in the late 70's.

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