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Oakland Stroke MC

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Club History

A NEW FRIENDSHIP

It was the summer of 1974 when Eppie and two comrades took off after a night of partying with no rest in between from the city of Alameda to Calistoga for a motorcycle event. Eppie mounted his 1945 Army style Flathead, the first chopper Eppie built from the ground up and rode before the sun came up. Upon the three friends' arrival to Calistoga, a man by the name of Ron Rodden, who was also in Calistoga for the festivities, approached Eppie's '45 and asked who the owner of the classic was. Eppie stepped forward as the owner. Ron and Eppie introduced each other and Ron said, "nice looking bike. I really like it." That was the start of a friendship and brotherhood from which Oakland Stroke Motorcycle Club would eventually rise.

As Eppie and Ron forged their friendship, Eppie became a prospect for a local club to which Ron and Ron's close friend "Indian" Bill were already members. Later that year, during the club's officer elections, Eppie was voted in as the Master at Arms and Ron was voted in as the Sergeant at Arms. Even though the position of the Master at Arms was the higher of the two offices, Eppie had a great deal of respect for Ron because Ron was the elder of the two and Ron had a great deal of wisdom and experience to offer the novice biker. "Indian" Bill remained a great friend to Ron and was somebody that Eppie always admired. Together, Ron and Eppie made sure that the rules the club voted on were followed-- and had a hell of a time while doing it.

Ron and Eppie picked up a great deal of experience in the world of motorcycle clubs, yet the duo's time with the club they were involved with was short lived due to issues that Ron and Eppie had with that club.

Ron and Eppie, now independent riders, still rode hard and partied hard. Friday night parties didn't end until Sunday or even Monday morning. They went to different organized club parties and hung around at different locales like Ron's close friend, Donald "Snake" Meyers' motorcycle shop. During this time, Eppie met the eleven or twelve year old son of Ron, Craig Rodden. The kid was such a hell-raiser that Eppie quietly wondered if the youth would ever make it to adulthood. Yet there was something about the boy that Eppie always liked.

OAKLAND STROKE IS BORN

Also during this time, Ron and Eppie tossed around the idea of starting up their own club. In their time of riding and partying together, they met other riders and brothers who would be on board with the new club. Coming up with a name for this new club was a challenge. One day while Eppie was over at Ron's house looking through Ron's ample collection of memorabilia, a certain picture in a fantasy art book caught Eppie's eye. The image showed a dog-like creature with dragon's wings and a serpent's tail clutching a full moon. Eppie called over to Ron, "Hey Ron, look at this!" When Ron saw the picture, he said, "Yeah, I like that!" Eppie and Ron considered the name "Night Dogs." But the name just didn't sit well. Then all of a sudden, Ron's face lit up into a devilish grin as the name slipped out—the "Moondogs." in the beginning, that's what the club was going to be called. Little did Ron and Eppie know at the time, in Gothic mythology, there was a legend of a certain gargoyle that, on the night of a full moon, would transform into the Moondog.

After men were recruited to be part of the Moondogs, but before the colors were forged, members had reservations about the name "Moondogs." Some members felt that it just didn't seem to fit a motorcycle club. So it was voted on and decided to pick a new name before the members got patched up.

Meanwhile, Ron and Eppie were hanging out with different clubs in the Bay Area. There were white clubs and black clubs, there was rock ‘n roll music and there was funk music. Ron and Eppie hung out with everybody and enjoyed music all across the board. One band in particular stood out in the collective minds of Eppie and Ron—"Tower of Power." Eppie and Ron's club in the making enjoyed riding and partying with the white clubs and the black clubs. "Tower of Power" was composed of white and black band members and created a certain type of funk music that seemed to capture the essence of what life was like in the Bay Area at the time. A certain short song by "Tower of Power" called "Oakland Stroke" appeared on the album "Back to Oakland" and was a favorite of both Ron and Eppie.

One night, on their way back from a Carlos Santana concert in San Francisco, Ron and Eppie and some of the other concert goers were on the Bay Bridge headed back to Oakland. The album, "Back to Oakland," and the song, "Oakland Stroke," came to mind. Ron and Eppie started singing and inspiration just hit. Right then and there, on the way back to Oakland in 1977, it was agreed that the new club would be dubbed Oakland Stroke Motorcycle Club. The founders being Oakland boys, tried and true, were avid fans of the Oakland Raiders Football team. For this reason, it was decided that the colors of this new Oakland club would be Silver and Black. The patches were made and the members of Oakland Stroke were ready to ride!

