LA mini bicycle bomb.
Thread started by
tern at 07.27.07 - 12:48 am
Okay, I'm really into what zoo bomb is doing. I would like to bring this south. And, I saw the post for the mini moto race....and I like it. It's just something that I won't be able to do for a number of reasons.
Now: I have already proposed a bomb ride in gmr for this saturday during the day on the let's go to Portland thread.
But, Why not make this a posted ride....even a race. Let's set it for next Saturday during the day. I am up for suggestions about the route. We need a big, mountainous hill, with little or no flats or climbs (no climbs is optimal). Does anyone know a really long road in the LA area that fits this criteria?
Also, riders can only ride on mini bikes....bikes that were meant to have 16 inch wheels or less....sorry if you bring a folder, we will have to make a new race class. Thrift stores are rife with these type of bikes. They have barbies and transformers and shit on them. And, they're usually 20 dollars or less.
Who is up for this?
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I'm sure one of the SFVISBF peeps knows of such a hill...
FuzzBeast07.27.07 - 12:53 am
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Cool...hey spiral....are you up for this? Show me a big hill.
Thanks Fuzz for the direction...lets do it.
tern07.27.07 - 1:03 am
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....and after the ride we can pile up 50 bikes around a stop sign at a taco stand or a bar, and lock them up. It would be a nice picture!
racing, scabs. beer and fun.
tern07.27.07 - 1:16 am
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Shee it fools, the Bike Oven has like 6 or 7 kiddie bikes ready to roll.
KIDDIE BIKE ARMY!
I suggest bombing the backside of Montecito Heights, in Happy Valley.
A steep hill without too much traffic and a long descent.
ubrayj0207.27.07 - 8:54 am
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Marathon between Hoover and Silver Lake Blvd is steep and hilly.
Mook07.27.07 - 9:49 am
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griffith park is ok for those of you on the "cool" side of town. I suggest you take your gravity yearings and build a soapbox car instead.
www.sfvisbf.com
rev10607.27.07 - 9:56 am
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People give away kids bikes all the time on CL.
Free section and the Bike section.
werd
Eric Hair07.27.07 - 10:55 am
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could you route any of your suggestions gmaps or bikely?
I really think glendora mountain road would be great. Its about 11 miles down the hill and about a 3500 foot descent. But, I'm thinking it may be a bit difficult to get LA ridazz out to Glendora. Its about a 30-40 minute drive from down town. Would anyone be into traveling to Glendora and bombing glendora mountain road?
As for the other suggestions....how long are they approximately/
I'll work up a gmap of gmr, presently.
tern07.27.07 - 11:31 am
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Here's the address for the possible glendora mountain road route:
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/59498
Here's the info on this route:
Total descent: 5468ft
9.7 miles
tern07.27.07 - 12:31 pm
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Here's a picture of the elevation graph.
tern07.27.07 - 12:45 pm
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studies have shown that this side of town is in fact an average of 10 degrees cooler.
Roadblock07.27.07 - 1:10 pm
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You've got a point, there.
tern07.27.07 - 1:16 pm
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okay, so far we have:
1. backside of Montecito Heights, in Happy Valley
2. griffith park
3. Marathon between Hoover and Silver Lake Blvd
also--does anyone remember--on the bike winter metric century... we rode up Mullholland and down another road into the valley. I think I hit 40 mph on that road. I was on the brakes most of the time. What is the name of that road?
And for a short, fairly safe route, we could start a Mullholland and ride down cold water canyon into beverly hills....hmmm.
I'll try to get the first three gmaped shortly...
tern07.27.07 - 1:26 pm
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Yeah Zoobomb's ride down Mt. Hood is awesome!
I have some friends who drive up Big Bear and coast down from there. I don't know what their specific route is but it seems like a nice ride.
.K
onethirtynine07.27.07 - 1:53 pm
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too much democracy here! lol...
WHEN?
WHERE?
SKIDMARCUS07.28.07 - 5:23 pm
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You just have to settle on a hill, a time and let people show up. Check out our take on hill selection from the SFVISBF, we've done the research:
Accessibility
The hills one selects must be accessible. One should not have to traverse over hill and dale to get their car to the top. A good hill is one that you can load your cars in a truck and drive to the top. If it’s a short way to push your car up then perhaps the hill is too short. Having places to legally park your tow vehicle(s) will save you from needless trouble later. Also, picking hills that are extremely hard to find may prove difficult for new drivers to join your ranks. As your events grow, you’ll need to think about spectators and their parking. As the need arises, you’ll have to adapt to the situation of increased interest. It may involve some logistics on your part. Keep these factors in mind when looking for your hills.
Length and Features
These two factors are perhaps the most important factors for your SFVISBF chapter. You should, well you’ll need to have several hills that are different from each other to make things interesting and keep longevity in your races. If you race the same one hill over and over again, people will become bored and your numbers will dwindle. We think that four hills is a good number, more are better of course but no less than four. These hills will need to have some length to them so you can get a good run in, at least try to have courses a ½ mile long. Shorter hills are too quick, no time to mix it up or really get down, so keep your hills on the long side and you’ll have more fun. Width is also important. The starting place of your hills should be able to accommodate a minimum of 6-10 cars in a row. The wider the start the better, as a single row is more fair of a starting position for everyone than multiple rows. Your hills should have some steep to them so you can get some speed. Hills that are too steep can be dangerous. A super steep section followed by a long flat would be ok, use your best judgment. Most of our hills we have been averaging 25-30 on the slow sections and 40-55 mph on the fast sections. All of your courses must be able to be started from a cold stop. Pushers or rolling off from your wheels wheelchair style is not permitted. The start of your courses must be steep enough to allow every car to gain speed from a dead stop. This way, it is just car, driver and the road that provide the necessary ingredients for victory. Pushing can give unfair advantage to the guy that has the track star or linebacker for a pusher. You should have a hill that is a long drag type hill, one with lots of turns, one with bumps or a funnel etc. you get the idea. The reasoning for this is some cars and drivers will excel on certain types of hills where others will do well on others, it gives everyone a chance to shine. Some of our racers will place in the top 3 every time on the long drag courses and place near last on the twisty turny courses, every time. It keeps things interesting. Courses that have a steep start and then have some turns and then some flats will really change things up as different cars will perform better or worse on each of these sections. The more varied features you have on your courses the more fun and challenging they become. The end of your track is also important. You don’t want the end of your course to be the busiest 4-lane intersection in town. Courses with plenty of leader and the end are ideal so racers that experience brake failure, loss of conciseness, are overcome with glee, or have a damaged car can roll safely to a stop. An abrupt end to your track can pose problems if races are concentrating more on dueling each other than the location of the cones. Look for features that keep things interesting and interest will be there. Mix things up, keep it fresh and you’ll have more exciting races and bigger turn-outs. If you live in an area that is completely devoid of hills, we recommend using parking structures in the late hours of the night for some fun. Parking structure cars need to be lighter as you may have to carry them up several flights of stairs.
Traffic
Traffic is an issue for sure; this is why we race at 7:30 in the AM. Race times should be early for several reasons, one of them is traffic. Racing soapbox is not an everyday occurrence, unlike people riding a bicycle or skateboard down a hill a group of soapbox racers rolling down a hill will get a lot of looks. People in cars will gawk, they will stop in the middle of the street, and they will slow down as they crane their necks to see what you are doing. Too many people in cars doing the aforementioned things will invariably lead to accidents. Your races will be shut down if they are deemed an attractive nuisance. Pick roads that have low traffic. You smacking some SUV with your soapbox car is all kinds of bad, avoid roads that will have cars jumping into the flow of traffic with you, suddenly showing up in front or behind you as they may react poorly to your presence. Dead end roads are thus the best to race on as they greatly reduce the traffic factor. Cars coming up the hill and doing u-turns in front of you is also a factor. Every track we use is a dead end road except for one, and that one ends in a park/dirt road, there is a very good reason for this.
Home Density
Related to traffic is home density. Racing past a mess of houses can spell disaster as some suburbanite backs his Volvo out into the midst of you-pow! You get the idea. People in cars are looking for people in cars, not soapbox cars. Most soapbox cars are low profile machines, they may be under the average motorists radar. Also people, kids, animals from houses suddenly running out into the street can be a bad thing. Some houses are fine, but as you increase the number of houses you increase the chance that something will happen. All of these things you must keep in mind as you pick your courses.
It is also important to not leave a mess, not do burnouts, or blare loud music at the wee hours of the morning. Doing these things piss the locals off, and you want to race there again don’t you? So it’s best to impact your environment as little as possible. Encounters with irate neighbors and the cops are inevitable; There are ways to deal with these people. Firstly, the goal is to get your run in. If you see cops, yell “Cops!” everyone gets in their cars and goes. This sort or panic start may not allow you to get a nice start line but if it’s either get a half ass run in or no run at all, I’ll take the run. If the neighbors come out it’s best to ignore them until you get your first run in, then you can try and talk to them. Remember these people are not rational, they are yelling at you in their underwear at 7 in the morning on a Sunday; chances are they cannot be reasoned with. It is best to be nice, explain you’re going to do a couple of runs and go away, you’ll be gone before you know it. If you feel that they are just taking out their shitty life on you just get as many runs in as you can and then split. Do not give them flyers or other information that they could use to find you, some people have bad time management skills, they may make disbanding your chapter a full time hobby. If the cops come it’s best to be nice and reason with them. We have been firm in our right to run the streets as we’re all consenting and are we really breaking any laws? Most cops don’t know the law for shit and Soapbox is not something that comes into play on the regular so they are generally unprepared to deal with it.
more on www.sfvisbf.com
rev10607.29.07 - 11:20 am
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I've got it figured out, almost....thanks for all the imput. I will post the ride, tonight or monday.
tern07.29.07 - 12:36 pm
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I posted this thread. I tried to get this going before we went to Portland, but it looks like Samhain, so he says, is taking the reigns. I wanted to figure it out. But he, apparently from our conversation would rather that I not do it. So...have fun. Find us some good rides.
tern08.22.07 - 12:04 am
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I don't think anyone necessarily needs to 'take the reigns', but people with more knowledge need to help organize. I'm sure you both can get something really good going on. I'm down to help as much as I can.
SPOOK08.22.07 - 12:12 am
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To be honest, I'd never even seen this thread; though there's TONS of useful info here. I would LOVE for you to help out, as I said when we talked. I think we can both agree that this kind of thing belongs to the Midnight Ridazz community at large, but if you want the credit? Brother, it's all yours; I just want to ride kiddie bikes down hills.
When we talked you had mentioned you were going to take 4 months to prepare what I believe will be an AMAZING experience that might even draw our Zoobomb brothers and sisters down to experience. I don't want to wait that long. I talked to someone earlier this afternoon and they wanted to do it as well.
I'm quite sure that after last Sunday, you and I weren't the only people who thought of putting something like this together. You even had it pegged BEFORE the trip, for which I give you full credit.
I wish you all the best with Glendora Mountain Road and I'm definitely in when it happens. Based on the photos, I think it will be EPIC.
Samhain08.22.07 - 12:16 am
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BUT...some of you have been with me on some pretty daunting planned rides....kike the Dark Century...or even the Badger Song. I would really like to figure out a mini bombing ride....I think I would do a good job to make it fun and as safe as possible.
I just think I can do a good job at this....and now I can't because sombody posted the "weekly" ride first. No offense to Samhain.
Go ahead, then. I will try to support you in any way I can.'
But, I won't be happy about it.
tern08.22.07 - 12:17 am
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Samhain...check the zoo bomb site.
tern08.22.07 - 12:19 am
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Hey, I love this idea- with all the big hills and roads we have to go down on here in the Greater L.A. area, you could definitely do something very much like Zoobomb..
Griffith Park was what immediately put me in mind of what Washington Park is like. It doesn't have to be incredibly traffic free, particularly since Zoobomb is done at night! Even up in Portland, we have considered changing up Zoobomb (Zooboom!) to NOT take the MAX, and actually instead invest in a biodiesel van where we can pile up minibikes and people and go up the hill in it. A pickup truck with some bungee cords might help as well.
And of course you have to get your party on somewhere. A dark park with great hills to bomb down is perfect. Also, you should NEVER pay over $5 for a kid's bike- although seeing this is L.A., and things are more expensive.. I'd say $10. Go to the Salvation Army, they have great bikes. The best way to do everything for the most part, is to buy a new kid's bike, making sure the spokes aren't straight laced and that the frame is in good condition, adjust the handlebars forward, and get a new seat. Everything else you decide to do to it is relatively optional from there, but building and riding a mini shouldn't cost you that much at all. Craigslist, as someone mentioned up above, is great for this. I took my $5 bike and have invested about $50 into it- ha. But it is almost completely overhauled, so it's understandable.
So let's get this done, ridazzzzzzzzzz
LE-OH!08.22.07 - 3:05 pm
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Griffith Park is exactly what I was thinking.
Has anyone thought about setting a date?
I can go up there on Sunday and scope out a site.
I was also thinking of having two courses.
One on a nice hilly path, and one for people who like to crash and burn like me. Something just off of the path. Throw some obsticles and (j)bumps in there and I'm all set.
I'm all for it. I say let's do it!
Ratt_Bones08.22.07 - 4:09 pm
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Is it legal to ride on the shoulder of a highway or freeway here?
