Monday, November 12, 2007

Love Ride 24 Thoughts - Huge success

We did the Love Ride yesterday which was the 24th annual Love Ride. As mentioned, it's a huge charity event put on by Glendale (CA) Harley Davidson and has become quite the show over the years with numerous celebrities involved and riding (Peter Fonda, Lorenzo Lamas, Robert Patrick [very cool dude btw] and Jay Leno who has been the Grand Marshal for some time.

As was the case last year, the pre-ride rally at the Glendale dealership was again haphazzard and rushed. And while I absolutely love Leno and think almost anything he says is hilarious, he really should at least give himself a little more time next year and get rid of the bed hair.

This year, after some 13 years of the ride gonnig up to Castaic Lake, the rally headed east out to the Pomona Fairgrounds. And unlike years past when you weren't even able to purchase anything from the limited vendor area, the vendor area this year was huge, full of great booths and for the first time in memory, I was actually interested in some of the stuff. I mean, how many "bad hog", "biker babe", "the bitch fell off", etc t-shirt vendors can you see over and over? The selection here included these staples of course but there was other cool stuff as well.

The weatherman was predicting light rain but the day turned out perfect: light clouds, broken sun and temps in the high 60's so everyone was happy. The free (not including the 70 buck donation per person) grub sucked for the most part but hey, it's all for a good cause so who wants to complain?

The entertainment? Aaaahh....well, listen: After 280 year old BB King two years ago who bored me and most of my friends to tears, we had the Black Crows last year who freakin' tore it up with a great show. Considering past acts have included ZZ Top, Bruce Springsteen, Sammy Hagar, Jackson Browne et al, we were wondering who they might feature this year. And the headliner was.....Greg Allman. Yaaaawwwwwwnnnnn.
Look, I grew up on the Allman Brothers but for Gods' sake, can we get someone playing some current music??? As was the case two years ago, we bailed out shortly after this yawner commenced. It was just as well, we'd gotten their early for the lineup and were amongst the first in the fairgrounds so by the time Allman came on around 2, we'd been there for about 4 hours and had our fun.

One item that did make my day was meeting a minor celebrity from one of my favorite movies of all time. If you're under 50 you might not remember or care but American Grafitti was a fine 1973 film about kids growing up in the early 60's. It starred many people who used it as their launching pad to bigger fame including Harrison Ford, Ron Howard (who was already known as Opie), Richard Dreyfuss, Suzanne Somers and nominated for best supporting actress, Candy Clark who played the spaced out blonde Debbie. We walked into the vendor area and she was sitting there signing autographs. I'm not big on the cult of celebrity in this country and Candy Clark is probably known to very few people but it was very cool to meet her and she couldn't have been nicer. When I saw her I blurted out something like, "Holy Shit" and she laughed and walked right up to me and gave me a huge hug. My riding buddy had no clue who she was at first and later told me he thought we knew each other.

So Candy signed an awesome pic from the movie and was gracious enough to let my wife take a pic of us together. "Peel out" indeed. Thanks Candy.



Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Love Ride 24

It doesn't seem like another year has gone by this quickly but here we are getting ready for the 24th annual Love Ride that is put on every year by Glendale (CA) Harley Davidson.

For the past few years, the Love Ride has started out at the Glendale Harley Davidson dealership and has taken its route up the Golden State freeway to Castaic Lake, a beautiful arena that to me has seemed a perfect venue for the event. Castaic has a great grassy area that is perfect for kicking it, drinking some beer and listening to the entertainment that is usually top notch.

This year though, the ride is heading out to the Pomona fairgrounds where it's actually part of what will be known as California Bike Week. I'm not quite sure how a 3 day event that starts on a Friday can be called bike week but hey....what do I know huh?

The past Love Rides were one day affairs but this year it seems that Glendale Harley is trying to up the ante and create something akin to a bigger event ala the Laughlin run or Vegas Bike week. I guess we'll see what the turnout is like for the activities on Friday and Saturday but my gut tells me that the crowd will be smallish until Sunday when the masses (usually well over 50,000) show up for the actual ride.

According to the Love Ride official site, this year the event will feature "the debut of the Pacific Coast Nationals - a first class, national level flat track racing series; AHDRA drag racing on the famous NHRA strip; a large vendor village/trade show; stunt riding exhibitions; major manufacturer demo rides as well as daily musical entertainment."

Personally, I have little interest in any of it other than the final show on Sunday but it's for numerous charities so hopefully it will grow into something big.

