Laughlin River Run, 2007
As usual, the Laughlin River run was a great time. This being the 25th anniversary of the run, the crowd seemed a helluva lot bigger than last year. We'd heard they were expecting approximately 70,000 riders into town and based on the numbers we saw I'd have to say they were probably right. The crowds were huge.
The ride out from LA county on Interstate 40 was beautiful compared to last year which was cold and drizzling until we got deep into the desert. We left LA around 9:30 with clear skies, bright sun and temps in the upper 60's or low 70's. Perfect morning.
By the time we got to the California desert town of Ludlow for a butt break, it was starting to heat up and it was t-shirts the rest of the way into Laughlin.
As usual, we had to book our room early and as usual, the typical $50/night room was bloated to $550 for three nights. For this rate, we stayed at the Riverside "Resort" and Casino as we did last year. I use the term "resort" loosely but it's a decent hotel with clean rooms, a decent restaurant and is at the north end of casino row which makes for a quick dash out of the madness if you want to take a ride.
Last year we opted to park Lucille in the unsecured, uncovered parking. The upside of this was that it was free. The downside was that there was no security (not a big issue) buy it was uncovered and hopping on the seat, even if you had a towel over it, at 9 in the morning (let alone noon) was an ass burning experience.
This year, we said f-it and paid for secured, covered parking. On top of that, we opted for the designated spot so it ran us $100 for the 3 day weekend to park. But it was nice being able to walk out the door and have the bike right there.
The weekend was a blast with some great vendor booths, great bands and music and awesome rides in the Arizona desert. The issue for some though was the brutal heat on Saturday. On Saturday, a ride out to Oatman, AZ, the old mining town situated on Old Route 66, the temperature was 112 degrees and caused some distress for Laurie on the back of the bike. But outside of that, it was a great time as usual.
The number of cops also in attendance was unbelievable. I'm all for security and have had many heated discussions with other riders about the presence of law enforcement at these events but even I felt this was a case of overkill. The crowds were well behaved from what we saw outside of a few knuckleheads getting too drunk but come on, the sheer number of cops was staggering. They too were well behaved and pretty tolerant from what I saw but there were a lot of them.
The ride back Sunday was slow going partly because of frequent stops to cool off but also due to freeway construction on Interstate 40 that caused a miles long traffic jam of big rigs and amazingly, hundreds of people who trailered their bikes. We wound up splitting lanes for miles once back over the California border. The usual 4 1/2-5 hour ride wound up taking us almost 6 hours with all the stops.
The ride out from LA county on Interstate 40 was beautiful compared to last year which was cold and drizzling until we got deep into the desert. We left LA around 9:30 with clear skies, bright sun and temps in the upper 60's or low 70's. Perfect morning.
By the time we got to the California desert town of Ludlow for a butt break, it was starting to heat up and it was t-shirts the rest of the way into Laughlin.
As usual, we had to book our room early and as usual, the typical $50/night room was bloated to $550 for three nights. For this rate, we stayed at the Riverside "Resort" and Casino as we did last year. I use the term "resort" loosely but it's a decent hotel with clean rooms, a decent restaurant and is at the north end of casino row which makes for a quick dash out of the madness if you want to take a ride.
Last year we opted to park Lucille in the unsecured, uncovered parking. The upside of this was that it was free. The downside was that there was no security (not a big issue) buy it was uncovered and hopping on the seat, even if you had a towel over it, at 9 in the morning (let alone noon) was an ass burning experience.
This year, we said f-it and paid for secured, covered parking. On top of that, we opted for the designated spot so it ran us $100 for the 3 day weekend to park. But it was nice being able to walk out the door and have the bike right there.
The weekend was a blast with some great vendor booths, great bands and music and awesome rides in the Arizona desert. The issue for some though was the brutal heat on Saturday. On Saturday, a ride out to Oatman, AZ, the old mining town situated on Old Route 66, the temperature was 112 degrees and caused some distress for Laurie on the back of the bike. But outside of that, it was a great time as usual.
The number of cops also in attendance was unbelievable. I'm all for security and have had many heated discussions with other riders about the presence of law enforcement at these events but even I felt this was a case of overkill. The crowds were well behaved from what we saw outside of a few knuckleheads getting too drunk but come on, the sheer number of cops was staggering. They too were well behaved and pretty tolerant from what I saw but there were a lot of them.
The ride back Sunday was slow going partly because of frequent stops to cool off but also due to freeway construction on Interstate 40 that caused a miles long traffic jam of big rigs and amazingly, hundreds of people who trailered their bikes. We wound up splitting lanes for miles once back over the California border. The usual 4 1/2-5 hour ride wound up taking us almost 6 hours with all the stops.
posted by Mike at 10:52 AM PERMALINK
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home