THE DORMANT YEARS

During this time of the 1970s, many clubs came and went. Oakland Stroke partied and rode with the rest and the best of them. Unfortunately, too much partying and not enough organization soon caused Oakland Stroke MC to fall by the wayside. Even though the club was never officially disbanded, there came a time when Ron and Eppie felt compelled to collect the Oakland Stroke patches from the remaining members. From that point, the club lie dormant until 2007.

In the early 1980s, Ron's teenage son, Craig, was having a tough time growing up in Oakland. He fell in with a rough crowd and kept getting into trouble. Eppie, who was living in Fremont at the time, invited Craig to live with him for a while to get away from the distractions of life in Oakland. This gave Eppie and Craig a chance to form a friendship which has lasted until the present. Many years later, Craig let Eppie know that he was a very positive influence in Craig's life during that time and helped him find a direction for his life.

Ron's life during these dormant years of the club was far from dormant. Partying became his business and he did it well. He was known by those in his circle to have the finest women, beautiful custom cars and bikes, the best parties, and an endless supply of drugs and booze. Although he soon gained a great deal of success and popularity, by the mid to late 1980s Ron came to the realization that he didn't like where his life was going. He had become someone that he did not like and saw that his life needed a drastic change. So around this time, the partying for Ron ended and he embarked on a new spiritual path. Ron, being an avid motorcycle enthusiast, took his bikes along with him on this new path. Ron enjoyed riding cross country and attending Sturgis Rallies every year. On the way to one of the Strurgis Rallies, "Easy Rider Magazine" was taking pictures of riders on their way to the Rally and captured Ron in a shadowy silhouette with the sun setting in the background. The people of "Easy Rider Magazine" liked this picture of Ron so much that they decided to make it the cover of one of the issues. Ron passed on his love for riding to his sons, Marty and Craig, who eventually rode Ron's bikes as they grew up. Ron and Craig enjoyed Father's Day runs and rode cross country together. Ron even founded another club called B.A.D. MC, which stayed together for some time.

Meanwhile, Eppie traveled around to work at different places while he tried to find a place to settle in. He went to Southern California and vacationed in Mexico for nearly a year. He eventually met his wife and settled down to raise a family. He also spent some time in Seattle, Washington, where the weather was not ideal for this avid rider. After a time, Eppie moved back to the Bay Area, where he reunited with Ron and Craig.

Craig had a 1958 Panhead that he bought from "Indian" Bill. Craig wanted to put that bike in the 1998 Grand National Roadster Show, but it needed a lot of work. Craig and Eppie teamed up to work on the bike to get it ready for the event. Ron was also working on his own bike to enter in the same show. Ron inherited this bike from "Indian" Bill who passed away in the late nineties while living at Ron's house. Ron wanted to fulfill a promise to himself and Bill that Ron would complete the bike and enter it into the show. He dubbed the bike "Bill's Bagger." Both Ron and Craig walked home with second place trophies that year.

Ron became busy with his other fulfilling life pursuits but he always made time to ride. Craig and Eppie bonded while working on the ‘58 Panhead and started riding a lot together. They would go to various organized rides and runs and do their own riding. Craig, on occasion, would mention to Eppie that he wanted the two of them to start up a motorcycle club. Eppie wasn't ready at the time because he was raising his family and the idea just didn't feel right. Neither Eppie nor Craig could have anticipated the events that would come to pass.

