A great picture I found online

A recent article about women who race sidecars can be found here: The joy of the passenger sport

I’m having withdrawals! And the mountain roads are waiting!

Here are some cool sidecars we found online:

We checked out the New Idria area because it looked like an interesting ride. We looked up the town of Idria and found out there was a ghost town nearby. We thought that would be an exciting trip. The ride down there was great. We stopped at Flapjacks Country Cafe for lunch on the way down. We’ve been there before. The food and service has always been good. Lots of bikers stop here and they have a nice outdoor patio.

The rudest and meanest lady we've ever encountered!

The Dragon Lady: This time around we had the pleasure of sitting near the meanest most negative woman in all of California. She continued to yell at the staff about how the food was horrible, everything was “just wrong” and that she wasn’t enjoying her meal. We continued to stare at her hoping she’d keep it down but I think she must have been drunk as she seemed to be trapped in her own horribly negative world. Her boyfriend/husband and kids just sat quietly as she continued to complain. What hell they must live in. We made sure we told the staff how much WE enjoyed being there. We learned that she was, in fact, a drunk who comes by often and complains rudely every time. Why do you keep coming back lady? Anyway, make sure you avoid this woman at all costs.

Awesome views on Panoche Rd.

Panoche Road and New Idria Road: These were amazing roads. Very green and beautiful. Lots of cows, rolling hills, streams, and the roads weren’t too bad. The road is a bit windy here (no switch backs, casual turns with some one lane areas) and New Idria became pretty straight for a bit but very pleasant. New Idria Rd. Is rougher than Panoche Road and we went through a few flooded areas but nothing that any bike couldn’t get through. We finally got to the dirt portion of the road (after about 25 miles on New Idria Road) when it got pretty bumpy and muddy. Christopher tried to ‘test the mud’ head on to make sure it was okay for me to go on (what a sweet man). Well, our tires are far from knobby and didn’t provide enough traction for this type of road. He went down pretty quick. The mud was pretty damn deep though. We had a good laugh. Took lots of pictures and managed to slip and slide around until we got the bike back up. We were just at the beginning of the town so we decided to walk.

So our tires aren't really for riding in the mud. We learned this pretty quick.

New Idria Ghost Town: Alright folks. This is not a neat, tidy ghost town like Tombstone or others that tourists flock to. This place is creepy. I mean REALLY creepy. Signs everywhere say NO STOPPING, CAMPING, OR PARKING… oh yes and “F#*$ Sierra Club”, “Sierra Club Sucks” and our favorite, “Keep The F*(& Out”. It seemed like if you DID stop, you were sure to meet your demise. As we walked up the hill to the main part of the town we saw a man and his kid. This put us at ease a bit to see other people. As they soon drove away he warned us, “Be careful. This place is scary.” We laughed and headed deeper in the town. This guy was right. It felt really scary especially after they left. These buildings look like squatters frequent here and it just felt like there were people in the hills or deep in those houses watching us. Mattresses and furniture were broken and thrown all over the outside of the houses. Windows were broken, canned food was all over the patios (which means someone probably brought them there recently – they didn’t look old…) Old shoes and things were laying everything. The place was really really creepy. We kept thinking zombies would come out of these houses at any moment. I soon felt stupid for going in there on foot and we quickly decided we needed to leave. Now I love a haunted house and a good scare now and then, but folks, these place is REALLY scary. Take my word for it. Drive your vehicle through if you must go, don’t stop, and bring a weapon if you visit this place.

Beemer Love

In the Santa Cruz Mountains

On the way home from Napa

Near Coralitos and Soquel

We miss the R1100S

I recently flew home for a few days where we took a nice trip from Santa Cruz to Morro Bay down the coast then headed inland on the way home. It was mostly in the rain, but we had such a great time. Man, the GS is awesome! I have to say it is probably the funnest and best bike I’ve owned!

foggy and rainy day

Hearst Castle

GS

I don’t know if he was telling the truth, but I do know this, I am definitely in the former catagory.  I’ve laid down every motorcycle I’ved owned.  Whether it was in the garage, parking lot, doing a U turn on a severe uphill, or getting hit by a car, I’ve laid down my bike.  Am I an unsafe rider?  Not at all.  Each one of the incidents happened as a result of another party hitting ME.  (Seriously, I will create a section with my crash experiences so you will know I’m telling the truth…or at least an excuse)  This most recent one, however, was the worst.

Three months ago, I was riding down a well travelled, well paved road near the house.  It was a backroad that had its share of twists and turns and straights that ran through somewhat small towns.  I had been riding back home from lunch in San Francisco and was about six miles from my house.  This road has pullouts for slower traffic to go into when there are speedier vehicles behind. 

