I had everything prepped the day before so that on Thursday Morning I would get dressed, hop on the bike and ride to Palmdale. That was the plan until Wednesday night when I had grabbed a frozen juice out of the freezer to make tequila drinks with and it was soft. Cold but not frozen. The wife said that it was probably because the freezer sliding drawer had been left open overnight.
So when I woke up Thursday morning I tested another frozen juice container after the fridge had been closed and running all night. Yup. Soft! Hopefully it was just a frozen-over coil. The coils on newer fridges are inside so it’s harder to tell if they are frozen over.
So instead of heading out as planned it was all hands on deck grabbing all the ice chests, running to the store for bags of ice and formulating the plan. I unplugged the fridge and we were going to let the unit defrost, plug it back in after 12 hours and see if it could manage to come back to temperature.
The problem was I would be riding the first day of LAB2V when that happened. So I left detailed instructions on what could happen and what to do if this or that, gave her a point and shoot temp reader plus a detailed thermometer unit from storing cheese that I had.
DAY 0: GETTING to PALMDALE
Back to the topic. It’s Thursday. It’s Thanksgiving Day. As I mentioned, my bike was fully gassed and packed. I had my clothes laid out for the ride down. Charles had driven his car (with his bike on the back) down to Vegas the day before and was planning on riding the bike to Palmdale.
I was going to start around 9:30 am head south on Hwy 690 to Hwy 580 to Hwy 5 to Hwy 138 to Hwy 14 and into Palmdale. Google says it would be 357 miles in around 6 hours. The fridge ordeal put me back an hour so it was 10:30 before I was on the road (after the mandatory pre departure hug of the daughter).
The bike had new tires, new oil, new everything and was ready to rumble! I had a full tank of gas and chose to carry not 4 gas cylinders (I think they are .875 liters each) – but 3 and added a smaller one with oil.
START MILES: 24,738
This being my 3rd year, I had a pretty good idea on how this would all work. Bundle up, put on tunes, ride until my gas light came on, get gas at the next stop, pee, drink a Gatorade, – rinse, lather and repeat until I got to Palmdale in six or so hours later. I remember getting the last gas at the bottom of the Grapevine and pulling into Palmdale close to empty.
That was the plan and that’s pretty much exactly how it happened. Except.
Except, I was traveling right at 80 MPH which was just a little faster than the slower cars. That hit me in the gas mileage and I noticed my gas light came on just after I hit 100 miles (usually it’s 120 – 140).
My gas light came on again a little before the Grapevine. I think it was 20 or 30 miles before the Gapevine. I filled up with gas at a Loves Truck Stop in Lost Hills.
I seriously thought it was pretty close to Grapevine and didn’t think twice about it. Looking it up on the map. It’s not 20 or 30…
When I got to the Grapevine I figured I would be fine and headed up the big hill. I was still slightly speeding. When I got to the top of Tejon Pass and turned onto Hwy 138 I was still thinking I would be fine.
Maybe just a 3rd into crossing on Hwy 138 my gas light came on. It turns out just Hwy 138 is almost 50 miles long! I knew it was a bit before I got to Palmdale and the next opportunity for gas but I also knew I had almost 2/3 of a gallon in my pack if I ran out. Besides there was nothing I could do about it now. What would I do – go back to Grapevine?
Amazingly, somehow I got to the end of Hwy 138 and started down Hwy 14 at Lancaster. Gas was just down the road in Palmdale! And that’s when I ran out of gas. Really.
I pulled to the side of the highway, pulled a single bottle out of my bag and dumped it in the tank. The bike started back up and off I went! That’s when the two lane highway went from nice wide shoulders to a completely walled in 2 laner with construction barriers on either side – No emergency shoulders at all.
Had I put all three bottles in the tank I’d be fine but I did not. For the next 14 miles to gas I was more than a little nervous. If I ran out there was nowhere to get out of the way. There was some serious traffic speeding down this stretch to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving Dinner. I was going to be flat. I did not want to be “Flat Mike”.
In the end I made it to the freeway exit, made it to gas, filled everything back up, thanked my lucky stars, and texted the wife that I was safely at the hotel in Palmdale. It was 4:30 PM.
I parked my bike (I was 3rd slot next to the entrance), checked in, dragged my bags to the room, and texted Charles who was already at his hotel.
Charles came over to my hotel (the event hotel) and we had an early dinner in the restaurant. They have a pretty good burger although it did take an hour from the time we ordered to the time it came.
