Beer, Motorcycles and Cigars — Beer, Bikes and Butts

The Ride the Coast benefit for the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Ana is one of my favorite rides every year, and it just keeps getting better.  I’ve participated for the last three or four years, and the organizers really got it together this time.

Two years ago, the ride terminated at a shopping mall, with a few booths and only Taco Bell food to eat.  The ride was great but the destination stank.  This year it was done in conjunction with the Irvine Lakes Blues Festival, so the finish was much more enjoyable since the riders had access to all the merchandise, food and beer offered in conjunction with that function, as well as the motorcycle stuff.  A great blues group called Larry Horne and Small Change was playing while I was there.

As for the ride, it followed the same route as last year, starting at the Santa Ana Auto Mall, going up the 55 to the 22, down to the Pacific Coast Highway for about a 20 mile ride along the ocean, then up Jamboree and over to Irvine Lake.  I had an epiphany and loaded an iPhone app called RunKeeper while I was waiting for the ride to start, to record the route we took.  The entire route, time and pace can be found here.  What’s really depressing, however, is that the program thinks I was riding a bicycle, and reports that for my 56.14 mile ride, at an average speed of 30.57 mph, I only burned 1500 calories.  I knew there was a reason I don’t ride a bike.

The ride is completely police escorted, and once it starts you never stop.  The Santa Ana Police Department did a great job stopping traffic at all the lights.

Posted on June 26th, 2010 by Aaron Morris
Filed under: Motorcycles, News, Reviews, Rides