SS1000 LA1K

On Friday, November 17th, I’m telling my wife - “Hon, all we have to do is average one lap per hour, which is 17 hours, and we’ll be done by 2 AM Sunday. I should be home by 5 am Sunday. This will be a bit boring, but it shouldn’t be that difficult.”

Sheeez. Am I an idiot or what …… :blink:



About a month or so ago, a three sentence email from Mr. Z dropped into my folder - - -

“November 18th is a Saddlesore ride in LA. You game for that? You can sleep in your own bed.”

I reply: “And tell me more about the SS1k - route?”

Mr. Z: “It's an ALL LA route. Commit to the ride (no fee just show up) and I'll dish the dirt.”

Well - I committed. And I got dished the dirt.

I’m confused, just ask my wife.

Simple. Absolutely nuttin to it. Uh huh. Yep. You betchya.

A predefined route, a loop, that may be ran clockwise, or counter-clockwise. Just over 60 miles. 17 laps must be completed. Start and finish are at a checkpoint in Sylmar, California. Loop runs entirely though the Los Angeles City Limits.





Each lap must be documented by the IBA witnesses at the checkpoint.

Bike odometer.

Bike tripset odometer.

GPS tripset odometer.

Must fill up at least every 300 miles maximum. (5 laps)

Fuel log must be maintained throughout the ride, as per IBA regulations.

Start and finish times defined by gas receipts.




5:00 am the alarm hoots, I slap it, and roll out of bed - quick shower, good breakfast. The night before I had made a bunch of PBJ sandwiches, cut them into pieces, into a gallon ziplock, and into my tank bag. Ditto for a bag of beef jerky. Geared up, fired up Wonky, headed north on the 57 to the 210, and pulled off on the Sunflower exit. Sat there for about 5 minutes, during which I was visited by a LEO - no words exchanged, but I guess he figured that my Hi-Viz stealth suit meant I wasn’t up to anything ‘suspicious.’

Dave showed up right at 07:00 as agreed, and we headed west on the 210 for Sylmar. Arrived just before 08:00, met up with Steve (down from Marysville, a short 500 miles), and headed into the Denny’s for the riders’ meeting and some breakfast.

Riders:

Ray Blair CA 11/18/06 Honda GL1800

Al Ladner CA 11/18/06 Yamaha FJR1300

Tom Melchild CA 11/18/06 Yamaha FJR1300

Hal Risser CA 11/18/06 Yamaha FJR1300

Bob Mueller CA 11/18/06 Suzuki DL1000

David L. Hicks CA 11/18/06 Yamaha FJR1300

Tom Sperry CA 11/18/06 BMW K1200LT

Rosie Sperry (passenger) 11/18/06 BMW K1200LT

Steve Fry CA 11/18/06 Yamaha FJR1300

Holley Harrison CA 11/18/06 Honda GL1800

George Zelenz CA 11/18/06 Yamaha FJR1300

Witnesses:

Frank Ziegler

Dave McQueeney

Mike Carter,

Dennis Cunningham,

Dean Tanji,

Sean Ward

My Thanks go out to these folks - they got to stand around in a gas station parking lot during odd hours.

And especially to Dave McQueeney, who acted as the official presence of the IBA.

GZ went over the rules and regs as set forth by Mr. Kneebone, Dave McQueeney explained and clarified things for us, we paid for breakfast, and headed out the door.

Start time is the first gas receipt. Dave, Steve and I rode together, so we geared up, headed for the pumps, and topped off our tanks.

Receipts numbered, fuel log updated, paperwork stowed.








First lap: 56.03 mph. Traffic is building at this time, lots of Los Angeleans out on Saturday morning - heading to here, there, everywhere, - pushing, rushing, hurrying to get – and we were smack dab in the middle of it.




Second lap: 49.48 mph. It’s getting worse out there. All those folks pushing on the first lap have resulted in some of them meeting along the way.

Third lap: 44.89 mph. This sucks.

Fourth: 44.96 mph. This is beyond sucking.

Fifth: 46.18 mph. And now it’s 3:36 PM.

And this is where the epiphany hits.

So - I think about the math – consider the options:

Sit out for a few hours and wait for traffic to clear? Hmmmm…….. nope. Won’t work. Tempting, but no.

Stop for dinner? Nope. Future traffic conditions are an unknown. Already very behind the curve, we have to put miles and time in the bank.

Quit?

I look at Dave - kicking butt, taking names.