While we were waiting we discussed our strategy. We both decided that while we were open to doing all the HARD routes, the priority would be Red Rocks on the second day and anything that we had to do to make sure that happened we would do. Someone happened to sit next to us who accidentally walked into the GPS room before they were open and accidentally grabbed a route map. We diagnosed the general route for both days and thought we had a pretty good plan.
Joining us in the restaurant was Kieth Huff (President of AMA Dist 37) and the M.C. and face of LAB2V – John Nave – both of which are hugely responsible for putting this event together. We talked not of motos and dirt, but of Corvettes and Porsches and old Mustangs. Truly, everyone you meet at this event is a wonderful and interesting human being!
After dinner (and a couple of margaritas for me) we saw that Registration and GPS opened up. There was a bit of a line but that’s just a good time to turn around and meet and talk to somebody behind you.
In the GPS room I was happy to hear that many riders were coming out with the TrickTracks loaded on their units and not just the .gpx. I had asked about the possibility of TrickTracks a few days before and knew that would be an option (thanks Gil!).
With everything ready, we headed back to our rooms with alarms set for 5 am and a plan to be on the trail at 6:30 am.
DAY 1: PALMDALE to BARSTOW
True to from, the alarm went off, I got up, went downstairs and checked out breakfast and the bike. The bike was still there (yay!) and I had not yet put the my number on.
Last years number was #282
and the new number was…
#282 AGAIN!
What are the odds of that?
Actually they were 100%. When I called in my registration because the website was down, I asked the woman I talked to if I could pick my number. I knew they were sequential so I didn’t ask for #702 but instead asked for the same as last year – so I knew what I was going to have. Once again, wonderful people!
I went inside and got breakfast. My standard for this is one of everything (well, 2 coffees). I grabbed just a single piece of bacon but all of these stuck to it – I swear!
Next I went up and dressed, grabbed everything and packed it in my duffel and headed downstairs.
Charles met me at the front door. We dropped off our bags at the trailer, checked the bikes one last time and then lined up at the start gate. It was 6:27 AM!
It was cold but not too cold. We did the zig zag out of Palmdale. We slowed down at the air force museum and looked at all the cool planes. We hit the dirt just out of town. This was in the past a horrible example of human behavior as so many people just simply dump their trash here. You can see the remains of kitchen and bath remodels as you weave between piles of crap. It was still this way but honestly to a much lesser extent. If I lived closer I would see if we couldn’t get a group of people together to clean the area up (maybe with help from the city).
This years route had very little hard sections at the beginning with only 20 miles of HARD in total. There was sand, there was a gorgeous sunrise (watch the video), more sand, a jet ski, a microwave, and overall a pretty fun day.
I dropped it in deep sand on a downhill section that got to me. I have such a hard time using my rear brake with my old broken toe. My foot just doesn’t want to move that way (pushing the brake lever down) but it is what it is.
Oh, I did have a good hit when I cased it on a rough but little uphill section. There was a whoop and when I came down the front tire hit the edge of a rock and the whole bike stopped. My helmet hit the handlebars and knocked the GoPro from my Chinmount. I also bent the left TwinPeg up a bit but knocked it back into place with my boot.
Towards the end of the day, as we got closer to Barstow we started seeing more and more side by sides and others that were not on our course. They were typically crossing our course on perpendicular trails. One of them almost hit Charles as neither of them saw each other in time. We started slowing down especially when we came to intersecting trails.
TRACK PHOTOGRAPHERS
We saw Grumpy’s photo guys and gals out there again this year. Each location was marked pretty good so we knew there would be a pic worthy place just around the corner or over this hill. I have always supported the track photographers. I know it’s a hard way to make a buck and I don’t want these three nit picks below to come off as harsh but…
BITCH #1: Some of the location spots this year were in places that it was hard to impossible to ham it up for the shot. Around a turn, up a hill, all while navigating around loose rocks – that kind of thing. As a rider we want to show our friends how incredible we ‘think‘ we are and part of the track photographers job is setting us up for those incredible shots. We don’t want average pictures of us looking average. Want to sell more pictures? Set your riders up to look like they are riding and doing much better than they actually are.
Last year that literally happened. The photographer picked a small hill that had an embedded little kicker right at the top and you could see the photographer as you came up to the crest. If you gave it just a bit extra of gas it looked like you were King of the Desert! Look how cool I am!
The truth is that there were 499 other riders out there that were also King of the Desert that day too! I’ll bet that location sold a lot more pictures than other locations did. Obviously I bought that image and use it even today as my cell phone lock screen.
