Thu
Mar 18/04
Mike
It brought back memories of the Donner party as we Alaska Aired into
San Francisco and found ourselves comfortably ensconced in a Mustang
convertible on a sunny, low-80’s F afternoon in Northern California.
Why? The drive to
Turlock should have taken 1½ hours (at least that’s how long it took
Brian’s niece who drove home from College for the weekend about the same
time). Instead, Brian’s
insistence that “it’s always rush hour in the Bay Area” took us on a
seemingly endless drive through suburbia as we tried, with limited
success, to find some complicated back route he had figured out.
Of
course, once we tracked and backtracked enough, we did in fact find
ourselves in rush hour, thus defeating the entire purpose of getting up at
an unconscionable hour in order to arrive early enough to avoid it.
Brian grudgingly agreed that I “might be right” when I
suggested that we probably could have made it to Turlock in 1 ½ hours,
rather than the 4 that it took us had we simply stuck to the interstate.
With Brian, this is as good as it gets.
Flushed
in this rare victory, I was more than ready to emerge from motorcycling
hibernation. Too bad tomorrow
is a scheduled flying day.
Fri
Mar 19/04
Mike
Oh happy me!
It has been decided that my presence is not required in the
airplane today. Brian
and Don are going to go up and recon the last of the north coast while I
head out to the Bay Area and try to find some little pieces of twisty road
not yet overcome by development and traffic.
Even the trip out from Turlock on the interstates was eventful.
I can see how lane splitting-- which seems to me more dangerous
than boiling full throttle into a blind, decreasing radius turn complete
with gravel-- would take some getting used to.
I’m told it isn’t
long before you are bisecting traffic that is already going 70 mph.
I’m not there yet. The thought of being squeezed between two moving walls of
semi-trailer is not the way I want to cash in on my insurance policy.
Somehow, I made it to San
Rafael and slugged through suburbia to TE Point San Pedro Rd, a
magical stretch of road through China Camp State Park.
Changes are often sudden in California; a single curve can move you
from suburban sprawl into untouched hinterland.
Such is the case here as I ventured out onto the inter-tidal salt
marshes aside San Francisco Bay.
Then it was off to TE
Paradise Drive, a tight and twisty cliff side drive to the funky
little town of Tiburon. I
love these little places with a dash of history that have been preserved
and only added to in a tasteful way.
Certainly more tasteful than some of the garish mansions I viewed
trying to negotiate my way along the one-lane Beach Rd that extended
beyond Tiburon.
Ultimately landing back
at the 101, I enjoyed another one of these instant nature experiences,
blasting up TE McCullough Rd that turns off the 101 just north of
the Golden Gate. I tore
up the green slopes on a series of sweepers on above-average pavement that
wound me out to the surfdom of Rodeo Beach. It’s a great road and if you
want to add an interesting tag onto it, you can come back along TE-ALT
Bunker Hill Rd, travel through a long, one-lane tunnel deep under the
interstate and then wind down through the gorgeous grounds of Fort Bragg
before ending up in chichi Sausalito.
I would have loved to
have found a nice hotel in Sausalito within walking distance of the
promising looking restaurants along the waterfront, but with the guidebook
only showing deluxe to ultra-deluxe and my being on my own, I felt I just
couldn’t justify the expense. So
I ended up with the substandard motel experience of the TravelLodge up on
Redwood Blvd. $89.00 got me a
room the size of a walk-in closet, a shower stall I could barely squeeze
in to and something I’ve never had to experience before and hope I never
do again-- 100% polyester sheets.
The bright light to this
dim motel was the restaurant associated with it.
The India Palace was packed and with good reason.
Despite its unpromising decor and long preparation time, I feasted
on chicken tandoori (supposedly voted the best chicken tandoori in the
county by somebody back in 1999), vegetable curry and rice.
I couldn’t resist trying an Indian beer, a very large bottle of
some Millweiser tasting beverage called Flying Horse.
Each bottle comes with a little card attached by a gold thread that
reads:
“Ideally,
Flying Horse should be chilled to temperatures of 8 degrees to 10 degrees
C. and, when you’re sure that the occasion deserves it, serve Flying
Horse Royal Lager Beer. Then
sit back and drink deeply.”
So I did.
Sat
Mar 20/04
Mike
“How do you write women so well?” the
early twenties, doe-eyed receptionist asked Jack Nicholson’s character
in as As Good As It Gets. Jack’s
answer: “I think of a man
and then take away reason and accountability.”
I had meant to get an early start
to this day but in the morning I picked up this movie (on one of only two
channels that came in clearly at Bates Motel Revisited) and stuck with it
through the ensuing couple hours. Probably
the best romantic comedy I have ever seen.
A guy’s chick flick.
Back to business, I set out on Hwy
1 and took the turnoff to Mount Tamalpais and wicked my way to the top to
take in what truly must be one of the greatest city views imaginable:
looking south over misty San Francisco and over to the East Bay.
No wonder every second San Franciscan decided to drive up here
today.
Resuming my trek, I did manage to
escape much of the madding crowd (if not the madding cyclists) by checking
out TE Ridgecrest Rd.
Acceptably paved, more than acceptably curvy and incredibly scenic,
this great trip over the Californian Moors unfortunately ends at the
junction of the Bolinas-Fairfax Rd. Turning left puts you on a narrow one-lane bumpy goat path
out the coast. Turning right
puts you on a narrow two-lane goat path out to Fairfax.
Why anyone considers this a “motorcycle road” is beyond me.
It’s so steep you want to gear down from first to negotiate the
downhill hairpins.
Fairfax, another of these old
towns brought to life because of San Franciscans fleeing the urban jungle,
has a smattering of services. The
one that caught my eye was the organic food store and deli.
As I sat down outside to enjoy my organic brown rice and
vegetables, I couldn’t help overhearing a conversation between three
twenty-something beta-males reflecting upon the stages of their lives and
the muses that they were in tune with.
It was one curious “conversation vessel”. Only the California State Penal Code prevented me from
turning on my dictaphone. But
everything you have ever seen depicted in movies about California’s
Marin County is apparently true.
The day’s adventure was just
beginning. I headed out of
Fairfax on the busy Sir Francis Drake Blvd, turned right on the much
quieter TE Nicasio Valley Rd,
then headed up to the Petaluma – Reyes Rd where I turned right again and
then made another right down TE
Novato Rd.
Moderate curves and moderate
pavement made this easy ride quite similar to Nicasio Valley but it’s
more scenic and interesting since it not only goes through the rolling
California hills but also skirts some rock faces and the shore of Stafford
Lake. The only downside to
Novato Rd is that it’s a long trip through suburban Novato to reconnect
with the 101. After some
backtracking, I found a much better way of accessing it—turn up Santa
Clara Blvd and head out to the 101. Heading
east from here, the Atherton Ave connector is a no-brainer bypass.
One of the day’s motorcycling
highlights was TE Lucas Valley Rd.
With a lot of tight
narrow curves through the forest and some steep sections, this could have
been a bad experience. But great pavement can make all the difference and
in this case did. Despite it
being Sunday, traffic was not bad. Except
for its ten-mile length, we’d have a certain Destination Highway here.
Then it was back down TE
Nicasio Valley Rd, right on Sir Francis Drake Blvd and an extremely
traffic-filled and bumpy trip through the Samuel Taylor State Park to
Olema.
Rather than continue with the
armada of pylons on Sir Francis Drake, I turned off onto the Bear Valley
Rd and then TE Limantour Rd, a
sweepy, surprisingly well-paved dead ender out to a lonely piece of the
Point Reyes National Seashore. This
road was particularly inviting not only because of the rare sweepers in a
day of tight corners, but because the road rises up and overlooks the
coast before descending to it.
On this day, the famous fog bank
– the one that apparently had prevented Sir Francis Drake from
discovering the Golden Gate entrance to San Francisco Bay on his visit
here – filled the coastline. As
I dropped, so did the temperature and the visibility.
I ended up on a remote wind and wave-swept beach, desolate but for
the occupants of the hundred or so pylons filling the parking lot.
What can you expect on the first nice weekend of the year in
Northern California?
Riding back to Hwy 1, I noticed a
baseball cap lying on the road. It
made me look in my rearview to see how my own baseball cap (which was
velcroed on to the top of my soft luggage) was doing. I couldn’t see it my rearview mirrors and so I reached back
and felt ...nothing. I pulled
over and turned around to see that my entire luggage pack was gone.
It seems the metal hardware brackets attaching it to my bike had
sheared right off.
The thoughts that go through your
head at moments like this are interesting. The obvious one (after all the profane ones) being: “where
the frick could it have fallen off?”
Considering the last time I had seen it was some 2½ hours earlier,
I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope of recovering it.
Next I thought about what I had on me and what was in the luggage.
I had my passport. Good. I had all
my money, or at least most of it. Good.
The now-departed luggage had my personal diary and organizer along
with all my secondary I.D. Contact lenses and glasses, also gone. Those were going to be a bit of a hassle.
One or two lost tapes were going to set me back a couple of days.
At the end of it all, an enormous pain in the ass but it could be
worse. What really pissed me
off was that a luggage system that I had come to believe in and rely upon
had failed. And I could no longer laugh at Brian’s Givi travails.
As I reflected over the past 2 ½
hours, it seemed to that the most likely place the luggage would have
bailed was on the bumpy Sir Francis Drake Blvd. I could only imagine what shape the bag would be in after
being run over by all the vehicles that travel that road, but it was the
place to start. Since I had
already gone out to the coast and backtracked, it was unlikely that I had
lost it on this last road and, besides, vehicles behind me would have
caught up to me by now and either handed it over or told me they’d seen
it.
Heading up Sir Francis Drake Blvd,
I saw a motorcyclist on an ‘85 Yamaha 250 pulled over on the side of the
road. Ty Davis from San
Raphael and his girlfriend Tanya were to be my saviors that day. I pulled over and after having the usual conversation about
my motorcycle and camera getup, I asked if by chance they’d seen a large
black object on the road in their travels.
As it turned out, Ty had seen what
he thought may have been my luggage some five minutes back in a pullout.
Since he was heading back he could take me right to it.
We went back and just as we were arriving, some fellow, I’m
certain with the best of intentions, was loading my luggage into his
Cadillac. While it had suffered some road rash, everything inside
appeared to be intact. I even
recovered the twisted metal pretzel that used to be my bracket.
I thanked my saviors profusely and
promised them a free copy of Destination Highways Northern California--
assuming my luggage would ever stay on my bike long enough for me to
complete the research. I then
bungy-rigged a way to transport my bags and limped back to Petaluma where
Brian and I had agreed to meet at the end of the day. Days later I was still shaking my head and wondering, “what
are the odds?”
As the next day was Sunday, there
wasn’t much that we could do to deal with my situation, so we decided to
“base camp” it, which means leaving our gear at the same motel with a
plan to stay there a second night. Ordinarily,
we like to take all our stuff with us because we never know where we’re
going to end up. But in this
case, coming back to Petaluma was going to work well with our riding
plans, anyway.
Sun
Mar 21/04
Mike
The next day, we continued where I had left
off, slowly making our way northward between the coast and Hwy 101,
checking out the various side roads.
The highlight was the trip up Hwy 1 north of Point Reyes all the
way to Bodega Bay. The
sections of tight curves on perfect pavement in the bits of seaside
hinterland that remain between the small cottage developments that trickle
up the coast were heavenly.
In Freestone, I nipped in to a
bakery. While there, I
had a nice chat with John Bauer and his buddies.
It is always nice to meet those people who, as Brian says, in the
space of a few minutes “get it”.
That’s a reference to the fact that a lot of people take a little
time to figure out exactly what our books are about, how to use them and
what they do for you. John
was one of those guys who “got it” right away.
He was also kind enough turn me on to the parts manager at Mission
Honda in Daly City as being a likely source of the hard luggage I was now
determined to buy. Then
it was north on the variably paved, but consistently twisty TE
Bohemian Hwy through farmland, the town of Occidental and some forest.
We got back late to Petaluma, too
late to replicate our fine dining experience at The Market restaurant of
the night before. No pork
comfit tonight. The Market
was not alone in closing early Sundays.
Most places stopped serving at about 7:30.
After tearing around town like a couple of goofy-looking speed
walkers, we settled on our old standby, the local Chinese restaurant.
Usually the same. But always a good fallback.
Mon
Mar 22/04
Mike
Monday morning.
Time to get on the phone. After
much calling around, it became apparent that there was no way I was going
to be able to find any new hard luggage today.
But as it turned out, maybe I wouldn’t need it.
I got a hold of Amy at Cycleventure, the distributors for my
Ventura Bikepack luggage system in North America.
She is the same one who had stayed late when I had ridden my new
VFR down to California last year so I could install the luggage system in
the first place. Amy was
accommodating as always, promising to have not only a replacement bracket
to the bike shop of my choice the next morning but also a replacement bag
for the one that had ripped.
It turns out I am not the first
person that this had happened to. As
a consequence, Ventura has redesigned this bracket to reinforce the weak
point. Wouldn’t have minded
knowing that earlier. And had
I not found my luggage, my reaction might not have been quite so
equivocal. In any case, I
certainly appreciated their efforts to deal with my situation
expeditiously and look forward to restoring my trust in the Bikepack
system.
In Ventura’s defence, I should
say that one of things I really like about their system is that, unlike
hard luggage, it keeps you narrow. Unless
you are accustomed to riding with saddlebags, it's hard to have a sense of
how wide you are. I went down
once using hard luggage in New Zealand for this very reason.
Against that background, the idea of lane splitting with extra
large haunches on my bike is disquieting.
The bike shop I chose for delivery
was in Ukiah, some 70–odd miles north of Petaluma.
Why go all the way up there? Well,
as it turned out, my luggage problems had coincided with a distressing
lack of tread on my rear tire. I
didn’t really want to ride another day on it and this bike shop was the
only one nearby that was open on a Monday outside San Francisco.
What’s with that, anyway?
Even with no tread and jerry
rigged luggage, it was nice to be heading north on Hwy 101 and getting out
of the congested Bay Area. It
was also kind of nice to go inland where the temperature was a little
warmer.
After dropping my bike off at the
shop, I got myself a room at the Holiday Inn Express just half a block
away and dealt with a few work issues back in my real world.
I retrieved my freshly shod mount it was 3:30 p.m, leaving enough
time to check out TE Eastside Rd through
the Mendocino vineyards. I found it to be a consistently sweeping road that was much
better than the guys at the bike shop had described it.
I hooked up with Brian in Hopland and, after some hops and malted barley,
we checked out the fantastic DH Old Hopland – Lakeport (Hwy 175). Steep, twisty up-and-down over the Mayacmas Mtns, it was one
where the pavement was so great—especially coming down the east
side—that you welcomed it getting as tight as this road gets. We followed up with the winding, well-paved yet un-remote TE
Soda Bay Rd – Lakeview Rd along the Clear Lake shoreline, splitting
at the south end for Brian to head north and check out another possibility
while I investigated the Peninsula Rd out of Clear Lake.
Considering its lovely lakeside
location, the actual town of Clear Lake is a bit of an armpit.
As, frankly, is the road which bumpily and narrowly jerks its way
along the shoreline for several miles before finally opening up along the
peninsula’s north side. There is a brief section which climbs along the
coast which is okay, but far too brief for the hassle of getting to.
I spent far too much time dicking around with road names and
alternative routes for a road that turned out to be nothing.
And for this I was rewarded with a long, cold ride in the dark up
Hwy 20 back to Hwy 101 and into Ukiah.
This airflow-mesh Kevlar, great at 80 F, leaves a bit to be desired
at 52 F.
Tue
Mar 23/04
Mike
Enough dicking around.
It was time to do some serious riding.
Accordingly, it was up and at ‘em on a beautiful sunny day,
blitzing the 20 or so miles down to Cloverdale and flipping inland on DH
Cloverdale – Boomtown (Hwy 128).
The great pavement on this brilliant ride seriously twisted up and
over a ridge and then down through a pretty valley.
We imagined that going out to the coast could only get better.
So it was disappointing when past Boomtown, the valley was spoiled
by a straight road and
development for many miles. It
finally recovered at Novarro when the development was replaced by tall
redwoods. They shaded TE
Novarro – Hwy 128/Hwy 1 Jct, a twisty, gorgeous piece of pavement
that winds out to the lonely coast. And
lucky me. Since I had to backtrack to check out TE Flynn Creek Rd – Ukiah-Mendocino Rd, I got to do it all over
again.
While Flynn Creek Rd could not
compare to Hwy 128, it was nonetheless impressive to see reasonably good
pavement in such a remote location. It
was far better than the initial segment of the Ukiah–Mendocino Rd east
of Comptche which had great engineering but was horribly bumpy.
Happily, the brand new pavement that took over at the top of the
ridge and took me all the way down into Mendocino more than made up for
it.
I then rode down to connect with
Brian at a mapdot called Albion. Unfortunately,
Brian’s idea of the location of this mapdot and mine were slightly
different and, as a result, we ended up waiting for each other at
different locations a few hundred yards apart for the better part of an
hour. Generally, we have
developed fairly reliable protocols for insuring we don’t lose each
other and waste a lot of time. It
tends to work much better when you are in area where there’s cell
service.
The day ended with a delicious
dinner and pleasant night at the Mendocino Hotel.
One thing about doing the coast north of San Francisco is that you
eat a lot better than you do in northeastern California.
We also ended up staying in a lot of these romantic hotels, hard
pressed to find rooms with two beds.
Unfortunately, no matter how long I am out on the road and away
from my girlfriend, Brian never looks any better.
Wed
Mar 24/04
Mike
This day began with another of the technical
problems that seems to have plagued this particular trip.
We rode south on Hwy 1 to just south of Manchester with a view to
doing TE Mountainview Rd and we
noticed that Brian’s power cable (from the bike to his gear) and finally
given out after some 36,000 miles. Fortunately,
we now carry spare parts and after a 45-minute replacement delay, we got
going again.
This
road started off well enough, with pretty good pavement ripping through
some really lovely farming terrain before venturing into the woods. Then it got bumpier and narrowed into frequent one lane
sections. And it started to
rain. The perfect pavement
which took the road down on the final 21% grade into Boomtown was not
enough to salvage what should have been a great riding experience.
The sun glinted through the clouds
at Boomtown immediately to the west and we therefore decided it was a good
time to do DH Cloverdale –
Boomtown (Hwy 128) (the road we had done the day before) in the
opposite direction as we had some issues to sort out between us regarding
this road. And so we were
back in the sunshine, riding through the fields, vineyards and forests
back to Hwy 101.
A brew pub lunch in Cloverdale and
we were heading south on the 101 again, this time to Healdsburg and the
source of the locally renowned DH
Skaggs Spring Rd. Although
it deteriorates into poor pavement after 27 miles, that 27 miles or so may
be some of the finest in California.
This road is beyond description,
so much fun that it was difficult to concentrate on rating it.
Wide shoulders and baby-bottom smooth pavement the whole way as it
weaves and swerves up and down and around the hilly landscape.
But what’s with the 30-mph zone that smothers this road?
My strong suspicion that it relates to the number of motorcycles
that must scream up and down it every weekend during riding season. Still,
it will rate very highly, to be sure.
The joy of Skagg Springs Rd was
muted somewhat when we rode the balance of it all the way out the coast,
another 30-odd miles of bumps and not particularly good engineering.
The bottom line is anyone doing this road would do the good part
and turn around again unless they had to get out to the coast for some
other reason. The first part
of this road you travel to, to journey on. The second part you avoid.
It was getting late and I headed
up to check out a possible TE out of Gualala and Brian headed south to
find us accommodation. He did
very well scoring us a couple of rooms at the luxurious Sea Ranch Resort
where we enjoyed probably the best meal I have had in northern California.
After dining, I relaxed in my private hot tub, looked out the
window at the crashing surf and reflected upon how much I love this job.
Thu
Mar 25/04
Mike
Well, sometimes I don’t love it so much.
We woke up to steady rain. Keeping
two deluxe rooms at Sea Ranch a second night simply was not an option, so
we waded our way south on Hwy 1 in the hope that we could get far enough
south to get below the wicked front that was pouring buckets of water all
over the Northern Californian coast.
Brian, for some reason I have yet to fathom, had neglected to bring
his rain gear. Out came the
garbage bags. These, however,
are only so effective. But
still, we managed to slide, drip and shiver our way to Santa Rosa in hopes
of finding a hot tub. The
Holiday Inn didn’t have one but we stayed there anyway. Sometimes, the thought of getting back on a bike in the rain
is worth making a few compromises.
As I stated earlier, one of the
things about Marin and Sonoma Counties that distinguish them from, say,
Modoc County, is that there is no shortage of fine food and wine.
After several fine dining experiences over the course of the past
week, I would have been quite content with a bowl of brown rice,
vegetables and a little shrimp for dinner.
But no. Brian’s
enthusiasm for finding the best restaurant in any given locale had not
faded and we ended up at some vineyard restaurant that came highly
recommended in one of our CA reference books.
Perhaps it was the rain, perhaps
it was the service (as usual, we were seriously underdressed) or perhaps
we had just overdosed on rich cuisine, but this meal was quite a
disappointment given its $200.00 price tag.
Usually when we eat in restaurants this expensive, we at least
consider recommending them. Not
so this time.
The day’s adventure continued as
we blitzed to the nearest multiplex to treat ourselves to a rare road
movie. Unfortunately, given
the time we arrived, the only thing about to start was Jim Carey’s new
film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The theater was mostly empty but it appeared that those that were
in attendance were expecting to see Ace Ventura Pet Detective Part 3.
No such luck. This film was more like some surreal film noir shot with a
handheld camera, the rapid and jerky movements of which had me ready to
lose my grilled sea bass about 45 minutes into it.
In other words, exactly the kind of film Brian enjoys.
Go on to May04
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