One of the last big rides of the summer is also one of the best: the annual Oyster Run. It is the single largest motorcycle run in the Pacific Northwest. In Anacortes, the destination, most of the streets are shut down as thousands of motorcycles take over the town and bikers support the local businesses.

While Anacortes is the destination, there is no official route up and no official starting point. Everyone just rolls into town when they feel like it, and bikers come from all over the country (and even some foreign countries). Small groups tend to start out, meet up with friends’ groups while en route, and by the time you approach Anacortes the packs of bikes are giant.

A group of Seattle-area riders has made the Oyster Run an annual event, and we like to ride up together along highway 20 on Whidbey Island. Here’s a very simple route up that we’re following this year:

There are a few key differences from last year. First, we have historically met up in the Redmond/Kirkland area and then driven up to Mukilteo to join our northern friends before boarding the Mukilteo-Clinton ferry. The problem with this is that we wound up waiting around at one location for a long time, riding for a few minutes, and then waiting around at another location for a long time. Too much waiting, not enough riding! So this year, we’re all going to just meet up at the Mukilteo McDonalds. Besides being a single meet-up point, it also has lots of parking next door, petrol nearby, and people can get coffee or an Egg McMuffin while they wait. The address is 3717 Harbour Pointe Blvd SW, Mukilteo, WA, 98275 and we’ll meet there at 8:00 a.m., planning to ride out at 8:30.

You’ll also notice that I have’t mapped a route home. That’s because there are several fun routes, and everyone tends to figure out the latter half of the day as it happens. Some will hang out in Anacortes all day, others will just turn around and ride out. That’s part of what makes the Oyster Run so fun: there is no rigid schedule. We usually come back down HWY 20 by mid-afternoon (3-4 p.m. departure). If the weather is nice, we’ll take longer routes that follow the water more.

So, to recap:

• Meeting place: Mukilteo McDonalds
• Time: 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, September 29th. (I’ll be there at about 7:30).
• Ride Plan: Click here.

This day is full of motorcycles, so it’d be great to have you join our pack as we ride up. To further tempt, you, here’s a slideshow from last year’s ride:

If you can join us, drop a comment with your name and model of bike, and we’ll keep an eye out for you!

Back in June, I rode solo along the North Cascades Highway and around the eastern side of the state on one of my longest single-day rides ever. The ride was so much fun that a bunch of F&F want to do it, so we’re all riding out on a similar route on September 12.

The differences will be that we skip highway 9 on the ride out, because it was slow and not that spectacular. Instead we’ll just sprint up I-5 to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. Our official launching point will be the intersection of I-5 and HWY 20. I’m also hoping to take Blewitt Pass home, instead of just following HWY 2 back like last time. HWY 97 over Blewitt has some great twisty roads, and I-90 should be a quick final leg…and we will be tired at the end of this run.

Here’s the ride map and key stops:

I’m not positive if it’s the Liberty Cafe on Blewitt Pass that has the good pie or not. Let me know if you know for sure. Dinner should be at the place with the pie. Also, the ride planner tool doesn’t know about Krispy Kreme’s address in Burlington, but it’s a small town so you should have no trouble finding it. Just follow your nose.

Our goal is to meet at the Krispy Kreme in Burlington (711 Haggen Dr • Burlington WA 98233 • 360-707-2000) at 7:30am. Yes, that’s early. Sure it probably means a 6:15 departure from Seattle. But that means we’ll be in sunny Eastern WA for the warm hours of the day.

Bring warm riding gear and wear layers. It’s cold up on the passes, and hot on the other side.

Those are just a few of the stereotypes that underly FX Network’s upcoming series Sons of Anarchy. A few days ago, the publicity manager at FX Network emailed me to let me know about Sons of Anarchy, which premiers Wednesday, September 3rd at 10 p.m. E/P. She offered to send me a publicity kit which features two episodes (not for air) and invited me to review it publicly here at the Hog Blog. This is my review.

Most motorcyclists would likely get offended at the shallow stereotypes above. The Sopranos caused just such a fury amongst Italian-Americans, some of whom voiced outrage at being cast as mafia. Similarly, when Fox’s 24 focused on Middle-Eastern characters as terrorist antagonists, the Arabic community cried foul. To all of these folks, bikers included, I say: Get over it! This is TV, it’s storytelling. Stories are sometimes better told atop a little bit of stereotype if the series telling the story has great writing, acting, effects, and directing to back it up.

