Article By: Chris Callen
Photos By: Bryan Harley at Motorcycle USA.com (who bailed my dumb ass out when my camera got stolen the last night of the show. Mad props to you dude!!!)
Originally Published In The March 2011 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine
get a phone call from Sasha who consults for the Lone Star Rally and Easyrider Events late in the summer and she tells me that we should think about bringing the Limpnickie Lot to S Galveston, TX for the Lone Star Rally. We dig Texas, so after kicking around the idea with the boys, I started to ask what it would take. Since Sasha is a big fan of the magazine and an all around angel, she had a sweetheart of a deal set up for us where we would actually have our own bar. Oh yeah, that’s right, the band of motor-psycho maniacs and circus freaks would have an official structure at this event. The deal was we could name it, design it and work with Sasha on what kind of music to have there. It would be the first opportunity to test an entire next generation venue at a national motorcycle rally so hell yeah we were down! Now it’s important to talk about what the Lone Star Rally is here. While the main focus of the destruction that hurricanes Ike and Katrina left behind was in towns on the opposite side of the gulf, there were other cities, like Galveston, that were equally hurt but the storms. The rally has been in existence for some nine years now. They did go through a period where most people were unsure if the rally billed as “The Greatest in Texas” was to survive another year. The layout of the town is rifled with abandoned buildings and “for lease” signs that have become so familiar across our country. But the people of Galveston are a resilient and enthusiastic bunch that has the same blood in their veins that settlers who founded their great state had. Everywhere you look, you see t-shirts and bumper stickers that remind you of just that. Printed on them are quotes like: American by Birth – Texan by the Grace of God.
Right through the center of town runs the cultural district filled with little shops and eateries. The boulevard, called The Strand, is where it all happens during the Lone Star Rally. The organizers set up several entertainment locations and rally bars to handle the huge influx of riders who flock to their annual offering. The side streets are filled with vendors and in a space that would equal a couple of New York City blocks, traffic is completely shutdown to anything not on two wheels. And when I tell you they need every square inch of that space, brother I am not kidding. By the second day the bikes were parked in rows two and three deep and by the height of the festivities, they even had some parked in the middle. I can’t even convey to you here how off the hook it was. There wasn’t any one particular type of crowd either; this was a true crosssection of what motorcycling is today. There was everything from ton up boyz on their little cafes and tramps on lead sleds parading right next to big money baggers and import bikes with stretched out swingarms and neon dress kits. It was a blast! Other parts of town saw a huge lot for some of the top builders of our day like Rick Fairless. They also had the famous Rat’s Hole show and national level vendors like Rinehart, Klock Werks and Kuryakyn. Since one of the Lone Star Rally owners is the very well respected Melissa Penland,also co-owner of Easyrider Events, the full force of the Easyrider Events crew came along this year to take this rally to another level. Mad props go out to our boy, Pops, who keeps the whole thing up on stilts, building palaces out of kindling wood and screws. Melissa was so instrumental in getting many new killer features added like the Michael Lichter gallery this year. I’m not sure if anyone realizes how special it is to have access to 30 years of this man’s work; he is truly the keeper of our history through his art. Brinder, who runs Lone Star Rally headquarters in Houston, takes the entire year prior to the rally launch to fiercely manage every detail of rally operations with Melissa, and John Green, the ultimate rally detailer, is front and center carefully coordinating the rally layout on site. Steve Penland, Melissa’s brother, directed the setup of all the other watering holes throughout the rally and there were a lot of hot bartenders and libations to manage. The Eagle Cycles Saloon rally bar balcony turned into a Mardi Gras scene with a few hundred patrons tossing beads and getting loose.
For our part, I got into town a few days early and found a giant, empty room. It was brilliant, and like I said, Melissa was responsible for giving us a chance to shine. So we did a bunch of cool art, named the bar The Pit, and were there on site with anything possible. It took two hardcore days of busting ass where we did little but dream of our first show. Sasha had a killer line-up of hard local bands that played punk, Rock-a-Billy and hardcore so we were stoked. She rented us some cool old-time video games, scored us an arm wrestling table and put as much into this as we did. As the Easyriders’ semis pulled up, we began to unload all the Limpnickie Lot bikes that were out on the bike show tour; the bar really began to take shape. With all the art and cool bikes we put in it, it had become The Pit! Nikki Lynn and Natalie were to be our bartenders and from the first minute, they fit right into our group. The place was looking awesome and we were just down to the guys from the lot getting there so we could open the doors. They were all coming by different means; some flew in, while others drove trucks and trailers the entire 3,000 miles from where many of us are in relationship to Galveston. Each additional trailer that pulled up was filled with Limpnickie characters, product and memorabilia. We rolled the ‘34 Ford out of the Led Sled trailer and had it and a row of wicked cool bikes lined up in front of our joint. The Pit was open and the crowds started to come in droves. We actually had groups of cats, young and old, who showed up just because the lot was in town, but the overall crowd was ridiculous. From that point on it was one long party. Well, of course that went along with long ass hours of work and emergency calls when the toilets backed up. Never let anyone tell you that being the editor of a national motorcycle magazine is anything short of glamorous.
The weekend featured literally some of the coolest music by bands like: Downfall 2012, Downfall Rising, Jasmine Cain, Raging Apathy, The Ghost Storys, Crank-Case, Elysian, Nick & The Octanes, Melovine and Ground Zero. The highlights of which was every time Jasmine Cain took the stage the crowd was mesmerized. I can’t believe how much energy this little girl has in her! She absolutely rocked the house! But for me, the hands down killer moment musically of the weekend was when Downfall 2012 stopped in the middle of a pretty heavy set of music and did what can only be called a freeform percussion piece. The bass player grabbed a giant plastic 55- gallon drum and a rubber mallet, the singer picked up a didgeridoo and they went to town with some seriously tribal beats, man. It blew the crowd’s mind!!!! The Cycle Source Magazine Pin-Up Girl contest came on Saturday night and our buddy, Jay Allen, founder of The Broken Spoke Saloon, came out to be the emcee and it was a hoot. We originally billed this as a pin-up search for the magazine but I knew as soon as I saw Ferguson putting pigtails in his hair, we might have a problem with a ringer. There was some lovely hot rod type Betties that did show up, one of which won the night but since my camera was stolen, we are unable to show pics of her here. If anyone who knows this chick can get in touch with us, we’d still like to do the photo shoot over.
All and all I’d say that The Pit was a huge hit but let’s talk about the rally. Four hundred thousand people, nearly half a million bikers in the town for the long weekend and not any serious fights, crashes or trash left behind. The cats from Easyrider Events are a class act and they run a tight ship. On behalf of Cycle Source Magazine and the Limpnickie Lot builders, I would like to thank them all for making us part of the show. Hopefully we’ll be back with The Pit next year, so stay tuned!