Harley Blog

Laughlin River Run and Dal-Con Promotions

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:16:00 +0000

Life sure can be a bitch can't it? And the way she can sneak up on ya and bite ya on the ass always amazes me. I'll call this post, Life's Curve ball.

So, my last post, which was a mere few weeks ago was all about the Laughlin River Run and how my wife and I were getting ready to head out on the 23rd for yet another ride out to the desert. I had been talking about the state of the economy and how many of our friends were not going to be able to attend this year due to the economic meltdown.

We felt fortunate if not downright blessed that we were doing pretty good money-wise and we were looking forward to riding out to Laughlin and enjoying ourselves for a few days. I was also wondering how the turn out would be this year due to the economy and also noted that while the run has, in my opinion, completely ripped off bikers in regards to the cost at least they lowered the cost of room packages this year.

I had held off on the Laughlin River Run reservations just out of laziness but also out of some strange sense of...I dunno....caution I guess. Well, somewhere near the end of March, I think the 29th or 30th, I said to my wife, "I better get online and book those River Run rooms before they get sold out". I had been keeping an eye on them and noticed that ALL of the hotels still had rooms available. So I got on, went through the Dal-Con Promotions website and slapped down my $435.00 for our stay at the Riverside Casino.

Which brings me to "the curve ball".

Not 3 days later, over half our income was gone.
Poof
Vanished
Nada

As in, "Welcome to the California Employment Development Department"
Better known to y'all as UNemployment.

Yep, after waiting all that time, as soon as we paid for it, we couldn't afford to go.

I'm not going to belabor the whole bit about being out of a job though. The point of this post is to talk about Dal-Con Promotions.

Along with other bikers too numerous to mention, I've been quick to berate Dal-Con here in this blog and in conversations as being money-grubbing and not looking out for bikers. Considering the cost of the Laughlin River Run packages in the past, I think there has been some merit to that. When compared to something like Vegas Bike Week and the cost of a room there, Laughlin has been outrageously overpriced and many bikers have bitched about it for years.

So when we figured out we really needed to cancel our reservations, I saw on my confirmation email from Dal-Con that cancellations would incur a $100 charge as long as the room was canceled 30 days PRIOR to the event.

Considering I had only booked the room about 3 weeks prior to begin with, I was concerned about getting at least a partial refund.

I called Dal-Con the same day. I'll break down their response in my next post.

Another Year, Another Laughlin Run, But somethings different

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:28:00 +0000

What's it been? 7 or 8 months since I last posted? Who says blogging can't be fun?
So another winter is almost behind us and what a change this one has been. Me and the wife found ourselves pretty much picking up our lives and moving 90 miles east to beautiful Riverside California. A job-offer-she-couldn't-refuse came around and despite my reservations about leaving the relative security of a position she'd had for 10 years, plus moving out of a house we owed very little on, we took the plunge and switched it up.

So we (gulp)put the old house on the market back in September right before the world went to hell in a hand basket. To our amazement, the old homestead sold in four days. We thought we'd have easy pickin's finding something out here since the real estate market had tanked here in the inland empire area of southern Cali about twice as bad as anywhere else. Well, to make a short story long, we found a foreclosed house, put in our offer (one of only two, ours being the highest) and the night before we left for Vegas Bike week, we found out the other (lower) offer had been accepted. WTF??? But God smiled on us and we eventually wound up getting the house.

So we spent the rest of the winter and early spring focusing on the new abode with very little riding to be had. During this time of course...well, as I said....the world seems to be a different and much weirder place with people by the thousands losing their homes, their jobs, their savings and sad to say, their hope. It's a fucked up world right now and weird indeed. So I feel blessed to have what I have and I think at this time it's probably best to heed a bit of advise from my old sage HS Thompson: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" So I say we all need to turn pro, help each other out and try to remember that it's during times like these that friends turn to each other.

