Riding Thru Street Vibrations

Today (September 26, 2009) was an interesting day. I decided to get a ride in since it's Saturday (what more reason do I need?), so I look on Google Maps and come up with a fun, short, though familiar ride of around 150 miles.

As I'm filling up at the gas station near my apartment I hear a constant rumble on the highway, as if it's a never ending stream of Harleys. Same thing as I'm getting lunch...all I hear coming from the highway is Harley sounds. At first I thought it was some motorcycle group out for a ride, but to last that long it had to be a huge group. Eventually I make my way out to the main road and see it's filled with bikes. Bikes of all kinds, though mostly choppers, everywhere. A few dozen coming out of the parking lot over here, a few dozen coming down this road, a few dozen behind me, etc. I've never seen so many.

Riding up Mt. Rose and around Lake Tahoe I saw the same thing. Motorcycles are everywhere. Clearly there had to be some event going on, especially since I also saw some new, temporary "Watch for bikes" and "Ride safe" signs, but I had no idea what it was. Still, it was pretty fun seeing all those bikes riding around, even if some of them were going excruciatingly slow.

Eventually I make my way out near Virginia City and realized that, with all these bikes out, the town is going to be packed. Last time I ran into a large motorcycle event in Virginia City I didn't have my camera with me, so this time I made sure to catch it all by hooking up my helmet camera.

There were more bikes than I expected, much more. I guess I was too focused on checking out the bikes and not hitting anybody that I didn't realize I was getting surrounded by a large crowd. Both sides of the street were lines with hundreds of bikes and even more people, and soon I realized that they weren't there for the shops, they were there to watch the bikes go by.

I don't know what you'd classify this as. I don't think the word "parade" really works, but still...to me, it felt like I just stumbled into a parade route and couldn't get out. It was surreal, but interesting, especially since I had no idea *why* there were so many bikes out until I was halfway thru it and finally saw a sign for Street Vibrations.

And now I end my long winded explanation.

PS: Sorry for the breathing / wind noises. The mic on my camera can be sensitive to wind and the wind filter fell off.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Street Vibrations
• Reno
• Virginia City
• SV650

[JPOnion]

@MrGlassAddict Sort of. It's not the original Vado, it's the Vado HD. However, I guess they've since come out with newer versions of the Vado HD. This is the first HD version, about a year and half old now.

[jjunior213]

hahahaha i was there when u had role thru at about 3:10 u can c a white gsxr 600 '09 (rigos) and 2 2009 hayabusa's silver (mine) and black (mikes) and about 5:41 u can c me in shades and black hat and white tee and rigo to my right with the icon vest lol it was a pretty coo parade...

[Kadoffel]

Breathing noise? It sounds as if you were concentrating all your lung capacity on the membrane of the mic. xD

Cool parade, though. :P