LA: Toluca Lake Bob's Ride Tonight

[Peter iNova]

Hollywood Ride tonight. Well, not really Hollywood, but close enough. This one is in the Toluca Lake district (right near the Warner Bros Studios) convening around dark at the Bob's Big Boy. It's right where Alameda becomes Riverside Drive.

Actual address: 4211 Riverside Drive, Burbank, CA.

Friday Nights are a Big Deal at BBB, since that's the night everybody cruises by in their tricked out cars. So we will cruise by as well. Any and al HTs that can make it are invited. Cruising by tastefully late is OK in LA.

-iNova
http://www.glidewalk.com

[BruceWright]

I'll be there.

Tonight is classic car night at Bob's. So some old classics get to meet the new classics!

-Bruce Wright

Segway: Vehicle of Dream

[pt]

take pics gents-

cheers,
pt

http://www.bookofseg.com

[mzokc]

I sent the info to Bruce, my guest at training who glided with Peter iNova and ordered a HT. Bruce wanted me to haul my Segway to So. Cal. and attend the Beverly Butrum retirement party at Disneyland, but not this week! (It is a small world after all!) You all have a great time!

Mark Z in OKC

[fredkap]

When you said it was Bob's ride tonight, I thought you were referring to Mr. Toluca Lake, Bob Hope. I almost ran into him about 15 years back. He was driving on the wrong side of the street going home from Lakeside Country Club which is where I was headed for a school event. I don't want to think of what would have happened to me if I had run into him...
Hope you had a good time at the Big Boy.
Happy glidings,
Fred

[RobbW]

I know Bob is Bob, and his girlfriend is Dolly, but what is the white dog called? Help!!! :)

RobbW

[BruceWright]

Nugget.


Well everyone, it was a HUGE success! iNova brought his digital camera, so hopefully he will share pictures with everyone here.

iNova, Wheels, Don Krause and I met up 2 blocks away and unloaded our Segs from our cars around 6:30. We admired each-other's after-factory modifications. Bells, lights, chrome trim, a sports-bottle holder... iNova brought some flashing magneted LED's so each of us had those inside our wheel on the axel. I also had flashing green valve-stems. The four of us glided single file into Bob's.
Going down the sidewalk with all of us glowing was probably a sight!
You should have seen the looks on the faces of the people at Mo's across the street as we waited at the crosswalk.
We glided into Bob's parking lot, and everyone was already there with their classic cars. Older guys were seated with folding chairs in front of their cars, and some of them had historical placards on the dash telling about the car.

To say that these folks were impressed would be an understatement. These people are real motorheads. They appreciate a finely designed vehicle, and they admired the design and the inventors that pulled it off. Gliding past, I heard someone say "it sure is pretty."

All four of us stayed and gave demonstrations for hours. It was wonderful to have four people giving demos at the same time, as it kept any one person from being overwhelmed. EVERYONE thought we were selling them. We had to explain that we were enthusiasts, just like them! That got them on our side. :-)

Burbank PD were there, keeping everything orderly and friendly. The officers were also impressed, and I got one of them to try it out. He loved it!

After a couple of hours, Don had to leave, but soon after, Toybuilder arrived. So we were back up to four Segways again. With so many, I often heard people say "Look, there's another! And another! They're all over the place!"

Someone had a Model T there, and someone else had an Edsel. If I had a camera, I would have taken a picture of the Segway with each, and post it as a "which one will it be?"

We stayed until about 10. Gave tons of demos, and had a tremendous evening. The only negative I heard was from a drunk guy who scoffed at the price. His buddys scoffed at the price too, but once I rattled off the list of features and systems keeping it upright, they were duly impressed. The drunk guy just sat and stared at the ground.

This morning on the local news, there was apparantly a story on Dean Kamen. Lots of folks were thrilled to have seen it for the first time on the news that day, and were riding it that evening! It was the perfect venue for this type of an outing. We were the hit of the evening, and nobody seemed to mind that folks weren't looking at the cars as much.

-Bruce Wright

Segway: Vehicle of Dream

[Peter iNova]

That was a hoot. I must have given 30 demo rides to folks. What a range. One guy in a business suit and tie got up and glided right away as if he'd been doing it for a while. A few people took as long as perhaps three minutes to get the hang of it. But everybody wanted more. Some of the astute ones noticed that they could sidle up to a different owner and get seconds...

One guy, a lighting grip from the Warner Bros studio, had just finished a night lighting setup and cruised by Bobs, just to check out some of the cars, and saw the Segs, so he came in. He has a sailboat and regularly sails down to San Diego. It dawned on him that having an HT in the boat means having transportation at your destination.

Probably the most often spoken word was "cool" followed closely by "kewel" (it's The Valley, after all) and the smiles were infectious. The mix of classic cars, fabulous paint jobs, cherried out modified cars, super sports cars (some were lower than my handle bars) and Segways was a really good combination. One guy asked if I could lay rubber and get the tires to smoke. Ah, well, I guess there are some things it just can't do. I told him that "they're working on it."

Wheels had gotten some vinyl chrome trim stripping from an auto supply store and put a bead of chrome around his fenders. I got some black stripping for mine as well. One guy looked at his and said it looked "more 50's". People were genuinely surprised to find that we weren't "from the factory" selling them. And I have the feeling that some of the folks are climbing over toybuilder's and my web sites soaking up the details even as I type.

Toybuilder had the Version One black carrier bag on his Seg, the rest of them being naked except for DonK's bike light and jingle bell on his handle bar. Toybuilder and I were sometimes showing the performance of the red key and we swapped Segs once to see if the hands-off vibration went away with the machine with the bag. I think it does dampen out the vibration.

I pulled a fast rolling reverse on his red key enabled machine and became suddenly aware of a loud "Woah!" from a seated crowd of onlookers. I think they thought I was going down, but there was no danger. I hadn't realized that some folks were clumping together into audience groups until then. I should have said, "...and now, for my next trick: a double sow cow!"

Toybuilder filled in with a string of fast figure eights. He passed out a clever card that had the answers to all the standard questions. How far, how much, how heavy, how fast, how long, how legal, how steep, how available, how now...

A new page on my "GlideWalk" site, "The Bob's Ride," has the pictures.

Some folks asked if we would be back next Friday. Gee, why not?

-iNova
http://www.glidewalk.com

[RobbW]

LOL - great recap guys!! Sounds like a LOT of fun. I can't imagine the amount of attention that four segways would get in a crowd of people.

Have a great weekend!!

Robb

P.S. Nugget...that's it!!! Phew!

[pt]

wow, hollywood-ish areas sounds like blast. great weather, cool sights. there must be something in the air in parts of cali that causes folks to customize, chrome, lower, weld and go hangout more than anywhere else. it reminds me of all the 50's car mags i used to read a s kid (my father collected cars from that era) it sounds amazing, what a wonderful recap.

about the "no hands vibration" is just your own ankles feet moving around, humans are kinda twitchy. with a bag there's more weight so it doesn't happen. i've found that after i jog 4-5 miles and then head off to work my legs are a little shakey and taking my hands off at a stop light or whatever causes me to jitter.

cheers,
pt

[BruceWright]

Actually Robb,

The Big Boy isn't named "Bob". His name is "Big Boy". In Texas, they have Kip's Big Boy, and the Big Boy is the symbol of those as well.

For historical information about the Toluca Lake Bob's, the oldest Bob's in California, visit this site:

http://www.bobs.net




-Bruce Wright

Segway: Vehicle of Dream

[toybuilder]

That was fun! I enjoyed giving out demos... I must have passed out about 60 cards yesterday. I encourage everyone to print their own version of the Segway info cards (go to VistaPrint - they're "free" -- see my example at www.pasadenasegway.com/infocard.html).

Doing figures on the yellow or red key is a surefire way to get attention!

Alas, my camera's batteries died last night, so no pics. :(:(

http://www.pasadenasegway.com

Do not let yourself be forced into doing anything before you are ready.
— Wilbur Wright

[drucilla]

Peter iNova, those were just the greatest photos on your site. I enjoyed very much reading your site again too! You have good humor...

Bruce and Peter..the posts of the glide and the demos were just great too..fodder for my soul? it does me and I think all of us here such good to hear about the great responses to the segway, and it has got to be just plain fun!




What can I do, as just one person, to make the world a better place?..I can segway...

[SegwayLongIsland]

Man that sounds like fun!! It must have been wild to see so many in one place, like they were giving them away around the corner!!

Photos are great too! Can't wait for that balmy warm weather to hit New York! It's supposed to hit 60 tomorrow so we're planning on heading to central park.

Great work guys!

Wayne

[Brooster]

You guys are the greatest! I sure enjoy reading the SegwayLA stories.

The GlideMaster and I had originally planned on Segging at Navy Pier here in Chicago today, but we decided we wanted to avoid the post-St. Patty's Day Parade (and possibly somewhat inebriated) crowds.

So tomorrow morning (Sunday) at 10am is zero-hour for our introduction of Segway to Chicago's most "visible" attraction. I'm really excited about my first "co-Seg" ... with the very first actual Segway HT user on SegwayChat! Our time has finally come.

Broo

[:P][8]





Brooster