I have no idea what any of this has to do with my original idea to post something about this years Laughlin River Run but I guess I got off on a tangent. But in a way it does. Last year we noticed a very thinned out crowd at the event from years past yet the rip off the biker prices at the Laughlin casinos hadn't changed one penny. They were still raping us with $200+/night rooms in a shit hole corner of the desert where they normally are lucky to get $75/night on any given weekend.

This was of course in late April of '08 and the economy was just starting to show signs of deeper problems and at the time we wondered what the '09 event would be like and whether the event promoters, DAL-CON Promotions, would pull the bloated heads out of their fat asses and figure out that you can't continue to screw people with those prices.

So sure enough for this years event the prices at most of the casinos are down considerably. We usually stay the the Riverside and if not mistaken, we're usually taken for about $650 bucks for the 3 nights. This year, I believe the online price is about $435. About $145/night which is still a RIP OFF (y'all listening DAL-CON???) when compared to the Vegas Bike Week for example, but it's better than it has been.

So we're gonna head on out once again but our good riding buddies we usually go with will be staying home this year. Hmmmmm....wonder why? Well, she's a realtor and he's in commercial construction. That they even have jobs that still pay is a miracle but they're not taking anything for granted and are hoping that they can make it on some local runs over the summer and then have a nice time in Vegas come fall.

Strange, sad, sorry times indeed. It should be interesting to see what the crowd is like there this year. I pray for everyone that we are at or nearing the bottom of this black hole and that the rest of '09 and 2010 bring better days.

Las Vegas Bikefest 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:38:00 +0000

Well, as sure as the sun coming up, the days are flying by and we're in the dog days of summer and fall will officially be here in about 4 weeks or so. The riding has been great for the most part during the summer since we've pretty much stuck to coastal rides. My wife pretty much informed me back in late June that her days of riding while it's 95-100 degrees are over.

But with fall comes a couple of great rallies on the west coast: Street Vibrations up in Reno, Nevada and Las Vegas Bikefest. We did the awesome ride through the Sierras last year and hit the Reno event but at the urging of some riding buddies we'll be sticking a little closer to home this year and doing Bikefest.

October is usually pretty nice in Vegas, nothing extreme as far as temps go so we're looking forward to some nice rides and of course, Vegas can't be beat. We're pretty much Vegas veterans, typically going there 2-3 times a year and were just there a couple of weeks ago and as usual, stayed on the strip since we get comped for our room. But knowing we would be staying downtown for Bikefest and having not ventured down there for about 15 years, we took a drive to check out Fremont street where the event will take place.

Comparing downtown Vegas to the strip is sort of like comparing a mini-bike built with an old lawn mower engine to a Harley Ultra-Classic. It's pretty much apples and oranges. But strolling down Fremont, checking out the old school casinos like Fitzgeralds, Binions, and The Four Queens where we'll be staying, really drove home how cool it should be for our first time at Bikefest. We're definitely looking forward to riding out with friends and meeting new ones once we get there!

And if our recent string of luck in Vegas continues...all the better!

Laughlin River Run 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:57:00 +0000

We hit the Laughlin River Run again this year and there seems to be some changes afoot. Even as a newbie to the event having only been going for a few years, I'm starting to really pick up on some bitching from even local residents about the whole affair.

To start though, we had a blast. What's not to like about getting together with tens of thousands of your closest friends? We took of from SoCal on Thursday as usual. The weather here had been mild to a little chilly in the mornings leading up to the ride and the one thing we had hoped not to do was to drag the leathers out. It really does suck to load the bike down with leather only to peel everything off 4 hours later in the middle of the desert and not put them back on again for the entire weekend.

On Thursday morning though, we woke up to sunny skies but temps in the high 50's. We figured by the time we hit the road around 9 it would warm up a little but we wound up wearing leather jackets anyway. We left the chaps at home but were glad we had the jackets as it never really warmed up enough to take them off until we got to Goffs.

We took our time and pulled into the Riverside in Laughlin around 3:30 after having stopped on Needles Hwy for some "refreshments" we needed for our room. We found out a couple of years ago that there are no glass bottles sold anywhere in the casino strip area for the weekend so we usually pull into a market for our supply of beverages.