Steve - rode 500 miles to do this with his friends. (And would ride home afterward to complete a BB in 30 hours.)

No ******* way will I quit. I will get this done. (Note to self: Hunt down George and …)

PBJ, H2O, Gatorade, beef jerky and Starbucks Mocha it is.

All day.

All night.

Urp. uke:

As the afternoon moved along, traffic simply did not improve. It was too many cars for too little pavement. Lap after lap, we ground it out, changing leads, flowing along, doing the process. One mile at a time, one lap at a time, one checkpoint at a time. And it was a very high-intensity day - you simply could not afford one little lapse in attention – riding in traffic like this requires absolute focus – or you end up meeting some one in a bad way. The checkpoints were a welcome respite – 5 minutes to drink some water, commune with nature, take a breath, perhaps relax just a bit.

And then do it again. Combat mode.

I won’t list all the lap times - slowest was 32.84 mph.

Things didn’t really start to ease up until lap nine – which we started just before 9:00 PM Saturday. Lap times decreased, mph increased, and it got a bit easier.

As night fell, traffic was running fairly well - however, now we were contending with crowds attending the Staples Arena, Universal Studios, Hollywood Bowl, so we would encounter ‘clusters’ of tight traffic, with smooth travel between.

We encountered those same folks leaving those venues, followed about a lap later by the work staff at same.

Lap after Lap.

Each different, and yet so alike.

Lap after Lap.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat..

Moving into late evening, we started to experience a very noticeable differential in temperatures on the route. Fog at the 10 and 405, cool temps on the 405 north, heavy winds in Sylmar.

And the smells. Somewhere on the 210, there is a commercial bakery. Wonderful. Riding along, you are engulfed in cinnamon rolls, fresh baked bread, perhaps Ho-Ho’s? (and here I am, living on PBJ!)

And the reverse is true also - somewhere on the western side of the loop, we could smell a treatment plant - I think it would be the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys. You were engulfed in the odor of… ah… never mind.

Ah, Grasshopper, there’s the Yin and Yang of this adventure!! I wondered where it was.

There’s a surreal time in the early morning - the city is asleep, almost no traffic, and as you move south on the 170 and 101, you can see the skyline of downtown lit up like a postcard. You are riding along on this undulating black river of asphalt defined by reflective lines. The buildings use colored lights - problem was there just wasn’t any time to sit and stare.

It was a rare treat to have seen the city like this. It shows that the city is a dynamic, changing environment – and many of us only see it during certain times, and our perceptions are narrowed by that small increment of exposure.

By this time you’ve become comfortable with the pavement - grooves, mismatches, potholes - and you automatically compensate for them, picking the lane or part of a lane that is the smoothest, knowing exactly which line in which curve you need to be on. It becomes a waltz, the partners familiar with each other, moving in unison, in tempo.

We started lap 17 at 5:47 am Sunday. Dean Tanji told me, “You’ll get to watch the sunrise on this lap.” Heading east on the 210, the horizon was just starting to become visible – and as we flowed around the city on our last lap, the sunrise completed itself, the traffic was building, and the day was starting anew.

I gotta tell ya - turning onto the off ramp at the end of lap 17 was a really good feeling.





We filled our tanks for our finish times, completed our fuel logs and final checkpoint.

Finish fuel receipt time stamp: 6:42 AM, Sunday.

21 hours, 25 minutes elapsed time.

Dave McQueeney then verified all of our paperwork - all the receipts, logs, start and end witness forms, etc. This was by the book.

Thanks, Mr. McQueeney.

Rides validated, we were given our certificates.

And it was done. Completed. Over with. Finito.

It was hard. At least for this newbie it was. This was my second SS1K. And it was different.

I am now the proud owner of a really cool T-shirt. If any of you see someone wearing a LA1K Tshirt, go up and tell them they’re nuts. It will confirm the obvious.

We had breakfast, took a deep breath, and rode it home.

My thanks go out to the witnesses -

To Dave McQueeney for acting as the authority of the IBA -

And to George’s tortured, sick, horribly off-kilter sense of adventure. (Gee.. that's why we like him, eh?)





Rather than chew up bandwidth with lots of pics, here's a link to my photo album.

LA1K PICS

(Pictures provided by Dean Tanji, Steve Fry, Dave McQueeney)

If anyone reading this has pics of the event, by all means, send me a PM, and we'll get them into the gallery.

you are nuts, completely nuts, beyond nuts. Words can't describe the "nutness". But you have balls, beyond balls, MOTHER OF ALL BALLS!