For more info on the Love Ride, be sure to visit the official site at http://www.loveride.org

Monday, November 05, 2007

Penny Lane Centers Charity Poker Run

November 4th was the 2nd annual Penny Lane Poker run held in the Antelope Valley area of Los Angeles county. Penny Lane is a non-profit organization headquartered in North Hills, CA with other services in the Antelope Valley and City of Commerce. Their mission is to help neglected and abused children with educational, housing and mental health services among other things.

Seeing that this was only the 2nd run, I figured it would be somewhat small and wasn't sure I wanted to go. I knew a couple friends were going and had met some new friends online that were helping with the organization but with the big Pats/Colts game on tv Sunday I wasn't too big on riding and missing the game. Not that I even cared who won, I just thought it would be a good game to watch.

But with the weather being absolutely beautiful with warm sunny skies and since it was for a good cause I decided to ride out the 40 miles to where the run started.
As it turned out, it was a great day, fantastic riding out in the desert which I'm usually not too big on, and the last stop of the run had some good food and drinks at a local hang out called The Trap in Lancaster, CA. I would assume that the turn out wasn't quite what the organizers had hoped for but the folks that did show up were a great crowd. Definitely a good mix of down to earth people including a few members of a well known motorcycle club. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the day.

At the urging of a new friend who was helping run the prize allocation, I bought more raffle tickets than I usually do but was more than happy to give some cash to Penny Lane (and if you're wondering, yes, it was named after the Beatles song).
Well, as usual, I won zilch in the raffle, got a crappy hand on the poker run and other than a t shirt I gave to my wife, won nothing.

Harley Davidson Blog

My riding buddy Ken however seemed to have some kind of biker karma working for him and won 4 seperate times. Nice stuff including a crazy gift basket that contained a 12 pack of beer, jerky, nuts, chips etc. How the hell he got that stuff home I do not know but I'm sure he's enjoying it.

Harley Davidson Blog

But it was a great day and as I said, Penny Lane is a great cause for some underpriveleged kids in the LA county area. A lot of poker runs can get huge. In fact, next weekend is the monster Love Ride in LA. In comparison to the couple hundred folks who showed up for this run, the Love Ride has grown to an enormous rider count of about 25,000. When it gets that big, you never really know where all that money is goingr and you can sometimes forget what you were riding for in the first place. The gals who ran the Penny Lane ride made sure we were both entertained and also reminded us of why we were riding.



If you have a minute, check out their website at Penny Lane

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Leaving Reno through the high Sierras

On our way back to the hotel from Virginia City, we stopped at Reno Harley Davidson. Laurie had seen a full coverage helmet at the Carson City dealer and fell in love with it. I was surprised that she was even considering it but she confessed that if it was raining on the way home and windy as expected, she'd really be more comfortable. No worries.

The gals at the Reno HD dealer were the greatest. Big props to them for taking time to properly fit Laurie with a nice helmet. Neither of us are helmet nazis. We figure to each their own and in fact, we have ridden without when we're in a state where it's legal. But she totally fell in love with this thing.

So we did some more vendor stuff downtown on Saturday night but planned on heading out on Sunday.

After another night of gambling (and losing) we woke up Sunday to rain again but figured we should get out of Dodge before it got too bad. We loaded up, waited for a little break in the weather and took off. And it started to pour.

Now I know a lot of y'all are used to riding in rain but hey, we're in southern California. If it's raining, it's usually in December-March and there is no good reason to be on the bike anyway due to the "cold". So we rode down 395 in a light to mild rain. Laurie was totally diggin' on the helmet while my mug was getting soaked.

We got out of it and rode on down towards Bishop, California where we planned to spend the night. I have to tell you that the ride down 395 through the Sierras was breathtaking. We were literally openmouthed at some of the scenery.

A little north of Bishop is the old mining town of Bodie California where I'd always wanted to visit. The place is a ghost town now and the buildings left standing are virtually the way they were over 100 years ago. The casino still has chips on the tables covered with decades of dust.

After a gas up in Bridgeport, we took the turn off the main highway to go up to Bodie. What I didn't know was that it was 10 miles of paved road and 2 or 3 of gravel. Hmmm....what the hell, let's do it.

We started climbing and the clouds started getting blacker and blacker and it got colder and colder. We got about 7 miles in and we said, "Screw this" when we started seeing little flurries of snow coming down. Cold? Uh....yeah.


At 8,000 feet it can get cold. Bodie can wait for the summer!
We got back on the main highway and took off for Bishop where we had some dinner and crashed.

The next day we took off for the last leg home. This was a great trip. Reno, in my opinion is a better run than Laughlin for a few reasons:

1 - Scenery. Living in southern California, there is way too much desert. And while I love the desert, I miss TREES! Riding on lazily curving rodes surrounded by oak, pine, etc is my idea of a great ride. Blasting through the desert areas of LA is not.