As usual, we paid the $100 for a weekends worth of reserved parking right in front of the main entrance. If you have never been and ever wind up staying at the Riverside (the only place I can comment on), I say definitely at least pay for secure parking and if you can afford it, reserved parking. It's worth it for the piece of mind and even though the temps were very mild this year, there's nothing quite like hopping onto your bike after it's been sitting in the 110 degree sun which is what you get if you park in the general parking section.

And speaking of mild temps....wow...what a great weekend for riding. The past two years have been brutal with temps in the 100's and last year was beyond reality with highs above 110. Not what I consider good riding weather by any stretch. But this year was perfect, highs in the mid 80's to low 90's. Good enough that my wife said she wanted to make the ride out to Oatman even after having sworn she'd never go again after last years nightmare.

Our plans for riding for the weekend were to keep everything unplanned except for Oatman and a possible ride out to another ghost town called Chloride. As it turned out, we blew off Chloride for another (mis)adventure I'll rant about later but we did hit Oatman on Friday

As usual, Oatman was filled with people but as in Laughlin, the number was way down from years past so we were able to find a place for the bikes without a hassle. Our friends who rode with us this year had never been to Oatman so they got off on the donkeys (mules? burros? jackasses?) that cruise the streets. It never ceases to amaze me that these little guys have no fear of anyone or anything. One hilarious scene was someone cruising up the street on his scoot with two little dogs sitting in a trailer he had behind him. As he was stuck in traffic, they spotted one of the donkeys standing in the middle of the road and started yapping uncontrollably. They were frothing at the mouth and I honestly thought they'd self combust from their combined angst. Clearly amused or curious, the donkey walked a little closer to them and started a stare down. The dogs were going insane, hopping up and down, yapping and probably pissing themselves to boot. Traffic was stuck so the rider wasn't going anywhere and neither was the donkey. After what seemed like 5 minutes but was probably closer to 1 or 2, the donkey decided he'd had enough of these two little mutts and started to walk away. They kept barking and after he'd taken about 10 steps he stopped again and turned to give them one last look before moving on. We were hysterical. A great Oatman moment.

This little fella never even woke up while numerous riders took their pictures with him.

After hanging out and having our one beer each due to the ever expanding police presence and the sobriety checkpoints, we headed back into town. The rest of the weekend was in typical Laughlin style, checking out the vendors, watching my buddy spend a few hundred dollars...lol...and on Friday night, heading to the tattoo "convention" at one of the hotels. It was pretty small but my wife did find a cool artist who she's going to have add more ink to her back.

Saturday featured a cluster fuck of a poker run and on Sunday we headed back home.

Some notes about the run: After the shootout a few years back, the cops have become more of a force every year. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pro cop and would prefer to have some of them around over rival mc's having it out with drawn weapons but there has to be a middle ground. Maybe it's because most of our riding was not around the casino area but I felt there were more cops last year. From what I was told I was definitely wrong on that. Even employees of the hotels were griping that if it keeps up, they'll wind up killing the run completely. Whether it was due to the heavy handed tactics the cops are using or the fact that the economy sucks and many people cannot afford the rip off room rates, attendance this year was WAY down. I'd say it might have been 70% of last years numbers. Times are hard for many folks and that brings me to my last point.

Pretty much the only way to book a room at one of the main casinos for the run is through some corporation called Dal-Con Enterprises. I have no idea who these people are but at some point, they or the casinos are going to take a reality check on the prices they charge. We stayed at the Riverside and while we are fortunate enough to be able to afford it, $600 for three nights at a hotel that normally charges about $75 per night is a total joke. The fact that you get a free bandana, pin, are entered in the poker run and get two tickets to a crappy concert by a crappy 70's geezer band does not justify it. Conversely, at Vegas Bike Week in October, rates are very reasonable and might even be better at the selected hotels than if you came without booking for the event. We ran into too many local residents of Bullhead City who felt that the cops and the prices were killing the event.

