Time to Head East

On Sunday I needed to get my trans swapped but with no wheels makes running around kind of difficult. Id like to thank Denver Dan for giving me a ride to the shop to pick up the trans, and even loaning me some cash to pay for it, very grateful for that. Let along getting to ride around Long Beach in a slammed Impala on Supremes, makes for a good day. Got back to Dustins, swapped the transmission in his garage. Big thanks to him for the hospitality and letting me use his tools and garage. See what I mean when I say I ran into an awesome group of people. Just getting ready to leave and I snapped the kick start shaft off. At this point I was really contemplating just moving here permanently as it was appartent someone or something didnt want me to leave Long Beach haha. The next day would prove that point when I would find myself stuck at a rest stop 40 miles east of Barstow for 4 hours with a fucked engine. Exactly what I didnt want to happen. I got a cab ride back and they let me throw my bike in the truck and even helped me find a motel and everything. Im terrible with names but the people at the Barstow Taxi are top notch and I wouldve been SOL with out meeting them. I ended up staying at a Motel 6 for 2 days while two of my good friends actually drove all the was from Le Mars to Barstow, a 24 hour trip one way to pick my ass up. They left Iowa at 9AM Tuesday morning and we were pulling back into town at 9AM Thursday. 3014 miles in exactly 48 hours. Sucked at the time but made for a hell of a storyIm very thankful to have the friends that I do and to have met the people I did in the last few weeks. I wouldnt change a thing about it. .

Some pics from the drive home we stopped at a couple outlooks for a short while..

FUCK....

After sleeping for a few hours Friday everyone was up and getting ready to head to the Born Free show. Remember I just rode 2000 miles to get here with no trouble at all, I go to kick the shovel over and the damn kicker cover along with a huge chunk of the transmission case rip off with it. Only like 3 miles to go and my bike breaks WTF. A few guys ended up push starting me to get it running and ended up making the show which was unbelievable. Big thanks to everyone who was involved in putting this on. This 5 hour get together will be the center for hundreds of stories that will be told for years to come. I heard there were between 5 and 6,000 people in attendance and not a single fight/altercation of anykind. I ended up winning the Born Free Award which was totally unexpected and really meant alot it was killer. At this point I was weighing my options on how I was getting home, and ended up buying a trans from Mike at Pacific Coast Cycles, awesome guys there. I hate the feeling of not having your own transportation, I hate it when Im in my hometown and my shit breaks, let alone 1800 miles away, but it all worked out.

Since Im a tard and never remember to take any photos...Pics stolen from Joyrides Art Co, Joe King Speed Shop, and Church of Choppers

Long Beach Rules

This was my 2nd time being in Long Beach and I fucking loved it there. It was like I was home everyone I met was really cool diverse. I was riding around Friday night looking for a motel when I happened to drive past a bar called Blondies and noticed a few familiar faces out on the patio. I had gone to the Dice party in Des Moines at the Kung Fu Tap, which fucking ruled by the way, and met Jeff and a few of the other guys there, now here I was in Long Beach and there they are outside the bar so I pulled up kinda akwardly. They had kinda remembered meeting me in Des Moines also, it seemed that myself and everyone there were equally drunk and the whole Dice party was kinda foggy. I couldnt have picked ran into a better group of people the whole weekend in Long Beach fucking ruled. From getting blackout drunk, riding around with about 10 people in the back of Chopperdaves Econoline, to getting the best tacos at a taco stand on the corner at 1AM.

Solo Ride from Iowa to Long Beach

Just getting in on this whole blog thing so here goes. I just recently got back from a 2 week trip to Long Beach to attend the Born Free show. There is just something about loading up and hitting the two lanes on a bike that you built yourself and know every single inch of. This was my first real roadtrip and I had a blast. It was cool to finally live out all the stories I have been reading over the past couple of years about hitting the road, the people you meet and things you see. Its things like that that you tend to forget about doing everyday normal things and not leaving your hometown for a while. I had planned on meeting up with Warren and the Haints but ended up leaving 2 days ahead of them so just went alone down through Kansas, across Colorado, through New Mexico, Arizona, and then on to Vegas. I ended up getting a $190 ticket for no helmet on the Vegas strip. Partially my fault for not checking and hoped to get a warning but Barney Pfeif was on an ego trip that night I guess. Spent the next day finding a helmet and took off the day after that. Vegas is cool for what it is but not really my thing I guess. Oh well least I went there once. I got to Pomona on Friday and decided to go to the NHRA Museum at the fairplex. Im totally glad I did that the amount of history in one building is overwhelming. Spent a few hours there and headed to Long Beach that night. Heres where it gets really random haha.