Those of you in Southern California wanting to go out for a ride, or hangout at a rally, I recommend the Quigley Freedom Rally.

Proceeds of the event benefit the ABATE Judicial Fund to fight for bikers' rights.


Quigley is of course, Richard Quigley, who recently passed away. He made a name for himself riding his motorcycle in defiance of the helmet law by wearing a baseball cap. Despite receiving numerous citations, he managed to beat most of them just by persistent and educating himself on the law.

Read the obituary I wrote of him...
http://www.bikernewsonline.com/..../richard-quigley-passes-away.htm

Anyways, the money raised will also help his friends carry on the "lawsuit" to overturn the helmet law. This is a case that Richard Quigley brought about through his years of fighting his helmet citations. This effort is on the verge of declaring the helmet law unconstitutional, and may very well end the helmet law in California.

Labels: California Helmet Laws, California Motorcycle Rallies, Richard Quigley

I'm back from the 30th Annual Redwood Run. Actually, I've came back quite a while ago, but then I've been on a hiatus from blogging here.

If you're not familiar with the Redwood Run, it's often described as the last of the "old school" biker rallies. Biker rallies today are heavily commercialized, saturated with yuppies and rubbies.


What makes the Redwood Run unique is that it's hosted completely on private property, and limited to just 5,000 people. There are no police patrolling the area because they aren't needed with the smaller attendance. As a result, the Redwood Run becomes an "anything goes" affair, and pretty much everything happens, minus the violence. The Christian Motorcycle Association provided traffic control throughout the rally area, and kept people riding their bikes in an orderly fashion.

Tickets to this year's event sold at $120.00 a piece, and included music acts like Greg Allman, Molly Hatchet, and Joan Jett.

The best way to experience the Redwood Run is to pitch a tent on the rally grounds and camp out. This way you can saturate your blood stream with whatever substance you please, and not have to ride your bike back to somewhere else.

The gates to the Redwood Run opened up at 8:30am on a Friday morning (June 8). We had arrived in line around 6:00am, were already behind a couple thousand other bikers. There were four of us, Drifter, Trouble, Doc, and myself. We walked up to the front of the line to see what the scene looked like, and Trouble found a friend of hers standing at the front of the gate. She was hanging out with a group of guys who called themselves "The Weasels". They didn't describe themselves as an MC or RC, just a group of guys. We asked her if she could save a camp spot for us, and she agreed. I gave her my tent so that she could use it save our spot.

We ended up pitching our tents at the edge of "the hill", overlooking the concert area. I wanted to thank her and The Weasels for accomodating us.

That Friday afternoon, the four of us left the rally area to do some riding in the redwoods. We waited for a friend of ours to join us, Lewis. Lewis showed up, and we all took off into the Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

We rode along Mattole Road, which takes you into a town called "Honeydew". At Honeydew, there's a general store situated by a stream, underneath shady oak trees. We rested there, and then continued down Mattole Road to the town of Petrolia. We wanted to eat some lunch there, but couldn't find any establishments. So we continued on.

Mattole Road eventually runs along the coast for a short ways, and then veers up the side of a mountain. The road gets very twisty with steep elevation climbs, but a very enjoyable ride nonetheless. It finally took us into the town of Ferndale, where we had lunch.

Saturday we had breakfast in Garberville. Garberville is the nearest town with a grocery store, and is where most Redwood Run participants go to get hard liquor and supplies. For the entire weekend, the Garberville is overrun with bikers, kinda like how Sturgis might be in August.

The cops Humboldt County are for the most part, lenient during this weekend. They will pull you over if you're riding with total disregard and disrespect. But I didn't really see a whole of bikes getting pulled over.

And the weather was just awesome the whole time.

Being it was the 30th year of the Redwood Run, I expected some more celebration, but didn't really see anything more than last year. The wet t-shirt contest wasn't as exciting as last year's. There was probably half as many women in the contest, and most of them were not willing to go topless. Even the weenie bite contest, most were not willing to bare their boobies as last year.

I've got photos from the Redwood Run here...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87468207@N00/sets/72157600349084912/

Note that Flickr has marked my photos as "adult", meaning that you have to have an account on Flickr, and set your preferences to view adult content, to see these photos.

