Friday, October 13, 2006

Cannon Ball Run to Nevada by Motorcycle

One of the most fun places to do long-distance motorcycle riding has to be the great state of Nevada, as there is so much to see, it is simply incredible indeed. As a young man my friends and I use to do cannon ball runs from Southern CA to Las Vegas NV. Back then there was little traffic and we would really open up the throttle and go for it.

Sometimes racing thru the desert at ultra-high speed the road was so hot it, as you looked at it; it looked wavy, similar to a dream like mirage. At those speeds you could not really tell where the road was in front of you, only an approximation and then it would drop off as the road was filled with hoop-de-doos.

Of course this was 20 years ago and today there is just too much traffic and too many highway patrol and well quite frankly too many helicopters too. You cannot do the same routes we use to do and there are not very many other ways to go. But it was a fun time in my life and we did have a blast.

We use to start out from Van Nuys CA at the Tom’s Burgers and hit the Freeway and well we were in Palm Dale, screaming thru in under 18 minutes and give it another 20 minutes and we were at the I-15, never more than 45 total to that point. From there it was a beeline, bonsai, cannon ball run to Las Vegas.

Well I will never forget those days or a very good friend of mine who did not make it on one of our runs, as he departed the freeway at 165 mph the reports said and was DOA. No one knows what happened perhaps he looked down for a half a second or more or hit tried to swerve for an animal.