Glam shots with Charles

Every established gang has glam shots taken at some point. Its a well known fact. Lets even broaden that perspective - every person in 7th grade who thinks they are an established human being goes straight to the mall for some glamour shots. From airbrushed effects, to candid headshots, photos with your great grand-daddy's sax, and bubble backgrounds, its a must do unless you want to be shunned in life. Please see below for a few of our glam faves.


LTD had been talking for some time about finally getting a photo shoot done of the gang, though the problem was getting the key members in town all at once. While it's easy to take shots at meetups and on rides, whoever is photographing always seems to get left out.

Becky and Lauren set up a time with their friend Charles McPadden for a "prelim" photo shoot to get some ideas of what we'd like to see in the "for realz" shoot. The 3 of us met up at Santa Susana High School in Simi Valley along with Charles' wife Vanessa. We scooted back to the tennis courts where we found some random props ranging from a dead bird to a lonely tennis shoe. Of course, we took advantage of all of these free glamour props in hopes of taking the shots to the next level. As the sun began to set, we started running out of daylight and called it a day. Before leaving, Vanessa and Charles took our hogs for a spin in the parking lot. A Simi cop's eagle eye, also known as "the Heat", spotted them without helmets and pulled near the parking lot with a spot light to be sure to make it a point to make a big deal out of nothing. It just wouldnt be LTD if it wasn't causing the slightest bit of trouble. L...T...D. Check out Charles' amazing photography: www.charlesmcpadden.com.

LTD on the Radio!

Some members of LTD woke early before work on a weekday for one of the best opportunities to come their way since their founding. On a chilly morning in December 2008, Josh met Becky and Lauren at their apartment and they headed out to Burbank to meet up with Tim and Cassie, hosts of 92.5 KYHY The BlockFM, to talk about LTD and share some laughs. Along for some extra encouragement was Ashleigh, Lauren's incredible cousin and Tim's girlfriend. While scheduling our air time the week prior, we tried to figure out a way to have our godfather on the air with us all the way from Visalia. Sadly, we didnt have the capabilities to connect with him during the interview. Before starting we downed a couple donuts for a sugar rush and put our headphones on. Although Lauren was half asleep, Josh and Becky were on their game as usual playing off each others energy. We talked about the Westside Scooter Club rally, the founding of LTD and how our godfather initiated this whole endeavor, recent members and rides, and of course, why everyone should purchase a scooter. Becky even mentioned how the gang is getting scoot tats soon - which was news to Josh and Lauren. Even if it was for just 10 minutes, LTD was pretty convinced they had Cassie and Tim sold on buying a scoot and joining the gang - the kind of persuasion LTD is all about. What an incredible opportunity for LTD to spread the good news. Listen HERE for the full interview. LTD.
Check out Tim and Cassie's great radio show at http://www.theblockfm.com/.

6 Canyons in 60 Minutes

Every now and then Todd Huber and Tank Top from the Westside Scooter Club head up a group ride: 6 Canyons in 60 Minutes. It's a glorious time of gliding through the hills of Simi Valley. This particular Thursday evening Josh and Becky from LTD joined the scooterists from Westside and met up at Skatelab. The ride began at Black Canyon. About 15 mins into the ride, Becky took a little spill taking a turn too fast. Her scoot slid sideways pulling her leg underneath. While she may have taken a minor beating and fractured her foot, she continued the ride with the gang who was patient enough to wait for her to regain her composure. From Black Canyon they headed through Box Canyon, under the Santa Susana Pass. We then headed through Tapo Canyon, taking us through Lost Canyon, and up Tripps Canyon and back. I'm not sure what the 6th Canyon was...but we rode it. We ended the sweet ride at Elmers Grill in Simi Valley where we ate some delicious burgers and had a couple beers. It was a fine evening of talking scoots and making friends....LTD.