2 - Weather. Laughlin is in late April and late April in Nevada can be brutal. Last year the temperature was 112 degrees. Nice huh? While our first trip up to Reno this year was during a freak cold/rain spell for California, late September in the high sierras and Reno are is usually perfect for riding.

So, while we will absolutely hit Laughlin in 2008, we have pretty much decided that instead of doing the Vegas bike week in early October of '08, we'll do the late September Reno run again. This time though, we'll leave a day early and go right up 395. Our only regret was that we pulled in on Friday rather than Thursday. Next year, we'll have all day Friday for more riding and fun.

Riding up to Virginia City

So we start the ride up to Virginia City and I quickly realize, "UH....wow, we're really climbing here." 3,000 feet, 3,500 feet, 4,000 feet, 5,000 feet. Okay, it's getting pretty cold and we got some light drizzle coming down but the views are world class.

I like to think I know a little bit of history about the west seeing that I've lived out here since I was 16 but other than references to Virginia City on the old tv show "Bonanza", I had no clue as to the history of this amazing place.

Mark Twain lived here in the early 1860's and this is actually where he changed his name from Samuel Clemens. Pretty cool. The old Comstock Lode which turned out tons of silver and gold was here and a lot of people claim it financed the Civil War.

Truly an amazing place and when we got into town it was clear that this was a regular biker spot and on this particular weekend the place was filled with bikes.




We had a little drizzle while we were there but we had a fantastic time. This really is a great hangout during the Reno run or any other time for that matter. The local shop owners really gave us the impression that they enjoyed having us there.
And what is up with law enforcement in Nevada??? When we go to the Laughlin run every year, the cops have an attitude of no tolerance. Girls flashing? Forget it...busted. Here, same state, the cops were amazing. Hell, they were holding the crowds back from crossing the street as the girls were riding by flashing! I'll take these guys over the ones down south any day.

All in all, a great day. We decided that rather than go back down the way we came up with all the switchbacks and twisties, we'd head out of town on the other side and cruise back to Reno via Carson City.

Reno ad nauseum

Poker runs. Who the hell gets up this early????
After a night of gambling, drinking, and in my case, too many cigars, we woke up on Saturday around 9:30. We had wanted to go on the poker run but the minute I opened the curtains in the room I realized that was not going to happen.

The rain was pounding, the hail was falling and the air was freakin' cold. Uh....summer in Reno anyone? WTF??? Were we doomed to spend the day in the casino along with a bunch of other pissed off bikers? I could see it now, drunk by noon, losing money at the tables and bored out of my mind by 3:00.

I went down to get some coffee and while in line, heard some gal talking about mudlides and waterspouts back down in L.A. Nice. With luck, a tornado would strike us all shortly and put us out of our upcoming misery.

Back up in the room, drinking coffe and figuring what we'd do for the day, we looked out the window and saw the clouds breaking and the sun coming out. HEY! Maybe it would be a good day for the run after all.

By the time we got down to the bike, the skies were gorgeous: deep blue with huge puffy clouds opening up. We got on Lucille and started riding out to the sign up for the poker run.

About 15 minutes out we realized there was no way we'd make it to the sign up by 11:00 so we figured out Plan B: Ride up to Virginia City. I had no idea where it was or the history of the town but we started following the signs and started climbing into the mountains along with hundreds of other bikes. The clouds started rolling in again.

More Reno Street Vibrations

So, we wound up at the Reno Street Vibrations gig on Friday around 2:00 and checked into the hotel. The Grand Sierra Casino was once a Hilton I believe and had been sold and refurbished. If you want to spend the bucks, this place is pretty nice. Our room was fantastic, all marble, plasma tv's in the room and the bathroom (??) and that bathroom....damn! NICE! I've stayed at some amazing hotels in my day but this was one of the best if not the best.

Since she was sort of beat up from the ride, Laurie took a nap while I cruised around Reno and got our event passes. Turns out the hotel you had to pick it up from was a few miles out of the downtown area. Seeing that it was a great day for a ride, I took my time getting out there and cruised around a little. Okay, I got lost. But it was still fun cruising Reno where I hadn't been in over 30 years.

We had some dinner and walked around the vendor area later that night. I was surprised at how uncrowded it was. I'd heard that Reno was one of the bigger rallies of the year and getting bigger. Turns out that since the west coast had such a shitty weather pattern for the days preceding the rally, the turnout was less than expected.

Laurie isn't a big partier and neither of us are big into browsing vendor booths for extended periods (how many t shirts can you look at??) so we rode back to the hotel around 9:00 or so and proceeded to get hammered and gambled most of the night away. Our plan for Saturday was to do a poker run that had sign ups from 8:00 - 11:00.