Ride of Remembrance: Brian Lange's Mt. St. Helens Motorcycle Memorial

Brian Lang is the founder of the Mount St. Helens Memorial Ride, which has been going on for 18 years. The ride was inspired by Brian's father, who volunteered to spend time at an observation post on Coldwater Ridge. Brian, who was in the Navy at the time, put in for leave to accompany his father, but the leave was only approved after the eruption of Mount St. Helens. This made Brian realize that if it hadn't been for Armed Forces Weekend, there would have been more victims of the eruption. The memorial ride started with just a few bikes and has grown over the years, with the biggest crowd reaching around 1,200 to 1,500 bikes. Last year, the ride had to be modified due to a slide between Coldwater and Johnson, and this year it will start at Castle Lake Viewpoint. The ride offers a beautiful view of the mountain, weather permitting. All right, welcome to episode 10 with Brian Lang of My Special Guest. Say hello. Hello. Hello. Brian, you and I have known each other probably, well, I started riding in 09, and I think that the first time we met was when I came to the first, or no, I came to one of the Mount St. Helens Memorial Rides, and... It was before that. It was before that? Yeah, it was in Jubilee. No, that was after. That was after? That was after. Okay. So, you are the Mount St. Helens Memorial Ride founder. You created this. Can you... Yeah. How long has it been? How long have you been doing it? This year, which is next month, will be the 18th annual. That is 18 years. I was right, wasn't I? Yeah. Okay. But it started out, it's kind of a crazy story, because my dad was a ham operator, and a buddy of his was manning an observation post on Coldwater Ridge. And Dad went and volunteered to come down and spend 10 days with him. And I went, that's great, Dad, except I'm your only transportation, so I got to put in for leave. So, I was in the Navy at the time, and I put in for leave for 10 days, and it came back from May 19th on was approved. But 16th, 17th, and 18th wasn't, it was Armed Forces Weekend, and we were a visit ship in Seattle. So, if it hadn't been for Armed Forces Weekend, there'd have been 59 victims of the mountain, not 57. Wow. Wow. That's crazy. Because I was actually in second grade, or third grade, somewhere, and I had come up to visit my dad. And he took me up Short Road, where there's now a view spot, but at the time, there wasn't. And we watched the mountain, you know, smoke and stuff, and a week later is when it happened. So, yeah, that's crazy. So, what made you decide to do the memorial ride, and when did that start? Well, it took me better than 20 years before I could even bring myself to go back up onto that end of the system. And finally, I got a hold of a friend of mine from Astoria, and I said, it's going to be the, whatever year it was. Yeah, just lean a little closer, so we can kind of break it up. It was, whatever year it was, anniversary, and I says, just meet me at the Shell Station in Castle Rock, and we'll ride up. And he came from Astoria, and I came from Morton, and we went up, and had a nice time. Started riding back down. We're almost at the bottom of the flat, getting ready to climb back up, and about 50 bikes went the other way. And I looked at him, and he looked at me, and we didn't say anything. We just both pulled a U-in, shot back up to Johnson Ridge, and had a great time. And over the next few months, we talked to people, and I was like, oh, man, I could do that again. I'll go with you. So, the second year, there were five bikes, and then 10, and by the fourth year, I think we had 50 bikes. I'm trying to think. So, in 2010, that would have been like... I think that would have been the fourth year we went, so it was like... Yeah, because we had like 20, 25 bikes, I think it was. And so, I'm going to tell you my experience, because first of all, I didn't know you. So, you could put it out there, and I was a new rider, and I was like, you know, I'm going to go to this. I don't know anybody, but I'm going to go do this. So, I show up, and I run into David, and Kayla, and all these people that I went to high school with, and they're like, well, yeah, Brian and Robin are from Wharton. I'm like... So, I ride down here from Olympia to ride with a bunch of Wharton people. Cool. And one thing that stuck in my head was the girl that had a prosthetic arm, and she had just had this bike adjusted and made for her so that she could ride it, and it was her first time doing it, and she was right in front of me. And it made me nervous, because one, like I said, I was a new rider, and I was in a group, and then, you know, that scenario, which first of all, seeing her do that was so inspiring. I was like, if she can do this, I can do anything. And the other part was then we... It started raining. It was the first time I rode in the rain. We get to the A-frame, and I go, okay. I told everybody, I'm like, I'm going to be in the back, because I'm a little nervous, and one of the other guys was like, I'll ride with you. I'm like, okay, because I'm a new rider, and this is a whole new experience for me, you know, but yeah. So, tell me about that girl. What was... Oh, that was Dana. Oh, okay. So, tell me the story. I mean, tell me a little... Yeah, she lost her arm when she was young, but yeah, before she had that bike, she had a little Rebel 250. Okay. And she would... So, what size bike was that? I don't remember. I think it was an 1100. It was a blue. That's all I remember. It was a blue bike. But yeah, it was a big Honda Shadow. Yeah. 100 Shadow, I think it was. Yeah. But she would take a piece of PVC, so she could just take the stump of her arm, and that was how she ran the throttle on this. She could outride that, most people, with two hands. Yeah. Yeah. I was just in awe of the whole thing, like just watching her. It was amazing. Yeah. That was crazy, because I just had my little 500 Kawasaki Vulcan. I mean, that was, you know, it was... Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So, we ended up getting up to the top and everything, and I have a picture, I think, of you or Robin took of me. Here I was, like, in layers of layers. Again, I had too much going on, because it was new. I hadn't dialed everything in yet. But, yeah. And that was also, you guys were carrying the Apple Pie Moonshine. Oh, yeah. And that was before Apple Pie Moonshine was a thing. You guys were making it on your own. You guys were passing the jar around, and I was like, you know what? Not this time, but maybe next time, because, you know, there was a lot going on, and I was overwhelmed, and I didn't want to take a chance. But, yeah. That was... See, that came from Scott, a friend of mine from Astoria that went on the first run. Oh, okay. I rode into Castle Rock to meet up with him, and it had been raining, and I'm cold. He reaches his saddlebags. This fat boy, he says, here. Catch this water bottle of this kind of brownish. I said, what is this? And he goes, oh, man, that's Apple Pie. And I says, I haven't seen this since I was in high school. Yeah, we stuck down like four or five of those water bottles before we even got to the top and back. Yeah, right. So, yeah. So, that was my first experience in Run With You, and I've done it multiple times since. And now it is... How many people have been, like, the biggest crowd? How many people did you count or do you suspect were present? And what year, do you remember? Was it before COVID? It was actually after COVID. It was two years ago. Okay. It was... Well, it will have been three years, because it was the 15th, and I actually have that on my YouTube channel. Yeah. But a few years before, the biggest number we'd ever counted was 435 bikes. And I'd gone up in the overlook above the parking lot and taken a picture. And we had maybe a quarter of the parking lot filled up. Well, I did the same thing this year, and there were at least three times. This past year? In the 15th annual. Okay, yeah. So we figured there was probably 1,200 to 1,500 bikes show up. Yeah. I think that was the year that Tony and I, because Tony had just moved back home, and so I took him to it. And we had both parking lots that were there. And we were in the group behind the girl that had had the accident. So we were stuck in that traffic. And I looked at the group, and I said, we're turning this around. We'll go do something else. You know, we tried. But, yeah, there was a lot of people there. Oh, yeah. They had that road shut down for an hour and a half, two hours, something like that? Yeah. It turns out, from what I heard, she rode that trike from Goldendale. That was only her third or fourth time riding a trike. Oh, my. Okay. Yeah. And that's a learning thing. Don't take new equipment into a big event. You know, go with what you know and you're comfortable with, or something's going to happen. Oh, definitely. You know? Yeah, I know it was weird, because I took a video. We'd been up at the top for half an hour. And usually I don't go look at the mountain. I go and sit and look at Coldwater Ridge. Right, yeah. I wanted to go get video for the YouTube channel of everybody up looking at the mountain, and it took me like five minutes for it. There was a big enough gap where I could make it across the road. And I'm going, everybody's already been here half an hour. Like, where's everybody else? No, I mean, where are all these bikes still coming from? People were already leaving. Yeah. And it was probably an hour before the bikes slowly stopped going. It was like, cool, okay, whatever. Yeah. So how many did you have last year? Because last year was when there was a slide between Coldwater and Johnson. Yeah. So how did the ride change, and is that how you're going to do it again this year? No, last year, because the slide took out the bridge right at the bottom of Johnson Ridge a week before the ride, we just said, okay, we're just going to run up to the Forest Learning Center, which is 30 miles up the road, and call it good. Well, they fixed the road temporarily to get the half-dozen cars or the parking lot out. And since then, it's washed out again. So they're saying it's going to be next year where they fix it. So what we're going to do is we're going to go to Castle Lake Viewpoint and pull into that nice big parking lot. And you've got to, if the weather is even halfway cooperative, you'll have a beautiful view of the mountain. If not, you know, you might see the bottom of the mountain. Yeah. That's the one thing with this ride is you get up there, and I remember one year, I can't remember which year it was, there was a, at the viewpoint up in Johnson Ridge, there's a photo of the mountain. And then you stand there, and you look out into the valley, except it was so thick fog and cloud that people were pointing at the picture and pointing into the cloud to get their picture taken. It's supposed to be there, right? Where's that? Yeah. So that is the same. So we had my friend Michael's memorial ride last year, and you were at the abate. Was it the spring opening? That was spring, yeah, and I'd just gotten to sleep about 5 o'clock. But it was funny because three of those people that were partying with you showed up at the memorial ride, and they're like, oh, yeah, we're going to go back and give him shit. Oh, they did. They did. Yeah, I don't even think I even woke up until 9.30. Yeah. And I was like, I'm not going anywhere today. No, no, but that was, so we had the same problem, you know, because of the washout, we had to make adjustments to his memorial ride, and that also is the parking lot that we went to, and it was a great view, beautiful, clear day. We couldn't have asked for anything better. Oh, yeah. But how many bikes can you get in there? I mean, are you concerned, like, there's just going to be a lot of people showing up if it's nice this year? We can fit a couple hundred bikes in there without too much problem because it's not much. I actually think it's a little bit bigger than the Forest Learning Center parking lot. I think so, too. And we can easily cram two, 300 bikes in there. It's when you get above 300 that then you start sliding them out on the side, the shoulder of the road, and that's what always makes me nervous. Yeah, yeah. Like, well, because the cold water is open, though, right? Yeah, yeah. Because the lake, that parking lot is open. Yeah, but it's a little tiny parking lot. Oh, I know. I'm just saying, like, some of the overflow can go down there and then come back, too. So, yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, I mean, we did it one year, and it was in the upper 70s the day before. Mm-hmm. We ride and get up the next morning, Sunday morning, and it's pouring down rain, and it's low 40s. I think that's one of those, like, nope, not going. We get down there, and there's about 100 bikes sitting there at the Shell station, and half of them were from Portland. We're all in a group, and they're going, we got a bunch of newbies. We're not going to try it. And I said, hey, perfectly understandable. Just see you next year and hope for good weather. Yeah. So they took off, and we made it as far as the Forest Learning Center, and everybody had been buying hand warmers and sticking them in their pockets, and Kale Allen stuck them in her bra. Oh, yeah, right. And we get up there, and everybody goes into the bathroom. The gal from the gift shop comes out and says, you guys are on bikes? You do know it's snowing two miles up the road, don't you? And I go, I do now. I walked up and said, that's it. We're going back downhill. And, yeah, that was the first time we never made it to the top. Maybe because the gate was closed too, if I remember correctly, because I didn't go, and I remember you guys posting that all that was going on. Is that the only time that there was snow that you had to, like, not make it all the way up? Yep. That was the only time. There was one year that it was really bizarre. It was like there was a chain of rain showers that you could sit and look, and there'd be a big black cloud and a gap, and a big black cloud. It was like somebody was just setting out puffs. And it was like, slow down a little bit. A couple of miles will go slow. Okay, now we can beat it, so we can run through the gap. And that wasn't too bad. But that whole road is, to me, one of the best bike roads in the state. It really is, and that's why Michael used to go up there all the time. Because, first of all, he had a brain injury from 2013 from an accident, and so he had short term. That road he knew, like the back of his hand, and the speeds that that guy would go. You know, we call it triple digit bridge for a reason. And that's actually where he also blew Angel's engine a week after he was diagnosed. So, anyhow, I used to do it just once a year for your event, and then with him I was up there every freaking week. Oh, yeah, I don't doubt it. I haven't been up since his ride last year, but I want to try to get Angel put together. You know, the new engine's installed and everything, and I want to try to get that done and my next ride take her up. So that's my goal. So, anyways, for the listeners, what do they need to know about this coming year? Like, how has it changed? What do they need to know? The only difference is, like I said, we're only going to go, instead of making it all the way to the top of Johnson Ridge, we're only going to go to the Castle Lake Viewpoint, which is, I think, 35, almost 40 miles. I believe that's 40. From the start point, Castle Rock. But it's got, you're right in, a couple of miles into the National Volcanic Monument. So they haven't taken out the logs. They're just letting everything go back natural. And you're looking straight across the valley at an oblique angle at the crater and St. Helens. If it's even a halfway decent, it'll be spectacular. But except for going through the town of Total and the first little bit, when we start, it's basically a 50-mile-an-hour ride. But other than that. So it's the parade route, as I would put it. Yeah, pretty much. We actually even joked, because a bait got a law passed, that if you're in a parade, you don't have to wear a helmet. I know. If you noticed during the Olympia toy ride, a bunch of them do not. Oh, I never do. Yeah. Oh, I know. But we'll get into that in our next segment. Yeah, so we actually joked about changing it from a memorial ride to a memorial parade. And we're going, nah, it's not going to work. Yeah. Yeah. So when did you connect a bait to the ride? Like what year? Was that when you created the elk? That would have been, yeah, it was 2000. Actually, the first one would have been 2014. OK. The chapter was formed in October of 2013. Right. And they wanted to have a run to go on. I've already got this one. We'll just make it. Add to it. Yeah. So is it a fundraiser, too? Because I know you guys are selling shirts and stuff. Yeah, the chapter sells shirts. They've got some commemorative coins that we actually had 300 of them made up. And I think we maybe sold 100 of them. Oh, so there's 200 special edition coins for this. Yeah. OK, for those people that collect coins and need to jump on that, do they just need to get a hold of you? No, they should be up on the run. OK. So is that the only way they can get them is at the run, correct? Yeah, or get a hold of the local coordinator. Only at the run. Yeah, that's the way it should be, anyway. And what are they costing? $10. Oh, that's not bad. Oh, no. Yeah. That's cool. One side is black with gold trim. OK. An outline of the mountain with an elk on the side. And this is a Betta watch that Mount St. Helens riding on the back of it. It said in memory of the 57. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, it's a cool coin. Do you have one? I was going to say, I'm going to get a picture of this so I can post it, too. I don't have the coin. Oh, look at that. Some of them have also been made into keychains. Keychains. That is a really cool brand. That is really cool. How many of these do you have, the keychains? How many? Pretty much you buy the coin, get a hold of Kevin, the chapter treasurer, because he does all the stuff. The leather work. OK. Very cool. I think he charged, like, $20 for one of those. Well, that's not bad. No, no. Very cool. Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah, because I'm hoping, I mean, I don't usually do parades, and I don't usually do big groups. But I think that we're going to definitely try doing it again this year, because last year was kind of a bust for us. We had other things going on. Yeah. And plus the road, you know, because, you know, that really threw a wrench in a lot of people's plans. So it was just, you know, I haven't even done any follow-up on what they're doing to get it repaired or anything like that. Well, they put up a temporary Bailey Bridge to get the six or seven cars that were up in the bridge, which was really kind of ironic, because half of them were rental cars anyway. Oh, that's hilarious. So I was wondering, OK, how are they doing that? I need to extend this. Yeah, is that a natural disaster? Because they had to fly those people out that were still up there. I mean, that was, yeah. And the government didn't want, they could have helicoptered the cars down the ridge, but no, we're not going to do that. Yeah, let's bring in a temporary. But, yeah, well, I think that it's wonderful that you, I mean, you have a legacy now. That is your legacy of that ride. Well, hopefully it keeps going. It will. And, I mean, do you know anybody? Have you appointed somebody? If anything happens to you to pick it up? No, not really. Just right now, it's just anything happens to me, the chapter is going to keep it going, hopefully. Keep it going. Yeah. I think now it's just, it's a tradition for so many to just show up and go. You know, I have to say, like I said, it's one of my very first memories of riding. It's part of my motorcycle history and journey. I mean, you're there. You know, and we try to connect so many times, but you've always got something going on, and I've got something going on, you know. So, but I think we're going to go ahead and wrap this up for the St. Helens one, but we are going to do another segment, and we're going to talk about your abate involvement and being the lobbyist and go into that. That sounds like fun. No, it doesn't, because I hate politics. I stay away from the hill as much as I like downtown. No, I'm not going downtown Olympia. There's crazy crap going on down there. So, for everybody else, what is your YouTube channel name? What do you, are you still running it? Yeah. It's 8 Ball something. Yeah, 8 Ball Brian. 8 Ball Brian. Okay, I'll try to put the link in mine as well. I've got to actually start putting videos back up. I blew my ACL out, and then right after that I had some family issues, and my daughter died, and then my brother, and I was like, yeah, I'm not dealing with this right now. Yeah, yeah, sometimes bike stuff has to be put on pause for sure. I get that. It wasn't the bike part so much as the editing, and I was like, I don't want to deal with it. Okay, we're on the same page. It's like, this is great, but then I have to go back, and I have to edit this, that, and the other. I spend more time doing, you know, clips for the social media platforms and everything, but, yeah, it's definitely a thing. It's a lot of energy. Okay, well, for all of those that are excited about the Mount St. Helens ride, and if you've never done it, please come out this year. What are the dates again? I don't think we said the dates. May 19th, kickstands up is at 11. It's easy to find. It's the Shell Station at exit 49 and I-5. Plan on getting there probably by 10, because once we pull up, there's no more fuel stops. Right, yeah, exactly. Unless you're coming from the Toledo side, fuel up in Toledo. Because, you know, if you're coming from Toledo and cutting in and going all the way down Castle Rock, you fuel up in Toledo. Oh, definitely. That was a nice thing when it was Kid Valley had their gas station going. Yes, because that's where we did make that stop, and somebody had a flat tire, a rear flat. Or we got up to A-frame and he went back to Kid Valley. But, yeah, okay, so one more time, the dates. May 19th. May 19th, okay. And kickstands up at 11 o'clock. Okay, cool. All right, thank you, Brian. Thank you.