Box Canyon + Lost Canyon

The Scoot Capital of the Nation

In June 2008, Becky and Lauren went on a short excursion to Catalina Island not necessarily knowing a ton about it. We knew it was very small, a little historic, and generally relaxing, but we knew little of what was in store for us. We took a boat over from Long Beach, got into town and settled, rented a bike and started exploring. We quickly realized how small the little town of Avalon is and noticed there were very very few cars crowing the streets, but instead mostly golf carts and low and behold, scoots. Apparently Avalon controls the size and number of vehicles by requiring a permit for all forms of transportation and limiting the number of cars, thus forcing people to ride around on golf carts and scoots or other modes of transportation. Note "forcing" is used extremely lightly here. Do you really need to pull someones leg to Live the Dream on a daily basis on their small homeland of an island? Homey don't play that! Seeing a scoot on the streets of 805 is exciting enough to lose control of the wheel, but seeing them at every corner and parked on every street in Catalina was truly heavenly. We obviously documented, making it our mission to capture each and every scoot that we saw, including a Rascal. We had some mixed reactions. A large man on a Ruckus loved that two girls on a tandem bicycle were checking him out. Even when he realized that we were solely interested in his scoot, he loved and appreciated our enthusiasm.

Opposite end of the spectrum was the lovely and elderly owner of the Red Elite with the army sticker on his.....well, hm, I suppose on a scoot it's technically the windshield.

We tried documenting him in action, but didn't want his scowl in the frame. Later in the day we saw it parked on the street and snuck in a shot. Click here (LTD in Catalina) and enjoy the variety; truly a different scoot for every personality type.

LTD.

COCONUT

People either really love coconut or passionately hate coconut. Why? Why do such extremes exist over a simple island food that for some native islanders is their main course for every meal? One must wonder. What God created from a palm tree, man has created into a variety of tasty treats: coconut covered donuts, coconut jellybeans, coconut juice, coconut cake, coconut in candy bars, toasted coconut chips, chicken in coconut cream, coconut sauce, coconut scented candles, coconut bras.

In a journey to understand the worth and desire of coconut, LTD has decided to venture out into the world of coconut lovers and coconut haters. On our blog page we've created a poll. Please give us your input on whether you like coconut or not. We will analyze the data received and report back to our followers our findings. When voting, please keep in mind the many uses of the coconut that extend outside of one's taste pallet, remembering that coconuts are also valuable for their husks, which are used to make mats, mattresses, and rope. Their shells are also used for utensils, cups, bowls, bottles, lamps, buckles, and ornaments. We don't judge whether we like a person or not based solely on their personality. Oh no, we also judge their usefulness.

Keep Living the Dream.

Calabasas Night Ride

We decided it was high time to map out a good route of our very own backyards and do some exploring to see just how far we could get without the freeway. Becky, Lauren, Josh, Lindsay, Robert & Shannon (on his sweet Harley), and Greg all met at Denny's in Thousand Oaks and headed to Westlake Village via Agoura Rd. and ended up on some beautiful back roads that a lot of us had never been through before. We took Las Virgenes Rd. to Brent's Junction and found ourselves winding alongside the 101 on wide open roads that seemed perfectly tranquil with the glare of the streetlights trapped in the fog that maintained a perfect yellow tint bouncing off the street at us.

Beach Invasion III

After setting it in stone at our first meeting, LTD had committed to attending the Westside Scooter Rally in Santa Monica, CA. This has to be the best ride/event LTD has experienced to date. We all met at Becky and Lauren's apartment in Thousand Oaks early in the morning to fill up and get our decals on our scoots.

