Well, I guess I thought loud enough, because this year the organizers of Love Ride chose to ditch the bucolic but logistically limiting Castaic Lake riding destination, and expanded the single-day ride into a three-day Pomona Fairplex-based shindig heretofore known as California Bike Week. Watchout flatlanders!  Here comes Cali!

The Petersen Automotive Museum in Hollywood hosted the kickoff party Friday night, followed Saturday by an auction of Von Dutch artifacts and other motorcycle memorabilia. Inside the Fairplex gates, OEM’s gave demo rides, vendors hawked wares, and a trifecta of Old School, nu skewl, and sumr skool-styled stunters collided (well, not literally). The venerable Victor McLaglen Motorcorps drill team perilously stacked riders into a series of pyramid configurations, and otherwise executed deft displays of slow-speed control and coordination. Meanwhile, the Sportster destruction machine otherwise known as Jason Pullen was drawing SRO crowds for his two-wheeled dance routines.  Apparently nobody’s told Pullen that the Sporty wasn’t designed to do wheelies, stoppies, rolling burnouts, and that sort of thing, and I hope no one ever does!  Last but not least, the gleeful goofiness of the American Motor Drome’s Wall of Death show took things full circle, pardon the pun, as rag-tag riders on vintage bikes and modern go-karts swooped around the inside of their giant barrel, fighting the laws of centrifugal force in visceral fashion while plucking dollar bills out of the hands of whooping and hollering spectators.

In racing action, the AHDRA (All Harley-Davidson Racing Association) dragsters began their strafing runs Saturday with over 300 entrants contributing rubber to the strip. Doug Vancil hoisted the trophy in the Screamin’ Eagle Top Fuel class, and we bore witness to history in the making, as the KillaCycle laid down the fastest quarter mile ever recorded by an electric-powered vehicle, punching a silent but deadly 7.824 second ticket. Later on, flat-track racers returned to Pomona, devouring the oval at sanity-defying speeds well into the chilly night to close Saturday’s festivities at around 10:30 PM and send the day’s revelers off to their nocturnal naughtiness with plenty of tall tales to tell their suds buddies.

Which brings our thoroughly frost-bitten, Red Bull and vodka overdosed, and generally party-pooped asses to Sunday morning. I always look forward to Love Ride for 364 and-a-half days out of the year…right up until my alarm clock rings at 5:30 AM (groan, grope, grab, grip, SMASH!). Having disposed of the robotic rooster, I dutifully poured hot coffee for my still sleeping bride. I even got most of it in her mouth. Once the java got us jammin’ we loaded the TRIKEtec V2 I was test riding, and zoomed out to H-D of Glendale to join up with the rest of the herd.

Backstage with the other VIPs, we munched donuts woozily and took in the scene. Travel-sized hot-rod icon George Barris seemed right at home at chest level with all of the statuesque Hollywood-wanna-be divas. Robbie Kneivel was semi-discreetly nursing a flask full of whatever a man who’s broken practically every bone in his body drinks at 7 AM. Larry Hagman looked about how Robbie probably feels, which sort of bummed me out. I mean after all, I learned practically everything I know about how not to treat a half-naked, super-fine genie who worships the ground you walk on from watching Major Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie reruns. 

After our revered Love Ride Grand Marshall, Jay Leno, finished his monologue, we all adjourned to our steeds to await the phased departure of the 20,000 bike caravan to go see The Gregg Allman Band’s concert back at The Fairplex. The thing that has always made Love Ride a “you-gotta-do-it,” peak-motorcycling experience is its unparalleled orgiastic display of rolling thunder. Flatlanders take note. I didn’t say, “waddling thunder”, or, “4-point tie-downed to a dyno thunder”, or, “gunning your engine for no reason while backing your bike up to the curb so the whole freakin’ world knows what a total nimrod you are thunder”. Out here in SoCal, it’s ROLLING THUNDER, Baby!  For 40 glorious miles, lowly infidel cagers were cowed by the magnitude of our masses, every freeway overpass was crammed with folks waving to us and displaying handmade banners in support of our ride, and even the fuzz helped clear a path for the world’s largest stampede of steel horses. This was worth waiting 364 and-a-half days and waking up at 5:30 AM for!  This was why I love to ride! This was LOVE RIDE! 

^{Pacific Coast Nationals flat track racing}

The Pacific Coast Nationals, held in conjunction with California Bike Week, marked the long awaited return of flat trackers to the historic 5/8-mile track at the Pomona Fairplex. The riders all raved about the perfectly-manicured track conditions and it showed in the ferocity of their racing. Fans were treated to the spectacle of Open Class winner George Roeder II being chased down the straight away by the likes of Chris Carr and Kenny Coolbeth, reaching speeds upwards of 100 mph before twisting their bikes fully sideways, planting their inside foot, and sliding around the corners, often close enough that they could whisper smack talk into one another’s ears. For my money, nearly 100 years after its birth, flat track racing still ranks alongside hillclimb races and the Isle of Man TT as the three most testicularly challenging, and fun to watch, motorsports in existence today. That is unless they ever bring back the Blackwater 100, in which case all bets are off and I’ll be on the next flight to West Virginia with a suitcase full of beer and a clip-on mullet to rejoice with the rest of the mud fleas.