RON’S PASSING AND OAKLAND STROKE’S RESURRECTION

In 2007, Ron had a series of strokes that left him physically incapacitated and in a great deal of pain. Eppie was living in Las Vegas and traveling to San Diego when he got a call from Craig letting him know that Ron had another stroke. Craig expressed his concern that Eppie might want to visit Ron. Eppie told Craig that he couldn't get away but to keep him posted with further news of Ron's condition. About a month later, while Eppie was in San Diego, he received a distressed call from Craig saying that if Eppie wanted to see Ron one last time he should come back to Oakland. Eppie made it to Oakland in time to see his old friend Ron's face light up the way Eppie remembered it. In a moment, while Eppie was alone with Ron in his hospital room, Eppie turned to Ron and said,"Ya know Ron, in all these years, I've never been able to capture that magic that we had as friends." Eppie was referring to the times they had in the days of riding with Oakland Stroke. Ron smiled and nodded vigorously in agreement, not being able to speak because of his strokes. A short month later, Ron passed peacefully at home on April 19, 2007. Craig lost a father, Eppie lost a best friend and the world lost a great man.
After Ron's first couple of strokes, while he still had his speech, Ron requested to be cremated. He also requested to have his ashes along with the ashes of his great friend "Indian" Bill (that Ron kept in his glass cabinet since the late nineties) to be spread together.

"Take our ashes and spread them through the hills of Altamont" Ron said to his two sons, Marty and Craig. Ron loved to ride through those hills with all the peaceful windmills on his way to one of his favorite stops– the Mountain House. Craig learned how much his father loved those windmills after talking with his dad's close friend Jimi K who often rode through the hills with Ron. Jimi knew of the perfect spot and took Craig to where he and Ron had stopped and admired the peaceful windmills. They both knew that it was the perfect place to spread the ashes.

Soon after Ron's cremation, Craig took charge by purchasing a memorial site for Ron's family and friends to visit at the top of a hill in the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. Knowing his father was trapped inside his own body, Craig had the words "Forever Free" engraved on Ron's memorial gravestone. Also on the gravestone are two photos-- one of him with his beloved dogs and another photo of Ron waving goodbye while riding on one of his classic Harleys off into the sunset. Half of Ron's ashes were placed in the ground via burial ceremony followed by a service at Ron's Church.

The only thing left to carry on Ron's wishes was the Memorial Ride. Craig gathered as many of Ron's riding friends-- both long-time past and more recent-- to participate on the ride. Knowing that Eppie still had his old set of the Oakland Stroke colors and Craig having his Dad's original two sets, Craig made sure the colors were worn by family (Craig and his cousin Ken Potter a.k.a. "HardTale") on this special day.

The ride was graceful, with over twenty bikes present. Before setting out on the ride through the Altamont Hills, the riders went to visit Ron's memorial site where they all prayed and had themselves and their bikes blessed with some of the ashes from both Ron and "Indian" Bill. With the original Oakland Stroke patches leading the pack, some former members of B.A.D. together with other good friends of Ron rode through the Altamont hills as Craig let the ashes of Ron "Hot" Rodden and "Indian" Bill be carried on the wind.

After the ride, Craig, Eppie, and "HardTale" discussed the idea of resurrecting the club. This would be a difficult job, they thought, as Eppie, the co-founder and only original member of Oakland Stroke, was living in Las Vegas. "I would love do this if only I could find a job in the Bay area that pays as good as the one I had before," said Eppie." "Yes, but my dad is gone and we need you to be the president," replied Craig. Eppie told Craig and "HardTale," "I may not be able to come back for some time and it could be a year or more, if at all."

Craig was unsure of this and did not feel right starting things without Eppie. Coincidentally, two weeks after the Memorial Ride, Eppie received a call from his former employer offering his old job in the Bay Area. When Eppie told Craig of the job offer, Craig said "This is not a coincidence…this is a divine intervention." This was meant to be.
Soon after, Craig called Jimi K. asking if he (along with Eppie and Ken "HardTale" Potter) would be interested in being a part of resurrecting the old club to honor Ron's passing. Jimi thought this was a great idea and told Craig that he would get in touch with some of the former members of B.A.D. and other close friends of Ron. All the men agreed this would be a great way to honor Ron, their friend, mentor and original president of Oakland Stroke. The new founders were now in place.
While admiring the old colors, both Eppie and Craig wanted to give the patches a more modern look and feel without losing the original overall idea. Craig had an idea of replacing the moon on the original patch with a human skull and adding blue and red to the patch. The new center patch was made and the top and bottom rockers were kept original. All of the members loved the updated version and it was unanimously agreed that this would be the new patch for Oakland Stroke. Oakland Stroke Motorcycle Club rides today with the spirits of Ron "Hot" Rodden and "Indian" Bill riding with them freely in the wind…That's our story and we're sticking to it.