:fool:

But you did it, I don't know how, but you did it.

Great write-up. :clapping:

Many congrats, there must have been many moments that you questioned your own sanity.

Bet you wouldn't do it again. :lol:

tel

Nice!

Very good writing style for this extremely quirky event. I'm shaking my head in wariness of your nuttiness and envy at the same time. Undoubtedly you've experienced LA in a way nobody else has before.

Good job! :clapping:

Hal, great write up and very close to accurate!! The pictures are magnificent especially considering the subjects!!

It was a pleasure to once again do another safe and interesting ride with you and Steve. Special thanks go out to GZ, and all his volunteer assistants. It was a truly memorable event. Would I do it again, PROBABLY!

Thanks to both Steve & you for agreeing to ride with this Ole Foggie Rider. This ride will go with me to the Grand Iron Butt in the Sky.

Nice write up Hal. I think Dave McQueeney took a picture of all the riders just before they started the ride. If you can get a hold of him maybe you can get a few more shots for your collection.

I had a good time riding around LA with you and Dave.

This was my third ss1k in the last six months.

Thanks GZ for putting this together. You have a sick mind.

And a great big thanks to all the volunteers that made this ride possible.

Great report Hal.

I feel like I was there.

GZ

beeroux said:

Great report Hal.
I feel like I was there.

GZ

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ditto on that!

Did you guys do a lotta lane spliting on your ride?

Totally nuts boys,good job.

trimmantom said:

Did you guys do a lotta lane spliting [sic] on your ride?Totally nuts boys,good job.

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Pet peeve, sorry, but it's called lane sharing. (Splitting is indeed illegal as one cannot ride on the lane divider lines. Sharing simply means that you are fully within a lane, sharing it with another vehicle. Too, sharing is not legal, nor is it illegal, by the book - it's just not on the books, hence it's 'tolerance'. It is completely up to the observing officer whether or not you are doing something illegal.) This vocabulary needs to be corrected because it does have an affect on how this maneuver is perceived. There is a dick wad of a state senator down in Long Beach with legislation in his pocket, ready to present the end of lane sharing and we don't need to give him more 'reason' than he already has... :angry2:

great write up, it's kinda sick -- but much respect for completing a ride like that.

and twn -- it's changed to "lane diversity" now. both splitting and sharing have been deemed politically incorrect.

trimmantom said:

Did you guys do a lotta lane spliting on your ride?Totally nuts boys,good job.

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My recollection is that from 1300-2100, we had to "share' lanes on just about every freeway. Without a doubt we shared on I 405 S, I 10 E, 110 N 7 101N & 170N during those hours. The further we rode in the north but still in the city limits of LA, the roads were less crowed and eliminating almost completely lane "sharing".

Hate to sound like an iggy boys but how the hell do you share a lane with a cage without getting splattered?

I'm not real familiar with the technique cause we do not practice it to much here in the southland.

Sorry about the grammatorical fart there TWN.

trimmantom said:

Hate to sound like an iggy boys but how the hell do you share a lane with a cage without getting splattered?I'm not real familiar with the technique cause we do not practice it to much here in the southland.

Sorry about the grammatorical fart there TWN.

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Go to the second post in this thread, there's a guy sharing lanes... imagine doing that for hours and hours. :blink:

trimmantom said:

Hate to sound like an iggy boys but how the hell do you share a lane with a cage without getting splattered?I'm not real familiar with the technique cause we do not practice it to much here in the southland.

Sorry about the grammatorical fart there TWN.

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Simple, there's room for both car and bike in a single lane and each (hopefully) knows the unwritten rule. Tonight, I was very pleased to see that almost every car in the choked 101, south of Santa Babs, gave way as I shared their lane, if ever so briefly. Very few cages will give you any grief. And I always give a little wave of thanks if they move over a bit.

No worries on the terminology slip. I just don't want to loose the privilege.

Here is everything you ever wanted to know, and stuff you didn't want to know about lane sharing

https://www.pashnit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1653

kaitsdad said:

Dave McQueeney then verified all of our paperwork - all the receipts, logs, start and end witness forms, etc. This was by the book.
Thanks, Mr. McQueeney.

Rides validated, we were given our certificates.

And it was done. Completed. Over with. Finito.

My thanks go out to the witnesses -

To Dave McQueeney for acting as the authority of the IBA -

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Now if we could get the rest of the IBA staff off their ***** and get the rest of the certs finished. Did my SS1K in June and I am still waiting.