Note to Dal-Con and others involved: Get a grip on the number of police and take a look at the package rates!

It's time again, Laughlin River Run 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:04:00 +0000

Late April and it's time for our first decent sized event of 2008 with the annual trek to Laughlin Nevada for the 26th annual River Run. For some reason, the small group of us that are going are practically jonesing this year. And for the life of me I can't figure out why but we are plenty stoked about riding out. And what's not to love?

Cheesy hotel/casinos that charge exhorbitant rates? Check.
Gazillions of cops? Check.
The potential for temps over 100 degrees? Check.
Crappy "geezer" bands from the 70's (can you say Blue Oyster Cult?). Check, check.

Don't matter though, we fucking love riding out and love the rally more.
Anyone heading, be safe, have fun.

Love Ride 24 Thoughts - Huge success

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:50:00 +0000

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.

Love Ride 24

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:56:00 +0000

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

Penny Lane Centers Charity Poker Run

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:22:00 +0000

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.

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.

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

Leaving Reno through the high Sierras

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:38:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:16:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:06:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:58:00 +0000

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.

Reno Street Vibrations

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 03:16:00 +0000

Wow...I cannot believe how long it's been since my last post. 3 months???!!! WTF???
Okay so I've been busy. Okay, really..I've been lazy with the posting but we did do some great rides recently and the longest was the Street Vibrations rally in Reno.

We took off from Southern California in cold and wet conditions. Since my wife hadn't been up to Hollister I figured we'd head up the 101 freeway through Santa Barbara, Santa Maria etc and spend the night in the Hollister/San Juan Bautista area.

We got pretty lucky and completely missed all rain. In fact, it was pretty warm and sunny until we got to Atascadero where we stopped for a beer and lunch. From there up to Hollister it was cloudy but still...no rain.

We did some site seeing when we got to San Juan. It's a great little historic town that's in the middle of beautiful farm country so it's a great stop for a day.

After we walked around a bit and had some dinner and drinks, we just kicked it in the room and got ready for an early start out in the morning to head up Interstate 5 up to Sacramento and then up I80 to Reno.

Loud Pipes - Here We Go Again

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:57:00 +0000

I noticed a repsonse on the blog by someone who claims to be a cop and how he enjoys giving out tickets to bikers that have loud pipes. Rather than replying directly to him (which someone did already anyway and definitely spanked the shit out of him), I started doing some thinking about certain laws that are already on the books and those that are being proposed.

I don't claim to know jack about law but if a city or any government entity has a law regarding the noise levels, wouldn't it have to apply to ALL causes of noise? If my motorcycle's exhaust system exceeds a certain decible level and the kid in the car next to me has a stereo system that exceeds that same level, who's getting the ticket? Is the cop going to pull us both over? Somehow I'm doubting that.

And if me, the biker gets the ticket, doesn't it stand to reason that there is some kind of selective enforcement here?

I guess what I'm thinking is: If any city has these laws on the books, wouldn't it be easy for a motorcycle group to challenge that law on the basis of it's inherent unfairness? I mean, you can't say only CERTAIN types of noise makers can be cited, it has to apply to all types of causes of noise doesn't it?

60th Anniversary Hollister Motorcycle Rally

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 22:17:00 +0000

It's been way too long since I've posted but have had tons of issues going on that needed to be dealt with.
However, after a stressful June, I decided to ride up to central California and hit Hollister, CA for the 60th anniversary Hollister Rally. I'm glad I did
This was a fun weekend. It didn't have the nightlife like the Laughlin run has if for no other reason there isn't any gambling. Probably just as well for me as it kept the finances in check and also kept my alcohol consumption down.

Since I wasn't able to get a room right in town, I settled for a motel in San Juan Bautista, CA. I was expecting some run down farming town but was surprise to find a pretty cool and historic town.

