Cruise 2001 The 2001 cruise returned to Colorado for the Rocky Mountain Motorworks show in Woodland Park and the Fineline Bug-In at Bandimere Speedway near Denver. The Berg cruisers arrived in Golden in two separate groups; one from the Berg shop in Orange, CA and the other from Salt Lake City, UT. The southern group was to leave the Berg shop in Orange California on Tuesday morning and the SLC group covered the entire distance to Golden on Thursday.

The group leaving the GBE shop consisted of Steve Hollingsworth and Deena Reese in Steve's 69, Jim Kikuchi with his Ghia, Dee Berg and Jim Lynch in the black NB, Clyde Berg was driving the Vanagon pulling Dee's 67 bug with Joell Ehret and their son Gene and daughter Courtney, Joell's parents Mike and Lynne Ehret drove their Lexus, Bill Rogers driving Clyde's red NB, Julie Aleva in the 412, Julio Iniguez and Robert and Bridget Knerr in Robert's NB and myself in my 67 Ghia. John Schuerger was running late reassembling the race car and would have to catch up with us in Mesquite.

The trip to Mesquite went smoothly. We stopped at The Rio in Las Vegas for a leisurely lunch. Jimmy discovered that the bicycle on top of his Ghia was too tall to fit in the covered parking area and had to park outside. Although it was around 106º (much cooler than last year's 120º), we were able to maintain cruising speeds for the most part and arrived at the Oasis Hotel in Mesquite for the night with no problems. We wasted no time locating one of several very nice pools and later locating the buffet. Clyde and Dee also located the gaming machines and did (ahem) quite well! Jim Kikuchi, having been up since the previous morning in San Jose, located his bed and was face-down and asleep in short order.

Wednesday Morning we assembled in the parking lot for the 428 mile leg to Grand Junction, Colorado. Sometime during the night John and Jamey Schuerger had arrived with their daughter Lindsey and sons Nick and Johnny. The Schuergers were pulling John's race bug (sporting a brand new paint job) on a trailer. Julio Iniguez and Robert & Bridget Knerr would be returning to California so we got an otherwise innocent passer-by to take a group photo and mounted up. 

Robert and Julio followed us up the highway a bit to take a video of us passing by and headed for home. The radios came alive with fare-wells.

As we pulled into Grand Junction the clouds were gathering and it looked like rain. Jim Kikuchi and I both needed to check our email so we identified a cyber-cafe in town and Jimmy took off for the address on his bicycle. Meanwhile I got a call on the cell phone from a local enthusiast named Weston Cook who would be joining the cruise at Grand Junction. Weston came over to the hotel and offered to guide me to the cyber cafe address and the two of us set out in the Ghia. When we got to the address there was no cyber cafe to be found, so Weston offered the use his own computer and we motored over to his house which was nearby. Thanks, Wes!

On the way back to the hotel, the Colorado sky opened up with a very noisy and wet thunderstorm! Weston and I got back to the hotel and found Steve and Deena hundled under an overhang talking to Wolfgang and Emily Pfister who, with 9-month old daughter Sierra, would be joining the cruise the following day. Weston would be riding with the Pfisters in their 1966 Kombi. We talked for a time before turning in for the night. Sometime later Jim Kikuchi reappeared at our room, dripping wet. He had clearly been caught out in the storm on his bicycle. As Jimmy said when he opened the door "Well, that was totally BUNK!". He was wet, but still smiling!

Thursday morning dawned clear. As we were only a couple hundred miles from Golden and in no hurry, Wolf led us on a spectacular diversion through Colorado National Monument Park above Grand Junction, including "Wolfs Landing". Clyde soon reported that the Vanagon was overheating whenever we stopped moving. The radiator fan switch had failed. Steve Hollingsworth suggested turning the fan on manually using the air conditioner and the Vanagon ran cool from that point on. Good thinking, Steve!

At Glenwood Springs we stopped to join up with Nate Nutting, who had driven his yellow 1956 Beetle out from Colorado Springs to meet us. We took on fuel and food and headed East. The high passes on I-70 put John Schuerger's rig well behind the main group and as we approached Golden, he was out of radio range. Dee Berg and Jim Lynch had stayed back with John and we were able to reach them on the cell phone to coordinate reforming the group once again so we could all get off I-70 together.

When we pulled into the parking lot at the Hampton Inn in Golden, there was a familiar yellow 1952 Bug with a turbo showing through a hole in the decklid. It was Jerry and Angela Coffin from Minnesota! Also arriving from MN was Mike Pleimling with his beautiful blue 64 Ghia Coupe.

