West Coast Thunder Memorial Day Ride
Monday, May 31, 2027 · 7688 Indiana Ave., Riverside, · Riverside, California
About this event
Most Memorial Day rides set off at nine or ten because that is when people are ready. This one rolls at 9.11, and the time is the point.
Pat Delahunty watched a documentary about wartime letters home in 1999, rang round the Inland Empire Harley Owners Group, and the following May he and seven others — Steve Cifelli, Steve Aragon, George Helton, Lucky and Theresa Delaney, Rich Greenberg and D.J. Quinn — rode in procession to the remembrance service at Riverside National Cemetery. It stuck, and then it grew. The organisers now count something like 7,500 machines filling Indiana Avenue, which the Riverside National Cemetery Support Committee calls the largest Memorial Day motorcycle ride west of the Mississippi. The money has paid for the National POW/MIA Memorial, repairs to the Medal of Honor Memorial, and the American Indian Veterans Memorial.
The route is police-escorted suburban arterial and freeway out of Riverside Harley-Davidson, past the cemetery and down into the middle of town for a concert. Nothing about it is technical. What it is, is several thousand engines starting at once and rolling through closed streets at walking pace.
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