I got this message about the Love Ride a few minutes ago. This is a stunner after 25 years of success.

To all fellow Love Riders, Volunteers and valued Supporters:

It is with deep regret that I must inform you that Love Ride 26 has been canceled... or, at best, postponed for a few years. This was a gut wrenching decision for me - but I know that it is the correct decision.

The first thing I want to make clear is that this has absolutely nothing to do with the Love Ride staff and organizers. Everyone has worked hard and diligently, just as they have done for the past 25 years. Our problem boils down to one thing - the economy.

Simply put, the Love Ride is a victim of the recession.

We have done a very careful analysis over the last several months, hoping and praying that things would turn around - but not matter how we cut it we were looking at taking a huge loss- which meant no money left to help those less fortunate, the very foundation and reason for the Love Ride.

In place of the usual event this year, Glendale Harley, Home of the Love Ride, is sponsoring an autograph session with Peter Fonda and free movie screening, commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Fonda’s starring role in “Easy Rider.” The event will take place at the dealership (3717 San Fernando Rd. in Glendale) Friday, October 23rd from 4-10pm. Glendale Harley will also be selling Love Ride memorabilia (Love Rides 1-26) on Saturday, October 24th from 9am-4pm and on Sunday, October 25 from 6am-2pm. The hope is to recoup some of the costs already incurred this year by the Love Ride Foundation. The dealership will also have representatives on hand to answer any questions.

Donations to benefit our Love Ride beneficiaries are still being accepted and are tax deductible. The top ten fund-raising prizes featured in the Love Ride 26 brochure will still be awarded (excluding opportunity tickets).

If you have already registered for Love Ride 26, you will receive a Love Ride 26 ride pin and a Love Ride 26 patch. In addition, you will also receive a Love Ride 26 t-shirt. It’s our way of saying thank you for this year’s support. All incentive prizes will be available for pick-up at Glendale Harley on Saturday, October 24th and Sunday, October 25th.

For more information, please call our special hotline at 818-246-5618 ext. 141

Times are tough, we’re lovin’ but not ridin’, at least not this year. But I’m confident that we’ll be back. After 25 years of expansion, it may be time to return to our roots with a smaller, more intimate event. But we will be back.

Thank you for your support. God Bless.

Oliver Shokouh
Founder, Love Ride Foundation
Owner, Harley-Davidson/Buell of Glendale

 

That sucks, but it is strange that they are giving out pins, pacthes and t-shirts. Who would want memorbilia of an event that was cancelled?

 

Is it the economy or the cost of the services required to pull it off. For example traffic control, food services. site security, etc. The expense overhead must have been estimated to exceed the donations. Hopefully the donations will still go to the intended parties of interest and not for administration expenses. It's a shame.

 

I'd say because these items are something that the ride organizers already spent money on. They gotta do something with them? If you paid to go on the ride ahead of time, then you donated, and you can get a pin, patch or shirt. Pretty simple. They are still going to give the money to the Love ride. They have to prepay for all those pins,patches and shirts ya know.

Things have always worked out the other way for me, I pay the dollars and ride the ride, but I can't never get a pin cause they never order enough pins?
It's really sad to see rides taking a hit from the recession. 25 years is a long time for a ride to go on and the just be discontinued. But it seems to me like they got a good deal working still...Autographs by Peter Fonda.. C'mon.. I would be in line for that.

 

No word yet about the fate of California Bike Week which culminated with the Love Ride the last few years.

 

I am kind of finding their excuse hard to believe. The Love Ride is a huge event, I know, but I think their pride is getting in the way of downsizing the amount of talent and extras they have been getting lately. They used to hold the main events at Castaic Lake which started to get a little too small so last year they held it at Pomona Fairplex which is huge and I would imagine cost a lot more money. The Pomona fairplex sucks by the way, it is an asphalt paradise with all of 5 palm trees to offer any type of shade from the hot sun, Castaic Lake was 1,000 times better. Pomona is where they were going to hold it again this year too. Last year they had the Foo Fighters and ZZ Top, two big name expensive bands play the event. (I'm not saying they weren't great, just saying they don't exactly play for tips) They were advertising over the radio and held contests locally here giving away sportsters and a chance to ride to the event in front with The Foo Fighters as grand marshalls. Not cheap, but The Love Ride never used to be about all of that. It used to just be a ride with a Woodstock feel at the end in the sense that it felt just thrown together with good music and food. It was all about the ride and charity. Now it seems that every year they try harder and harder to make it more extravagant. It feels like your at a county fair. More crap = costs more money = less money for charity. They burst their own bubble. Don't let them fool you, they could have toned it down a little bit in light of the "bad economy" because thousands of people down here go just for the charity and the ride. It's not like the crap economy has been a big surprise over the past year, they had time.

I'm sure I don't know it all and I don't claim to, but charity rides don't need to take over the world. I pay to ride and maybe make another life a little easier, not to end up at Disneyland. Half of the time, I would just do the ride, check out some bikes, eat some food and go home after an hour or so. The way the freeways looked when I did, hundreds if not thousands of others do the same.

 

Well a lot of those entertainers donate their performances then write it off on their taxes. It's arranged that way. I think it's just that folks are not signing up as quickly as they did in the past. Everyone is being cautious with money these days and something like the Love Ride is an expendable item in their financial picture. Besides it's cheaper to ride with your friends and listen to ZZ Top on the MP3 player.

 

Need to get back to just the simple old "Love Ride"! ........................... KISS!

 

....overpriced and overcrowded anyway. I quit going years ago.

 

The man clearly said:
"After 25 years of expansion, it may be time to return to our roots with a smaller, more intimate event."

so it seems he already realized what you just said.