BITCH #2: As a rider, if you managed to get your shit together before one of these difficult locations and maybe got the front wheel up just a little – how disappointing to have that image captured with a dust covered lens, right? Yes, it’s dusty out there and yes it’s a pain to keep a clean lens with 500 riders kicking up dust but look at the stark difference between the pic of Charles above and mine below. I’ve got the small wheelie, the lean, and the look straight into the camera lens – seemingly everything perfect – but the dusty lens ruins it. I won’t be using this photo anywhere. (except here)
BITCH #3: Like I said, I want to support the track photogs as much as I can. When the pictures became available I wanted ALL the images and like Veruka Salt, I wanted them now!! I don’t need prints, just digital versions of each. The only “package” to do that was the “thumbdrive” version – which means I had to wait for the US Mail to get all of my images. To his credit, Grumpy was fast on the actual sending of it – But in terms of days I think the images were ready on the site on Wednesday but I didn’t get my mail until Tuesday of the next week. I had this post pretty much written and the Day 1 Video done and waiting for that silly little thumbdrive. He does have a digital download option but that’s only for a single picture and for $20 each.
Enough bitching. Thank you Grumpy for what you do! Here’s a gallery (unedited) of all the pics they got of me (#282)
We made it into Barstow and checked in (as in, we were off the course) at the hotel. Emily and Travis arrived shortly after that. As a matter of fact I was getting my GPS tracks when Travis came up and found me! Perfect timing!
After getting TrickTracks for Day 2 loaded I moved my bike to the Boy Scout lot. It’s a $10 donation and they watch your bike all night. Even if we didn’t have to worry about stolen bikes – this would be the way they should do it. Does Palmdale have a Boy Scout organization that would do similar?
Back at the hotel, I showered and then we all went to dinner at the sports bar down the street. A couple of tall Hazy IPAs and a big bowl of pasta and I was ready for bed! Back at the hotel I had everything set for the next day. Luna was with us and slept on my bed curled up next to me.
DAY 2: BARSTOW to LAS VEGAS
5 am the alarm went off and I got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast. There was more HARD sections today but we also had the primary goal of Red Rocks we were focused on.
One of the first challenges on Day 2 is climbing up and out of Barstow, straight into the rising sun. We got a good early start with kickstands up at 6:30. I had also asked Travis to bring a bit of painters tape so I could add it to my visor.
Look at that balance!
Still we did get caught into the sun a little but it was minor and not nearly as bad as it was riding later in the morning.
One of the first hard sections was Calico Steps. Just like it sounds, it’s a series of rock step ups and it’s definitely HARD on bigger bikes. Here’s a FB video of the Calico Steps. For the greater good and preserving our strength we skipped this short 5.3 miles section. I do want to do it though next year if it’s on the route.
We flowed into Baker, got gas, checked in and waited just a few minutes to see Travis and Em. We chatted with John and a few others and took a picture at the Thermometer.
After Baker it was the easier way into Sandy Valley for lunch which is not to say it was easy. I was saying to Charles that this would be one of my favorite sections as we rode in a Joshua Tree forest of sorts before coming down to a flat plain of deep sand. I remember Kyle last year not having a good time in this section.
Not so much up on the hillside where it’s firm soil and rocks, but when we got to the flat plain and it was nothing but deep sand.
It starts ok like this, but it will get deeper and deeper, finally turning on to a wide flat powerline road filled with deep gravel. This year we did it all a much faster pace and floated for those 12 or so miles at roughly 40 MPH. When you reach this turn – you have 6 more miles of this to go!
We conquered Powerline Road this year. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/BGp3OVMMIRU?si=QONGoTsxDBQD2RyV&t=740
From there, it was up and over to Sandy Valley Pit Stop where the first thing you do is get a bike wash by the local Sandy Valley Fire Department (Station 77). This is so we don’t track invasive weeds from CA into NV and not because they want us to look better for the cameras.
Just around the corner is the line for gas. They say it’s supposed to be 1.5 gallons but nobody is measuring. You’ll get a full tank. WHY FREE GAS? The reason they do this is because there’s a logistic issue of working a gas station into the route – it’s just not possible unless we take away Red Rocks.
And then there’s the FREE LUNCH. The local firefighters and their families put on a free lunch of a pulled pork sandwich, cole slaw, potato, macaroni salad, a cookie and a Gatorade and Water!
I always buy a Firefighter shirt (or two) as well. We finished lunch and waited just a few minutes for Travis and Emily. Hugs and then it was off to Red Rocks!
There’s a long flat gravel road (15 miles) that we flew down. Not much video but I did have to stop and pee once as we were traversing it. It ended up coming to Hwy 160 where we turned right and then just a little bit later left into Lovell Canyon.
Lovell Canyon Road is a 25 MPH zone and goes for a few miles before it leaves the pavement and we climb up the loosely rocked 4 x 4 road called Rocky Gap.
It wasn’t that I was tired, more like I was being lazy and conserving my energy, but half way up this climb I was sitting down and just lost momentum and balance and dropped the bike. https://youtu.be/BGp3OVMMIRU?si=e9Bz9QNU7cVfFJsC&t=1012
There was a guy behind me who stopped and help pick up the bike. He was an older guy from Missouri riding alone on his DRZ 400. He asked if it was ok to ride with us as he wasn’t familiar with this section. Of course we said yes.
Shortly after this we got into what is referred to properly as Red Rocks. Charles was first, I was second and the guy on the DRZ following last. We would do a section at a time, pick a line and just take it slow. Charles took a great picture, capturing the essence of Red Rocks. That’s me on the left and I would make it around the tree, cross the creek bed to the right and then back to the left of this picture around the big rock.
In the end it was not as hard as we had made it out to be. Next time we’ll attack it more vigorously and with more speed. That’ll make it go faster too. But hey, for the first time it was incredible! My goal now is to clean it from start to finish – no dabs!
Momentum goes a long way in this environment.
I’ve watched plenty of Red Rock videos and knew when we had gotten to the end of the hard part. We climbed up to the summit, stopped for a few and then made our way down the switchbacks and finally out into the Vegas side of the park.
We posed for a picture with our Missouri friend, interrupting some sort of engagement picture in the background. Or did they screw up our Moto Picture?
Oh well, I can just cut them out of the picture.
From there it was on to the Hotel with a little freeway action and a little downtown city street action. Can you split lanes in Nevada? We wanted to but didn’t know and so we behaved.
Travis and Em (and Luna) were there to get pictures and cheer us home. There was a little traffic for photos with the girls.
Once again one of the hardest working people was John Nave (again) – never a minute of rest the whole weekend. Thank you also to Kieth Huff and to the whole LAB2V Staff. I know just how much work goes on behind the scenes to make this happen every year.
The Girls and Santa Pic. Thanks Grumpy!
And finally, a big thanks to Charles for going with me – it was great!
A finally, a huge thank you to Travis and Emily (and Luna too!) Not riding and just following along has to be hard – but thank you, thank you, thank you!
What did I ask Santa for this year? To do it all again next year! Let’s do LAB2V 2025!
Oh yeah – STATS…
We put the bike on the back of Travis’ 4Runner and drove home on Sunday. My ending miles were 25,487.
So I put a total of 749 miles on the bike since leaving my driveway. I know just getting to Palmdale was 357 miles so that was around 392 miles of LAB2V dirt spread over 2 days.
Garmin tracking suggests that on Day 1 I did 136 miles but that’s inaccurate this time as I had it set to ping my location once every 10 minutes. That meant that the map tracking didn’t capture the actual track I did, but instead skipped and jumped “as the crow flies” every 10 minutes.
Day 2 and Garmin was somewhat similar, showing me as only having traveled 171 miles.
So there’s roughly 85 miles unaccounted for in Garmin. No Biggee.
At the Awards Banquet, John Nave usually drops a bunch of the interesting stats for the year. It’s always interesting but soon forgotten so I asked him to share his notes.
- The age group with the most amount of riders: 50 – 59 with 85 total.
- Under 20: 9
- 20 – 29: 42
- 30- 39: 68
- 40 – 49: 74
- 50 – 50: 85
- 60 – 69: 46 <= My age bracket
- 70 – 709: 7
- Average age was 47.2
- Oldest Rider was a woman: Jean Hetherington at 80!
- Largest Bike Manufacturer: KTM with 174
- 62 Huskys
- 50 Honda
- 16 Yamaha
- 20 Beta
- 14 Suzuki
- 5 Ducati
- 3 Triumph
- 2 Gas Gas
- 1 BMW
- 1 CF Moto
- 1 Kove
- Most common model: KTM 500 EXC-F with 91
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, had a big cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and is currently building a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
- LAB2V 2024 - December 2, 2024
- PRE LAB2V Prep - November 11, 2024
- The NORCAL BDR (part 3) - October 29, 2024