Sonny Barger and Mondo Porras Legend Ride
Reader Screen at Ralph “Sonny” Barger’s Memorial Service in Stockton
Sonny Barger and Mondo Porras Legend Ride
Ralph “Sonny” Barger, a legend in the motorcycle culture. Love him or hate, you have to admit, he changed the world of motorcycles and clubs. It was a sad day when I heard he passed, I never got a chance to meet Sonny in person, but I did communicate with him a few times online, he was a very helpful and thoughtful person, but I also treated him with respect, therefore he showed respect back, just like any of us would like. So when I found out about the service being held in Stockton, I knew I had to go to pay my respects and show support to Zorana, Sonny’s lovely wife. I was not able to get out of work the Friday before the service, but was able to take the Monday and Tuesday after off, so I planned a ride to Stockton, then head over to Reno to visit another legend, Mondo Porras of Denver’s Choppers.
Friday night, I get off work at 6 pm, my bike is packed up and ready, I run home to say goodbye to the wife and dog, and my closest friends who showed up to say goodbye, and was on the road out of Shelton at 7 pm. A quick octane stop for the bike and me, we were on our way. Traffic was light all the way through Portland into Woodburn Oregon where I made another quick fuel stop, just a gas n go, no time to waste. I-5 was quiet for a Friday night, at least for a bike on a mission. I had to be in Stockton by noon on Saturday to get into the hotel, drop gear, clean up and be at the service by 2pm. Around 11pm I rolled into Roseburg Oregon, ran into my first cluster fuck. Try to find fuel in Roseburg, the first gas station I stopped at was closed. Being from Washington, it didn’t bother me, I know how to pump my own gas, so I swiped my card, and got a dribble…. Well, that sucks, I found 91 octane, ethanol free, and was super excited, until it would feed me any, but it charged me 18 cents to spit in my tank. HHMM, maybe the regular 91 octane corn will work, 26 cents later, and another little sputter of fuel, guess they shut the pumps down too. On to the next gas station!! Got fueled up, grabbed another 5 hour energy for the morning, and found a cheap motel to crash at for a few hours about midnight.
Saturday morning, 5am I get up, load up the bike and push it down to the street to fire it off. As I take off from Roseburg, it's just below 40 degrees. Not to worry though, about 20 miles later, I run into a wall of fog, and the temp drops. As I rolled through the passes on I-5 in Oregon and watched the sun come up, it was almost spiritual. I love southern Oregon, even the I-5 corridor is beautiful. I stopped in Ashland for fuel, while gassing up and chugging the 5 hour energy drink, the gas station attendant asked me where I was heading. I told him Stockton, Cali, to which he responded “Ooooo, that’s a rough town”. I had never stopped there before, so I laughed it off and told him to have a great day as I rolled out of Ashland, bound for Cali. I have crossed the Siskiyous a few times, but never on the scooter, not sure I want to do it in a cage ever again. This may be the first time I ever enjoyed running on I-5!! The road was still empty, and I was able to run hard through the mountains, and it was awesome! California didn’t really have much going all the way into Sacramento that I can recall, but then again, from the Cali border, it was all a blur, i vaguely remember another gas stop in northern Cali, someone else asked where I was going, again, when I said “Stockton”, they cringed and said “Good Luck!”
Now, I’m the guy who doesn’t really care for technology for the most part. Yes, I gave a smart phone, but only because it houses my camera, my music, and I can text or email my wife as I make my 15 minute fuel stops. I looked at the map to see where I needed to go, I get off I-5 onto I-80 East to Hwy 99 South, simple enough, right. Nope, I got all jacked up after getting on I-80, so I exited the hwy in “sketchville”, pulled into a liquor store, grabbed the smartphone to bring up the directions on the Wave app or whatever the thing is called. Pop the earbuds back in so she can talk to me and tell me where to go. Normally I wouldn’t care about getting lost, but again, running a bit later than I wanted to, so I had to get my butt to Stockton. She gets me on the right track, and I am rocking out to Moonshine Bandits radio on my Pandora app while listening to the gps thing chime in every so often. One feature I like about this Wave app is it alerts you of breakdowns ahead or police activity, which is cool for me! Well, as I roll into Lodi, my music is playing, then it breaks with “cop ahead”, sure enough, the onramp has a CHP car there. Music resumes for a few seconds, “cop ahead” comes on again. Now, I’m thinking the gps is stupid, I just passed a cop, nope, another on at the next onramp. This went on for the next 15-20 miles into Stockton, EVERY onramp had a cop!!! This was to be expected though, I figured every police agency in the area, the whole alphabet soup would be there from ATF, DEA, FBI, XYZ, everyone would be watching, and waiting for all the bikers to do whatever horrible thing. Surprise mother f’ers, it was a very peaceful event!!!! But that's jumping ahead a bit. Anyway, I roll into Stockton, pull into the parking lot for the hotel, 4 cars in the lot, no sign for the lobby, sketchy place. I went inside and waited for 15 minutes, the sign on the bulletproof glass said NOT to tap cards, yell or smack the counter to get their attention, they have a camera and will be out when they can. After 15 minutes, I decided to cross the street for the Motel 6 (even though I had reservations at the other place). Motel 6 wasn’t any better, so I went back across the street, and rev’d the bike a bit as I stopped and shut down. As I walked back into the lobby, I was greeted this time. I told the gentleman behind the counter I had a room for the night, and hoped to get an early check so I could get cleaned up before the memorial, he said he would have to see if there was an open room. I said I hope there was, there are like 300+ rooms and only 4 cars in the parking lot, 2 of which were security guards! He got me checked in, I drop my gear in my room, set the AC for 62 degrees, cleaned up and rode to the Stockton 99 Speedway for the Memorial service.
I looked at google maps before leaving the room, go up one exit, turn here, turn there, look for the bikes and follow them in, easy enough. I went to the next exit, turned here, no bikes in sight. I wait patiently at the light, then a group of bikes roll in behind me, not one pulled up next to me. Well shit, guess I lead this one in, jokes on them if I get lost. Nope, easy route into the Speedway! As I was waiting in line to park the bike, I met a super cool dude from Pennsylvania, he rode his 78 Ironhead Sporty out the whole way, stayed at the rock motel (gravel on the side of the road) the complete trip, and was 72 years old. We bs’d all the way up through the line to security where they scanned our tickets. Everyone I saw whipped out cell phones, and security was scanning the phone, I pulled a piece of paper I printed off from home out of my tank bag. The security dude looked at me like I was some sort of mongoloid, I said I’m old school, I trust paper, he laughed, and flagged me in.
The Sonny Barger memorial was definitely an experience I was glad I made!! Out of respect for all the patch holders, red and white and all others in attendance and not in attendance, I won’t go into specific details about the service, but will say it was a very calm and peaceful event. Sorry to disappoint the media who wanted more!The count I heard was over 6,000 attendees, patches from all over Cali were there as well as Angel’s from different parts of the country and even a few from Italy and Germany. I did see a few Bandido’s and Red and Gold support clubs which I thought was really cool. I only saw one club from Washington, but again with over 6,000 people there, I sure didn’t see it all. The stories told by Sonnys friends and wife were awesome, and touching. One Angel was called up to the stage, but couldn’t speak, he was so heartbroken, but all the love being thrown out to him was another touching sight. The big screen broke out with quick videos of chapters from around the world saying their goodbyes to Sonny and giving condolences to Zorana. Again, such an AWESOME experience!! It was 103 degrees, we were all out on the asphalt at the track, which would have put the track temp at probably 140 degrees, medics were called upon numerous times during the ceremony due to people dropping. Hydration was key!!! Midway through, they took a break and had the Fryed Brothers come up on stage to play a set, then they took intermission, more service action for another hour or so, then the Fryed Brothers came back out to wrap up the night. 6 hours had to be the longest memorial I had attended, and amazingly, the most touching for a non family member. Was it worth a 750 mile ride? Hell Yes!!
Back at the hotel, I had to take another shower, to cool down and clean up from the sweat. After that I was feeling a bit hungry, I hadn’t eaten yet that day, so I walked next door to Taco Bell to grab some grub. As I left the front lobby, I see paramedics, fire and cops everywhere, then a guy on the gurney, blood everywhere. Asked one of the cops what happened, he sponded “gun shot”, very calmly. “Cool, does this happen a lot here?” I asked, and he said “Oh yeah!” and chuckled. Well hell, this should be fun, I didn’t carry on this trip. Pretty boring evening the rest of the night.