Not more than 15 minutes after we arrived, Art Thraen pulled in with his 66 Bug and the northern group from Salt Lake City. Now that's what I call timing! Arriving with Art were Shaun Gillilan in a 74 Westy, Jay Short with his 65 Bug, Eric Yuhasz and Jim Lane in Eric's Berg 2110 powered 63 Bug (all the way from Modesto, California), Rick Mortensen in his 66 Bug, Harrison Miller and Nick Rothstein in Harrison's truck (with a spare 1600 in the back), Matt Harris in his 71 Super Beetle, Brad Smith in his white 56 Bug, and Ed & Theresa Fall with their 57 Bug and 70 Westy.

Friday morning we made our way to Sewfine Interior Products in Littleton, CO. Sewfine president Carol Kinney, Paula Berens and the staff had taken several hours out of a busy day to treat the cruisers to brunch and gift tee-shirts and Sewfine stickers.

We talked VWs for a few hours and headed for Painters Grinding. Well, we tried to anyway. We missed a turn leaving Sewfine and the whole caravan had to make a massive U-turn ... make that TWO massive U-turns ... to get headed in the right direction! The folks at Sewfine would have had a good laugh if they'd looked up Windemere Street about then! Who wrote up these directions, anyway? :-)

As we arrived at Painters Grinding the staff was just putting out the food. These folks are a class act. During our visit last year, the people at Painters Grinding made the shop available to Art Thraen and John Pagnanelli so they could tear down the engine in Deena's 67. This year we only needed to use a lift so Jay Short could change out a cranky starter. Clyde washed off the 67 he had been towing behind the Vanagon and Julie touched up the 412.

Saturday was the Rocky Mountain Motorworks Car show in Woodland Park. We got up early to meet Chris Hernandez and a host of other VWEC members near Bandimere Speedway for a leisurely and very picturesque ride through the mountains. Courtney Berg rode shotgun in the Ghia with me and took a bunch of very fine pictures in the mountains.

We arrived at the RMMW facility a little after 9:00 and were directed to a prime parking area reserved for the Berg Cruise. The Rocky Mountain show featured live music, a pastoral environment and lots of very nice cars. There was a puppet show for the younger set and a live band for us older kids. There were tech sessions on various topics including Weber carburetor tuning.

After the car show awards were given, the cruise set out for the Black Forest, north of Colorado Springs where my long-suffering wife Bobbie and daughter Moriah were putting the finishing touches on the BBQ. The BBQ was put on with the able assistance of Mitch and Darla Kane and Eric Godelfer of our newly-formed Volkswagen Owners of Colorado Springs (VOCS).

The ride to Black Forest took us east on highway 24 then north on 25. The transition from 24 to 25 is a left-turn through a light and was expected to chop our large group of vehicles into many small pieces. It did. We actually needed to relay messages up and down the line because the strung-out group exceeded the 2-mile range of the FRS radios! I think we actually had two relays going; I was able to communicate with Clyde Berg and Clyde was able to talk to Steve Hollingsworth who could in turn talk to Dee Berg who was near the back. This worked very well!

When the lead group reached the designated exit off the freeway, we stopped and waited for everyone to catch up. The whole group then headed off into Black Forest on the 2-lane blacktop. We were quite a sight and drew plenty of double-takes as we drove through! We spent the next few hours amid the pine trees relaxing, eating and talking. The piece and quiet was broken slightly by Steve Hollingsworth's demonstration rides up and down the road and more emphatically by the sound of John Schuerger's race car engine!

Sunday was the Fineline Bug-In at Bandimere Speedway. The speedway folks had set aside a parking area for the cruisers so we could all park together. Carol Kinney, Paula Berens and the rest of the Sewfine group had a booth set up. Al Burkhart (Al Bugs Me! of Fort Collins, CO) was there and won the Bug Push event (time: 20.669).

The Gene Berg Cruise participants would like to thank everyone who helped make the 2001 cruise one of the best so far! The good people at Sewfine, Painters Grinding, Rocky Mountain Motorworks, VW Enthusiasts of Colorado (VWEC), VW Owners of Colorado Springs (VOCS) and Bandimere Speedway were all superb hosts.

Next year the cruise will travel to Vancouver, British Columbia for the Great Canadian VW Show put on by the DVKK in the third week of August. If you are interested in joining the 2002 cruise, contact any of the organizers listed on the website.

A complete set of pictures can be viewed at the following links: