California Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez at the Sturgis motorcycle Rally 2019

This year was no different from the last eight years in that at the end of July, I traveled from Huntington Beach, California to the Sturgis motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. My wife accompanied me; this was her third consecutive year.

I must admit it is something I look forward to every year. It is almost like a kid in a candy store. Now if you are not a biker, there is no way that you are going to understand what the Sturgis motorcycle rally experience is like, or the yearning that you have each year to go is, unless you have actually been to the rally.

I always tell my friends that they must go to Sturgis at least once in their lifetime. Most of my friends always tell me that they are going to go one day, or that they want to go one day, but none of them actually ever go. Where I live in Southern California, it is 1355 miles each way to Sturgis. Many people who go to Sturgis are closer than we are, or further away. I guess for the average Joe, it is difficult to go to Sturgis for a week, and then spend maybe another 5 to 6 days traveling. But believe you me, for those of us that go, it is well worth it.

I remember my first few years going to Sturgis, it was a lot different for me. I was not married so I had special friends accompanying me 🙂 and it was all new to me. Actually, I should clarify that, after two years I pretty much knew the main parts of the rally, but each year after that I have still learned new rides every time I went.

Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez’s campsite at Glencoe, Sturgis 2019

We usually stay at the Glencoe campground. When I first started going to Glencoe in 2013, they had major bands playing the venue every night, the main drag had all sorts of debauchery and nudity happening at night, and it was packed. Every year except 2015, the 75^th anniversary, it seems like there are less and less people at the rally, and the people do not stay as long as they used to. Glencoe still has good bands playing the venue at night, but they are not major headliners like they used to be. There is another campground called the Buffalo Chip that charges much more money, and has all the major bands, that may be the main place to stay now, I do not know, I have not stayed there. Frankly, my wife and I are not in to standing for hours to watch the same bands that we have listened to for the past 30 years. We do not go to Sturgis for concerts.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that from my observations there are a heck of a lot more trikes than they used to be, the crowd at Sturgis is getting older, and it seems to me that the bikers are dying out more and more each year. Don’t get me wrong, there are still lots of young people that seem to be riding bobber type of motorcycles, however, the crowd is definitely much older and a little less and less each year.

The majority of motorcycles by far at Sturgis are baggers, and this year there were lots of Indian Motorcycles all over the place.

California Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez is wife Teri at Crazy Horse, Sturgis 2019

I hate to say that according to the official Sturgis news, the crowd size was down from last year. But I did not need to read the news to know this, I could tell the crowd size was down.

Make no mistake, the Sturgis motorcycle rally is still huge, the main drag is still packed with bikes, and there are motorcycles all over the place, just not as many as there was let’s say back in 2013, 2014, etc.

Part of the Sturgis motorcycle experience is being a part of a huge gathering of fellow motorcycle riders. There is no way to explain what it feels like to be with hundreds of thousands of other people who share the same love of motorcycle riding that you do. This is what keeps me going back to Sturgis every year. It’s almost like a drug addict getting a fix. You tell yourself during the year that you will do something else this year for vacation, but you find that Sturgis starts to call you to come back. You know that you must go, and then a couple of months before Sturgis you get really excited planning your trip to Sturgis.

Now with respect to the Glencoe campground where I have stayed each year except for 2015, it has been disappointing the last few years. As I stated before, they used to have major headliner bands, and the place was booming until the wee hours of the morning. They call the main drag tittie alley, or perverts’ row within the Glencoe campground, because when the lights go out lots of women cruise up and down the row either topless or fully nude, and a bunch of guys give them beads and take pictures.Guys on motorcycles do burnouts, spin their tires, and rev their engines.  You should see some of my early pictures from perverts’ row. For the most part, except for a few stragglers, perverts’ row is now dead compared to what it used to be. Now it’s not that I am a pervert or anything like that, but it’s sad to see that all the campers are all set up on the row with their beads like they were in years past, but there are empty spaces where before it used to be packed, and literally after Wednesday during rally we, there is really no action going on perverts row anymore except for a few stragglers.

Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez at Sturgis 2019

It’s almost sad to see the people waiting for girls to come by and very few go by compared to what it used to be before. Literally by Wednesday, the campground is already emptying out whereas before it started later in the week. What it signifies to me is that the rally is not what it used to be. At least I can say and remember what it used to be.

It is still a great rally to go to however compared to any other rally in the country.

Again, the rally still has hundreds of thousands of people, but it is definitely not as big as it used to be. The year 2020 will be the 80^th anniversary of Sturgis, and I can see now that many of the venues have raised their prices in anticipation of a big crowd for the 80^th anniversary. I made the mistake of waiting too long in 2015 to make my reservations for the 75^th anniversary and ended up having to stay in Deadwood in a campground that was dead because Glencoe and others were sold out, and because the action was down in Sturgis. You can read my article about 2015 here, it was way overcrowded, a sausage fest meaning, all dudes and very little females, and I’m quite positive 2020 may be the same.

One of the fun things about going to Sturgis is checking out all the babes even if you are married. Nobody including me wants to see a bunch of dudes all over the place. It seems like every dude and their friends went to Sturgis 2015 without their old ladies. Hopefully 20/20 will be different. As of the writing of this article, I have not made reservations yet for 2020, and I am not sure if I will go to 2020, I will discuss that below.

Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez wife little Teri at campsite in Glencoe, Sturgis 2019

As I said earlier, every year I go to Sturgis since 2012, I have discovered new rides in and around the Black Hills, Spearfish, Rapid City, etc. This year I discovered a couple of more. My wife and I rode over 1000 miles on the motorcycle just at the rally. We took our motorhome and trailed the motorcycle to Sturgis like we do every year.

I will quickly talk about those guys who never go to Sturgis, the backseat quarterback guys on motorcycle forums and Internet discussion groups, knocking and degrading us because we take our motorhome’s and trailers to Sturgis rather than ride to Sturgis even though they never got off their ass to go to Sturgis themselves. I will admit when I was much younger, let’s say 20 years ago, I used to say the same thing, however I was a hard-core rider. Hell, when I was in my 30s, I rode a soft tail with no windscreen, from Chatsworth California to Durango Colorado and back again no problem. I talked the talk and walked the walk unlike the internet backseat quarterback guys I am talking about.

The problem with riding your motorcycles to rallies such as Sturgis, is that either you have to stay in a motel, or camp. On the way to Sturgis from where I live it is a 2 to 3 day trip each way, and sometimes there is severe weather on the road. When I was younger-no problem, I would simply find a Motel 6 when I needed to crash. But it used to be a hassle to find a motel, unpack the gear from the bike, reload the gear on the bike in the morning, etc., and there is no doubt it is still a hassle even for the younger, and other riders who decide to ride to the rallies.

Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez and wife at Mount Rushmore, Sturgis 2019

I used to write like the backseat quarterbacks mentioned above about how I was not a trailer queen, and I used to knock guys who trailered their bikes as being “not real bikers,” etc. 20 years later, I realize that I was wrong. Now that I have a class A motorhome and an enclosed trailer to travel with, I have a whole new perspective.

In the past, I rode everywhere on my motorcycle no problem. Now that I am in my 50s, I actually get tired more quickly, and the aches and pains in my body from years of playing pop Warner in high school football and other sports, practicing martial arts, being in the military, and working out, are taking their toll.

Now that I have a motor home and a covered custom trailer, it is much more pleasurable and convenient to go to rallies in the motorhome with the trailer. Obviously, if I am going to a rally that does not require overnight travel, I will still ride, but it is much nicer for overnight trips to take the motorhome. All your stuff is in the motorhome, no need to pack and unpack, plus all your food is in the motorhome and you can eat while traveling rather than stopping.

California Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez and wife little Teri at Sturgis 2019

The reason I am bringing this up is that many people bring motorhomes or fifth wheels, or campers and trailer their motorcycles to Sturgis, and many ride to Sturgis. My Sturgis perspective is from that of someone who brings a motorhome and trailers their motorcycle. I stay at the campgrounds, and this is where the action is. I kind of feel sorry for the guys and gals who are staying in hotels, it must be a more somber and boring motorcycle rally experience.

Bottom line, I highly recommend going to the rally whether you ride or trailer.

The motorcycle industry reports that sales of motorcycles are down in the United States. Apparently, the millennials are too chicken to ride motorcycles. This may explain why there are not people coming up from the youth to replace the older motorcycle riders that are dying out, which would explain why motorcycle rallies around the nation have less crowds than they used to.

So, with respect to the Sturgis motorcycle Rally 2019, notwithstanding the fact that the campground was not as active, it emptied out sooner, the crowd size was not as big as past years, we had a fantastic time.

Motorcycle accident lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez wife little Teri at Glencoe campground, Sturgis 2019

In December 2018, I had a custom saddle made at Russell Day-Long for the Indian Roadmaster motorcycle, because last year after a few days the stock Indian saddle felt like a brick and we got real sore. (I will be writing a review on the Russell Day Long custom motorcycle saddle soon)

The new Russell Day-Long saddle made this year’s Sturgis motorcycle rally a much more pleasurable experience than last year. We put on over thousand miles on the motorcycle at Sturgis, and Yellowstone, and neither of us had a sore butt the entire time. It was fantastic.

If you are going to go to Sturgis, plan on riding many miles, not only make sure your motorcycle is serviced before the rally, your tires have proper tread, but also make sure you have a comfortable seat. In a motorcycle rally where you are riding, this can make the difference between having a great time and having a miserable time.

We rode to hell and high water. I am a sober motorcycle rider; I have been sober approximately 21 years. My wife quit drinking almost a year ago. We are not the type of couple that hangs out at bars. I actually feel sorry for the people that sit through the rally getting drunk at bars, but I am not here to judge, and that is the subject for a different article. Just do not drink and ride.

Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez and wife little Teri on the main drag Sturgis 2019

The reason I mention sitting in bars and drinking is that some people ride to Sturgis and spend the whole rally hanging out all the bars. My wife Teri and I spend the entire rally on the motorcycle. We are hard-core riders. I was lucky to find a wife who enjoys riding is much as I do.

Will I go to the Sturgis motorcycle Rally 2020? At this point I do not know, and I have not made reservations yet. Look, I have been going to Sturgis for the past eight years straight. It not only costs a lot of money, but it is a two week plus commitment, and although I really love the rally, and the riding, a break may do us good so that if we decide to go back again it’ll be more fresher if you know what I’m trying to say.

At least for us, we have been talking about trying something new instead of going to Sturgis for 2020. Further, I see that Glencoe has raised their prices so that the cost will be at least $300 more just for the campground than it was last year, this includes camping and the required wristbands.

At this time, I am just not sure if I will go back for 2020, but usually what happens is somewhere around January, I started getting the in itch, I make my reservations online, and then I end up in Sturgis again 🙂

Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez on the Needles Hwy., Sturgis 2019

Even as I type this review, I miss being at the Sturgis motorcycle rally. It’s kind of odd the way it works, pretty much when you’re at Sturgis and riding on the last day, you have ridden so much that you are utterly exhausted, you know it’s time to go home. As you are leaving the campground you know that when you pass through downtown Sturgis that it will still be packed, you can tell on the main road there are much less people and it is time to go.

This year we left on the final Saturday, and drove our motorhome and trailer set up to the Little Big Horn Battlefield in Montana, where we camped for the night, and then due to rain, decided simply to tour the battlefield in the motorhome and trailer, and then depart for Yellowstone which we do every year.

We camped at the Yellowstone Valley Inn as we do every year after Sturgis, but we discovered that it was under new ownership, and that they were charging hundred dollars a night which to be frank it is outrageous for an RV campsite, but we figured since it is in an ideal spot between Cody Wyoming and Yellowstone, we decided to eat the extra cost.

We rode the Yellowstone national forest the next day, but I made the mistake of thinking it was going to be a warm day and did not bring my cold-weather gear on the bike. That was a big mistake. When we left the campground, it was in the low 80s within 20 miles the temperature had gone down to the 60s and I was kind of suffering a bit being a Southern California boy used to warm weather. It actually got down into the 50s further into the park. My wife was smart enough to bring her cold-weather jacket, I had a sweatshirt hoodie, and later on put a rain jacket over that which worked pretty well. We put a lot of miles on the bike that day in Yellowstone, but we did not stop at most of attractions, since we go there every year, we opted to just ride rather than stop.

California Motorcycle Accident and Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez with wife little Teri on their motorcycle main drag, Sturgis 2019

We did not get out of the park until it was getting dark, and I can assure you it was getting real cold. I usually don’t leave the park that late and it was a bit eerie knowing that there are wolves, bears, cougars, and other creatures in Yellowstone. Not only that, there are dear, Moose, and other creatures that like to run in front of motorcycles.

We got back to the motorhome at around 9:00 PM after a cold and bug filled motorcycle ride back to Yellowstone Valley Inn from Yellowstone national forest. I strapped to the motorcycle into the trailer, and we left the next morning for home.

I am attaching some of our pictures from the trip into this article. This year we took less pictures than we normally do, because we were on the bike more than we were stopped. Usually I go up and down the strip taking pictures of the custom motorcycles. This year we just walked up and down the main drag a few times and enjoyed it rather than stopping to take a ton of pictures.

Keep reading my Biker Law Blog to see if we decide to go for the Sturgis 2020 motorcycle rally.

By California Motorcycle Accident Lawyer, Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., October 6, 2019

The post My annual pilgrimage to the Sturgis motorcycle rally, 2019 first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

Little Teri on left, Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez on right, Sturgis, 2018

If you are a reader of the Biker Law Blog, you know that I attend the Sturgis motorcycle rally, in Sturgis South Dakota, every year. This year was no different.

I actually was contemplating not going this year, because the last 2 years of the rally have had a sharp decrease in attendance, most likely due to the fact that everybody went to the 75^th anniversary of the rally, in 2015.

As usual, I ended up making reservations early, and went on my annual trek to the rally with my wife this year.

This year also marked the 2^nd year that my wife Little Teri attended the rally with me.

Many people wonder why people like me go to the Sturgis motorcycle rally every year. As a matter of fact, I was stopped for speeding by a South Dakota state trooper in 2015, and we had a conversation in his patrol car about this exact subject.

By the way, if you do get stopped anywhere near the Sturgis motorcycle rally, you will find that the law enforcement officers in vehicles, will invite you to sit in the front seat of their patrol car for quite some time while they evaluate you. I venture to guess that they’re checking to see if there’s a smell of alcohol, or have dilated eyes to indicate drug use, etc. This is another subject.

Little Teri wearing an injuredbikers.com T-shirt at Sturgis 2018

If you are a motorcycle rider, you may not want to say that you are a biker, but you are a biker. I don’t care what kind of motorcycle you ride. Many people think that a biker dresses a certain way, looks a certain way, etc., however, a biker is a general term to describe people who ride motorcycles. There is much debate on the Internet about what a biker is, I thought I would set the record straight here and now.

Getting back to why bikers and motorcycle riders go to Sturgis every year, Sturgis is a small city of approximately 7000 people in South Dakota, which swells to over half a million during the rally, the answer is simple, Sturgis calls us. It’s almost like that movie Close Encounters of the 3^rd kind, we are driven to go by an internal voice, which is hard to explain.

1^st rally goers hear about the rally from friends, magazines, the Internet, etc. Once you go, you get the bug to continue returning.

Now as for Sturgis 2018, at least for my wife and I it is a hell of a drive from Huntington Beach California, Sturgis South Dakota.

At least for us, the Sturgis motorcycle rally experience includes camping in the RV at the Glencoe campground. You’ll hear a lot of guys squawking about “you mean you do not ride to the rally?” But these guys have no clue. If you ride your motorcycle to the rally which is a great experience in of itself, you either have to stay in a hotel, rent a room or a house somewhere, or camp in a tent. You can also rent a cabin at some of the campgrounds. I can assure you that it is not the same as staying smack dab in the middle of Glencoe in an RV amongst all the other rally goers.

Brian on left, Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez on right

Part of the Sturgis motorcycle rally experience is the party at the campground amongst all the RVers. There is a lot of partying going on at the campground after hours that people in hotels, rented homes, or in tents just are not going to experience. Another pleasure of being at one of the major campgrounds, is that you can sit out with whoever you go to the rally with, barbecue, listen to music, look at the stars, and relax in preparation for the next day’s ride.

As for Little Teri and I, Sturgis, 2018 was mostly about a shit load of riding. We put about a thousand miles on the motorcycle during the 8 days we were at the rally. Only on one day due to weather, did we end the ride early. I have been going to Sturgis for many years, but this year I discovered some significant rides that I have never done before. Even after 6 prior years of going to the rally, it was truly nice to be able to find new rides that were not only substantial, but also advanced with respect to curves and twisties.

A brother from my motorcycle club, Brian, showed up with his old lady, and we rode together part of the day. They rode their motorcycle from the inland Empire, California, to the rally. This year the weather was super-hot going through the Western Desert and it was in the upper 90s in Sturgis. My bro told me they had quite a time getting to the rally.

Little Teri on left, Biker Attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez on right

It was much hotter this year at the rally, then last year. Within 3 days, a thunderstorm came through and destroyed my flag pole along with many other people’s tarps and awnings.

This year I was able to shoot some virtual reality, 360° video of many of the main rides in Sturgis, including the main drag.

Rather than dump all the video that I have into this post, I will make separate blog postings, with each video. Each virtual reality video will also be posted on my profile on Facebook, and my YouTube channel. You can either watch the videos here on the Biker Law Blog, or on Facebook, or YouTube.

As usual, I will also be producing a video slideshow of our Sturgis, 2018 trip. This year we got many more pictures than we did last year, it will take me a bit to go through the pictures and decide what to include.

I was worried last year that the Sturgis motorcycle rally was dying out, I was pleasantly surprised this year that the rally was much bigger than last year. The official estimates are that more than a million people attended the rally this year.

I noticed that there were many more trikes this year than in past years, the baby boomers are aging, and many of them cannot ride on 2 wheels anymore. I say go for it, God forbid if I am not able to ride on 2 wheels in the future, I will also switch to a trike if need be.

California Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez, Sturgis motorcycle rally 2018

I also noticed that there are many more women riding motorcycles. I remember a time before the year 2000, when it was very rare to see a woman on a motorcycle. Back in 2000, and 2001, the women that you did see on a motorcycle, were usually riding small Japanese cruisers, or Harley-Davidson sportster’s.

Times have changed, many women are not only riding all sizes of motorcycles now, but they are also riding big baggers. There are still many more men on bikes than women, but I am sure one day it could equalize. As for me I think it is sexy this see a woman on a motorcycle. My wife without a doubt wants to stay on my backseat, and I like it like that, but it’s nice to see men and women on motorcycles.

Another thing I noticed this year was that Indian motorcycle has gained a substantial portion of the motorcycle market compared to last year. At the rally, Harley-Davidson is still King, but there are Indians all over the place now. Unless Polaris goes out of business, sells off Indian, or discontinues the brand, at this rate I predict that in the next 5 years Indian may make up almost 50% of the domestic American made motorcycle market for cruisers.

Little Teri in the Black Hills, Sturgis 2018

I think there is a genuine competition now between Harley-Davidson and Indian, that Harley-Davidson can no longer ignore. This will make it much better for American made motorcycle consumers.

Teri and I talked about whether or not we will go to the rally again next year in 2019. The plan is that we will go back to the rally. At this point we are still recovering from the Sturgis 2018 motorcycle rally. I am quite positive in a few months my dander will get back up, and I will make the reservations for 2019.

The 2018 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally for me stood out most on two counts, (1) It is back, there were much more people, and (2) the riding was excellent.

I look forward to your comments on this article.

By California motorcycle accident attorney, Norman Gregory Fernandez, August 2018.

The post The Sturgis motorcycle Rally 2018, a great time. first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

California motorcycle accident attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez at the 2015 Sturgis motorcycle rally

I always look forward to my annual trip to the Sturgis motorcycle rally. For the last 4 years I’ve taken my RV, and trailered my motorcycle. This year was no different.

However, what was different this year, was that because it was the 75^th annual Sturgis motorcycle rally, everything was completely sold out months in advance.

I usually stay at the Glencoe campground. However, this year, all they were offering for $1200 was an RV site with electrical hookup, and water, but no sewer. If you wanted to dump your RV, you’d have to notify them and wait for them to come.

I could’ve went to many ordinary RV parks in and around the Sturgis area that provided full hookups, but as in previous years, I wanted to be in the middle of the action, and in an RV park that offered concerts, recreation, and other amenities.

California biker lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez and friend at the 2015 Sturgis motorcycle rally

I found that the Broken Spoke Campground was advertising a full hook up RV site without sewer just like Glencoe was advertising, but their price was only $899. You would also have to purchase a $200 wristband per person if you were to stay at the broken spoke campground, whereas Glencoe was charging $300 for the wristband.

Basically sites like the Glencoe, Broken Spoke, and others, have premium concerts every night, so they charge for wristbands on top of the charge for the actual RV site.

I ended up choosing the Broken Spoke Campground because it was approximately $800 cheaper than Glencoe. It turned out to be a big mistake see below. The total price was approximately $1400 including the wristbands.

This year I purchased a new RV 3 months before Sturgis. The damn thing was constantly in the shop up until a few days before Sturgis. There were still a few bugs with the unit that were not fixed prior to leaving, oh well.

California motorcycle accident lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez at Mount Rushmore, 2015 Sturgis motorcycle rally

As in previous years it was kind of hectic getting ready for the trip. For the most part I think it’s all a mental thing. I, and I’m sure a lot of other people get so excited before the rally, that just preparing to leave is exhausting.

It is very hard to find people that can take a week to 2 weeks off work to travel with you to the Sturgis motorcycle rally. Many guys plan trips like this years in advance. Last year I went with a friend to Sturgis, she was able to do the entire trip with me. This year my new female friend was unable to do the drive with me due to work, but was able to fly in on Tuesday night, and then fly out on Sunday night, September 9, 2015 the last night of the rally.

Although I like to travel with friends because it’s much better, I’m the kind of guy that is no problem packing up and going across country by myself. Done it many times, no problem.

California motorcycle accident lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez and friend having fun on the Black Hills Scenic Byway

I love the drive to the Sturgis motorcycle rally, it’s the excitement that gets you. Many moons ago before I got into the RV scene I would traditionally ride to events like this on my motorcycle. There’s something to be said about doing either. I love riding don’t get me wrong, but 1700 miles each way wears on you a bit. At my age, I prefer taking my RV. At motorcycle rallies the big party happens in the campgrounds anyway.

I have done this drive many years in a row, so all the sites along the way are becoming familiar to me now, almost like old friends and landmarks. This year it took me a bit longer to get to the rally because frankly I was burnt out on the 2^nd night of driving and stopped at a rest stop in Wyoming to sleep for a few hours.

Sturgis, South Dakota was about 150 miles from the rest stop. Excitement was in the air in the morning. In years past I went through this area at night, let me tell you the drive from the Wyoming to the South Dakota border was beautiful. Coupled with the fact that there were thousands of bikes on the road made it even better. You could just tell that this year was going to be special.

The view from our table at Mount Rushmore Sturgis 2015

Ordinarily every year I get off of the freeway and drive on the main drag through downtown Sturgis to go to the Glencoe campground and set up. This year it kind of sucked because as I pulled off the traffic was much worse than any previous year that I’ve seen. It took me an hour to get from the freeway to near the Glencoe campground. It was bumper to bumper motorcycles the entire way. Being in a big RV above the action was kind of cool because I could see all the action but the traffic was horrible.

This year because I was staying at the Broken Spoke Campground, I passed the Glencoe campground for a couple miles then made the turn off to the Broken Spoke Campground. It was on the way to the Broken Spoke that I became concerned. I was basically in the middle of nowhere and there is barely any motorcycles on the road.

Biker lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez in Custer National Park, Sturgis 2015

Finally about 15 miles down the road, the Broken Spoke arose out of the country rolling hills. It was exciting, and it was packed.

I was directed into the check-in area and proceeded to go from my RV to the check-in area. This is where my nightmare began.

The girl at the Broken Spoke campground check-in immediately told me that they had no spaces with water, and that if I had a problem with that I could go online and request a refund. I told her “what are you talking about, I paid for a full hook up space, and my RV is almost that of water.” She told me that there is nothing that she could do, and that if I placed a certain flag in front of my RV there would be somebody coming around to pump water. Imagine, all of Sturgis was sold out this year. I was pissed.

I thought to myself this is complete bullshit. I would’ve never stayed at this place had I known there was no water for the RV.

California motorcycle accident attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez Sturgis motorcycle rally, Sturgis 2015

I’m not going to waste a bunch of space in this article to talk about what bullshit the Broken Spoke Campground was and how it almost ruined my trip this year, but I will say that after wasting 2 days of the rally there, I found another RV Park with full hookups in Deadwood, South Dakota, for $600 thank god, and high tailed it out of the Broken Spoke Campground as soon as I could. I felt sorry for the poor shmucks stuck there waiting for water for 4 days. Screw that.

The Broken Spoke Campground was a dustbowl in the middle of nowhere. I am sure if it wasn’t so crowded it might’ve been an okay place to be, but they grossly oversold it knowing full well they didn’t have enough spaces to accommodate what they were selling. I was able to get a refund of a thousand dollars from them via PayPal a week after I got home. I will give them credit for that they did refund me for the campground part of the trip. I never did recover the cost of the wristbands and lost $400 on that deal because I never went back.

Biker lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez with friend at Mt. Rushmore, Sturgis 2015

Suffices to say I will never stay there again, I highly recommend that you find another place to stay if you are ever at the Sturgis rally. Now if they come to me and make me an offer I might give them another chance but right now I am highly pissed off at them still over a month after the fact.

I went and stayed at a place called Whistler’s Gulch in Deadwood, South Dakota which is about 16 miles from the main drag in Sturgis. I love this place, but it is a bit of a drive to and from Sturgis.

As far as the rally this year went, frankly, it sucked compared to previous years. The Broken Spoke Campground nightmare was part of it, but also it was a sausage fest, meaning there was at least 4 to 5 guys for every one gal at the rally and most of the gals of the rally were not hotties like I am so used to seeing at motorcycle rallies. There were only a few hot gals there. Seems like every guy in the country and their friends decided to go to Sturgis this year and left the gals behind. It was a complete sausage fest.

California motorcycle accident attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez with friend 75th annual Sturgis motorcycle rally

Further, the traffic was so bad that it was horrendous. I did ride about 3000 miles on my bike during the rally. I’m not the bar going type of guy. I’m a rider. When I get into the Black Hills and start riding, which is my passion. I rode my ass off this year as in previous years.

I rode my old favorites, Mount Rushmore, Custer National Park, all through the Black Hills, the Black Hills Scenic Byway, Crazy Horse, and many places off the beaten track. As usual I found hidden places to ride for many miles on dirt roads with my gal riding shotgun on the back. As usual we found a couple secluded spots to enjoy each other as well, which is kind of tough in the Black Hills because there are really are no places to hide.

Staying in Deadwood this year definitely changed the ambience of the rally for me. It was a lot mellower this year than in previous years, because in previous years I would’ve been at the concerts every night until 2 in the morning. Hell last year after the concerts ended I went to the only gym in town to work out in the middle of the night.

California biker attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez at the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone national forest just after Sturgis 2015

Now this rally totally sucked compared to all the other rallies I’ve been to in the past at Sturgis. The main culprit this year was just flat-out shitty weather. It was cold and rainy over 50% of the rally this year. Just flat-out shitty weather. The rain caused many people to leave after a couple days, and by the end of the rally the place was pretty much empty. You can’t do anything about Mother Nature. This year the weather really sucked. In previous years there was rain for one or 2 days at Sturgis, but nothing as bad as this year.

I definitely got some good riding in, and had some good times, but this year was definitely not worth the time and effort as in previous years. I’m hoping next year will kind of calm down a little bit. What may sound like a sacrilege is I may not even go to Sturgis next year. It remains to be seen. I’ve always wanted to ride Alaska during the summer, so I may take my rig and do an Alaska trip will see.

My lady friend and I had a good time on this trip. She was the one good thing about the rally other than the great riding. We had some good times between each other as a man and women do, which I’m not going to describe here but I’m sure you can let your imagination run amok.

Motorcycle lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez 75th annual Sturgis motorcycle rally

Rallies like this are about adult pleasure. If you go by yourself without a woman to a rally like this the chances of actually hooking up with a woman at the rally or are almost impossible, because most of the women are hooked up with men. So all these guys showing up with all their buddies just kind of ruin it.

On the last day of the rally, Sunday, I struck Camp and drove my RV through town to the Rapid City Airport to drop my lady friend off who had to fly back home to be at work the next day. It kind of sucked to watch her go but they get then again I was excited, because I was now headed towards Cody Wyoming and Yellowstone.

I should’ve just parked the RV when it got dark and camped out for the night but I figured if I was able to get to Cody straightaway I could spend 2 days riding Yellowstone instead of just one day. That’s exactly what I did. I rode my 36′ Class A motorhome with 12 foot trailer, total length of about 50 feet through the Greybull National Forest which goes up to about 90,000 feet in pitch darkness.

75th annual Sturgis motorcycle rally

I had an accident 4 years ago where I lost the brakes on my motorhome in the same forest and almost got killed, see the article about that experience by clicking here.

I Rode the same exact route, and actually stopped in the middle of the night at the spot where I had the accident 4 years earlier just to contemplate what happened. Let me tell you something, it’s eerie in the Greybull National Forest at night, there was nobody else on the road with me. If anything would’ve happened nobody would’ve discovered me until probably the next morning. The time I got to the Yellowstone highway through Greybull, I was spent and could barely keep my eyes open. I got to the Walmart in Cody, parked the RV and crashed out.

When I woke up the next day and went to the Yellowstone Valley campground set up camp, got my motorcycle out of the trailer, and rode the Yellowstone national forest. I was able to ride Yellowstone for two days before heading home. This article is not about my ride through the Yellowstone national forest, but I will just say that I’ve done it every year after Sturgis and I love it.

I definitely had a good time riding Sturgis this year but it was not as good as previous years. Nothing is perfect, but I had a good time.

By California Personal Injury Attorney and Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2015

The post My trip to the 75th annual Sturgis motorcycle rally. July 30, 2015 through August 12, 2015 first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

As you all know, I drove my RV alone from Huntington Beach, CA to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 2013, in Sturgis, SD from July 31, 2013 to August 16, 2013. I also drove to Custer, Montana, and to Cody and Yellowstone, WY.

This marked my first big trip since becoming a single man again.

Once at my destination, I rode my motorcycle over 1000 miles. Below is a video montage of the pictures I took at the Sturgis 2013 Motorcycle Rally. A couple of pics had to be edited to add pasties so Youtube would not delete the video. Look for my big write-up on the trip, and actual video footage taken from my various cameras to be published soon. Enjoy the video. Pictures were taken at Sturgis, SD, Full Throttle Saloon, Glencoe Campground, and all over the rally.

California Motorcycle Accident Lawyer and Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez, December 29, 2013

The post A Video montage of Photos I took at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 2013 first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

California Motorcycle Attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez, Photo courtesy of the American Bar Association Journal, and photographer David Newhardt

Well with Palm Springs American Heat I have finally had enough with what I think is a disgusting advertising practice by what in my opinion are bottom feeder personal injury lawyers.

In Palm Springs a certain so-called Biker Lawyer group had some scantily clad young girls aggressively coming up to people who were walking by saying that they worked for a lawyer who actually rides, as they tried to force feed passerby’s their business cards, and cheap novelties and trinkets.

I told the girls who came up to me, “Sorry, I am a Biker Lawyer who actually rides.” They kind of had a shocked look on their faces.

You see, I actually ride to many motorcycle events all over the nation. This year was no different.

All of a sudden there are a certain group of the same personal injury lawyers showing up at events calling themselves “Biker Lawyer” and  “Lawyers that ride” at motorcycle events.

To me a Biker Lawyer and a Lawyer that rides, is someone like me who is a lawyer and who also is a biker that rides motorcyles. It is a real simple concept, not some bullshit marketing slogan!

I think that I may have been the first Biker Lawyer to coin that term back in 1997 or so, because I am a lawyer who really rides. Once I started putting it out there on my website and on my blog, all of a sudden I saw other lawyers claiming the same thing.

Well now all of a sudden there are groups of lawyers showing up at motorcycle events all claiming to be “lawyers that really ride.”

It is not that I do not mind competition, hell I think it would be great to find a group of lawyers that actually ride motorcycles, hell I would like to go ride with them and make some new friends.

But what I really think is going on is a marketing gimmick aimed at bikers, and the way I see it, showing up at a motorcycle rally with a booth telling people if they crash their motorcycles, to call them, is disgusting and despicable to me.

In two words it is “Bad Karma.”

At the Las Vegas biker rally a few weeks ago, as we were walking by one of these booths, some guy sitting on his ass in the booth looked at my wife’s hat and said in a smart ass way, “who is the biker lawyer?” (The hat said Biker Lawyer, www.bikerlawyer.net on it) I told him I was. I also told him that I don’t sit at booths at motorcycle rallies; I actually ride to the rallies.

He had a stunned look on his face because I was actually in my biker garb because; yes I was riding, unlike him.

Curious about what it actually takes to be a Biker Lawyer with one of these organizations that has started up in the last couple of years I believe; I contacted one who I think was based in Arizona if I am not mistaken. They sent me a bunch of literature. At the time I contacted them, they had some firm based in San Diego as their only California firm.

In researching them, I saw no indication whatsoever that anyone from the firm listed for California at the time rode motorcycles. Matter of fact, I never even heard of them! Now it could be that someone from that firm actually rode motorcycles, it all seemed fishy to me.

Basically, I was told that if you pay at the time I contacted them, approximately 10k or so yearly fee to the organization I am referring to, you can be a Biker Lawyer with their group.

They would advertise for cases for you, and send you the cases in your territory. Very interesting!

Now the casual person looking at this group would think that it is all the same organization. Well it is not. It is a marketing vehicle that attorneys pay to be a part of.

Nowhere on the application did it ask if you actually ride motorcycles. Further, they hold themselves out to be Lawyers that really ride.

I think this practice is very misleading. I think consumers and bikers should be notified that lawyers pay a fee to be a part of this organization, and I think each of their lawyers should actually ride if they are going to advertise that they are lawyers who ride!

My next question is that most States require you to be licensed in that particular State to practice law in that State. You can apply to represent an individual in Court on a one or two time basis if you are an out of state lawyer, however, you cannot do it all the time.

So I wondered, how do the now 3-5 groups of lawyers that show up at all of the biker rallies, and that advertise in all of the biker rags, actually practice law in all 50 states legally.

The answer is that they cannot. It appears to me that these groups of lawyers that are advertising nationwide either have some kind of fee splitting deal going on with lawyers in the different States so the main lawyer will advertise and get cases for them, and then they will share the attorneys fee with the guy in the State actually doing the case, or they have some kind of marketing scam going on, where the attorney pays a fee like the organization I contacted, and the main attorney will advertise, and then send cases to the lawyers who are paying their franchise fee.

I think this entire practice is misleading, and despicable.

I saw American Chopper last night where even another group that I have never heard of before has popped up. It appears to me to be another marketing setup where they have created a website to target nationwide the “niche” market of motorcycle riders.

After digging deep into their website, it looks like the main law firm sponsoring their “Biker law” marketing campaign is based in Pennsylvania, and they too are claiming that they are lawyers that ride. I have no clue how this site or law firm work, but again, unless they have attorneys licensed in each state, they too must have some kind of fee splitting or franchise type of deal going on.

They do not limit themselves to just one State on their website.

On the TV show, they had a guy who they represented to be an attorney come in and order a custom bike to honor the firefighters or something to that affect. Somewhere it stated that he was the “lead counsel” or “managing counsel” of the biker law end of the firm. What the hell does that mean?

Anyway, at the end of the show there were a bunch of people in t-shirts with the biker law website address on it.

I almost threw up. You got to admit these people are marketing geniuses. They get an hour of TV advertising for what looks to be new operation, and all they had to do is pay (probably overpay) for a custom chopper from Orange County Choppers.

In the end there sits us real bikers. What are we supposed to believe is true?

First, I think that no lawyer should be going to motorcycle events and advertising for motorcycle accident cases. People are at the events to have fun, not to have the fact that they could crash shoved down their throats by a bunch of marketing hacks.

Second, I think that all of these firms should be forced to disclose the truth about their organizations, i.e., whether they are a fee splitting shop, whether lawyers pay them to have cases sent to them, and who in fact is the real biker lawyer in their organization.

I personally know at least two major attorneys in the so-called biker lawyer nationwide marketing scam, and neither of them rides motorcycles. One of them even stated in the Los Angeles Times in an article that he does not ride; because he wants to see his grandkids grow up. The article featured one of their new associates who had just got a Sportser, who had ridden for less than 6 months. (This guy has since left and opened his own bike lawyer shop)

So here I sit a humble real California Biker Lawyer who actually rides motorcycles. I am the friggen real deal. I am not playing some marketing scam on my clients. They know what they are getting when they retain me.

If you are in California and want the real deal call me; 800-816-1529 x.1.

For the rest of you there is a saying; Caveat Emptor, which is Latin for let the buyer beware.

Finally, you can have a say so if you also don’t like these bottom feeders showing up at our motorcycle rallies, simply don’t call them if you have an accident.

With a little research you can find someone like me who actually ride’s and is not part of some marketing operation geared towards bikers!

By California Motorcycle Accident Attorney, and Biker Lawyer, Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2011

The post What is up with all these So-Called “Biker Lawyers” all of a Sudden showing up with Booths at All of the Motorcycle Events? first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

Las Vegas Bikerfest Here I come: I am leaving shortly to go to the annual biker rally called the Las Vegas Bikerfest. It should be an excellent time. This biker rally and Palm Springs American Heat pretty much mark the last two major biker rallies on the west coast for the year. I always like going by the poser so-called biker attorneys who have booths at these events and mess with them.

Puppies are almost ready to go: There is one thing about puppies, when they are almost ready to go to their new homes, they get real frisky. Our 3 Shih Tzu puppies have about 2 more weeks to go before they go to their new homes. They are cute as hell, but I cannot wait to get my house back!

By California Motorcycle Accident Attorney, and Biker Lawyer, Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © September 30, 2011

The post Norm’s Tidbits September 30, 2011 first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

A nice view from the Go Go Bar, Reno Street Vibrations 2011

My old lady and I just completed a run up to the Reno Street Vibrations Biker Rally this past weekend.

It was around a 450 mile run each way from our home, and sure was an exercise in extreme weather riding for us Southern Californians, who are used to mild temperatures.

The route we took was from the 14 freeway to Highway 395  to the 80, and to our hotel in Reno.

The day we rode up to Reno, Friday, September 23, 2011, started out to be a mild day. The weather was calm at 5:30am when we left our home, around 75 degrees.

As we started riding north, the weather got hotter and hotter, cooled off, and then got hot again as the day went on.

You see highway 395 took us through the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, past Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in North America, up around 8,000 feet and higher, then through Carson City (Lake Tahoe is just above Carson City), and then to Reno which is basically in the Nevada Desert.

I usually wear a light long sleeve type of t-shirt on hot days to protect my skin from the sun, and blue jeans. I know I should wear an armored fabric type of jacket, and I am in the process of trying to find a good one.

My old lady also wears long sleeves, and usually always wears chaps as well.

On Friday, due to traffic conditions, an accident in a bad spot where a biker went down due to a defective road under construction, the heat, and the extreme traffic in Reno again due to construction and the fact that lane splitting is illegal in Nevada, Liz and I were totally spent by the time we got to Reno.

A view from the Reno Street Vibrations 2011

My new Electra Glide Ultra got so hot that it almost cooked that day.

We tried as best as we could to hydrate along the way, but I think that we over did it on Friday. We both almost suffered severe heat stroke by the time we got to Reno. We were both dizzy and sick upon arrival.

I was in such a rush to get to Reno; I ignored my basic riding principals!

In the future, I will make sure we take more breaks, hydrate more, and give ourselves more time to get to a long destination.

450 miles in one day riding two up, is a very long ride under any circumstances. In heat it can be tough.

On the way back from Reno, it was warm when we left, but soon, when we got up into the mountains, we suffered severe weather. There was lighting storms, rain, hail, and cold. Imagine going from warm to very cold in just a few miles.

I let Liz use my chaps since she left hers with a friend by mistake, I put a sweatshirt on, my leather jacket, my gauntlet gloves, and we proceeded through the severe weather.

Upon reaching Lone Pine, we stopped to get some food at the Mt. Whitney Restaurant. (A great local restaurant with damn good food.)

Lone Pine is a tourist town along the 395 which caters to people on their way to see Mt. Whitney and Yosemite.

When we walked into the restaurant to eat, we were all bundled up in leathers and more, all of the locals were in t-shirts and shorts. I took my jacket off and sure enough it was at least 80 degrees outside.

We went from warm in Reno when we left, to cold lighting storms, back to warm again, all within a 300 mile stretch.

I proceeded to take my leather jacket and gauntlet’s off again, and switch to light gloves, and then we got on the road again.

There was a 30 mile stretch after Lone Pine, just before Mohave and the 14, where I never was so afraid in my life while riding a motorcycle.

Out of no-where we hit cold, and 60-70 mile per hour wind gusts or more that literally almost knocked my bike over while we were riding.

The wind was hitting us from the side going north to south. When a gust would hit us it caused my head to jerk hard to the left. It also caused the bike to jerk violently, and I have a very heavy bike.

Liz and I had our intercom hooked up, and she was freaking out. I had to tell her to be quiet and not panic. The wind was so bad that I knew if I slowed down and tried to pull over there would be no way I could hold the bike up. I knew the wind would knock us over.

I knew the forward energy and centrifugal force of the tires turning made it safer for us to keep riding than trying to stop.

I was genuinely afraid like I have never been before in my life while riding. It was a horrible experience, especially in the pitch dark of the Mohave Desert.

When we got to a 76 truck stop in Mohave where the 14 hits the 395 we pulled over to get our bearings back. It was then that another couple pulled in on a motorcycle in a panicked state.

They were on a Harley Davidson Road Glide, they each had beanie helmets on with clear glasses on for eye protection, and they were even more panicked than we were.

The women got off of the back of her old man’s bike and literally hugged him and would not let go.

We discussed the fact that it was by the grace of god that we all made it through unscathed.

I put my leather jacket and gauntlet’s back on and we rode off watching the woman from the other bike hugging her old man like there was no tomorrow.

Moral to the story; when riding a motorcycle, be prepared for any weather.

I can’t wait for next year 🙂

Keep Both Wheels on the Road!

By California Motorcycle Accident Attorney, and Biker Lawyer, Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2011

The post An Example of Extreme Weather Riding, Reno 2011 first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

California Motorcycle Accident Lawyer and Biker Attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez at Laughlin River Run 2007

Actually, the title of this article should be that the Biker Law Blog is in the process of being converted. You see I am in the process of switching the Biker Law Blog to a different software platform.

The Biker Law Blog has literally become a beast of a website. The website, articles, media, and database on the website amount to almost 1 gigabyte (1,000 billion bytes) of data.

On top of that, I am getting about 1 million hits per month on the Biker Law Blog. The total data transferred each month is about 10 gigabytes of data, or 10 – 1000 billion bits of data per month. Further, we keep growing.

The Biker Law Blog has turned into a recognized motorcycle industry publication, and not just a law blog. For those of you who read the blog you know what I am talking about.

The software that the Biker Law Blog has been rock solid ever since I started the blog about 4 years ago. However, it has many limitations with respect to customization, and the ease of creating articles.

Many would say, it the software the blog is running on is not broken, why mess with it?

The answer to this question has caused me much grief. You see the guy who I paid to do the original customization of the Biker Law Blog is basically not around anymore. I have tried on numerous occasions to contact him, with no response.

Super Guru Ed B., the second customizer of the blog has gone on to greener pastures, and has told me that he has disassociated himself from the software that runs the blog due to an ethical conflict with the software’s creator.

Basically this has left me with a couple of choices. Do I stay with software that has worked for me, but that requires professional’s to upgrade and customize, or do I take a chance and go with a different platform that may not be so reliable (only time will tell), but that would make my job much simpler?

I have opted for the simple approach.

I am hoping that with automated daily backups using the new software, if something happens, I can simply restore the site.

The new software should be easier to customize, easier to do postings with, and will hopefully streamline the Biker Law Blog into a more manageable site.

As we speak, I have a test site up on a hidden domain.

I am trying to find a way to automatically get the posts, comments, and registered users from the existing Biker Law Blog software, into the new software on the test site. Since there is no current script to get this done, it may not be possible. Unfortunately, the current software that I use has no way to export the data, so it can be imported into another type of software. The designer’s rationale is that if they spend so much time creating the software, they do not want to help people leave it.

This is one of the big reasons I am leaving the software.

If I cannot automatically transfer the data to the new platform, I will literally have to manually transfer each post, comment and registered user to the new platform, one by one. This will take weeks since there are hundreds of posts, and thousands of comments.

Once the data is transferred to the new platform, we will then do the customization of the Blog to make it look sharp, be easier to use, and to make it simpler for users to register.

Registered users will no longer have to deal with the rampant spam that we have been hit with recently. I am sick of having to ban spammers on a daily basis manually.

Because of the changes that I am making to the new Biker Law Blog, and the time that it will take to transfer to the new platform, my postings will decrease temporarily until I get the new Blog done. Hell with a busy law practice, it is hard enough to write a blog as it is. Once the changeover is done, I can concentrate on blogging, and not software issues.

If you are a registered user of the Biker Law Blog, you will be receiving email updates to let you know what is going on.

Please be patient during this time of change.

By California Motorcycle Accident Attorney and Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © June, 2010

The post The Biker Law Blog is on the Move. first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

My Harley Davidson Electra Glide

See below for a video demonstrating how the mufflers sound.

Many of my friends have aftermarket exhaust systems on their motorcycles which sound great and are not too obnoxious. Some have exhausts which are so obnoxious, that they would cause strain on long rides.

Through the years I have tried many different types of mufflers on many different types of motorcycles.

For about 5 years, I have run Screaming Eagle slip on mufflers on my Harley Davidson Electra Glide, with a stage 1 setup on my carb. and air filter. It is basically a Screaming Eagle stage 1 setup. Other than that, I am running a stock Harley Davidson 88 c.i. Twincam engine.

My right muffler developed bluing where the head pipe met the slip on muffler, very soon after I put the Screaming Eagle mufflers on the motorcycle.

I recently decided to try out some new slip on mufflers. My criterion was that I wanted my mufflers to have some bark, but not be too obnoxious.

As I have said many times before, I am a Biker Lawyer and Attorney, not a mechanic.

In the past, I have had my slip-on’s put on by the dealer. However, now there are many dealers who will not install slip-on’s due to E.P.A. regulations.

I almost pulled the trigger on some slip-on’s at the Laughlin River Run, but they were gouging the prices a bit, plus I did not want to wait any longer than I had already waited to get repairs done to my motorcycle.

After doing research on the internet, including watching some YouTube videos of guys installing slip-on’s, I decided that I could do the install myself this time which would save both time and money.

Some guys are running mufflers with no baffles. This is not only obnoxious and loud as hell, it is illegal. Further, unless you have some serious engine modifications, and/or carb. jetting, or fuel injector mapping modifications, running with no baffles will make your engine run too lean, and can burn your engine out.

Read the rest of the review below the video.

On top of that running open pipes without mods. will actually decrease your power output.

Baffles are encasing’s in the mufflers which decrease or muffle the sound of your exhaust/motorcycle. The smaller the baffle diameter, the less sound that is supposed to come out of the muffler.

Conversely, the smaller the baffle diameter in the muffler, the less exhaust flow you will have through the muffler, and the less power you will get out of your motorcycle engine.

Although in the past, I would just buy a set of mufflers for my other motorcycles, and just go with whatever I bought, this time, I decided to do a significant amount of research on the internet to determine which set of mufflers I would put on my Electra Glide.

One thing I have learned with Harley Davidson’s as opposed to other types of cruiser motorcycles is that you have a huge selection of options. Further, the sky is the limit as to how much money you can spend as well.

There are slip on mufflers out there such as the Vance & Hine wide ovals that run around $700.00, or you can get a set of LaRosa Design mufflers on EBay for $99.00.

It is reported that each of the above mufflers sound great.

After doing a bunch of research, I decided the best bet would be to get some muffles on eBay, because I could save money on used mufflers, and if I did not like the mufflers I could simply sell them again without taking a loss.

I also did not want to spend $400-600 dollars on new mufflers that could be a hit or miss with respect to being too loud, or that had an exhaust note that I did not like.

Many guys on the internet forums recommended Rush Mufflers as being a good sounding muffler, and not too expensive. I also read good things about LaRosa Design Mufflers, which were also supposed to have a great sound at a low price.

I decided to buy a set of Rush Mufflers with 2 inch baffles, and a set of LaRosa Design Mufflers with 1 7/8 baffles to test out.

This review is of the Rush Mufflers with the 2 inch baffles.

I scored a set of chrome Rush slip on Mufflers for 95-10 Touring motorcycles, slash up, part number 15302 on EBay for $142.51. The mufflers were almost in new condition.

I saw many guys bidding away on almost the exact mufflers in other auctions. Hell some guys were paying about $300.00 for the same used mufflers in other auctions. I just got lucky in my auction. The secret was to go with someone who was not too savvy with their auction design on eBay so that it was not too flashy!

The list price for these mufflers from the Rush website is $398.95, so you know I scored on EBay. Click here to go to the Rush website to see the mufflers I purchased.

Another excellent feature of these mufflers is that the Rush mufflers feature removable baffles, and you can buy different size baffles from them at their website here. I am running the 2 inch baffles. If I want to quiet it down a bit I can buy smaller diameter baffles.

The baffles can be removed and replaced with one bolt on the bottom.

When I received the mufflers you could tell they were used by looking inside of the pipes and seeing the grit, but the Chrome on the outside was in surprisingly good condition, they were basically new. The mufflers were heavy duty, and actually heavier than the Screaming Eagles. They appear to be longer than the Screaming Eagle mufflers as well, and protrude further out of the back than my Screaming Eagles did.

Now I could see why the guys on the forums were recommending them, these are top quality mufflers for a better price. But did they sound good?

The slash-up design fits the taper and shape of the back of the Harley Davidson hard saddlebags, I like the look. My Screaming Eagles were slash downs.

The install was kind of a bitch to say the least.

The easy part was removing the hard saddlebags on each side to get to the mufflers, which I did.

I decided that the install would be easier if I removed the heat shields on each side, so that is what I did, I removed the right and left heat shields which butt up next to the mufflers for easier access.

I then unbolted the muffler on the right hand side from the clamp at the head pipe, and the two bolts below the saddlebag bar, no problem.

I then tried removing the Screaming Eagle muffler on the right hand side; it would not budge. I tried twisting and pulling, it would not budge; it was stuck on real good. This is the muffler that blued so I was worried that the damm thing was welded on to the head pipe.

I decided to take a break and do the left side pipe. This one came off easy.

After trying everything to get the muffler off and failing, I in the end, went to Home Depot, and purchased a strap wrench to get the right muffler off. It worked like a charm, but I still had to use some heavy elbow grease. It finally came off.

The strap wrench is basically a rubber strap that wraps around the muffler and attaches to a special handle which allows you to get rotational torque around the muffler without damaging or scratching the chrome.

The install of the left muffler was no problem at all, it slipped right on; the right muffler did not seem to fit. It would not slip on!

Hell, I had my wife hold the front of the motorcycle, as I tried to force the muffler onto the head pipe. I sprayed WD-40 and Silicon lubricant onto the damm thing, but it was a no go. The muffler simply would not fit onto the head pipe. I pushed and twisted so hard, I was worried that I would damage the head pipe or the connection between the head pipe and the cylinder.

I went on the forums to see if I could find a solution. As usual there were many good solutions from buying a tool to expand the muffler pipe, to using other creative methods.

I decided that the best solution would be to take the muffler to an automotive muffler shop the next day, and have them expand the muffler pipe where it slips onto the head pipe.

I found a place close by. They charged me $10 bucks to expand the muffler pipe. This solution was cheaper and faster than buying a tool to do it, and it took no time whatsoever other than driving down there.

When in doubt, use professionals who know what they are doing.

I decided to run by the Harley dealership to buy a new muffler clamp for the right side as well. These are supposed to be single use items. They only had one left. I reused my old clamp on the left hand side and have no problems with it.

When I got home the muffler slipped on very easily, probably too easily. I was worried that the muffler guy may have expanded the muffler pipe too much.

My worries were unfounded. Once I tightened up the clamps and bolts on the slip-on’s, and checked very carefully, everything was great, with no apparent leaks.

After I started my Electra Glide, I first felt that the mufflers kind of sounded like my Screaming Eagles or just a tad deeper and louder.

When I did my ubiquitous test ride down my block with no helmet on, it sounded a bit louder and deeper. However, when I got back in the garage, my wife said they were much louder and deeper. I could not tell.

However, I then went on two day riding binge and discovered that these pipes are much louder and deeper than the Screaming Eagles, no doubt about that. I am quite satisfied.

Hell with ear plugs in; my ears were ringing pretty well after the two day jaunt. I do have tinnitus or ringing in my ears that gets worse at times with loud sounds.

I have decided to keep the Rush slip-on’s, and to sell the LaRosa mufflers that I purchased brand new without installing them. Why play around if I am satisfied.

As of right now I have a pair of stock mufflers, a pair of Screaming Eagles, and the LaRosa’s.

I give the Rush slip-on mufflers a big thumbs up and would recommend them above all.

By California Motorcycle Accident and Biker Attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2010

The post Rush Slip On Mufflers for Harley Davidson Touring Motorcycles; My Review first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

My GoPRo Video Camera on my Modular Helmet

 Last Sunday, May 23, 2010, I decided to take a bit of a ride here in Southern California.

The ride was not only for pleasure, but I wanted to check out my new Rush Slip on mufflers, my new Sony HD Stereo, and my new GoPro helmet camera. (I will write reviews about all of them later on)

My plan was to meet some of my friends in Chatsworth, CA, ride to Simi Valley Harley Davidson in Simi Valley, CA, and then ride with them to Bartels Harley Davidson in Marina Del Rey, CA. I ended up doing a local 300 mile all day ride minus the time I spent at Simi Valley Harley Davidson.

My ride started out early Sunday morning on May 23, 2010. I got on my motorcycle at around 8:30am to take a bit of a ride before I met my friends. I captured the vast majority of my ride on my new GoPro helmet cam, a picture of which you can see to the left.

I have the helmet cam mounted on the side of my helmet rather than the top of my helmet, because I have a modular flip up helmet and the top mount would not work with the flip up aspect of my modular helmet. I will discuss this more when I review the camera.

Suffice is to say, it was a great day. My total riding hours in the saddle riding last Sunday was around 9 hours plus, and I have plenty of video footage of my ride. I am showing 30 minutes of the ride here. It was very hard for me to select which video footage to show here.

I met my friends in Chatsworth at around 9:45am after taking about an hour ride. We then rode together to a little event at Simi Valley Harley Davidson. There was a band, food, and vendors at Simi Valley Harley Davidson.

I took advantage of being at Simi Valley Harley Davidson. It turns out on the ride over there, I discovered that my left spot light was out, plus I needed some bushings and bolts for my removable Tour Pak. I was able to get all of the parts I needed at the dealership which made me very happy notwithstanding the fact that I paid $57.00 for a spot light replacement, two bolts, and two bushings.

I decided to replace the spotlight in the street while I was there. It was probably a good idea, because once I got the spot light off, I could not figure how to get it back on. There is a rubber strip, a backing that the spotlight goes into, as well as a metal ring. I walked the separated parts up to the service desk, and even though they were closed, there was a guy in there who obviously worked there, who packed the rubber back into the housing, and showed me how to put the pieces back together which I did. Repair completed right there in the street.

My friends and I walked around a bit and hung out at the Harley Davidson dealership until at least noon by my estimation. I purchased a $5.00 lemonade – 5 friggen dollars for a large lemonade. After complaining a bit about the price, the guy agreed to give me a free refill. I don’t know but if I was putting on one of these events, I would talk to my food and drink vendors to ensure that they were not gouging my customers and guests. This is a whole other story.

At some point, the guys decided to take off. When I got on my motorcycle to leave with the guys, I found an electrical problem from my earlier spotlight fix, and my motorcycle would not start. I waived my friends off and told them I would meet them later.

I opened the spotlight back up and everything seemed OK. The light powered up when I put the ignition switch to the run position, but the bike would not start. Then I had a stupid me moment, I engaged the kill switch before I did the repair which I forgot about. Once I disengaged the kill switch, the motorcycle started. I then buttoned the motorcycle back up and was ready to roll. It was by now a half hour later or so. I knew my friends were probably already very close to Bartel’s in Marina Del Rey.

By this time I was hungry. I had not had breakfast that morning, I did not eat the food at the Simi Valley event because I did not want to have acid reflux all day, so I decided to take a detour off of the 118 to go to Jerry’s Deli on Ventura Blvd. in Woodland Hills, CA to get some Matzo Ball soup and some Kosher Dills. I knew if I rode to Bartel’s in Marina Del Rey, they would probably have the same greasy spoon type of food that they had at Simi Valley Harley Davidson, and that I did not want to wait to eat.

I rode to Jerry’s Deli which is a San Fernando Valley hotspot eatery where many celebrities can be seen from time to time, and thoroughly enjoyed my meal, although it took quite a time to get my meal. There is nothing like Matzo Ball soup when you are on a run where the weather is kind of cool. It will open up your sinus every time. Matzo Ball soup is a Jewish remedy!

By the time I finished my meal at Jerry’s Deli, it was already around between 1:30 and 2:00pm, and I did not have my friend’s phone numbers with me, so I decided to skip Bartel’s Harley Davidson. I figured that by the time I rode there with traffic, I would not make it until around 3pm or later, and to be frank, I wanted to ride rather than sit around hanging out at another Harley Davidson dealership, so that is exactly what I did, I rode; I rode my ass off : )

I decided to ride to the Rock Store by way of Topanga Canyon to Mulholland Highway, the long twisty route. You can see some of the video from my GoPro here. It was a fanfuckentastic run. You see we absolutely have the best and most beautiful riding in the world right here in Southern California. It does not get much better than this anywhere in the world. Most Angelinos (Los Angeles Residents) have no clue about the beauty just outside of the concrete jungle here. We have great mountains, great coastline, and twisties that are just as radical as any in the world here.

As I approached the last stop sign before arriving at the Rock Store, I ran straight into a friggen road block. You see the Tour De California Bicycle race was also being put on this weekend, and the Rock Store was on their route. I was a bit pissed. I wanted to visit the Rock Store and then do my hidden route behind Mulholland to some of the best 1st gear twisties, ending up at the coast. I ended up turning off my motorcycle and watching the bicycle racers, the fans yelling like screaming Durban’s, and the helicopters overhead, not to mention the bicycle rider chase trucks, and chase motorcycles on the route. When a CHP officer told me the route was to be closed all day, I flicked a U’ie and rode back to Malibu Canyon Road. I rode to Pacific Coast Highway, and ended up doing a straight coast ride all the way up to Neptune’s Net. I stopped at my old surfing grounds before Zuma Beach and cruised the coast a bit. I have some great memories on this strip of beach.

It was a great day to ride on Sunday. The coast part of my journey was fanfuckentastic to say the least. Look I love riding with my friends and my brothers, but I also like riding solo as well. There is no pressure to stay in the pack when you are riding solo, and you can ride wherever the fuck you want with no one bitching. It is freedom.

I rode real easy up to Neptune’s Net. I had many cagers waiving at me, and honking at me. I presume this was because of my helmet camera. I assume these people probably thought that I was filming for some kind of Hollywood movie or something. I literally had people in Mercedes Benz’s, Ferrari’s and beater cars all giving me the thumbs up. It was unique and I got many of it on the helmet cam.

When I finally got to Neptune’s Net there were a bunch of bikes and bikers there just like every Sunday. For me it is the same old thing, kind of like a routine if you know what I mean. I had a bunch of guys come up and ask me about the camera on my helmet. One of the guys was this Euro type who claimed to have shot all of the pictures for Harley Davidson’s new motorcycle line that was coming out. He was very interested in the specs for my camera and the mount. I ended talking to these guys for a half hour, exchanging business cards and what not. This is the good thing about being a biker, it is easy to meet and greet with new people. Something that cagers will never really get to experience. It is a biker comradery.

At this point is was around 4pm plus or minus an hour : ) I had a choice, I could take Kanan Dune, or Malibu Canyon to the 101 Ventura Freeway, and ride home, or I could cruise Pacific Coast Highway up to Santa Monica, then take the 10 to the 405 and cruise up to the snow via the Antelope Valley back route. Hell this time of year it stays daylight until at least 8pm; what would you do? : ) Well what do you think I decided to do? If you guess take PCH to Santa Monica and then cruise up the snow by way of the Antelope Valley back route you would be correct.

Look, my wife is in law school, she was at home studying for some freaking test, it was a great not too warm sunny day by this time, and I had nothing better to do. I was one of those great days where I could have rode 24 hours straight, all around my favorite spots.

So there I did it, I rode PCH all the way to the 10. It was a great costal ride. I noticed that there are many more homes along the coast which is a real bummer. When I was growing up, it was straight coast all the way up, now there are homes blocking the view for a substantial part of the trip. No biggie, it was a great ride. I got on the 10 to the 405 north. There it was bumper to bumper traffic; a good excuse to get off before Getty Center Drive, get some gas, and then take Sepulveda up the canyon until the traffic opened up. Once I got on the 405 I took it to the 14 east and then got off at Sand Canyon Road for a bit of dinner at Coco’s Restaurant.

In Coco’s a young 20 year old kid named Shane who was sitting with his absolutely fine girlfriend 19 year old girlfriend Tammy, and his 25 year old friend Steve, introduced themselves to me and shook my hand, they sat directly in front of my in another booth.

I had a good meal and good conversation with these folks. Hell we talked about everything from relationships, to career, to riding motorcycles, you name it. It has been a long time since I had such a good conversation with young folks. I thought to myself that these kids ought to be more careful about opening up to strangers like me the way they did because there are many assholes out there that might do them harm just because they were so nice. I did not have enough time to tell them what I thought, but I thought it as I saw them leaving. These were some good kids. They showed me respect which is unique these days. I think their parents raised them right.

After a really good steak dinner, I got back on the road. I took the 14 to Pearblossum Highway, to my secret turn off on the 138 and headed up to the still snow covered mountains.

At the turnoff I decided to change the batteries in my Gopro cam, and to check the memory card. Turns out I needed to replace both. The batteries were dead, plus I had already used up an 8GB SD card which records 6 hours of video. Whoops. I put in new batteries, and a 2 GB SD card to record this aspect of my ride.

To give a short summary I owned the road, I was basically all alone form the desert to the mountains. I rode to my spot where the San Andreas Fault line is, and then up to the Juniper Hills and beyond up to the snow. By this time I was freezing my ass off, and the sun was going down, so I decided to ride home.

When I finally got home, my wife bitched about me being gone form the early morning to the evening and wondered what I did for so long. I let her see the video’s of the day. I know the real reason that she was upset; because she did not ride with me, and spent a beautiful Sunday by herself studying all day. Been there; done that.

Unfortunately I lost the 2 GB SD card of the final part of my journey in my home office somewhere. Once I find it I will post some video from it.

So there it is, one hell of a great Sunday Ride in Southern California, from the desert to the sea, to the mountains.

Maybe I may take one of my lucky readers on this same ride someday.

By California Motorcycle Accident Attorney and Biker Lawyer Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2010

The post Just another Sunday Ride; NOT! first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

Dennis Hopper, the maverick director and costar of the landmark 1969 counterculture film classic “Easy Rider” whose drug- and alcohol-fueled reputation as a Hollywood bad boy preceded his return to sobriety and a career resurgence in the films ” Hoosiers” and “Blue Velvet,” died Saturday. He was 74.

A longtime resident of Venice, CA who also was known as a photographer, artist and collector of modern art, Hopper died at his home of complications from prostate cancer, said Alex Hitz, a friend of the family.

A frail-looking Hopper, whose battle with prostate cancer was revealed in October, was able to attend a ceremony for the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in late March.

In a more than five-decade acting career that was influenced early on by working with James Dean and studying at the Actors Studio, he made his film debut as one of the high school gang members who menace Dean in the 1955 classic “Rebel Without a Cause.”
Hopper went on to appear in more than 115 films, including “Giant,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Hang ‘Em High,” “True Grit,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The American Friend,” “Rumble Fish,” “Speed,” “True Romance” and “Rivers Edge.”

But it’s his role as the long-haired, pot-smoking biker Billy opposite Peter Fonda’s Wyatt (Captain America) in the hit movie “Easy Rider” that gave Hopper his most enduring claim to fame.

The low-budget tale of two bikers on an ultimately tragic cross-country odyssey after scoring a big cocaine sale, “Easy Rider” became a generational touchstone.

The movie, which boasted a star-making performance from a little-known Jack Nicholson as a boozy small-town lawyer who goes along for the ride and gets his first taste of marijuana, set old-guard Hollywood back on its heels.

“The impact of ‘Easy Rider,’ both on the filmmakers and the industry as a whole, was no less than seismic,” Peter Biskind wrote in his 1998 book “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.”

“Hopper was catapulted into the pantheon of countercultural celebrities that included John Lennon, Abbie Hoffman and Timothy Leary,” Biskind wrote. “He was surrounded by groupies and acolytes. He may have started down the slippery slope to megalomania and grandiloquence on his own, but he had plenty of help.”

“Easy Rider” won an award at the Cannes Film Festival for the best movie by a new director, and it earned co-writers Hopper, Fonda and Terry Southern an Oscar nomination.

“Hopper and Fonda were renegades, Hollywood-bashers, the Vietcong of Beverly Hills,” Biskind wrote. “To them, it was vindication, beating Hollywood at its own game, proof that you could get high, express yourself and make money all at the same time.”

Commenting on the success of “Easy Rider,” Hopper said: “Nobody had ever seen themselves portrayed in a movie. At every love-in across the country people were smoking grass and dropping LSD, while audiences were still watching Doris Day and Rock Hudson.”

Another signature role was in “Apocalypse Now,” director Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 nightmare vision of the Vietnam War. Hopper played a counterculture photojournalist, who is encountered in the compound of Marlon Brando’s insane, renegade Col. Kurtz and is prone to his own crazed rantings.

“Dennis Hopper was part of that sort of misfit, rebel-persona generation where you just didn’t hit your mark and say your lines and try to create a movie icon type of presence,” said Peter Rainer, film critic for the Christian Science Monitor. “He was much more rough-hewn, rough-edged and intuitive as an actor, and this created a lot of problems early on.”

Indeed, Hopper survived being shut out of major studio films for a number of years after a legendary run-in in the late ’50s with old-guard director Henry Hathaway on the set of “From Hell to Texas.”

The highly volatile actor also survived his own well-documented descent into drugs and alcohol that reached a low point in the early ’80s while making a film in Mexico.

“I ended up walking off into the jungle, naked, in the middle of the night, somewhere down near Cuernavaca,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2005. “I was convinced they were listening to my mind and my friends were being gassed.”

During the last five years of his “abusing,” he said, “I was doing half a gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, 28 beers and 3 grams of cocaine a day — and that wasn’t getting high, that was just to keep going, man.

“I was a nightmare. I finally just shorted out.”

A post-rehab Hopper received a supporting actor Oscar nomination playing, ironically, the alcoholic father of a high school basketball player who sobers up briefly to become an assistant to Gene Hackman’s coach in the inspirational 1986 film “Hoosiers.”
As an actor, Hopper carved out his own particular niche as what one journalist called a “serial portrayer of weirdos,” including the maniacal bomber in “Speed” and the eye-patch-wearing villain with the shaved head in “Waterworld.”

Hopper, Rainer observed, “really gets inside the craziness” of such characters.

“He’s able to do that because — and this is where the Method part probably comes in — he somehow taps into the craziness in himself,” Rainer said.

After “Easy Rider,” Hopper was dubbed “Hollywood’s hottest director” by Life magazine. He went to Peru to direct “The Last Movie,” in which he played a movie stuntman who remains in a remote mountain village after a Hollywood film company shoots a violent western whose production has a powerful effect on the villagers.

Released by Universal in 1971 after Hopper spent more than a year editing it at his home in Taos, N.M., “The Last Movie” won the Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival but was panned by most movie critics and quickly pulled from theaters.

“As a piece of film-making,” summed up Charles Champlin, then The Times’ movie critic, “it is inchoate, amateurish, self-indulgent, tedious, superficial, unfocused and a precious waste not only of money but, more importantly, of a significant and conspicuous opportunity.”

It would be years before Hopper got another chance to direct, most notably the 1988 film “Colors.”

But, as Biskind noted of the period after the high-profile failure of “The Last Movie,” Hopper “did do some acting, and directors learned to work around the drugs.”

Far more prolific as an actor since his mid-’80s career resurgence, Hopper continued to work steadily in films and television.

In 1991, he received an Emmy nomination as lead actor for his portrayal of a murderous Southern racist in the Showtime movie “Paris Trout.”

He also showed up in commercials, including ones for Nike and for Ameriprise Financial in which the old Easy Rider told aging baby boomers that it was “time to redefine” retirement.

Hopper more recently played record producer Ben Cendars in the TV series “Crash.”

He was born May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kan., and spent most of his childhood living on his grandparents’ farm. His father served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and his mother managed an outdoor swimming pool in Dodge City.

After the war, the family moved first to Kansas City, Mo., and then to San Diego County.

A 1954 graduate of Helix High School in La Mesa, he had acted in school productions and had won a scholarship to the National Shakespeare Festival at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

His debut TV role as an epileptic in the TV medical drama “Medic” aired in early 1955 and led to the 18-year-old Hopper being signed to a contract with Warner Bros., where he was cast in the role of Goon in “Rebel Without a Cause.”
Hopper thought he was the best young actor in the world, he later said, until he saw Dean in action.

“The man was doing things I couldn’t conceive of,” Hopper said in an interview on “Inside the Actors Studio.”

“He wasn’t doing things that were on the written page. I mean, I could give a great line reading; I could do great gestures. I could preconceive everything, but he wasn’t preconceiving anything. He was improvising. He was doing things that weren’t on the page. He was using his imagination. He was expressing things with his body and through himself that were just way beyond my understanding.”

The last time he saw Dean, who was killed in a car crash in 1955 at age 24, was at the end of working with him on “Giant,” the Texas-set epic in which Hopper played Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor’s sensitive son as an adult.
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“The most personal tragedy in my life was Dean,” Hopper said in a 1987 Vanity Fair interview. “I was 19 years old and had such admiration for him.”

Even after Dean’s death, the young actor’s advice stuck with Hopper.

“I was a very good technician,” Hopper recalled in a 1990 interview with the Chicago Tribune, “but Dean was, like, so loose, creating all these wonderful things. So I grabbed him during the ‘Chickie-run’ scene, and threw him into a car, and I said, ‘I thought I was the best, and now I see you, and I know you’re better, and I don’t even know what you’re doing.’ He said, ‘Well, you have to do things, not show them. You have to take a drink from the glass, not act like you’re drinking. Don’t have any preconceived ideas. Approach something differently every time.'”

Hopper laughed. “That was the beginning of a lot of problems for me with directors.”

On the set of the 1958 western “From Hell to Texas,” Hopper refused to read his lines and gesture exactly the way the director, Hathaway, demanded in a scene. And, Hopper later recalled, Hathaway had him do take after take from 7 in the morning until about 10 at night before Hopper finally “cracked” and did it the director’s way.

But the damage to Hopper’s movie career was done: Warner Bros. dropped him and, he later said, that was the end of his career in Hollywood.

He moved to New York City, where he studied acting with Strasberg. He also became a professional photographer, shooting portraits for Vogue and other magazines. And he married Brooke Hayward, the daughter of actress Margaret Sullavan and producer Leland Hayward.

Hopper’s Hollywood career was reinvigorated when his old nemesis, Hathaway, gave him a second chance by casting him in a small role in the 1965 John Wayne western “The Sons of Katie Elder” and later in the 1969 Wayne classic “True Grit.”

Hopper also appeared in the low-budget, late-’60s drug movie “The Trip” and the biker film “The Glory Stompers,” but he spent most of the decade making guest appearances on TV shows.

Throughout that period, Hopper told Playboy magazine in 1990, “I was looked on as a maniac and an idiot and a fool and a drunkard. And suddenly, I made ‘Easy Rider,’ man, and the whole world opens up to me.”

I think Dennis Hopper was a unique individual. He will be missed by many.

California Biker Lawyer and Motorcycle Accident Attorney

The post Actor Dennis Hopper dies at 74; directed Motorcycle Classic Easy Rider first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

 TLC is reviving “American Chopper” with the estranged Teutuls going head-to-head in competing bike shops.

The new show, “American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior,” begins filming next week and will premiere in August.

It focuses both on the original Orange County Choppers business run by Paul Sr., and Paul Jr.’s startup bike shop.

The new shop, Paul Jr. Designs, is located across from the original OCC shop in Rock Tavern, NY, near OCC’s Newburgh site.

The hook? Father and son haven’t spoken in over a year, ever since Senior fired Junior from the family business.

BIKE BATTLE: Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Jr. haven’t spoken in a year, but will both appear on a new version of “Chopper.”

The split effectively ended their long-running reality show. TLC axed “American Chopper” last February and, in an ugly legal battle, Senior is demanding the return of Junior’s 20 percent stake in OCC. After a brief reconciliation, Junior rode out his one-year non-compete clause and moved into his new shop last week. Father and son remain at odds, with no resolution in sight.

“I’m always hopeful for a reconciliation, but sometimes these things happen for a reason,” Junior told The Post yesterday.

“Even though you never want dissension in any family, especially with your father, this has allowed me to break out and do things on my own.”

Senior also says he’s moved on to a point.

“Junior seems to say all the time he’d like to reconcile, but the thing of it is, he’s never come to me with that,” Senior told The Post. “I’m happy he’s making an attempt to go out on his own, but I don’t feel he’s ever really followed through with anything in his life.”

“But this way, if he fails, he can’t say, ‘My dad made me fail.’ ”

The resurrection of “Chopper” will be good news for fans of the show, including “Late Show” host David Letterman.

“Letterman e-mailed me when he heard the show was going off the air and said, ‘What am I gonna do now, Paul?,’ ”

Senior says. “He was devastated.”

It remains to be seen how “Senior vs. Junior” will play out, but series executive producer Christo Doyle says there’s no formula on how much air time the two competing shops will get per episode.

“This is a very bitter situation that runs really deep at times I feel I’m a family therapist and not a producer.”

California Motorcycle Accident Attorney and Biker Lawyer Website

The post American Chopper is Coming Back in a New Form first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

LOS ANGELES- California

Ronnie James Dio, whose soaring vocals, poetic lyrics and mythic tales of a never-ending struggle between good and evil broke new ground in rock & roll, died Sunday, according to a statement from his wife and manager. He was 67.

Dio revealed last summer that he was suffering from stomach cancer shortly after wrapping up a tour in Atlantic City, N.J. with the latest incarnation of Black Sabbath, under the name Heaven and Hell.

“Today my heart is broken, Wendy Dio wrote on the singer’s site, adding he died at 7:45 a.m. “Many, many friends and family were able to say their private goodbyes before he peacefully passed away.

“Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all,” Wendy Dio continued. “We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us … Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.”

The statement was confirmed by Los Angeles publicist Maureen O’Connor.

Dio rose to fame in 1975 as the first lead singer of Rainbow, the heavy metal band put together by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who had just quit Deep Purple.

Dio then replaced legendary vocalist Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1980 with the critically acclaimed album “Heaven And Hell,” considered by many critics to be one of the finest heavy-metal albums of all time. His on-again, off-again tenure with Black Sabbath touched off an intense debate among fans as to which singer was the true essence of the band — a discussion that lasted until his death.

He also enjoyed a successful solo career with his self-titled band, Dio, in between his three stints with Black Sabbath (1980-82; 1992; and 2007-2009, when the band toured as Heaven And Hell, to differentiate it from Osbourne-led versions of Sabbath). Dio was also inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame in Hollywood in 2007.

Many of his most memorable songs revolved around the struggle between good and evil, including his signature tune “Heaven And Hell. He also drew heavily on medieval imagery in songs like “Neon Knights, “Killing The Dragon and “Stargazer.

“He possessed one of the greatest voices in all of heavy metal, and had a heart to match it, said Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French, whose band toured with Dio since 1983, and was to do so again this summer at European rock festivals. “He was the nicest, classiest person you would ever want to meet.

Dio organized an all-star charity collaboration in 1986 called “Hear N Aid” to raise money for famine relief in Africa, styled on the successful “We Are The World” campaign of a few years earlier.

His solo hits included “Rainbow In The Dark,” “The Last In Line” and “Holy Diver.”

Wendy Dio said that friends and family were able to say their goodbyes to her husband, and asked for privacy. She concluded: “Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.”

I remember when Ronnie James Dio became the front man for Black Sabbath. My friends and I went to see Black Sabbath at the Los Angeles Colissium in 1979-1980. It was one heck of a concert. When Ronnie James Dio belted out the classic Black Sabbath song Heaven and Hell, it was awesome.

When Dio fronted for Rainbow and Richie Blackmore, they were the best.

He was truly one of my favorite rock & roll vocalist of all time; he will be missed.

California Motorcycle Accident Attorney & Biker Lawyer

The post Rock & Roll legend Ronnie James Dio dead at 67; 1942-2010 first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

California Motorcycle Accident Attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez at the Laughlin River Run 2010

See Videos Below

Well the title says it all, my wife and I owe our lives to god after this years Laughlin River Run. I will explain below.

If you did not know it, it is said that the Laughlin River Run is the largest motorcycle rally in the western United States, and some people say that it is the second largest motorcycle rally in the nation next to Sturgis. It is a great time.

You can read an article I wrote about a previous Laughlin River Run that I did by clicking here.

This year’s run began when we packed up my Harley Davidson Electra Glide to go to the Laughlin River Run 2010 on Friday, April 23, 2010.

Since I had to be in Court early Friday morning in Victorville, CA, we could not leave for the Laughlin River Run until Friday afternoon. Many of my friends left on the Thursday, the day before, but I could not go with them because I had to be in Court.

Therefore my wife and I planned on riding alone to Laughlin. By the time I did my pre-ride routine, and we got the motorcycle all packed up, it was very late. We did not get out of dodge until around 7pm; it was already dusk. I had to make a couple of stops along the way before we got on the road. Read the rest of the article below the videos.

By the time we hit the Pearblossom Highway, it was almost dark. We made good time to Victorville and onto the I-15 east. We stopped at Denny’s in Barstow and had dinner because we knew we would not get into Laughlin until around 1am or so according to the GPS.

Once back on the road we made good time from the I-15 to the I-40 split. If any of you have ridden on the I-40 between Barstow and Needles, you know that this is amongst the most isolated and desolate places in the United States. This is the Mohave Desert and there is nothing there except Rattlesnakes, Scorpions, and a couple of gas stations along the way.

While on this road we hit some pretty good speeds to say the least, I love riding through the desert at night, there is something spiritual and empty about it. We eventually passed a sign that said “next services 55 miles.” My odometer was already at around 60 miles since my last gas stop. I knew my Harley would easily make the next gas stop in 55 miles so that is where I decided to make my last gas stop before Needles.

Saying that I was riding at a pretty good speed is an understatement. I will just say this, I opened her up on the open road, we were hauling ass. As usual, I rode one handed a lot to relieve stress and give each hand a break from holding on. I was riding like normal, everything seemed normal.

We then approached the last desolate gas station in a shit hole called Essex; this is the place that I planned on stopping to get fuel before we got to our motel in Needles. It was around midnight by this time.

As I got off of the I-40 into the darkness, at a very, shall we say, decent rate of speed, I was still holding on one handed and banking normally. I then downshifted and slowed her up until we got to the stop sign at the end of the ramp.

When I accelerated out of 1st gear the motorcycle started to wobble uncontrollably. You must understand, I have been riding for many years. I immediately knew that something was seriously wrong. I stopped the motorcycle, and tried again; same thing. My wife was on the back.

The gas station on the exit where we stopped was at least a mile down a curved road from where you exit. You could not see it from where I stopped. We were basically just under the bridge in the middle of the friggen desert at night, it was pitch dark, and there was nothing out there with us except snakes, scorpion, coyotes, and god knows what else.

I got my mini led flash light out of the tour pak to see if I could see anything wrong with the motorcycle, everything looked fine. I pushed down on the motorcycle to see if there was something wrong with the shocks, they seemed fine. Everything looked fine. I thought it might be the road which was very rough and irregular. I got on the bike and tried again; same thing, an uncontrollable wobble.

I knew we could not sit out in the desert. Literally at this time in the morning on the I-40 there is very little if no traffic at all. On this particular off ramp there was no one and no light. It was pitch dark. So I proceeded to 1st gear ride the wobblier all the way to the gas station which seemed like a very long distance from the ramp, with my wife on the back.

I very much wanted to accelerate faster to see if the wobble would go away, but frankly the wobble was so bad, even at a couple of miles per hour I could barely control her to get to the gas station. I did not want to take any further chances on dropping the motorcycle, or getting my wife and I injured.

I am telling you, it took all of my concentration, and nerve to get the damm thing down the road. It was wobbling violently all the way.

Upon arrival at the gas station, I recognized it from previous trips I have taken on the 40. It is a unique place in the middle of no where. They have no pay phone, no air for tires, and the guy that works there at night looks like one of the guys from the movie Deliverance. They also have a bunch of fish tanks in the place. This place is literally isolated in the middle of no where.

Once we got there, I inspected the motorcycle and could not see anything visibly wrong with the motorcycle. I have AAA roadside service with premier RV and Motorcycle coverage, so I decided that I had better call AAA and get the motorcycle towed back to my home.

To make a long story short, there was no cell phone coverage at the gas station, they had no pay phone, and they guy behind the counter said I could not use his phone. After purchasing a couple of drinks for my wife and me, I finally convinced the guy to let me call AAA which is an 800 number. While I was on the phone with them, the guy at the counter kept on telling me that I had to get off because it was a business line; you get the picture we were screwed and at the mercy of this guy at the gas station for now. AAA told me that they would have someone there in two hours. Two hours! I told them I wanted to get the motorcycle towed back to my house.

It was cold as hell outside by this time in the desert after midnight. Luckily, there were some seats inside. Unfortunately, the guy that worked in the gas station seemed to have a few nuts loose. He must have had a hearing problem, because he screamed when he talked to you, and the guy would not stop talking. My wife and I wanted to just sit there and wait for AAA; instead this guy came to where we were sitting and non stop talked the entire time. I should say he non stop yelled the entire time.

While we were waiting, a couple of motorcycles stopped in at the place. A couple of guys from a famous motorcycle club also stopped in. 4 total motorcycles. We all came to a consensus that I had a flat rear tire.

Although my rear Metzler 880 tire was basically new with all of the tread on it, and it appeared to be fine, upon a closer inspection of the tire, as the guys watched me ride it slowly in the gas station lighted area, they said it looked flat. One guy said that motorcycle tires are heavy duty, and appear to be ok even when they are flat. None of us had a tire gauge, and the gas station did not have one.

This was a new one on me. I always change out my tires when the tread appears to be worn. I have never experienced a flat motorcycle tire before.

I purchased some fix a flat from the gas station to see if I could get the tire up and working. AAA called at this time, I told the guy who was actually coming out from AAA that I wanted to be towed home. He then dropped the news that the premier towing plan that I paid for only covered 100 miles for RV and Motorcycle, it is 200 miles for a car. I told him that I was going to try fix a flat and for him to call me back. The fix a flat did not work, and luckily it did not work. I knew it would be a bad move to try to ride in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night on fix a flat, plus the bottle said it was not for motorcycle use. When the AAA guy called back, I told him that we were just going to have it towed to our motel in Needles, CA.

So there we sat in the middle of no where, in the middle of the night, with a guy from the movie deliverance that would not stop talking to us, waiting for AAA, with no cell phone service, basically stranded. It was very cold outside. This was the beginning of our Laughlin River Run 2010 experience.

At around 2am we got a break from the action when some drunks pulled in and started fighting with each other about one of them putting out some gas money. Other than that we were stuck, and there was no customers coming in.

Finally the AAA guy showed up with an SUV and a trailer two and half hours later at 2:30am. We got the bike on the trailer and as he was strapping it in he broke off one of the reflectors on my front frame. I was not going to say shit because I just wanted to get the motorcycle towed to anywhere but where we were at.

After a 40 mile trip at 55 miles per hour (speed limit of vehicles with a trailer in this part of the country) we finally got to the motel at around 3:30am. We got the motorcycle off of the trailer and I was bummed. The guy gave me the card of some bike shop in Fort Mohave across the river. I would call them in the morning after a few hours sleep.

At this point while we were in the Motel, I realized that my wife and I were lucky to be alive. I cannot stress this point enough. Over and over in my head I tried to remember a point in the trip where I felt that something was wrong with the motorcycle. Had the motorcycle gone into a wobble of the type that we had when we got off of the I-40, at lets say 90 miles per hour, we would have been history, we would most likely be dead.

Think about it; I was riding one handed at speeds of 70mph plus and my rear tire had gone flat somewhere along the line. We could have crashed and no one would have seen us until they were running over us, or we could have gone off of the side of the road, and not be seen until daylight or even days later. This is how dark and desolate this stretch of the desert is. The only explanation I have for us not crashing that night was that GOD was watching over us. We are now still alive because of the grace of god.

This experience has changed both my wife and I. I am going to write a separate article on this subject, but suffice is to say; I am now much more cognizant of each and every bump and cranny while riding the motorcycle. After years of meticulous detail in checking my tires and tread, I finally had a catastrophic failure that could have been fatal. Thank GOD we made it out of this one alive and ok.

We did not get to sleep until around 5:30am Saturday morning. I set the clock to wake up at 9am so that I could call the shop on the card that the tow truck driver gave me. The tow truck driver told me that there was no Harley Davidson dealership within a hundred miles.

When we woke up in the morning, we discovered that our cell phones did not work in Needles either. Needles, California is a small desert town on the Arizona, Nevada border. I used the motel phone to call the shop on the card that the tow truck driver gave us. A girl answered the phone; XXX (I will not write their real name) and tattoo shop. I immediately knew I was screwed. Tattoo shop? I told her that I needed a tire for my Electra Glide. When she asked me for the size of the tire, I knew I was in trouble at that point; any reputable Harley shop knows the size of a stock Harley Davidson tire. I gave her the tire size. When she told me, “oh yes, we have some good used tires in that size available,” I knew that I needed to find a better solution.

There was no way in hell that I was going to ride with my wife on a used tire in the middle of the Mohave Desert.

I found the yellow pages in the room; it was the thinnest yellow pages I have ever seen. I looked under motorcycles. There was a small square ad for Harley Davidson’s, Honda, etc. They were located in Kingman, Arizona about 70 miles from where we were at. I called them up. Turns out that they were a Harley Davidson dealership. The gal on the phone said that they had 19 tires in stock. I did not tell her I had a Metzler on the bike, I knew she was referring to the stock Dunlop that comes with the motorcycle. I did not care, I was desperate. I told her that I was towing the motorcycle in.

I then called AAA, and used up another one of my 4 tows for the year, and told them I wanted to get my motorcycle towed to the dealership in Kingman. They told me that they would be at the motel within an hour.

My wife and I at this point were hungry, in need of coffee, and not having a very good time at all to say the least. My wife contemplated staying in the room and sleeping while I got the motorcycle repaired. Lucky for her she decided to come with me as you will read below. There was no food or restaurant anywhere close or within walking distance to the motel where we were staying.

Finally the tow truck driver arrived with a big flat bed tow truck. The guy had fresh oil spilled all over the flat bed from a car he towed previously; he had not cleaned it. I just wanted to get my motorcycle to the Harley Davidson dealership in Kingman.

The guy seemed like he knew what he was doing. I expressed my concern as I rode the bike onto the flatbed that if the tires hit the oil or my foot hit the oil I could drop the bike. He said “don’t worry; I know what I am doing.”

He strapped the bike on the flatbed, and we proceeded to drive the one hour to Kingman in the tow truck.

While on the I-40, in Kingman, we could see what appeared to be a big motorcycle event to the left. There were thousands of motorcycles, tents, a band, trailers, you name it; it was the friggen Harley dealership we were going to. They were literally having a rally and poker run to go along with the Laughlin River run. No one on the phone told me that this event was going on! It would not have mattered either way, we were stuck and this was the only game in town.

As we got off of the freeway and made a turn, the tow trunk driver pulled off the road and said he “had to check my bike, it looks like the straps have come loose.” As I got out of the truck, I saw my beautiful and treasured Electra Glide sitting squarely on its side on the flat bed truck. The bike had fallen over. I could not fucking believe it. There was my motorcycle that I polish and take care of like nothing else in my life sitting on its side on the flatbed truck. I was too tired, and too desperate to get out of this BS situation to scream at or punch the guy. I told him the straps are not holding my bike, the bike had fallen all the way over. He knew it. I could see that he was embarrassed. He told me that he would take care of any damage.

We then lifted my motorcycle back up. I did not see any visible damage. He strapped the bike back up and we went the ½ mile to the Harley Dealership. Picture this, there were police, there was security, there was thousands of motorcycles and people, they had the entrances to the dealership all blocked off to traffic, it was a damm festival/rally. The guy in the tow truck asked me if I could get the motorcycle in from the street, through all of the people and motorcycles. I said hell no, I had a flat tire and could barely hold the thing up with the wobble with no people around.

I jumped out of the truck and told one of the security guys that we were going to service. Almost instantly, the guy removed the blockade from the entrance, and ran in front of the tow truck, parting the way for us, all of the way to the gated service entrance. I was amazed and so was the two truck driver.

The guys from service all jumped on the back of the flatbed. They all bitched about the fresh spilled oil on the flatbed, but we got the bike off. I told them that the bike had fallen on the flatbed, and they all gave me empathy. At this point I felt like everything was going be ok, I was home, at a real Harley Davidson dealership.

The tow truck driver gave me his card and told me not to worry, that he would take care of any damage. I did not give him a tip because he dropped my bike.

So there we were, at the Kingman, Arizona Harley Davison Dealership, during Laughlin River Run weekend, with thousands of other people. Yippee. As it turns out, there were a lot of other people that broke down, and who were in service just like us.

The service gal told me that they had the Metzler 880 in stock, which made happy that I would not have to ride with a mismatched Dunlop stocker on the back. I told her “hell since I am here, why don’t you also do an inspection of the motorcycle, check the timing, and change out the fluids.”

I run with fossil oil in all of my motorcycles. This dealership told me they only used synthetic, so I went with what they had. I was happy. Hell at this point I really did not care about cost, I just wanted to get back out on the road; well I should have been concerned; they ripped me off! I will talk about that below.

I was told it would take two hours to replace the tire, and to do what I had asked. Great!

By the way, we still had no cell phone service in Kingman, Arizona, which made it impossible for us to check messages or get a hold of our friends in Laughlin.

So there we were. We got to the dealership at around noon. We were hungry. Everything we needed was at the dealer event; we got some good food, some lemonade. They had beer and such, but neither I nor my wife drink alcohol. We checked out the vendors, we basically had a good time.

However, when 3pm rolled I became concerned. I went up to the desk. I was told that there were motorcycles still ahead of me. At 4:00pm I noticed that my motorcycle was still sitting out back and had not been touched. I was told that I was next.

The dealership was scheduled to close at 6pm, and the crowd was starting to significantly thin out. At 5pm, my bike was inside being worked on, but no word. The gal at the desk told me that she would find me when the bike was done.

At 5:45, I told my wife to go ask about the bike; I knew the gal at the counter was sick of telling me to wait. At this time I saw the mechanic test riding my motorcycle back into the service gate; thank god, my baby was ready to rock and roll. Before my wife came to tell me, I knew my motorcycle was ready; with 15 minutes to spare before they closed.

It was 9 hours since we woke up, and 6 hours since we got to the dealership.

When I got the counter I had a sinking feeling that they were going to overcharge me, boy was I right. When I asked how much do I owe, she said $500.00. Five fucken hundred dollars, to replace a rear tire, change the fluids, inspect the bike, clean the air filter, and add brake fluid. I was shocked but I did not say anything because I was grateful that my wife and I were alive, and that my bike was fixed.

It could have been much worse. Hell the tow alone from the motel to the dealership would have cost $400.00 had I not had AAA premier membership.

I bit my lip and gave her my Visa checkcard. Earlier at the dealership parts desk, I purchased a reflector to replace the one that the original tow truck guy broke off, and a paint repair kit to fix a couple of dings I have in the paint. The dealership nailed me for $500.00. Hell in the San Fernando Valley, I got both tires replaced for less money.

The gal told me that they inspected the motorcycle from the fall on the tow truck and that there was no damage. Hell I did not even see a scratch; another miracle. She told me that I would soon need to get new brake pads, but other than that, I was good to go.

I asked her what was wrong with the original rear tire. She brought it out and told me to look inside. She said you could see an imperfection inside. To me it still looked like a brand new tire. There was no holes, nothing to explain why it went flat, other than a supposid defect inside.

Another troublesome thing is that she told me that the reason my bike took so long to get done was because the mechanic could not balance the first Metzler they put on, they had to use a second tire. This concerned me, and still does. Is there a problem with the rim?

Suffice is to say I was more relieved than pissed off at this point. I cannot explain how happy I was to get my motorcycle back working. If you are going to take a long road trip, make sure you have money or a credit card just in case something goes wrong!

When we finally got into Laughlin on Saturday night, the rally nightlife was in full swing; it seemed like we missed everything. Because it was night, most of the vendors were closed, but there was still a lot happening.

We went to the Edgewater Casino, where I proceeded to loose about $200 bucks within a half hour on the slot machines. I could not win anything, not even a teaser! It became apparent to me that my luck on this trick was just not there, and we would just be lucky to make it home alive and safe.

We decided to go into the nightclub at the Edgewater and dance a bit. We had fun. We rode back to our motel in Needles and crashed out at around 4 or 5 am.

When we got back to Laughlin at around 2 on Sunday afternoon, the rally was closing down and everyone was heading out. The vendors were all closing up, but there were many still open. We missed most of the goings on because of the bike issues.

What did I do? I bought a rally shirt, and then proceeded to loose another $150 bucks and the slots and blackjack. My wife did not do any better. We waked along the river a bit, socialized with some of the people, and then decided to hit the road.

We had a good run back home, arriving at around 2am.

Will I be back at the Laughlin River Run next year? Hell Yes, I cannot wait.

Maybe next year I will tell you more about the actual rally itself.

By California Motorcycle Accident Attorney and Biker Lawyer, Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2010

The post Lucky to be alive after the Laughlin River Run 2010; however, we still had a good time! first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.

California Biker Lawyer and Motorcycle Attorney Norman Gregory Fernandez at the Yuma Prison Run

*** 4/21/10 Update – See the Short Video Below!

Living in Southern California we are blessed with year round riding. However, when April comes along there are several west coast biker rallies that take place every year. The Yuma Prison Run is one of those rallies. This is my review of this years rally.

This year the Yuma Prison Run was scheduled for the weekend of April 16-18, 2010. You can check out the Yuma Prison Run website by clicking here now.

The Yuma Prison Run is put on by the Norwalk Motorcycle Club, and has been an ongoing charity event since 1961; two years before I was born! The run is in Yuma, Arizona, and is located at the Yuma County Fair.

I decided to ride to this rally months ago. The rally location is approximately 300 miles from my home one way, or around 600 miles round trip, not including the miles I put on at or near the event once I get there. I consider this to be a medium distance sleepover run.

If any of you have read my blog, you will see many articles where I mention my fiancé. Well since we got married on January 31, 2010, she will now be referred to as my wife. I am still getting used to saying it! We have been together for 9 years, but wife is a new term in my life.

As usual, I started getting anxious and excited the night before we took off for the rally. I have been riding for many years, but it does not matter. Any of you who ride like I do know exactly what I am talking about; biker rallies are analogous to going to an amusement park when you are a kid.

There are not too many things that adults can look forward to that are fun and exciting like a good old fashioned biker rally. Unlike vacation travel, riding to a biker rally is different. It involves physically getting on your motorcycle and riding to and from the event. It is a much more involved and physical experience than just jumping on a plane and going somewhere. I am not going to even mention the ubiquitous trailer queens who don’t actually ride to an event; they are not worth mentioning!

My wife and I packed up my Harley Davidson Electra Glide on the Thursday before the Yuma Prison Run. The Harley Davidson hard saddle bags and tour pak really makes it much easier to pack up and go then in the past where I have had to squeeze everything for two into special motorcycle travel luggage. (Which I still have)

Since this is a 3 day, 2 night rally we try to pack as light as possible. As usual, I had reservations at one of the two Motel 6’s in town. Motel 6 is set up with laundry rooms, so worst case scenario; you can wash your clothes if you have to. What this means is that you do not have to pack as many clothes, which saves room on the motorcycle.

Hell if you are like me and are toting along your wife, you will need the extra room, because she will use it up 🙂

Basically we had the motorcycle mostly packed up on Thursday night, the day before we left.

Other preparations I made for this motorcycle rally and trip were to purchase a new battery for my motorcycle. It has been a few years since I replaced the battery, and my previous battery was so dead that it would not even take a trickle charge.

I called Harley Davidson to get a price on a new battery; they wanted $170 bucks for a battery, plus the 10% California sales tax. If you factor in the price plus tax, $187.00, plus gas, and time to drive to the dealership to get the battery, it would have been over $200 bucks for a motorcycle battery. There was no way in hell I was going to pay over $200 bucks for a motorcycle battery. Hell a battery for my Mercedes S class cost less than $200 bucks.

I found a place online at batterystuff.com that had a replacement for my Harley Davidson Electra Glide for $99.00 with shipping and tax included. Total price $99.00 delivered to my door. I ordered a battery from them and had it two days later. You cannot beat that.

I installed the new battery, and hooked up my trickle charger to make sure it was fully charged. Within an hour, it was fully charged. I fired up my motorcycle and everything was fine.

On Friday, April 16, 2010, I had to work a few hours, and so did my wife. We were scheduled to leave for the Yuma Prison Run at 2:00pm, but we ended up not leaving until around 3:30pm.

Before I leave on a run, I always warm up my motorcycle, and take her for a local ride for a few miles to warm up and check the oil. I checked the oil, and it was fine.

I gave my motorcycle a once over with some detail wax and a micro fiber cloth. This ritual serves three purposes; (1) I get the motorcycle nice and shiny before I leave, (2) it protects the motorcycle from elements on the run, and (3) it allows me to visually inspect the motorcycle for loose parts or problems.

I usually do a few more things before I leave on a run. I contact the newspaper to have them stop delivery of papers while we are gone, I call my bank to let them know I am traveling so their fraud prevention department does not stop my ATM card at an inconvenient place on the road, I call my security company to let them know I am going to be out of town in case the alarm goes off. My wife gets someone to take care of our 3 dogs. It is not like the old days where we would just go; now there are a few things I have to do first.

Finally, we were ready to leave!

There is almost nothing on earth like the feeling you have when you jump on your motorcycle to ride to a faraway destination. You can quote me on that.

Before this trip I purchased new modular helmets with built in sun screens that can go down, and retract with the flick of a lever on the helmet. With these new helmets, there is no need to wear sunglasses. I am not going to do a write up on the helmets at this time. The only reason I am mentioning the helmets is because they made the trip that much more enjoyable.

Once on the motorcycle, we were off. My wife is a true back seat shotgun rider. She is just as excited about riding as I am. I am truly a lucky man. Most of my friends and brothers cannot for the life of them, get their wives and old ladies to ride with them to events. Therefore, I am always the one with my old lady, and they are usually always either alone, or they have their old ladies follow them in a car. Oh well.

I took a scenic route on the way to Yuma. For me as usual, it is the ride that counts, not the destination.

Really, for me, the destination is always the same. Biker rallies are biker rallies. Same vendors, same cast of characters, same good times. It is kind of like a rolling party of the same people and vendors, set up in different places around the country. A biker rally is just an excuse to get on your motorcycle and ride to far away places. Biker rallies are one of the simple pleasures in life that make life worth living!

So for me, I get off more on the ride to and from a biker rally, than the rally itself. I do not rush to get there, and I do not rush home. I enjoy the ride, because that is what makes the biker rally worth going to! Once I am at a rally, I will spend time at the actual event, but I usually spend more time riding around the area of the event finding new places to ride my motorcycle. I call this trolling.

Anyway, getting back to this years Yuma Prison Run; I took a scenic route. We rode Highway 138, through the Mohave Desert, up into the snow covered mountains before the 15. We got on the 15 and took it from the 138, to the 215 to the 10. Once on the 10, we rode past Palm Springs, CA, and took our first break past Palm Desert for gas and food.

On the road, I am not a thrill seeker when it comes to food. I like to go to Denny’s or a similar type of restaurant because the food is predictable, and usually good. In the past I have had some real bad experiences going to restaurants on the road.

One time after doing the Reno Rally I stopped at a greasy spoon on the way home, and got food poisoning so bad, I had to be hospitalized. Suffice is to say, I play it safe now. We stopped at Denny’s and had a good meal with no food poisoning!

Gas at this stop was $3.40 per gallon for premium unleaded gas. What a fucking rip off. Why is gas so high when demand is way down due to the bad economy? I will leave this subject for another article. The gas speculators are killing us and the economy!

Anyway, we got back on the road. By this time it was dark. I knew I had to play it safe on the road from here on out. Our planned route was to take the 10 to the 86 to the 111, then to the 8. This route basically is all desert. There are all sorts or critters that can pop out at night on this desolate route; road runners, jack rabbits, snakes, illegal aliens, etc. These are no joke at 80mph in the middle of nowhere at night.

I know many guys that won’t ride these types of roads at night because there is danger, there are no street lights, and it is desolate. As for me, I prefer to ride these types of roads at night.

The riding was good from our first stop. We eventually got to a little farming town called Brawley, CA, where I decided to make our second and last gas stop before arriving in Yuma. It was around 10:00pm or so on Friday night.

My wife and I are at this gas station, in the middle of nowhere, in Brawley, and we are all alone, I am pumping gas, and in comes a car load of what appeared to me to be Latino gang bangers. The reason I believed they were gang bangers was because they fit the profile, and the entire car load of guys basically stared me down the entire time they were there. You just knew that these guys were looking for trouble.

As I was pumping gas; they pulled up and parked in front the entrance to the gas station. I knew that if I stared back or acted cavalier, that I would have had a car load of guys to deal with on my hands. Why the hell would a car load of guys keep staring at a 46 year old guy on a Harley pumping gas? Maybe they were staring at my wife. I am sure you get the picture. Normal guys do not stare at you like this. Believe me; I have been around the block a few times, only an idiot would not recognize the danger in this situation.

I kept my cool, I did not panic, and I kept on eye on them out of the corner of my eye, but acted like I was not looking at them. I did not want to get back on the empty road in the middle of no where and have these guys follow my wife and I. Hell we were on a motorcycle, they were in a car. There was no where to go. We were in Brawley, in the middle of the friggen desert. This was like a scene out of a movie.

My plan was to basically take my time, and to take a break, ignore them, and wait until they left. I told my wife out of the corner of my mouth what to do if something jumped off. Better to make a plan and talk about it, then to ignore it, right?

Eventually, as I predicted, the car load of guys started to leave the gas station. At this time, I started walking to the entrance of the gas station to buy something inside. I wanted to alert the person inside as to what was going on just in case.

As I was walking in, the car load of guys stopped their turn out of the gas station and starred back at me some more. I acted like I did not see them. They then took off. It was interesting and bizarre to say the least.

There are a-social idiots and criminals out there, who would take you out and have no remorse whatsoever in doing so. If you think you are immune from these a-social criminals, you are living in a dream. They are out there!

It is at time like this that everyone wishes they could have a concealed carry weapons permit. However, even if you did have a concealed weapon in this type of situation, chances are that one of the guys in the car would get a shot off before you could get all of them.

The smart move was to do what I did and not provoke anything. I have learned through my many years of experience and training, that it is better to avoid confrontations when you can, and to be ready for confrontations if there is no way to avoid them. If you take your ego out of the picture 99% of all confrontations like this will end with no problems. It is better to use your brain, then to escalate a situation. That is what separates us from animals.

That is all I am going to say about this subject. On a side note, I went into the head to take a leak, at this gas station after the car load of guys left; the walls were full of fresh gang graffiti. Enough said!

We got back on the road. The rest of the ride was pretty much uneventful except for the pungent smell of manure as we passed some farms after the right turn from the 86 to the 111; Yuk.

This ride basically takes you to the southern most part of California and Arizona right next to the Mexican border. This is the true old west like you see in the cowboy movies.

We eventually crossed the border into Arizona, and got to our off ramp in Yuma. I got our room, and we then went in the Denny’s which was right next to the Motel 6, for breakfast. It was now after midnight.

By the time we got to bed it was around 3 or 4am whoops 🙂

We woke up on Saturday. Our plan was to hang out by the pool with our friends for a bit until the afternoon, visit the famous old west Yuma Territorial Prison, and then go to the actual event at the Fairgrounds. (Our friends arrived during the day on Friday)

This rally has a reputation for sweltering heat and I knew if we got to the fairgrounds too early, we would be too burnt out to enjoy the evening entertainment.

Now I know I preach motorcycle safety on here, and I always mean what I say. But I could not resist ditching the helmet and riding with no lid in Arizona. I don’t ride without a helmet often because I live in California, but once in Arizona, I could not resist. I ditched the helmet for the day and night. It felt good to feel the wind in my hair again. It is like a long lost normal feeling from the past. Yes I rode without a fucking helmet in Arizona, so sue me.

My wife and I went to the Historic Yuma Territorial prison; you can see a couple of pictures on here. To be frank, I don’t like prisons. I don’t care if this one is closed and it is a historical site with a museum and such. People were imprisoned there, and hung there. It is right on the bank of the Colorado River. Bottom line, I did not dig the prison. It is not a place I will visit again. There was actually a couple taking their wedding pictures there. Geez, why not have your wedding pictures taken at a slaughterhouse, come on!

From the prison, we rode to the Yuma Harley Davidson dealership to check it out, and then we went to the fairgrounds. By the time we got there it was 10 bucks a person to get in because dinner was over. Fine by me, I was not planning on eating there anyway, and 30 bucks a person is kind of steep to go to something like this, even if it is for charity. We were not planning on eating there so why would I want to pay 60 bucks to walk around and look at vendor booths?

When we got in, it was your typical rally type of situation. There were many motorcycles, many bikers, the same old vendors, except that this time I saw one of my new motorcycle competitors there. What a friggen joke. These so called motorcycle lawyers are nothing more than a marketing scam targeted at bikers. The guy behind the booth was not only not a biker, but I doubt he even rides a bicycle let alone a motorcycle.

These attorneys who do not ride, and who are advertising themselves as motorcycle attorneys, make me sick to my stomach. I am telling you now, if you ever need a motorcycle attorney, make sure your attorney rides before you hire them. These people think of you as nothing more than a marketing niche. I introduced myself to the joke in the booth. I told him, I don’t put up booths at rallies, I ride to rallies!

DO NOT HIRE A MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT ATTORNEY WHO DOES NOT RIDE MOTORCYCLES. WE BIKERS ARE MORE THAN A MARKETING NICHE. NO REAL MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT ATTORNEY WILL SET UP BOOTHS AT RALLIES, BECAUSE THEY ARE ACTUALLY RIDING TO THE RALLIES. This is all I will say on this subject.

My wife and I looked at all of the vendor booths and so on. I then noticed a whole bunch of Police walking into the event with tactical gear on. Some were carrying M16’s with what appeared to be 20 round clips. Mind you, there was no trouble that I could see. Yes there were a bunch of motorcycle club guys at the event, but the event was peaceful. Why were the cops there with tactical gear carrying machine guns?

I saw one old timer walk up to one of the cops and ask them what they were doing there. The cop said that they were just “walking around.” The old timer said to the cop that he had been going to the event for “21 years and had never seen such a police presence before.” I walked away before I heard the rest of the conversation.

I will give the police this, I did not see them walking around the entire event, they stayed towards the backend where I originally saw them. They made their presence felt, but I did not see them harass anyone. Is this what it takes to keep motorcycle rallies peaceful these days? I am not sure. What do you think?

My wife and I then went into the stands and got a good seat for the concert that was to take place. I spoke to many people in the stands including a member of the Norwalk MC, the club who put on the event. Everyone was nice, and we had a good time.

We watched the concert, and then took off around 9. We then rode to an Indian Casino where my wife proceeding to loose some money, and I broke even.

We went to a late breakfast at Denny’s and hit the sack.

We woke up early on Sunday, had a light breakfast with some of our friends, and then rode home with our friends. We got home around 3:00pm on Sunday.

The Yuma Prison Run was a good time. I give it a thumbs up. Not really because of the rally per se, but because is an excuse to take a good ride to somewhere interesting.

Will I ride to the rally again, hell yes. Why would I ride to this rally again, because I can.

This weekend is the Laughlin River Run. Yee Haa.

***more pictures to come!

By California Motorcycle Accident Attorney and Biker Lawyer, Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2010

The post The Yuma Prison Run 2010; a Great Time first appeared on Biker and Motorcycle Accident Lawyer Blog.