Grom Gangs and Blinging BMWs on Easter's First Sunday Ride

Happy Easter! Today was the first real ride of the season, and I had to think back where I was last year, on an epic cross country ride across the Blue Ridge Parkwa y.

I couldn't get my ST3 started last night, as the electrical system caused the instrument cluster to flicker on and off, and even attaching a jumper pack to the battery (which is likely dead) didn't even get the engine to turn over.

So I hopped on my Monster, which was fitting, as none of my PA Ducati gang I joined was riding their nicest bikes. By 9am we were on the road in search of breakfast on a Monster, a Cagiva Gran Canyon, a 90's BMW R1150RT police bike, and a 70's R75 cafe racer. This motley crew found its way to The Park Place Diner in Denver, PA for breakfast.

After breakfast we rode over to the first First Sunday in Ephrata, where there a was a little fleet of modified Honda Groms, like the one pictured above with an extended swingarm. I guess even with only a 125cc engine he has a hard time keeping the front wheel on the ground...?

There were several other modified Groms, with custom suspensions and paint jobs.

At around $3000 stock, these little bikes are kind of cool, and apparently kind of hard to get ahold of since demand is so great.

The coolest bike had full custom race farings, though this photograph doesn't really show the amusing size of this motorcycle. For scale, the top of the windscreen is probably around my waistline, and I'm hardly a tall man.

In addition, there were a couple of heavily modified BMW superbikes. This blinging BMW HP4 was garishly adorned with carbon fiber parts, stickers and custom bits. To call this bike tricked-out would be like claim Liberace had "flair."