I wanted to finish up day one and begin day 2 which I will finish tomorrow Shred and I have to drive back today. Im about a day behind on the blog due to the wipe out so just pretend its a day earlier than it is.

I wanted to elaborate on day 1 as there are some very memorable parts of the first leg of the ride. After the rocky start that had us still in Hermosa Beach at noon we knew we had to make up time so we put our heads down and motored thru the always lovely Rancho Palos Verdes and down into the valley of death Wilmington. Now I know you think I am apt to exaggeration but no kidding that 10 mile stretch is just pure madness. It is like Mad Max Thunderdome on Steroids. Everybody has a big rig, a pit bull, multiple tattoos and guns and they all HATE bikers. This is where we really needed the extra muscle of Bobby and Dom. Each year we are prepared for the gauntlet but it always seems to be worse than I remembered and with my injuries I knew I was the weakest of the herd and you’ve all seen what happens to that poor animal when the lions show up!

We did prevail but it was a tough ride with the wind messing with us the whole day. Here are some pictures of that part of the ride:

After we got thru the Death Gauntlet with only minor mishaps we powered thru to mile 50 which is where STR met us for our  traditional fish  taco lunch on the pier. Nathan spiced it up this time with lo-cal nachos:

After a fast lunch we got to the pretty part of the ride, The OC, but we were hours behind schedule so we boogied thru the area pretty quickly to get to Dana Pt. Due to the late arrival we decided to stay local so we hung at the hotel and dined on giant burgers and local beers to make sure we were supporting the local economy.  Because I need to pack and hit the road I’m going to end this early and just throw up some more day one pictures and I will unveil Celebrity Number 2 tomorrow in a more complete blog entry! Bobby is quite strong check this out: