Thanks to all 38 weekend explorers who circled the beautiful Palos Verdes peninsula, about 15 miles from central Los Angeles. The starting place was the parking lot at Ports 0’ Call, San Pedro, a dining and shopping area on the waterfront of the Los Angeles Harbor. San Pedro is celebrating it’s 100 year anniversary as the southernmost district of Los Angeles. In the 1800’s this spot was a fishing village at the mouth of Wilmington Lagoon, before the harbor was made.
Now get ready to meet some fine people who like mopeds and scooters. First is San Pedro local Bobby Archer, ‘05 Tomos Streetmate silver with over 9000 miles, the most on an A55. The largest sub-group was the 6 Hawaiian Hot Rods, David Zinc, blue ‘07 Tomos Revival T5, Marvin Yee, silver/red ‘05 Tomos Arrow, brother Malcolm Yee, black ‘06 Tomos Arrow, son Brandon Yee, red ‘06 Whizzer, Peter DeBeuyn, silver ‘07 Tomos Streetmate, Elias Luna, green ‘06 Whizzer. Nice stuff. A proud new Tomos owner was Henry Punt, ‘07 Tomos Revival TS, sweet sparkly black. Henry owns Stanton Speedometer, specializing in automotive electrical. Representing the US Marine Corps was Mike Lawson, ‘06 Tomos Revival TS, blue, with 1900 miles of commuting in only 4 months. Yet another fan of the big “T” is pleasant Carlos Pallares, ‘07 Tomos ST, black. He customized ‘Black Fire” with flames and chrome sissy bar and parks it with the Harleys now. The only Late Bird was Aris bimalanta, on the beautiful & fast “Puchati”. It’s a black Puch 2-speed with 70cc kit, pipe, manifold, carb, Shaw tuning, and 5-star mag wheels, the stuff everyone wants but only the connoisseurs have. Inspirational Ron Levin’s clean green Peugeot 103 had 4 wiggling fishes and a talking frog. Why? Because he volunteers at the Long Beach Aquarium. He pre-rode the route around Palos Verdes on his bicycle. The second father/son team was John Christianson, ‘88 Honda Elite 50, red, and son Joe, red ‘77 Peugeot 103. John’s bike had a sticker that said, "My moped can beat up your scooter”. That was good. The third fathers day team was Charles McConnaha, black ‘03 Tomos Sprint, son Matt, grey ‘95 Tomos Colibri, son Bryan, silver 77 KTM Foxi. All good riders all together. The fourth father/son team was Tim Turnbaugh, Andrew & Mike’s brother, ‘77 Puch silver with surf rack, and son Timmy Jr, silver ‘78 Sears Free Spirit beluxe. Andrew Turnbaugh, green & rainbow ‘78 Indian 4-stroke, did an excellent job restoring and detailing Timmy’s sweet Sears. Best Original. Some more famous mopeders were legendary Don Kesler’s 4-stroke custom, master machinist John Coppers’ Blue Lolly Pop Puch, the amazing Shaw Millner, ‘80 Tomos Silver Bullet with blue mags, the incredible Colby Calkin, ‘88 berbi Variant Sport, super athletic Robert Wojo, silver blue ‘78 Puch Newport, connoisseur Casey Moir, black ‘06 Tomos Sprint, and creative Larry Dillinger (Laura), black & green 1980 Motobecane Le Moped. Riding well on a brand new ‘07 Tomos ST was Richard Ambrose. Andres Polit had an excellent silver Puch Magnum MkII, top of the line. Myronsmopeds.com website designer Charles Fee, red ‘79 Motobecane 50V and wife Bernadette, red ‘77 Garelli Gran Sport were nice and easy going. Returning on his neat retro scooter was Joseph Angsuco, white & black ‘05 Honda Metropolitan. Ray & Nancie Anderson on twin blue & red Yamaha Vino 125s were scooting smoothly. And finally, the Best in Show is Patrick Reilly’s ‘80 Puch Maxi “Hi-O-Silver” with 2-speed highly modified engine and 5-star wheels. It won the first place trophy for Fastest Moped in America at the ‘07 Moped Army 1/4 mile races near Kalamazoo Michigan with Shaw riding. Way to go. Now let’s go see a shipwreck.
The sunny and warm day’s festivities began with unloading, sign-ins, greetings, introductions, preparations, photography, and the $6 fee collection. Passing by our section of the lot every 15 minutes was the original 1920’s electric trolley, with a hand pulled bell. More weird than that was the two Los Angeles Police bepartment 3-wheeled stand-up electric scooters that look like chariots. We were as strange to them as they were to us. Many people have not seen a moped for 10 or 20 years and thought they were extinct until they’re surprised by our group of 30 all at once. To them it’s like seeing a flock of giant condors.
The ride began on time at 11:00 am. Nobody arrived late. That was great. We went north, past the L.A. Maritime Museum, on Harbor Blvd a few blocks, to lst St and stopped for the group photo in front of the World Cruise 5hip Terminal and the majestic Vincent Thomas Bridge, a smaller green version of the Golden Gate Bridge. After that we deviated from the planned route and went to nearby Century Cycles on and Pacific Ave. Every Fathers Day for the last 35 years fun loving owner Cindy Rutherford has had an open house, bike show and luncheon with live music and a 100 vintage motorcycles on display. This year she was dressed as a baby in bloomers and bonnet and was driving around in a motorized antique baby carriage. All we could do was stare in disbelief and amazement. After 20 minutes of the biker extravaganza we exited in a united buzz of 50cc 2-stroke automatics.
The way to the shipwreck was north 4 ml to PV Drive North, west 6 mi to PV Drive West, south 2 mi to Paseo Del Mar, and south 1 mi to Epping Rd, just north of Rocky Point, the furthest western tip. The route was through groves of eucalyptus trees planted in the 1800’s as shelter for cattle. Past horses and paths we roamed through Rolling Hills Estates. Past the "Y" at Malaga Cove we rode around corner of the hill where the PV police were enforcing the 35mph speed limit. We stopped at the vacant lot between two private estates where the public can walk out to the cliff edge and even climb down to the rocky beach 100 feet below. You can see two rusty skeletons of bulldozers, and two truck size rusty iron pieces of the broken up Dominator cargo ship that wrecked in 1961. We waited while the two Whizzers found us after taking a wrong turn. After 20 minutes of gazing out at the vast ocean we pedal started our motors and headed south on PV Drive West to the lunch stop in Golden Cove Center at the end of Hawthorne Blvd. near Point Vicente, the furthest southwest tip. Nearby is the Lighthouse, Coast Guard Station, and a free Nature Center and park with picnic tables at the cliff edge.
Many of us ate at Subway outside on the patio with an ocean view, one of Nancie & Ray’s favorite places eat at, while some ate at the little Mexican restaurant. Showing up late was the four Turnbaughs and Bobby who got left behind at the start. Around 2 pm we began the return trip east 7 miles along scenic PV Drive South. Past Long Point where Marineland used to be, past Abalone Cove and through the Portuguese Bend landslide area, where the ground slips seaward over 1 ft per year in places, causing us to have a roller coaster ride. Then back to Century Cycles by 3:30 pm where everyone split up and went their own way. A lot of people said they liked it better with all the bikes going about the same speed. Nobody broke down and everyone did a good job helping to make the ride successful and safe. Some said it was the best ever!