San Juan is the home to a very cool old mission that was built in the mid 1800's. I definitely had a cool time walking around town and checking out the sites and talking to a few locals. And speaking of locals, despite the fact that last years rally was cancelled due to objections by some Hollister residents and business owners, pretty much everyone I spoke to seemed to be totally cool, if not happy with the bikers heading into town.

So after doing some siteseeing in San Juan on Saturday, I headed into Hollister to check out the rally.

Motorcycle Safety

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Fri, 18 May 2007 06:12:00 +0000

I was reading an article recently about motorcycle safety and it was mentioned that one of the biggest causes of accidents is when a driver in a car turns left in front of a bike. I imagine this is one of the most frequent causes of accidents even if it's only cars involved as well.

The author of the article who was a motorcycle cop pointed something out that I always felt was one of those no brainers. He was talking about how many riders feel that one of the ways to avoid an accident, whether it's with that left turning cager in front of you or any car for that matter, is to make eye contact with the driver.

This always struck me as strange and actually seemed an impossible thing to accomplish. Considering the fact that virtually every rider on a bike is wearing some type of eye gear, and that almost every time that eye gear is in the form of sunglasses or darkened goggles, there is no real way to make eye contact.

You may look that driver dead in the eye but the point of the theory is for THEM to look YOU in the eye and make that connection. With a pair of shades on one or both of you, it is almost impossible.

And let's say you were able to get that visual contact and recognition. How many times have you seen someone pull right out in front of you or heard of an accident where someone said, "I saw him, I just thought I had enough time to turn."?

The cop who authored the article and had been riding for over 20 years made the statement that I'm sure many of us already know: Watch for movement in the wheels of the vehicle. I know that personally, my focus is on those tires of any car that has the potential to jump out in front of me. It just seems a better bet to trust my own abilities if I get that split second jump on an movement.

Safe riding to everyone!

Why do people trailer their bikes?

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 17 May 2007 04:05:00 +0000

Okay, I am hardly the veteran rider or young rider who seems to have no problem cruising on the interstate at 80 mph for 4 hours, without a windshield, and holding on to ape hangers with one hand looking relaxed as can be. How the hell do they do it? For me, it is a lower back issue. Having had surgery about 15 years ago to remove a disk that had ruptured from weight lifting, there's not much that really bothers it but for some reason, long rides without the windshield take a toll.

But what I cannot fathom is going to an event like the Laughlin run and trailering one or more bikes. Listen, if I made the trek to Sturgis, I can see where you might want to. But I'm talking about people that live in southern California, about 250 miles from Laughlin who trailered their bikes.

Going out on Thursday we saw tons but coming back on Sunday, along with the freeway being down to one lane due to construction, the staggering number of people who had one, two and sometimes four bikes in the trailer was mindblowing.

And I'm not talking all custom choppers where at least you could make an argument for it. I'm talking about softails and touring bikes. I hate to use the phrase as I've been accused myself but RUB comes to mind. I mean, come on now....how bad can it be folks??? Just get on your bike and ride it!

The most amazing sight we saw though was this: Nice big pickup truck with a trailer attached to it and in the trailer was a monster HD Classic...WITH A SIDECAR! They've basically got a Cadillac on wheels along with a Barcalounger attached to it but they couldn't ride it out. That was quite the sight.

More on Laughlin Run - Desert Heat

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:57:00 +0000

On Saturday we took a ride out to Oatman, AZ which is an old mining town up in the hills and off of old Route 66. Part of what amazes me most every time we ride up there is imagining what it must have been like about 70 years ago during the depression and dust bowl days when folks would make the trek out west in their beat up cars to start a new life. I always get this "Grapes of Wrath" feeling and can imagine how brutal the conditions must have been for those people.

This year, with the beefed up law enforcement, we hit sobriety check points going up to and coming back from Oatman. As I'd had nothing to drink before we headed up I wasn't worried but I knew that I'd want some cold beer once we got up there and had to deal with that issue.

