2010 New Year's Ride

This past Saturday, January 2, 2010, was our 8th Annual New Year's Beach Ride. We had an unexpectedly great turnout! Over 35 scooters came out to ring in the new year, scooter-style.

We met at Claim Jumper restaurant, in Torrance, around 12:30pm. All sorts of different scooters were there, so it could have been called the "misfits toys" run. Unlike other scooter clubs in SoCal, we relish in the seeing different types of scooters, seeing what they are capable of and seeing how different they are to our own vintage, Italian scooters.

Knowledge is always power, so if finding out something you didn't know or expect from a different scooter model enhances your own scooter or experience, then we are happy to become the most powerful scooter club in SoCal, lol (for all you hyper-sensitive readers out there, this was a joke, ergo the "lol" at the end of that previous statement...). Anyways, real riders ride, they don't bitch and complain, so you will get the gist of what I am saying. To me, vintage scooters are the best, but that doesn't mean because you worship vintage you decry everything modern and throw it out the window. Heck, you'd never have hydraulic brakes on that old Italian scooter if you did that!! I just prefer to continue keeping an open mind to what new technology modern scooters can show us...

Ok, back down off my soapbox and back to the New Year's Ride. As I was saying, we had all sorts of two-wheeled vehicles show up. One of the most interesting was this old Puch moped:


Also, old SBSC member Jeff York (now the chief mechanic at Triumph of South Bay), and his friend Kent, rode over on these two 2009 Royal Enfields:


Jeff said they are both made in India these days, and joked that vintage Lambrettas are probably faster. He said the top speed was around 85mph, but they felt as if they were going to blow up at that speed. I assured him that some faster scooters feel like that at that speed, as well, if not tuned right or they are being pushed to their limit.

So, we finally got on the road a little after 1:15pm and headed straight up Crenshaw for our fuel stop. Then it was off to PV Drive North.

We then dropped into Redondo Beach and cruised the Esplanade right by the ocean. The perfect 75+ degree weather day, along with the clear blue skies, made the ocean view all the way up to Malibu look great! We then proceeded up through Hermosa Beach and into Manhattan Beach before turning left and dropping down into the parking lot at El Porto. We parked here for a while for a break and to soak in another sunny New Year's day in SoCal:



After the break, we doubled back south and to the Manhattan Beach Pier where we parked in front of the Shellback Tavern and walked across to "Beaches" restaurant. The downstairs bar was full, so we ended up having to go to the nice upstairs patio bar and restaurant area there at "Beaches". Kinda fancy! Here's a pic:

For some reason, they couldn't serve pitchers of beer up there in the fancy area, but could downstairs. Huh? Oh well. We all ordered our drinks and food and had a great time relaxing after the great ride.

Thanks to all who came out!! If you'd like to see some other pics from the ride, plus a short video from the stop in El Porto, just click this link, and you can check them out.

Cheers, and hope to see you on the next SBSC ride on February 6th! As always, if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at: info@southbayscooterclub.com - Mario