Road Ride Report Wolf Pack Hustle LA Marathon Crash Race

I had been on the fence about doing this ride/race due to the weather and the unholy start time of 4:00am. When I picked up my friends this morning at 2:00am in the pouring rain, one of them said, “this could possibly be our worst idea yet,” and that’s saying a lot! I don’t spend too much time on the road bike, something about not liking to ride where there are cars. That being said, I don’t often turn down an opportunity to ride a closed course such as this. I’m so glad that I decided to do this ride. There’s nothing quite like riding through Los Angeles with 1300 – 1500 like-minded individuals in the dark of night. The route included many historic locations, such as the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sunset Blvd. and Rodeo Drive just to name a few. All in all the ride was a bit chaotic and not without some carnage (see many inexperienced riders in the dark). The vibe of the ride was a bit like a rolling party with every kind of bike and person imaginable. I saw people in full costume, people on tall bikes, even a guy towing a bob trailer, blasting music from a huge subwoofer inside of it. Although it was quite cold, the rain stopped prior to the start of the ride. There was something pretty cool about watching the while standing aside the Pacific Ocean after an awesome ride through the streets of LA. I will definitely put this ride on my must do list for as long as it continues. I’m not posting any pictures because the pictures I took with my little point and shoot camera don’t do this event justice. If you are interested in seeing some great photos, check out the Wolf Pack Hustle page on Facebook.

 

What an amazing event. How long did it take you to finish the course? Dam I want to get in on a piece of that next year!

 

Just saw the video from last years crash race... SICK!!! Looks like a blast!

 

Sure sounds like a neat ride. If it'd been more of an organized thing with less riff raff I think I would be more likely to give it a go.

PS...How the heck did you see the sunrise over the Pacific ocean? The sun rises in the east.

 

There's a good report and video about last year here: http://drunkcyclist.com/2012/03/09/about-to-crash-into-the-weekend/

I'd love to do it sometime. Even more I'd like to do it and run the marathon.

~R

 

So, if I understand this correctly. Through forums and text messages, all sorts of roadies show up and murder the LA marathon course?

That's badass beyond badass.

 

I took us approx 2 hrs. We could have done it much quicker but my friend had 3 flats.

 

Id be a little worried hauling ass through LA with a roadie and not hitting pot holes, grates, loose gravel, etc....

 

Glad to hear that you made it out ok. From what i hear it was a huge bloodbath. Apparently everything was going smoothly until they restarted the race. After that the crashes just started piling up. People crashing through car windows, sliding under vans, hitting islands at 30 mph, whole pacelines going down due to people half wheeling, etc... What was with the az girl leaving in an ambulance at the end? Heard she got knocked out when someone chucked a bottle of degreaser at her face. The LAfixed and AZfixed rivalry at the crash race is getting too serious.

The roadies definitely take the course but it's cool since they have first place for difference categories.

 

Yeah, the amount of crashes was unfortunate. I didn't see the guy hit the car window, but I saw the car window and the guy after it happened (he appered to be okay). I guess the guy that hit the island wasn't paying attention as those around him were callling it out and he just hit it full speed (saw him being attended to by the paramedics). I heard the girl at the end was injured when they were throwing free swag to the crowd. I was hit while stopping for a red light buy an inexperienced rider that either wasn't paying attention or didn't know how to stop his bike. Luckily I didn't go down and my bike wasn't damaged. I don't know what was up with reason for the restart, but it definitely bunched everyone up.

 

Race restarted because a huge # of riders started 10 mins earlier than 4am. Roadblock was pissed and decided to call a false start and restart from Tang's. "People came from out-of-state to do this race" he was yelling from his bullhorn.
I think the restart was unnecessary, but I still had a blast. Very fun event. Didn't see any crashes but there were a lot of people and the streets were wet and there were plenty of sketchy corners.

Chinatown sucked, but the rest of the course was great. There were a ton of fast riders and racing down Hollywood Blvd. was amazing!