Paul Szmal: FLX Morning continues now at 7.53 and I'm happy to be joined by Chris Schaefer from Celebrate Commemorate. Chris has for years been the go-to guy whenever something goes wrong, but also has been handling the bike rally for a number of years. And how many years have you been involved with Celebrate Commemorate now, like 26? Celebrate, yeah, I've been, I think, 26 years now.
Oh, and I would be remiss not to congratulate you and Jane on the award that you received.
Chris Shafer: Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. I know that you have meant a lot to the community over the years and you've poured a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into creating what has become Celebrate Commemorate in its form now.
Paul Szmal: Let's talk a little bit about the motorcycle rally. How many years has this been going on now?
Chris Shafer: Oh, this has been, ooh, 14, 15 years now we've been doing this.
Paul Szmal: And whose idea was it initially to start a bike ride?
Chris Shafer: Actually, it was my wife saying, we've got to do something on Monday and what can we do? And, oh, you ride a motorcycle, why don't you get some guys together and do a ride? So of course, I can't tell her no. And, yeah, and it's been building and growing every year?
Paul Szmal: Yeah.
Chris Shafer: It's, obviously, it's a totally weather-dependent event. So if it's a bright, sunshiny day, we'll get up to 200 bikes. If it's a cloudy day, people look and say, I don't want to go for a ride today.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Well, the good news is I think Monday you have the best of weather chances of having good weather. As a matter of fact, I was just looking at some long-range forecasts here, and it looks like we might actually even get a little break as soon as Saturday, which would be nice.
Chris Shafer: Yeah, it'd be nice for Sunday, too, because of the car show, which brings a lot of nice-looking cars out.
Paul Szmal: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
So tell me about the bike ride itself. What time is it? Where does it go?
Chris Shafer: Well, registration is from 8 to 10 in the morning at the Waterloo VFW. We try to get people to pre-register, but knowing the biker community, they don't really feel like doing that. Spur of the moment decision.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, exactly. You look out and see if it's sunshiny, and we'll go.
Chris Shafer: So we do have registration the day of the event, 8 to 10. 10 o'clock, we get together. We're led by the Patriot Guard, who do a lot of these type of things.
Paul Szmal: Right. They have a great safety crew and everything, and they get all together, give us a safety brief.
Chris Shafer: We have the chaplain give us a prayer before the event, and then 10 o'clock, the stands are up, and off we go.
Paul Szmal: And what route does the rally travel?
Chris Shafer: We try to vary it. This year, we're going down out 96A first, and take a spin through the National Veteran's Cemetery to honor those, head from there down to Watkins, across over to Hammondsport through the back roads there on Hammondsport to the Curtis Museum, and then come back up 54 through Pen Yen over to Seneca Lake and up Seneca Lake.
Paul Szmal: So yeah, you're going to hit quite a few different things along the way then.
Chris Shafer: Yeah, we try to give people a view of the Finger Lakes.
Paul Szmal: Now are there any specific stops along the route, or is it just a continuous route?
Chris Shafer: We will be stopping at the Curtis Museum down at Hammondsport. A lot of bikes need to gas up, and everybody needs to get off and stretch a little bit. Get a little reset before the second leg.
Paul Szmal: Yep, and we stop there at the Curtis Museum. People might have a chance to go in and see some of the displays they have there, which are fantastic.
Chris Shafer: Oh yeah, yeah, I've been there and look forward to going back again sometime soon. It's one of those places where you've got to go a couple of times to really be able to appreciate it all.
Paul Szmal: If people do want to pre-register, Chris, how do they do that?
Chris Shafer: Actually, it's a little late to pre-register now, but if they want to grab a registration form, it's on the website at waterloony.com under the Celebrate Commemorate. Yeah, fill it out ahead of time, and that way when you get there for registration, you don't have to sit there and wait in line with everybody else. You can just, boom, there you go.
Paul Szmal: All right, I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Chris, as always.
Chris Shafer: All right, thank you, and I'd like to give a shout out for our sponsor, which is Sears and Sessler Companies. They've been, well, of course with Jane, they've been involved with this from the start too, so.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and I'll keep my fingers crossed, and we'll put a line in to the big guy to get some good riding weather for Monday.
Chris Shafer: Absolutely.
Paul Szmal: All right, and that's all part of Celebrate Commemorate this weekend in the village of Waterloo. WaterlooNY.com, WaterlooNY.com is the web address where you can find all of the pertinent and relevant information, not only about the bike rally, but about the car show on Sunday, and of course, all of the other activities that are happening, and believe me, there are plenty of things to see and do from Friday right through Memorial Day Monday.
It's 7.59 on FLX morning on Finger Lakes Newsradio. Remember Thursday kicks off with Amy Fuller from the Cuyahoga County Chamber of Commerce coming up at 8.15, and then at 8.35, Tara Silvey from the FLX Chamber will join us for a visit. On the way next, Greg has local news following the CBS World News Roundup.