We had made friends with some of the members of Westside Scooter Club (a predominately Vespa and Vintage only scooter club), and they invited us along to their rally and ride. All members of LTD (with the sad exception of Lindsay) mapped out surface street directions and headed out toward the hills of Malibu for the journey. With our scoots ranging from 80cc to 150cc and 2 stroke to 4 stroke, with some friends even tandem, we knew going up a hill could quickly take us from 50 mph to 30. We headed through the hills of Decker Canyon Rd. to Encinal Canyon and after traveling through some seriously thick fog and dominating questionably steep hills, we made it safely to the busy beautiful coastline of Hwy-1 PCH. For the most part, we kept up well with traffic and passed some amazing Harley riders on the way, some who even graced us with the patented motorcyclist wave - one whose rendition completely blew our minds on the scoot ride home. Wish we had a picture to show you the antics some people are able to pull on a motorcycle going 60mph on PCH. We can only hope to live that dream some day. Moving onward, we finally arrived at the Cock N Bull Pub off Lincoln Blvd. in Santa Monica where the scene was totally indescribable. I think if we could sum up our feeling as a whole, it was completely comparable to feeling like a little kid on the first day of school. We stared into a sea of all eyes on us and vintage scoots that we knew our Honda, Yamaha's and Schwinn's didnt necessarily compare to. We pulled in and were eventually welcomed by Mario, Todd, and "Tank Top" of Westside Scooter Club. We were able to chat with some people and check out the amazing scooters that they had put tons of time and effort into; they were unbelievable. We made it just before the Canyon Ride and were given maps and briefed on the route to be taken. The icing on the cake of this wonderful day was yet to come - we suddenly heard the blaring Star Wars theme song and noticed people strapping up their helmets and revving up to go. Make sure to check out the sweet video that captured only a brief snapshot of this wondrous moment. We of course followed suit, and because of the long journey back to Thousand Oaks, let them know we would be pulling away from the group once we got back to PCH. A sea of 50-60 scooters headed out on Lincoln Blvd. with various people in place to keep traffic from invading the group. It felt like a total parade, people looked on as we sailed through red lights in order to not break form. We just can't describe the feeling to ride alongside 50 fellow scooterists with the summer sun and ocean breeze whistling through our helmets...talk about Livin' the Dream.
Click Beach Invasion III to see all the pictures from this big day!

Our First Social Fill Up and Ride

So to pick up where we left off, what better way to celebrate a successful first meeting than a glorious ride around the land of Oaks? The 6 of us (Travis, Charlie, Josh, Lindsay, Lauren & Becky, shown from left to right in the pic in the previous post) booked it around the corner from Denny's to the Shell station to fill up. We might make an important note that Charlie is the Godfather of this whole endeavor, and we will most likely be referring to him by this title from here on out. We might also mention that Travis was indeed on a Triumph, not a scoot, but yet unarguably and obviously still Livin' the Dream. The gang stayed together without fail in our scattered formation which ultimately led us to the Department of Motor Vehicles. We took advantage of the wide open space at the DMV to practice for our License tests and also do a little drag racing. We still aren't sure who actually won. Enjoy the action shots.


Josh Murray - 125cc Vino vs. Charlie Duarte - 150cc Schwinn

The Birth of LTD

It has become that time. LTD has been established for a couple years now and we are only just getting to this blog. I suppose this is mostly for our own benefits, but maybe even for the lone scooterists out there looking to get involved in even the smallest way, or scoot for fun just a little more often. Its pretty simple, really. We love scooters, we love our scooters, and we love scooterists. We are well aware of those of you who think this may be a little silly, maybe even a little much. It seems though that we have heard it all, and honestly, we are left unfazed. There are plenty of scooter clubs out there that have been started for Vespa only or Vintage scoots. LTD was founded on the idea that scooterists, no matter what they are riding, should hang out every now and then - to talk scoots, share stories, or even just do a bit more exploring on the side streets of their own backyards. There are no rules, there are no regulations - we don't jump in new members (as we've been asked before).

This idea basically spread like wildfire among friends. Some close friends got a scoot, everyone took a test ride and was hooked pretty much immediately thereafter. We had our very first "meeting" at a local Denny's and invited anyone who wanted to come. As you can see from our picture, we got a good handful of people there to talk about decals, business cards, future rallies and rides, and hopes for LTD in the future. We had some great feedback from friends who don't even own scoots, even from our waitress. We gave our friends some test rides out in the parking lot (to plant the seed of course), and headed out for a ride around Thousand Oaks, putting the very first LTD meeting officially in the books.

New LTD Logo and Business Card

Check it out!