If so, bring on L.A.'s very own version of Hellway- guaranteed to be even more extreme!
LE-OH!08.22.07 - 4:52 pm
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Um.......Most freeways and highways here will leave you lucky if you can find a spot to pull over when your car breaks down.
If it were legal, there wouldn't be any room anyway.
Ratt_Bones08.22.07 - 5:00 pm
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Three mini bikes for $0
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/bik/403648857.html
Now would they be more useful to a poor little kid or to some 30 yr old dude who can't wait to crack his head open?
marino08.22.07 - 6:40 pm
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borfo, i think that epitomizes "Beer Down!"
FuzzBeast08.22.07 - 9:27 pm
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I believe we have found the perfect spot over in Griffith Park.
The road is closed to traffic, recently paved, long, and has no neighborhood or pedestrians to worry about.
If anyone wants to help, or if I can help whoever set this up.......Let's do it! Too many rides this week, and weekend though. We can go scope out the location next week.
Ratt_Bones08.23.07 - 12:17 am
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this road is closed to car traffic has a few turns and I'm sure it would almost be illegal to do this here
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1254284
click on elevation
dannyzuko08.23.07 - 8:39 am
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Looks awesome, but if it's closed to car traffic, how do we get everyone to the top?
brassknuckle08.23.07 - 9:12 am
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umm.. ride your bike lazy!!!
e-rock08.23.07 - 1:29 pm
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did you look at that map? i'm not riding a mini 8+ miles uphill. The elevation gets over 5000 feet. how about you tow me up there.
brassknuckle08.23.07 - 1:37 pm
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well, we could just bring the blood doping van to the bottom of the hill....
e-rock08.23.07 - 1:38 pm
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Tow the minibikes behind a motor-scooter?
Joe Borfo08.23.07 - 1:40 pm
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no pain no gain, it's a good hike, or maybe pay off a ranger to give us a lift in their truck anyone know a ranger?
that road may be open does anyone live in the area?
dannyzuko08.23.07 - 2:10 pm
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Drive the mini bikes up Vermont to the Griffith Park tunnel.
Park.
Get the mini bikes out.
Go around the gate.
Ride them a slight uphill for a mile.
Bomb the south side of Griffith park for 2.5 miles
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1255293
One could also use a strap to hang the mini-bikes from their shoulder like a messenger bag while riding a road bike.
There is no zoobombing without a zoo.
marino08.23.07 - 2:29 pm
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good news! just spoke to a ranger and the fence was moved back to allow people to camp at Coldbrook, we can park trucks at the start point hike up a little and have the road to ourselves or go down from there like a mofo.
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1255349
dannyzuko08.23.07 - 2:30 pm
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there is a campground there so we can camp out and hit that shit at night and early am with minimal traffic
dannyzuko08.23.07 - 2:49 pm
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there is a date set for Midnight Ridazz bomb Squad
I don't know if these are seperate or the same on two different threads. If you look at the ride calendar the date is set for 9/16/07
I know I'd like to do this sooner
cured108.23.07 - 2:49 pm
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I didn't know either, but I just got off of the phone with "Samhain", he says they are different.
Ratt_Bones08.23.07 - 2:59 pm
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So then there's two dates. Great. More to love. Stop whining and just bomb it.
Joe Borfo08.23.07 - 3:50 pm
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What time? I want to get in on this action.
SFVISBF.
rev10608.26.07 - 10:43 am
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Anybody who wants to meet today at scoops at 4pm to scout please feel free to join me. I figure 4-6 should be a good start. Anybody interested please show up.
Samhain08.26.07 - 12:26 pm
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Leoh, a Portlander, stumbled across some streets in Elysian Park which he said reminded him of zoobomb types of routes. I thought I'd share that info with you all. Maybe an elysian park scouting is in order? My wife just put out a life insurance policy on me by the way.
Yeah, when & where? Make a post!
Paul are you going to have a Halloween bash this year? Post that puppy!
Joe Borfo08.26.07 - 12:40 pm
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status report?
do we have a course and date for this yet?
cured108.28.07 - 4:38 pm
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I posted it on the Bomb Squad thread. Elysian park was a great find. I'm going to scout some more. Anybody interested please let me know.
Samhain08.28.07 - 7:21 pm
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Yes, Choppercabras halloween ride (that's 7th annual bitches) will happen. May be moving or buying the house I'm in, don't know yet waiting to see what the deal is before I make flyers etc.
rev10608.28.07 - 10:02 pm
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i hate having to look at 2 threads to see wtf is going on.
richtotheie08.28.07 - 10:21 pm
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