Posted by Bohica on November 24, 2000 at 08:28:54:
Posted by Frank on November 20, 2000 at 03:36:23:
Well, I'm sure you are all eagerly awaiting the continuing Love Ride Saga aboard the Savage. Or your just too bored to do anything else. Sorry for all the grammer mistakes in the last post, but hey, there is no spelling or grammar editor here on netscape.
As my wife and I headed out on our 50 mile trek to Glendale, Ca it was clear that I had made a mistake wearing the half helmet. The biting cold at 30-50mph stung my face even through the bandana I had tied over my face. I looked like I was on my way to rob a bank. The rest of my body was doing ok except my hands. My kevlar non-insulated gloves were no match for 38 degrees. I had to continually place my hands on the cylinder head starting at about 8 miles from home. My wife seemed to be fine. Speaking of fine, the Savage loves cold weather. Her carburetion seemed to flow perfectly even with both of us on board. Acceleration was great (for the Savage) and backfiring was minimal. At sixteen miles out we came to the freeway on-ramp for the 34 mile ride to our destination. At this point I pulled off to see how my wife was holding up. I was sure that her butt might be hurting her on that little pillion seat. I told her to get off and stretch since we will not be stopping again until we get to the Love Ride. Surprisingly, she said she was ok. Great, on we go. We headed out on the freeway and I got her up to a cruising speed of 70mph. The sun peeked up over the horizon and revealed a beautiful Sunday morning in mountainous Southern California. No traffic to speak of and the road to ourselves. My face no longer stung (it was numb) and we rode into Glendale. I started wondering why we didn't see other bikers heading in, especially when we got close. This puzzled me as four year ago when we did this we ran into many riders on their way in. We pulled off the freeway into a gas station. Even though we only rode 50 miles, I wanted to top off the tank so I would not have to worry about switching to reserve in the middle of thousands of other bikers. My bike usually will go about 110 miles before hitting reserve, but with two up riding I wasn't sure how far she would go. When we got off the bike to gas up, I started to ask Bridget if she noticed that there seemed to be no other bikers on the road. Before I could ask she mentioned the same thing. Did we have the right day? The sun was fully up by this point. We gassed up and headed for the next off-ramp of San Fernando Blvd. This is an old indutrial part of town near the Southern Pacific railroad yard. It was about two miles to the Harley shop where the Ride starts. At this point we bagan to see groups of bikers (mostly Harley of course) riding in behind us and at the occasional 7-11 stores getting coffee. As we rounded the last bend in the road we were treated to an amazing scene. Before us were were dozens of staff event personnel directing us into a huge crowd of bikes. At leat 1,000 motorcycles were parked in neat rous of 12-15 across and we were early! As we were directed by well organized parking control people, tens and hundreds of bikers came in behind us. As I shut the engine down we were awash in a sea of bikes. On both sides of me two Honda Shadows parked next to us. The rest were Harleys with one Ducati up ahead. In a matter of moments we were in a crowd. Leather was the prefferred garb of the day and I could catch snippets of conversation about how cold it was riding in.
We dismounted our bike and I went for the thermos of coffee in the saddle bag. My wife and I had raised over 500 dollars from people at our jobs for this ride. The ride requires that you raise at leat 50$ to enter. This entitles you to a love ride pin and entry to Castaic Lake for free lunch, concerts and trade show at Castaic Lake at the end of the ride. For two hundred dollars, Bridget and I qualified not only for the latter mentioned, but for a cap, scarf and a ticket to win a Harley Duece, Ford Ranger or Freddie Frender Guitar to be raffled at the Lake. So we proceeded to the Harley Shop at the next block up to register. After registration we were treated to an early morning rock concert by StepenWolf. This was followed by a celebrity press conference from Willie G Davidson and Jay Leno. Peter Fonda was also there. We checked out the Harley shop and looked at the bikes in the showroom that we might afford some day. I looked for gloves, but the prices of Harley gear are outrageous! We finally made it through the crowds out to the street (to more crowds of bikers). I didn't know there were that many bikers in LA. There were all kinds at the ride. Some were rich urban bikers and some were hard core. The only outlaw gang I saw was the "Mongols". No "Angels" that I could see. At this point we contacted a sport bike rider (he races and rides a Honda RC51) by cell phone and met up by the concert booth. He was happy to find a girl to ride on the back of that beast with him to the Love Ride. His buddy rides a Kawisaki 500 LTD and has been to 10 of the 17 Love rides. We parted ways after the press conference to get ready to start up and ride. We waded back to our Savage through the throngs of bikers to get ready and take off. When we got back to the bike and put on our gear, the temperature was warmer and my half-helment seemed more appropriate. We shot the breeze with the bikers around us (mostly the Shadow riders) while waiting to start our engines. We were near the front of the pack of 25,000 bikers. About an hour later the signal was given to fire it up! There is nothing like hundreds of bikes starting up all around you. Especially open piped Harleys. You can't even hear your own voice much less a Savage engine. I couldn't tell if my Savage was running unless I put it in gear to see if she would go. Finally, our section of 500 bikers or so was given the signal to pull out behind the front groug. What a feeling as we all were funneled into two single file lines to head for the freeway. We had helicopters overhead and news media on the ground along with people with signs cheering us on! I pulled in the clutch and put her in first. It was like a motorcross race while whe jockeyed into position, going from twelve rows into two.
I'll stop at this point. The next post will be about riding up I-5 north to Castaic Lake and how we dominated the freeway. I know this is long winded. I'll write tomorrow night unless I receive posts not to report anymore. Until then, ride safe
Frank