By the time we got up there, Laurie was already getting nailed by the heat and sun. It's about a 30 minute ride from Laughlin and we left at about 11:00 am so it was already in the 90's. Once there we walked around and were able to get in some shade and eventually wound up in a restaurant for lunch and some beers but as I was concerned about drinking too much and hitting that checkpoint on the way back, kept it to just a couple Bud lights.

There really isn't much to do in Oatman except walk around and hit some of the cheesy t-shirt stores or if you're into it, antiques. But it is always fun to hang out with a cigar and a beer and check out the parade of bikes and in some cases the women.

Of course, there's always those crazy burros wandering the streets that are so amazingly tame. They really are fun to hang out with and if you're willing to spend a buck on a bag of carrots, you've got a friend for life.

All in all a great afternoon although I did wind up having to take a field sobriety test at the checkpoint on the way back. It was random, they asked my buddy who was ahead of me if he'd had anything to drink and he said a couple light beers about two hours ago (truthfully) and the let him go but when I answered the same question with the same answer, the cop politely asked me if I'd mind doing a quick check. No problems ensued and we were off in less than a minute. The heat became brutal on the way back, about 112 degrees and we had to stop in a fast food place for a drink and to let Laurie cool down but it was another great day.

Laughlin River Run, 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Mon, 14 May 2007 17:52:00 +0000

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.

Lack of posts, Laughlin stuff soon

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sun, 13 May 2007 20:04:00 +0000

Amazing how a couple weeks can get right by ya. I was firm in my resolve to keep regular posts going especially with some pics and stories about the Laughlin run but found the past two weeks just flew by and our pics are still in the camera.

That said, I am adamant that I will catch up on it all in the next few days.

In the meanwhile, today is Mothers Day so we're heading out to spend time with family. Unfortunately, despite it being a gorgeous day in Southern California, we are taking the cage.

Happy Mothers day to all!

Here's the latest add ons to Lucille

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:22:00 +0000

A thousand bucks doesn't get ya much these days. Not at a Harley dealership anyway. But damn she looks good. I never started out trying for an old school look but it's leaning that way a bit. Not that the big-ass passenger seat for the long haul contributes to the look in a positive way but you can use your imagination.

Next post will be post Laughlin unless I can or better yet, if I feel like posting from Laughlin on a Blackberry.

Let's spend some big cash on the Harley

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:28:00 +0000

I had an appointment made to take Lucille, yeah she has a name, in for a 15k service before we took off for Laughlin. And before anyone even starts, No, I don't do my own wrenching. Why? Because I don't enjoy it much, because I can afford to have a mechanic who enjoys his work and isn't stressing over missing tools, and mostly because I don't have time.

Okay, so we got that out of the way. So like I was saying, I had planned to take the bike down to get the 15k service and since the fuel gauge is acting up and she's till under warranty, wanted that taken care of.

I dropped her off and was walking through the Harley dealer looking at the bikes and saw a new Heritage Classic on the floor with very little customizing. A little chrome here and there, nice beach bars like mine and the same stock paint. What this bike DID have that I didn't was whitewalls. It was like seeing my bike with that feature.

When I bought my bike I had decided I didn't want whitewall tires but the more I've gotten into Harleys and the more bikes I've been around the more I've fallen in love with that old school look. Especially the look of the Deluxe. I love it.

So I was sitting with my wife last night and told her when the time came to change out the tires, I'd probably switch to whitewalls. She asked me how many miles I'd get on my tires and I said I wasn't sure but that the rear tire looked a little worn down. I have not checked for wear marks so I figured I had a few thousand miles left.

Wrong. First thing this morning I get the call from the Harley mechanic telling me he would suggest a new rear tire as mine was showing the wear indicators. So, considering we're heading almost 300 miles through the Mojave desert in two days where gas stations are about 100 miles apart, I figured I didn't have much choice. I'm sure she would have been fine but why risk it huh? So on top of the service tab I get to dish out the big bucks for the tires. How in the hell can two motorcycle tires cost so much??? And I also figured while I was at it I'd have them pop the chrome sprocket on there as well. Ya know....let's just keep spending huh?

