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The old good luck English wedding poem:
Something old, something new
Something borrowed, something blue.

Seems to work its magic on more then just weddings, apparently sidecar rallies 
held in Paso Robles can partake in a little of the fairy dust as well.

So as the story goes, it was a few months back when Doug Bingham received a phone call from the Downtown Paso Robles Main Street Association asking if he could possibly get a few sidecar rigs together and hold a Rally in their City Park. To me that would have been one weird phone call, but to Doug it was just another quest in the life of the Godfather of Sidecars. So “Don Vito Corleone”, alias Doug Bingham, got on the hot wire and started calling in “markers”. How could we turn Doug down, even if the story did sound a little on the flakey side, it would still be a great ride and a weekend with our sidecar buddies.

Phone calls were made, reservations secured and sure as the Sun comes up in the East the weekend was upon us before we new it. I had Willy G., my fateful Harley rig, loaded and ready to roll, Debra got off work about 3:30 and we were on the road by 4:45. It was a wonderful ride through the backcountry, we crossed the San Joaquin Valley on Interstate 5 made a big left on hwy 46 into a blazing sunset, through the wine country and down into the little hamlet of Paso Robles.

We had all arranged to stay at the Adelaide Inn in Paso Robles, and sure enough, do to our good planning (mostly a great motel staff) all our rooms were right next to each other.

Here’s where that little wedding poem I had eluded to earlier kicks in:
Something old: The quaint little old town of El Paso De Robles, founded in 1857 as a heath spa, its only claim to fame then was hot mineral springs and mud baths. Today it is a thriving community with a long and colorful history and a great historic district. For more information on this gem of a town go to their web site: www.pasoroblesdowntown.org. While there, have them send you a copy of the Self Guided Walking Tour of Historic Buildings, you will be amazed at what this town has to offer.

Something new: The something new was our sidecar rally in the City Park. The City Park is right off the historic district with all its western flavor and folklore, it just adds to the parks beauty with its giant trees and incredible green grass. With this being the first sidecar rally in Paso Robles we could hope for ten, may be fifteen rigs at the most. But “The Don” pulled a “Big” rabbit out of his hat and produced forty plus rigs. It was amazing, I almost felt guilty when they requested we all drive right onto their carpet of green grass and park the rigs for the six-hour Rally.

Something borrowed: Doug borrowed the tried and true format from the Griffith Park Rallies that has always worked well. Pull-up in a line, leave plenty of room for the public to pass between the rigs, pull out your lawn chairs, coolers, munchies, wait for the folks to show and enjoy the day. The folks did show too, lots of them, we were there from 9 am to 3 pm and the great people of Paso Robles just kept coming. They were very respectful of our rigs and asked great questions, I’m sure we recruited a few sidecar converts out of this group. To add to the atmosphere, the city also had their Flea market and Farmers market, which did a great job keeping the ladies busy and happy.

Something blue: The sky was as blue as I have ever seen it, which as you can imagine made the weather the best, blue sky, light breeze, lots of shade, good friends and good food.

At the end of the day we all met for dinner at the City Park Grill to celebrate a great Rally and make plans for the Second Annual Cal Paso Rally. Hey look, they liked us, we liked them, we got invited back for 2009, it doesn’t get any better then that.

The City Park Grill is a real find, unless you walk in with forty-five plus hungry Sidecarists then you might have a little problem. Doug had forecast maybe twenty-five riders at the most for dinner, in reality we hit them hard with the big numbers on the high side of forty-five. It’s a mom and pop place that serves drop-dead delicious food with portions big enough to feed the Jolly Green Giant. The wait was long but the talk of the day’s event and upcoming rides made up for most of it. When the food did arrive all was forgiven by most and for sure you’ll see me back at the City Park Grill again.

Sunday morning the group met for breakfast at the Paso Robles Inn, another great place to eat. I’m not sure but I’ll bet there’s not a bad place to dine anywhere in this town.

After breakfast we said our good-byes and hit the road. Debra and I did a slow roll down hwy 46 to Morro Bay. We backtracked up hwy 41 to Atascadero, took a few side roads that linked us to hwy 58 and headed home. All great back roads, which made for a wonderful but hot day.

It was a great weekend with good friends in a place that for most was only a gas stop on the way to somewhere else. But after the Cal Paso Rally, the friendly little town of Paso Robles is now a destination we all look forward to.

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