Did you go to the Redwood Run this year? Post a comment and tell me about it.

Labels: California Motorcycle Rallies, Redwood Run

A few weeks ago, I attended the 29th Annual Redwood Run. I'm late on reporting it, but the entire road trip took 12 days, because I opted to spend another week riding around the States of California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. I'll go over this extended ride in a later post.

If I could sum up the Redwood Run in a handful of words...

trees
music
beer
partying
food
boobies

It's often described as the "last of the old school biker rallies". I suppose it could be, though I've never attended any bike rallies back in the day. But it certainly was fun.

For those who've never attended, it's largely an outdoor concert, because much of the action is focused at the concert stage, and the music plays most of the time. But they take breaks for the biker games and the wet t-shirt contest. The South Fork Eel River provides swimming, and the acres of grass and trees provide camping.

Moreover, the whole event is hosted on private property owned by the local Kiwanis Club chapter. Meaning, anything goes. No cops, no problem.

Historically, the Redwood Run was a "Harley only" event. This year, I'd say just about all bikes were Harleys. Perhaps less than 1 percent of the bikes were something other than HD. I saw some Victorys, some Goldwings, some Yamahas, and some choppers. I even saw a couple sportbikes. In fact, I even rode my Road Star there. No problems.

But the reason why it wasn't a problem is because of the atmosphere. The event wasn't dominated by "rich urban bikers", who might have been disgusted with acts of public titty-sucking and flashing cooches, or to the type of cigarettes being shared with others. Everybody was cool with whatever went on.

But that's not to say the event was lawless. For the most part, people kept things in moderation, and people kept their cool. If all you did was watch the concert from the hill, hang out at your camp spot, and stand in line for a tri-tip sandwich, you didn't see much. But if you mingled with the crowd, and went where the people went, there was plenty to see.

Perhaps if the event became commercialized, and hyped up in the media, such as with Daytona, Sturgis, or Laconia, a different type of "motorcycle enthusiast" might dominate the event, and moods might change.

As for the music, the headlining acts were Vince Neil on Friday, and Foreigner on Saturday. While Dave Mason opened up for Vince Neil, and played his usual collection of hit songs, he was largely boring. Vince Neil definitely had the audience energized, but I found his performance rather "scripted" and uninspiring. Neil actually looked frustrated because his microphone kept screeching out feedback, and you could see him looking over to the stage hands in disgust.

Everyone gathered to hear Foreigner, and they sounded good, but again, uninspiring. I'd have to give my award to Joanna Connor, a blues guitarist/vocalist who absolutely held the audience in awe of her guitar picking skill, and played a gig that felt improvised and fun. You had to stand by the stage to see this woman rock and watch all ten of her fingers working the strings.

The biker games were fun, but probably the only events anyone seemed interested in was the slow race and the weenie bite. The eight-legged race and the water-balloon toss was lame. I didn't know that water-balloon toss was part of an "old school biker rally"! The weenie bite was actually topless, which made for a lot of speculation. One guy stopped his bike below the weenie, while the gal on back fellated the dangling frank to the roar of the audience.

But of course, the wet t-shirt contest probably took the most interest of all. It wasn't much of a wet t-shirt contest because for the most part, there weren't many t-shirts being worn. As soon as a girl got water doused on her, she'd take the shirt off and jiggle her jugs to the audience. Some of them simply had bare chests being doused with water.

If you plan to go to next year's Redwood Run, bring plenty of Mardi Gras beads. They're like money there. Girls will flash their boobies to get them, and guys will trade beer for 'em. Beads were such in high demand, that our club considered setting up a vendor booth just to sell beads. Girls who accumulated lots of beads wore them like a badges of honor.

As for facilities, there are showers there (with hot water), and plenty of porta-potties. I heard that toilet paper supplies ran pretty low by Saturday morning. There's no cell phone coverage there, even though my carrier (Verizon) claimed to have coverage there according to their map. Cingular and Nextel also offered no coverage.

The best way to attend the Redwood Run is to camp at the event. If you plan to rent a room at a nearby motel, you'll have trouble doing so. Motels in nearby towns never have vacancies for this weekend because their owners reserve them for their friends. You'll have to go down to Willits in the south, or Rio Dell in the north to find available rooms. And even then, you'll hate having to ride back to your room at midnight, drunk off of your ass.

