Not-See Run 2006

Before we were the best lil' chopper mag on the planet, we were a website doing a similar thing really... and in late 2006, the old GK website wrapped up with its last ever features.

One of them was this one, photographed by Dave Polgreen and penned by organiser Max Schaaf, after we'd had a chat on the phone about the run. Amazing how many great bikes and true choppin' heroes appear in one story...! (I might 'reprint' a few old GK features here if people are interested.)

I just wish I could have done this event more justice at the time and put it into print rather than on the web, but who knows if that would have happened now... the whole landscape's changed.

It all started as an idea to get some friends together for a ride. There's not much of a "chopper" scene here in Oakland... basically it's me and my friend Jasin.

So we thought it would push some of our friends to finish their projects if we decided to have a ride to Paso Robles. I didnt want every kook we know with a bike to come so I started to make some rules. People started to ask me why I was being such a "NAZI" about who came?
MY answer was simple: "I dont want to show up in Paso Robles with a bunch lame-asses on lame bikes."

So this is how I came up with the name 'THE NOT-SEE RUN'. From Oakland it was Jasin (blue Panhead), Ronnie (BSA), Sean (Triumph),and myself (VL-Shovel). "Tha Nutz" (Dave) joined us from Minnesota.

We left the house, went to get coffee, then hit the road. Got to J. Jessee's mid-day to meet up with Jason, Rico and Danny. Nobody believed Jason was going to go.

I got calls from people saying "Yeah right, Jason's not going".....oh yeah. He came. Rico got his bike going and we all hauled ass to Cole's shop. We picked up Thomas from there and Rico and Danny stayed to help Cole make it down to Paso. J. Jessee led the ride from here on, wearing a furry Russian hat and no helmet the whole way. Oh, and no lights either. It got dark and cold and took us hours to get there but we finally made it, constantly entertained by Jason's road antics.Lots of cool bikes in Paso. Steve Uhl's Panhead, the other Steve's green Pan, Bill Mize was ruling riding his new rigid Evo from Sioux City.

Checked out bikes and fixed my friend Jasin's Panhead and got ready for the ride home. It was going to be just the Oakland guys and of course our support van, driven by Maurice (Flying Dutchman) and his beautiful chicken Fllotje. We got our bikes in order and jammed home. It took us half the time to get home. No breakdowns, sunlight and little traffic. We stopped back at Jason Jessee's to return some tools and exchange man-hugs.

All in all it turned out super fun. getting out of town, hanging out with friends, meeting new friends, and riding. It was only a total of about 600 miles but that was far enough to realize the the whole idea behind this run turned out right-on. Next year again? I hope more rules, more Not-See.

Thanks to everyone involved.

Max (2006)