That’s it! No Work. No Politics. For the next four days it’s all about motorcycles, and the great open spaces! Oh, and this little town in the Nevada desert that you may or may not have heard of.
Keep an eye on this space for live posts from the greatest gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts on the West Coast!
We’re slowly closing in on October 1st, the beginning of the biggest and best biker rally on the west coast, Las Vegas Bikefest. Me and 3 other guys are riding down this year for 4 days of riding, food, entertainment, and general good times.
The real news today though is that Chris Ricci, the guy who throws the monster X-Fest music festival in Modesto every year, is throwing one in Vegas, on the same weekend as BikeFest, and on the same street. 
What this means is that not only will you have the normal tourist crowd, you will also have 50,000 bikers from BikeFest with 4 stages of music, and now you can add another 20,000 people (at least) and 30 more bands to Fremont Street.
What an event this is going to be! Everything from Hip Hop to Country to Reggae to Classic Rock on the same street! The local Po-Po are definitley going to be busy keeping things orderly, but they are used to crowds like this, and as I’ve seen in the past several years I’ve been attending BikeFest, they know how to manage large events. It should be a great time!
I just like the word Shenanigans. I don’t know why.
Anyway, it was a nice weekend for us and I hope everyone else had a good one too. This weekend Michelle and I rode the bike over to Hollister for the annual Independence Day bike rally. This is one of the oldest and biggest rallies on the west coast and it’s always good times. Thousands… I mean THOUSANDS of bikes…. awesome food, vendors, bands & beer make for a pretty cool weekend. We ended up going down for half a day since we had family visiting from out of town. We hooked up with my sister and a friend of hers and had a few beers so that was cool. I finally got me a turkey leg though and that was awesome. Every year there’s this vendor out there cooking these giant, Fred Flintstone looking turkey legs on the grill and so I swore that this year I was going to buy one. I did. It was awesome. Good times.
So after we got back we relaxed for a bit with family and then we took Michelle’s little sister out to have a few beers and shoot some pool downtown at The Babylon Club. Babylon is a cool place down in the Tower District that features local bands and has about 30 pool tables. It pulls in a very mixed crowd these days, mostly 20 something hipsters and such. It was way busier than I’ve seen it, but then again, the last time I was there was years ago and it was called Avalon. So apparently it’s got new owners who know what they are doing. So we shot some pool, and I kicked some major butt! I only lost one game and that was because I knocked the 8 ball in on my first shot. So I was pretty happy about that. We got there early so we only stayed long enough to hear the first band. They were called Nebula and they were decent, but nothing to write home about. Typical young band, no stage presence whatsoever, no “look”, and with the variety of styles they played, I couldn’t really tell what kind of band they wanted to be. But they didn’t outright suck, so that’s a good thing.
The rest of the weekend was spent just chillin’ with family. Fairly low key stuff. I have pictures of Hollister on the right so go check ‘em out!
I have a new love, and her name is 2009 Yamaha V-Max. 4 cylinders, liquid cooled, 1700cc’s, and 200 horsepower. Yes, 200. You heard it right, 200 freaking horsepower. And to top it off, it looks entirely wicked and fearsome.
I’m sure it’s God’s will that I can’t afford one right now because otherwise I’d surely be doing my best to kill myself on this thing.
Check out the website and be sure to grab a rag to wipe the drool from your chin. http://starmotorcycles.com
May 1st. My first day as a full time motorcycle commuter. I have to say that it didn’t go too badly. I actually slept in an extra 15 minutes, and still got out of the house 10 minutes early. I made it a point to iron and pack my clothes last night to save time so that paid off. And of course not having to dry and gel my hair was cool too.
The only downside this morning was that it was freaking cold! My commute is only about 20 minutes max and by the time I pulled up my fingers were completely numb. I could barely undo my helmet. I hope the weather starts to warm up soon.
My new garment bag worked really well. I bought a special bag called the Iron Rider by Dowco that is designed to carry clothes on your motorcycle. It’s just like a business travel suitcase in that it’s got hanger hooks, and a zip up bag that you put your clothes in, and then fold up. It’s got room in the bottom for shoes, and a pocket for your belt, tie, whatever. It’s really ingenious and is the only bag like this I’ve seen. I’m only slightly crinkled this morning and I think if I pack my shirt in the morning instead of the night before, I can fix that. At any rate, it’s not bad at all.
Changing at work though is not the greatest. I don’t know what it is, but stripping down to your skivvies in a bathroom stall is just uncomfortable. I suppose I’ll get used to it.
So I think this is going to work. I was worried about it taking longer to get to work in the mornings but I actually got to sleep in and I still punched in right on time. And after paying $3.95/gal for gas last night, it’s going to be worth it.
Let me share some math with you….. my truck costs me $140 to get strictly to work and back. The bike will cost me $65. That’s a $75 savings right there. If I expand my bike usage to things other than work, I can save as much as $150 a month. I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s a lot of cigars and Sam Adams. Or a new bike!
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