Sons of Anarchy has no such attributes. It feels more like a sad attempt to replicate the drama of the Sopranos within a motorcycle gang theme. Out with the mafia, in with the biker gang. Here’s what the publicity kit has to say about it:

“FX’s new original drama series, Sons of Anarchy, is an adrenalized drama with darkly comedic undertones that explores a notorious outlaw motorcycle club’s (MC) desire to protect its livelihood while ensuring that their simple, sheltered town of Charming, California remains exactly that: Charming. The MC must confront threats from drug dealers, corporate developers and overzealous law officers. Behind the MC’s familial lifestyle and legally thriving automotive shop is a ruthless and illegally thriving arms business. The seduction of money, power and blood.”

If the parenthetical (MC) above makes you feel all biker-ish with the lingo, then check out FX’s biker terms online. Then maybe you can go find some bikers, throw out some slang, and … probably get your teeth kicked in for sounding like a poser, much the way the actors in Sons of Anarchy do.

Gandolfini, Falco, Chianese, Van Zandt and the rest of the Sopranos cast brought superb acting to masterful scripts. Those stories vaulted The Sopranos to critical acclaim and enormous viewing audiences despite the graphic violence, strong language, and often disturbing themes. Sons of Anarchy feels like Fox’s cheap ripoff. It’s The Sopranos minus quality acting and strong scripts. It replaces those two elements with cheap goar that feels pulled straight from the old Friday the 13th movies (see episode 2’s scene with the corpses in the car. The first such scene in that episode, not the second one.). It’s The Dukes of Hazard without the comedy and, unfortunately, without Daisy Duke.

For a series like this to succeed, the audience has to love the characters enough to want to see them successful despite their criminal tendencies and character flaws. As the episodes progress, audiences come to love the quirky stereotyped criminals. At first, I figured Sons of Anarchy was doomed to failure because it was neither credible nor original. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it won’t be a raging success because it spoon-feeds the American public what it often wants: simple stories, obvious stereotypes, and unimaginative gore. If you’re looking for authentic motorcycle adventure, skip Sons of Stereotype and buy the Long Way Round DVD instead.

You be the judge. Watch the show when it premieres next week and tell me if you think Fox/FX has a Sopranos on its hands. In the meantime, I’m gonna go do a line while my ho sews some patches on my leather to cover up the bullet holes.

The only way to truly understand how a motorcycle handles is to spend some miles in the saddle. When you’re buying a loaded touring bike, which I’m in the process of doing, it’s an important investment and a few miles in the saddle are the best way to ensure you’re getting the right machine. Fortunately, our sales guys at Eastside Harley Davidson really understand this, and sent my dad and I out on a couple of Ultra Classic Electra Glides for the day today.

We decided to make the most of it, and spend the entire day out riding. It turned out to be a fantastic idea. Washington’s Olympic Peninsula has some amazing roads, many of which I have never even seen. I mapped out a route that took us around the entire peninsula:

We had originally planned to go on Wednesday of this week, but a storm brought torrential downpours all day so we bumped the ride to today, Friday the 22nd. It was the perfect day, with broken clouds in the morning, and sunny high-70s all afternoon on the coast.

I learned earlier in the week that Ryan, my buddy from the Xbox design team, and his brother Kirk were riding the peninsula, too, so we met up at the Edmonds-Kingston ferry and rode the first 180 miles together.

Highlights from the day included an amazing twisty road along Lake Crescent, sunny views of the Washington coast, and some fast curves as we headed back inland. The bikes were unexpectedly nimble for fully loaded tourers. After an entire day of riding, neither dad nor I felt too tired. Here’s a photo slideshow from the day:

It was a 12-hour tour that included many stops for photos and food, a ferry ride, and a few 1-lane traffic revisions. But those 12 hours included 388 miles in the saddle under mostly sunny skies in warm (and dry!) fresh Washington air. As a northwest motorcyclist, you can’t ask for better than that.

I recently watched a spectacular TV series called Long Way Round. The basic premise is that Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and fellow actor Charley Boorman, both a couple of motorcycle freaks, decide to ride around the world - from London to New York - the hard way. While this post isn’t about the series, I will take a moment to point out that it is some of the best programming that I have watched in a long, long time. It was less about motorcycles and more about reminding us how big the world is, and how diverse its cultures are. The series went on to become a global best-selling book and DVD series. I can’t recommend it strongly enough. Here’s a good trailer:

So if the post isn’t about the Long Way Round series, why open with this reference? Because I watched it on DVD, and noticed how incredibly pleasant the experience was for a few reasons. First, the lack of commercials made each episode about 42 uninterrupted minutes of great programming. But beyond just that, the production of the series was really subdued. They had a simple consistent opening accompanied by some great Stereophonics music, simple transitions between scenes, and brief previews of the next episode. That’s it… no fanfare, no dramatic voiceovers, no merchandising. Just great content presented in a way that seemed respectful of the audience.

Read the rest of this entry »