Broke but looking good. Hope to get some pics of her up when she comes home tomorrow.

Boozing it up at the Laughlin River Run

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 05:34:00 +0000

Jesus, the run is still 3 days off and I'm blogging about it non-stop. Gee...I wonder if I'm stoked??

I decided to stop drinking about a month ago. Not permanently but just felt I'd been enjoying a few too many martinis or just vodka straight up in the evenings so for the sake of my stomach and sinuses (yeah, I wake up totally congested after about 5 of those puppies the night before) I made a decision to not drink at all during the month of April until we get to Laughlin on April 26.

And let me tell ya, I haven't really missed it at all. There was one night a few weeks ago where I really could have used a belt but it passed. And any rides we've had to local biker hangouts on the weekends have been no problem since I've at least allowed myself to drink O'Douls. 0.5% alcohol so I'm counting two bottles at a sitting as still being on the wagon.

But here the deal. Last year when we checked into the room in Laughlin we decided to take a nice walk to the liquor store and get our booze of choice: Vodka for me (no mixer thank you) and gin and tonic for my wife. We found out that the city sells no (as in ZERO) glass containers for the weekend!! WTF??? I managed to find a plastic fifth of vodka at some ridiculous price and we got gouged at the hotel bar for a bottle of gin.

So now we have to decide: Do we shlep two big bottles of booze in the bags all the way across the desert or do we get into town, check into the hotel and then make a booze run down to Bullhead City for liquor? I'm more inclined to pack that shit in the bags coz I'm gonna want to drink up when I get there. Of course there's always the crazy prices for a drink but man..I want my own stocked bar in my room. As long as I keep the bottles away from the pipes we'll be good I'm sure.

Some comfort for the Laughlin River Run

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:45:00 +0000

My wife told me last year that I needed to step up and get her a bigger passenger seat for this years Laughlin River Run. I'm not opposed to having her enjoy the ride in more comfort but I'm also not big on adding more crap to the bike. I'm usually torn between leaving the bags and windshield on when we take long rides.

For me, I can handle it without a windshield but it does tend to tire out my lower back due to disk surgery some years back. No problem for an hour or so, even at 75-80 mph but longer than that and I'm starting to feel it. She on the other hand insists on the windshield anytime we're on the freeway for more than a half hour and I have to admit, it's pretty nice on longer hauls.

But anyway, last year I thought she held up like a trooper using the stock seat on the Heritage Classic but she admitted to having a sore butt when we got home. How some gals make it on a little pillion is beyond me. So I went down to the Harley Davidson dealer and dished out $149 for the studded passenger seat that is wider than the stock one. We took a nice little ride out to Ojai, CA last weekend to see if she liked and the word is good. So we're ready to go in comfort. Clock is really ticking down now and we're getting pretty jazzed!

Movie Review - Wild Hogs

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 18:26:00 +0000

Okay. We've all seen it by now, hell, it should be on dvd soon. I guess I've been too busy with other crap to even mention that I saw the movie "Wild Hogs" a few weeks ago.

I imagine that my opinion is that of just about any other biker who saw the movie - It was hysterical. My wife in particular almost peed in her pants during the movie. I was a little more subdued but have to admit to laughing out loud at some scenes that would not normally make me laugh if the movie was about something other than middle aged bikers.

I mean, come on..how many of us would go see this movie if, instead of bikes, the guys had taken off in an RV? The humor was slapstick which I typically dont' go for but laughed at anyway.

And while I'm the least homophobic guy in the world, the gay cop creeped me out. But it was a pretty good movie and Peter Fonda walking on at the end was the best scene.....

Until the very last part where the Extreme Home Makeover crew rebuilt the clubhouse for the gang. That was, to me, the best part.

Overall, if you havent seen it and it's still playing, check it out. Stupid jokes, slapstick comedy but nevertheless, a fun 90 minutes of biker fun.