We stayed overnight in Willits on Thursday, June 8, the day before the Redwood Run opened. The next morning we rode up to the event and waited in line. We hoped to get there early to get a place near the front of the line. But we ended up way in the back of the line. The reason for wanting to be closest to the front is so that you can claim a good camp site. When the gates open up, there's almost like a scramble into the event, like Oklahoma homesteaders. Claiming a camp site is done by parking your bike there and pitching your tent.

We were worried we'd lose out on a good site. As it turned out, we found a great one, next to the vendors, next to the food, close to the showers, and close to the hill where the concert could be heard. It might have been kinda noisy for sleeping, but it was close to everything, and offered room to manuever your bikes out to do some riding.

Click here to see all of my Redwood Run photos.

Maybe, I'll see you there next year.

Labels: California Motorcycle Rallies, Redwood Run, Ride Reports

For those of you not familiar with the "Redwood Run", it's perhaps one of the last great American biker gatherings. No cops allowed. Just do what you want, and have fun.

A guy named Russ, along with his wife Cindy, who I've ridden with a few times, went to the Redwood Run, which took place just a couple weeks ago. Russ operates an online biker wear store. He wrote up this account:

With the 28th Annual Redwood Run behind us, all we can do now is sit and wait until it is time to do it again next year.

For those of you who have not heard of the Redwood Run, it is, in my humble opinion, the premier biker rally in the west. Hosted by the Kiwanis of the Redwoods, the rally takes place on the picturesque and privately owned Riverview Ranch, located in Piercy, CA. This is definitely an old school biker party and is not for the squeamish. No yuppies or RUBs at this rally and it certainly is not a place for the kids. With the 21 and over rule strictly enforced, the Redwood Run is a rally where you can let your hair hang down and party like the old days. And party we did.

With roughly 5,000 bikers in attendance, perfect weather, a great line up of musical entertainment and very few rules, we had all the makings for another wild and crazy Redwood Run. A small group of us made the 650 mile journey, from Southern California, the day before. Early the following morning, with a mile long line-up of bikes at the gate when it opened, we all wasted no time getting to our favorite spots and setting up camp. With the tents up and the coolers full of beer, it was time to party.

The first day of the rally was pretty laid back, mostly old friends meeting up with old friends; playing catch-up; walking around and getting the lay of the land; getting your run pin and t-shirt and just generally checking things out. Once folks started to get settled in, the activity picked up a bit with bikes doing burnouts and all the guys standing on the side of the road with beads and signs trying to get the females passing by to flash them some skin. The bands kicked in a little later and everyone headed down to the stage or back to camp to party the night away. Foghat was the headliner for the fist evening and was a real crowed pleaser.

Day two was packed with events including a bike show and the usual biker games. Standing room only around the slow race and weenie bit lanes with everyone trying to get a look at the gals that choose to participate in various forms of undress. Later in the day was the traditional wet t-shirt contest, which not only packed the grounds in front of the stage but filled the hillside up pretty well too. The competition was tough this year and a sweet looking young lady was selected as the winner by a bunch of lucky SOBs that were chosen to judge the contest. With the scheduled event coming to a close, the non-scheduled entertainment started to roll with all the bikes out again, making the rounds, doing burn-outs and parading their ladies around. Later in the evening the bands kicked in again with Cheap Trick as the headliner for the night. The bands rock into the wee hours of the morning after which all the hard core partiers stumble and crawl back to their tents for a few hours of much needed shut eye.

We all broke camp early the next morning and hit the asphalt. Sweet Cindy and I needed to get home that same day so we rode hard, gas tank to gas tank, arriving home at around 7:00pm, after an 11 hour and 650 mile ride. After a good nights sleep, we were ready to do it again, but I guess we will have to wait until next year.

This rally is not for everyone, but if you don't mind a couple nights of tent camping, hard partying bikers and some adult style biker fun, the Redwood Run is a must do. You can check out pictures of this years Redwood Run on our web site. Many of these photos are adult in nature so please clear the room of the little ones before you check them out.

Keep it in the wind and Ride Safe,

Russ & Sweet Cindy
BikerCrap.com

Labels: California Motorcycle Rallies, Redwood Run