Christi and I happened to be finishing up on taking photos at the Town Theatre in Highland, when Christi noticed all the bikes crossing over Ridge Road. On our way back from the shoot, we were going to cruise by Blue Top just to see what was going on, and we saw a lot more bikes swarming Wicker Park. So we went to investigate.
It turned out it was the 15th Anniversary Victory for Veterans Memorial Ride. The park was packed, all the way around the drive, with bikes. They would not let any cars in, except for a few spots up front, on the side. Christi hopped out of the car to find out where they were riding too. Then I jumped out to take some photos. We ended up parking ourselves on Calumet Avenue, in Dyer, to watch the string of bikes come at us. It was about an hour event, and I estimate over 2,000 bikes passed our spot.
Here are the photos . . . click on the photo to enlarge, and arrow through.
Just like the AK-47, the preferred weapon of you enemy, makes a distinctive sound (okay, I took that from the movie Heart Break Ridge). The Huey makes a distinctive sound as well. I remember as a kid, the national reserve practicing mobilization, and circling / landing basically in my back yard for pickup, and the ground vehicles rolled in with troops on exerciser. As a kid, this was cool. Then while away at school, we had our own Huey to pull maintenance on. It does has a distictive sound when empty and loaded. Well, a Huey landed at the golf course North of Wicker Park, and took off to maintain air cover, in honor, during the bike ride.
On the overpass of Calumet Avenue, just North of Rt. 30. This is where Christi and I planted ourselves to take photographs. Though, you will see later my need to photograph made me transitional.
These photographs are cool. Christi panned the camera to freeze the bikers. I may have one or two in there as well.
For the most part the North bound left lane remained empty. That allowed me to stand where I did. I would look over my shoulder, and when a car came that was in this lane, I returned to the side, then walked back. This one instance, where I failed to keep looking, the bikers saw two cars coming (one in each lane), and covered my ass by pulling out to let the driver know to get his butt over. Thanks bikers!!!
Almost every biker waived at us as they went buy. Much do to Christi jumping up and down waiving and yelling at them in honor.
And know, there are not any duplicate photographs. There was just a shit load of bikes . . . an hours work traveling abut 35 MPH. (My estimate.)
The close up ones would be my camera, panning as they rode by.
I am putting these photos up in the blog a couple weeks after the event. I photograph because I feel it. I feel the vibe. Looking at most of these photos, I am thrown back two weeks ago, standing in the exact same spot, taking the exact same photo. It feels so real-time as I remember each of these bikers.
And, we saw a few friends in the ride . . .
Motorcycle Monster
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