Wow big ride to LA. 1000 miles in 2 days. Down 5 Friday, over 105 degrees for hundreds of miles with a plastic bucket on my head. That was HOT. Friday night in Hollywood meant dinner at the Palm's Thai and a performance from the Thai Elvis. Awesome.
Saturday a ride to the Mike Raahauge Shooting Enterprises Safari Day in Norco. The event was really "kid" oriented and had fishing ponds, bow and arrow shooting, kayak, and .22's to shoot with adult supervision. It was like a day at a great outdoors summer camp. Plus adults showed off some some things too. We saw a great shooting demo from Benelli's Tom Knapp, some cowboy competition shooting, horse riding, a cannon, and a gatling gun get fired a few times. This report says 4100 kids were there. Seems about right, kids were everywhere!
I was wearing a pretty popular t-shirt and got more than a few thumbs up. At one point a Marine Vet pulled me aside and said "check out my license plate." It took me just a second but I deciphered it and made the Caddy T-shirt connection. Can you?
The Safari Club International Orange County chapter had their Safari Van there filled with examples of wild animals. It was really cool. Kids loved it, parents read the information cards and lots of pictures were taken.
My buddy No Name wrestled a bear!
Later the bear turned it around, threw him into an arm bar and No Name tapped out!
But the day had just started. We planned lots of riding for the rest of Saturday. We rode north on 15 to get on the Angeles Crest highway. That is a great ride and a must do if you are into fun roads to ride/drive. Plus at 7000 feet it gets you out of the LA heat.
It has a pretty sketchy reputation, well the riders and drivers do I guess. A motorcycle magazine writer Kent Kunitsugu says
"For the casual tourist, the Crest Highway's many grand vistas offer what most would consider a breathtaking view from seemingly high up in the clouds, with the Antelope Valley splaying out for miles on one side and the San Gabriel Valley on the other. For the sportbike enthusiast new to the road, however, it appears more like a very stern warning on the consequences of a mistake."
(snip)
"For the riders who kept their concentration up and maintained an acceptable margin for error within the scope of their riding skills, the Crest was still what I consider one of the world's best roads to experience on a sportbike."
From this web page
"Beginning in June 1999, a special $100,000 state safety grant has produced intensive enforcement of all traffic laws on the Highway along a specially-patrolled 38 mile section. This includes zero tolerance for the speed limit, the failure to turn on headlights in the special safety zone, or going over the yellow line. As a result, 1400 tickets were written from June 1999 through May 2000, 5-10 times the normal amount, with most written on the weekends."
"Deaths and injuries have dropped by a factor of two on this 38 mile section, from an average of five deaths and 66 injuries per year from 1995-1999 to two deaths and 32 injuries in the last year. It won't surprise anyone who has driven on the highway that motorcyclists were involved in 47% of the accidents in 1995-1998, despite being less than 3% of all registered vehicles."
We didn't get a ticket and all survived.
Of course it isn't just motorcycles that like the run. Here's a Ferrari F430 at the gas station at the western end. 385 hp and 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds.
These cars sold new for over 200,000. In Corona we saw signs from KB Homes in a new home development that said "New 5 bedroom homes starting in the 200,000's."
We then ended up taking Topanga Canyon over to the coast and Malibu about an hour before sunset. We pushed on and split up after dark in Buellton.
I made it to Atascadero for the night after 14 hours of riding.
Sunday morning I went out to the coast and rode up 1. I stopped to see the elephant seals on the beach near Cambria. All these times I've been on California's Highway 1 it is still great. Maybe one of the greatest drives in the world. For sure it is the prettiest I have ever been on. But it was a little cold and socked in on this ride. People would slow down because it was so foggy and they couldn't see, then slow down for the views when they could. Ha ha. I made some "hero or zero" moves on my motorcycle. :)
I made it to 17, then headed home.
Great ride, great friends.
more photos
No comments:
Post a Comment