The Love Ride Died With The RUBs

The 26th Annual Love Ride was cancelled.

The Love Ride was probably the biggest biker event Southern California had to offer. It was an event that had always been full of hype, glamor, and organized mayhem.

It was cancelled due to lack of interest.

That's the official reason.

But the way I see it, it was a victim of itself.

I had attended the 21st Love Ride because I was told it was something I had to see to believe, and that it was the coolest biker event around. Of course, you can't always believe everything you hear. As it turned out, I was disappointed. Or rather, it was exactly as I had anticipated, a lot of hours spent waiting to get going, all freeway riding, everyone riding gangbusters, long lines to get food, and long lines to use a porta-pottie.

That was the first and last time I ever made that mistake.

As the history goes, The Love Ride started out with one Glendale Harley-Davidson wanting to organize a charity event to donate money to kids in need. It was small and simple, and it felt good and felt real. But Glendale is right next to Hollywood, and Hollywood is never satisfied with the same-old-same-old year after year. It has to get bigger, glamorous, and continually reinvent itself. It brought in movie stars and headlining acts. And as the years went by, the ticket prices went higher and higher.

There would be 20,000 motorcycles lined up in front of Glendale Harley-Davidson, waiting to get going on the ride. And when the ride started, it would still take another hour before those towards the back would get going. And the ride? Well, it was just about 20 miles up Interstate 5. That was it. That was the whole ride, all freeway.

Obviously, no motorcycle rider with a lick of sense would spend $80.00 a ticket just to wait several hours in front a Harley dealer, then ride 20 miles of freeway, and then sit and stand the rest of the day waiting in line for food.

But the RUBs would. The "rich urban bikers", who interestingly enough are not necessarily rich, and not necessarily urban, just those who bought a motorcycle to experience the lifestyle, thinking somehow that if they participated in The Love Ride, they would become a little bit more of a genuine article.

Those were the people The Love Ride thrived on.

But the money benefited charities.

Yes, that was the reason to participate. That's another thing. We live in a time now where charitable organizations have employees on the dole, and anywhere from 90 to 95% of the money you donate goes to paying employees and overhead. I don't want to donate money anymore. I want to donate goods. I'd rather do a charity run that delivers canned food to a food bank, toys to a children's hospital, or blankets to a homeless shelter.

Why couldn't The Love Ride have done that?

But as it is now, the RUBs aren't shelling out money anymore. Many of them sold their Harleys, or had them repossessed. Maybe, we just don't have RUBs anymore, I don't know. The bikers who are still carrying the torch are the ones who truly live to ride, and if you truly live to ride, you are not paying $80.00 to sit and stand around all day.

The Love Ride killed itself. It was an event that lived with the RUBs, and died with the RUBs. Without them it buckled under its own weight. It would be better for The Love Ride to go back to its roots and get real again, but it's just not the nature of Hollywood to do that.

2 comments | Post a Comment

---

Hanging With the Guys

Last night I took my Electra Glide up to my buddy Brian's house to put a new tire on the back. He has a tire changer.

It's not a hydraulic, nor motorized changer, but largely a platform with tools to make tire removal and mounting a lot easier. You still have to apply some elbow grease, and it's a lot easier if you have a second set of hands too.

This was probably the third time I had taken my bike up to his place to put a new tire on, and this time everything went so smoothly. Contrast that to the previous times when we had to learn how to use the tire changer, and when we made the mistake of leaving the brake disc on the wheel and ended up warping it.

What also made it fun is that this time we had a couple of other buddies with us as well, and the four of us took turns unbolting parts, removing the wheel, getting the old tire off, putting the new tire on, balancing the tire, and putting it all back together.

And Brian had lots of his homebrewed beer available. So we were hanging out in the garage, with beers in hand, taking turns wrenching on the bike, and having a good time.

We even got to do some evening riding too. What happened is that a torx socket we were using to remove the brake disc snapped and broke. It was a Craftsman brand tool, and fortunately the time was 8:00pm, giving us just one hour before Sears closed up for the night. So we hopped on our bikes (Brian has two bikes so I rode his other one) and off to Sears we went. The guy at the tools department gave us a free replacement, and we were in and out of there in five minutes.

And it was a perfect night for a ride too. Temps were still in the 70's at that time, and very little traffic to deal with.

Had I have taken the bike into a shop to get a new tire put on, this whole night would not have happened. Yeah, I saved money doing it this way, but honestly the thought really never occurred to me that whole night.

And I'm a city boy who grew up appreciating convenience; it would have been an involuntary neuromuscular reaction to drop the bike off at a shop, even though I had done this at Brian's a couple times before.

Of course it's easier when you have a friend with a tire changer. But the first time Brian and I tried to pull the tire off the rim, he didn't have one. We tried using pry bars, tire irons, a vice, a mallet, even jumping up and down on the tire, and couldn't break the bead. We ended up taking the wheel to a Cycle Gear store where they have a tire changer. But still, it was a couple of us guys off on an adventure, trying to change a tire.

But this night it all went well. Breaking that torx socket actually made the night more fun. Well, after we got done, we set up chairs in the back patio and drank down some more beers, ate some munchies, and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

No comments | Post a Comment

---

Maria Shriver Cell Phone Debate

So while Maria Shriver is getting laughed at for breaking California's law against using cell phones while driving, at least all she has to do is issue a public apology...

California first lady Maria Shriver says she's sorry for breaking a state law that requires drivers to use hands-free devices while talking on cell phones.

What this only shows is that banning cell phone use while driving is a bad law. People use their cell phones because the world is becoming increasingly mobile, and at the same time, the people are expected to be reachable 24 hours a day. Cell phones helped shape this world, just as the automobile did.

The irony I've seen is that most of my motorcycle riding friends have shown their support for this law, even going so far as to curse out a cager they see using their cell phone. Yet, all of my biker friends have used their cell phones while driving a car.

I tend to believe that all motorcycle riders, including myself, have used their cell phones while driving a car. If our cell phone rings while driving a car we answer it anyways because we know we're capable enough to use a cell phone and still drive safey. That's why we do it.

It's like speed limits. We all drive over the speed limit because we know we can handle it.

The reason why motorcyclists have supported laws against cell phone use while driving is because they hate cagers. That's all it is.

But every motorcyclist I know is a cager also.

I wonder if the state and federal DOTs can actually claim that car accidents have decreased since these laws went into effect?

I doubt it.

It's time to get rid of the cell phone law.

No comments | Post a Comment

---