Taiwan documentary film Go Grandriders has been screened several times in the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of this year. The story of 17 Taiwanese seniors riding motorcycles around the island has been spreading among Bay Area Taiwanese-American communities. Ten of the original grandriders will arrive in San Francisco on August 15. They will begin a new adventure starting from San Jose on August 20, riding along the highway to Los Angeles, California.
Sponsored by Taiwan’s Hondao Senior Citizens Welfare Foundation, Go Grandriders features 17 octogenarians motorcycling 730 miles around Taiwan in 2007. Three days after its first screening in Taiwan in October 2012, the film broke box office records for a Taiwanese documentary film, and was selected to participate in CAAMFest in San Francisco in March this year.
The 10 senior riders who will arrive to participate in the California journey have an average age of 87(the oldest is 95)and will attend the kick-off ceremony at the plaza in front of the Santa Clara Government Center starting at 10:00 am on August 20. The motorcycle fleet will go straight to Highway 1, passing through Monterey and Santa Barbara to reach Los Angeles on August 23.
This time the grandriders will be passengers, sitting on the back of the American motorcycles which will be ridden by the volunteers of the “BMW Motorcycle Club of Northern California”. Despite this, the 430-mile journey still poses major challenges for their elderly minds and bodies.
The American riders are not young either, with an average age of 55. Edward Perry, leader of the senior motorcade, is a former Santa Clara County assistant sheriff, and was deeply moved by the movie Go Grandriders. After learning of the Hondao Foundation’s idea to sponsor a California trip for the Taiwanese grandriders, Perry, whose wife originates from Taiwan, volunteered to participate in planning the journey, as well as organizing a team of American riders and scouting out the route.
On August 16 at 4:00 pm, The Sequoias, a senior community in the heart of San Francisco, and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in San Francisco, will co-host a reception for the group at the Art Gallery in The Sequoias (1400 Geary Blvd., near SF Japantown).
In an effort to match like-minded seniors who are not letting age stop them from living life to the full, these seniors will have a chance to meet at the reception at 4:00pm before seeing an abridged screening of Go Grandriders in the Community Auditorium.
Please do join us at the reception to meet the grandriders and the American volunteers. Go Grandriders will be screened at the Blue Light Theater of Cupertino (21275 Stevens Creek Blvd) three times a day starting from August 16. For the trailer, please click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FpuT5GVHoY.