Sunday morning, I rode back up to Sacramento to meet up with a friend who rode down a well, but not with me. We grabbed breakfast and rode Hwy 50 over to Lake Tahoe and into Reno Nevada. I had not hit 50 in that area before, and it was another great ride!! We stopped off in Lake Tahoe for a drink and hung out for a bit before heading into Reno. As we stand around talking about fixing the world's problems, I look down at my rear tire…. I could have sworn I saw tread there before I left? Well, maybe getting a tire in Reno? The purpose of Reno was to go meet and hang out with Mondo Porras from Denver’s Choppers. This was the same weekend at Street Vibrations, and Mondo host’s a big bike show Fri/ Sat. We rolled up to his shop around noon, and the door was locked. Well damn, guess we will grab a room and come back tomorrow. As we sit in front of the shop and figure out where we want to stay the night, the security system is telling us “You are being recorded”. Well, we kept making smartass comments back to it, until we finally decided to roll out to the hotel. Just as we were backing up, Mondo rolls in, and invites us into the shop. Now, I can tell you, I am not into meeting “celebrities' ', and don’t get the whole appeal, but to me Mondo is not a celebrity, he’s a legend. It’s people like Mondo and Sonny that changed motorcycles and the culture, and that’s cool! I can tell you, Mondo is a very respectful guy, down to earth and one hell of a cool dude!! He didn’t have to let us in that day, he didn’t have to give us the tour of his shop, and the place I want to live the rest of my life in, but he did it. This cat is 82 years old, still works his ass off 7 days a week, but is “retired” and doing what he loves. No more employees, just him building front ends, building bikes, seeing his beautiful daughter and grandkids, and loving life. We stayed about an hour or so, but could tell Mondo was worn out from the show, so we left and let him crash on the couch in the shop there. I can’t wait to go back come spring, and see him again!!
Mondo’s shop is more like a museum!
We found a couple scummy rooms in Reno for cheap, and upon checking in, Rob made a comment to the people behind the counter that this was a safer feeling place compared to last night. The gal asked where we were, and when Rob told her I was in Stockton, her eyes got wide, and asked “Why?. that's a bad place to stay!” I told her it was for a funeral, and Rob told her there was a shooting at my hotel, and she didn’t seem surprised. We got checked in, grabbed drinks, then found some good Mexican food (but Rob said, it was way better fresh, it wasn’t too good a couple hours later for leftovers.). Originally we thought about going back to Denver’s Choppers, but decided to get the hell out of Reno early, and head north toward home. We had no intention of going home that day when we left, so we took it fairly easy. Courthouse Cafe in Susanville Ca was our first stop. Breakfast there was one of the best I have had in a long time, I think it will be worth a trip down just for breakfast sometime. We took some backroads up through Cali, and finally catching Hwy 97 into Oregon, some fantastic roads, parts of which were fun, but the road surface was like riding off road without the gravel. Hwy 97 had more traffic than anywhere else on the trip I think with the exception of Sacramento until we got through Madras Oregon and onto Hwy 197 to the Dalles. I have been on 197 a few times before going through Maupin, but it was the first time for Rob, what an awesome road it is, I highly recommend it!!! We dropped down into the Dalles Oregon just before dusk. Rob recommended I continue on without him since it was only a couple hour ride for me, and 6 for him, and he doesn’t do well riding at night. So we fueled up, bs’d for about an hour, then I texted my wife and told her to kick the boyfriend out, I would be home in just a couple hours. Riding down I-84 was pretty uneventful until I came around one bend along the river, and saw the sunset with some deep dark orange coloring, I had to pull off and get a couple pictures. I ride one of two ways, either it’s a mellow scenic ride, or balls out, stop for nothing but fuel, the ride home was balls out, so you know the pic had to be good if I was stopping to shoot it.
All in all, it was a great ride, no incidents on the road, minus some bee stings, and shit like that. I covered 1800 miles in 3 days, and that was not pushing hard at all. Before leaving I was concerned if I would physically hold up, having major shoulder issues and having broken my hand/ wrist in 18 places lat summer (it never healed right), I had been having issues riding, and figured I would sell the bike. I’m not one for short trips, I like to lay down miles, and if I can’t, I don’t want to ride. I swapped out bars on the bikes a few weeks before the trip, so this was gonna tell me if I ride or turn into a civilian. After the trip was over, I was “pain minimal'', so the bars got two thumbs up, and I continued to tear up the asphalt!!! Well after I get a new set of tires, I still didn’t replace that rear yet…..
Ride hard, ride safe
Just a few more from Mondo’s place
