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 blog...
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.
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.