So the scene is set.  I’m riding behind a big truck.  I’ve just caught up to it, but nowhere near it.  The truck flashes it’s right hand turn signal and pulls over…well over into the large shoulder.  The truck is showing brake lights as to let me pass.  As I make the pass, the truck speeds up and is now side by side with me and moving into my lane.  This begins to push me into the opposing traffic lane, as the truck would have hit me if I stood my ground in my lane.  As I realized that I may either get hit by the truck or continue riding in the opposing lane risking a head-on collision due to the blind turns on this curvy road, I decided that I needed to get out of trouble.  I did so by speeding up to pass the truck in the middle of a somewhat sharp turn.  In the process of speeding up and passing the truck, the truck hits my rear tire and I cannot maintain my lean in the turn.  My path has straightened out in the middle of the turn…right into a metal beam guardrail.  

The guardrail is there to prevent vehicles from flying into a ditch abut 25′ down in case they missed the turn.  The guardrail did its job perfectly when I hit it.  The Kawasaki Z750S didn’t fly into the ditch, but I did.  Upon hitting the guardrail, I was thrown headfirst off the bike at about 30 mph and I flipped and tumbled like a rag doll 25′ down and about 25′ away from the site of the impact.

Luckily, I remained conscious and checked myself for injury to any body parts.  Spine good, neck good.  I try to stand up…nothing doing.  There was a a hot flash of pain in my right foot and I knew there was something wrong.  It was something that I hadn’t felt before, with the additional familiar feeling of fresh blood seeping out of a wound (I was kid once, and I had lots of kid accidents resulting in blood loss!).  After realizing that something was severely wrong with my foot, I look down to make sure it’s actually still attached to my leg.  Yup.  

After a half assed sigh of relief, I realized that I can’t bend my left leg without a significant amount of pain from my knee.  No warm blood feeling.  Just major pain.  I figured a tear of some sort.  Turns out I was right.  Partial tear in my medial collateral ligament (MCL).

The big injury was the right foot, though.  Somehow the crash caused my ankle to dislocate, two bones in my foot (4th and 5th metatarsals) to dislocate, and a major laceration on the top of my foot.  Nothing that a couple pins can’t fix!

So after a few months in a cast and crutches, my gigantic wound on my foot has healed up, but I’m still working on walking without a limp.  My right ankle and left knee still don’t have the range of motion that they should, but I’m in physical therapy working on them.  My foot and ankle are still swollen beyond belief, so I literally have a “cankle”.  That should go away with time, too, though.  It better…

The driver of the truck?  Hit and run.  The sign of a true coward.  I could’ve been dead, and he/she just left, and that person caused the accident!  No use getting too upset about it anymore… 

I hope this is the last time I “lay my bike down”.  If I ever do again, then I hope it’s like the people in the Craig’s list ads that say, “Small scratch on the tank because my wife dropped it in garage when she was trying to move it”.  (sidenote:  that seems like such bullshit when I read that in Craig’s list)

I did go for a ride through the mountains with Sarah already.  We went two up on Hwy 1 North to Pescadaro to  Sky Londa to Saratoga and looped back taking Summit Rd to  Old San Jose/Soquel Road.  Only 112 miles, but about four hours of mountain twisties.   

I was a little tentative at first, considering I couldn’t even walk properly, but Sarah and I both had to ride.  Yes…we had to.  

For now, the motorcycle adventures aren’t quite what they were, but this is just temporary.  It is winter anyways, right?

So, after looking for a few hours online , I found a few campsites available in Humboldt Redwoods State Park.  We’d be able to camp and ride some awesome roads on one trip…kind of like our Yosemite trip, but we’d be able to camp out longer at one site.  I’d planned on using one site as our basecamp and riding some loops each day, then returning to the basecamp each night.  The loops were awesome rides, and each night at camp was a blast!  Great riding, great scenery, great food (every night MEAT grilled over an open fire).  Just awesome.

Sarah: we had an awesome time! Luckily, Chris is an awesome cook on the camp fire. We had steaks, chili, and chops. Not bad for ‘roughing’ it I was sad that this would be our last trip for several months as I was heading back to Denver to finish up my school. But this allows us time to figure out our next trip in the winter!

Day 1:  Santa Cruz to Humboldt Redwoods State Park. (340 miles)

We left early in the morning and took Hwy 1 all the way up.  Took over 10 hours, but, as usual, it was a lot of fun riding the coastline.  Plus, we never ride on the freeway unless absolutely necessary.

Which brings me to a tangent:  I think it’s sad to see motorcycles traveling on the I-5 between Los Banosin the North and Los Angeles in the South.  It could be out of necessity that these motos are on the freeway, like time constraints, medical reasons, etc., but…what a boring ride…hell, it’s boring in a car, so I don’t want to even imagine what’s it’s like on a motorcycle.  I guess if I wanted to just wear out the middle of my tires, then that would be the best ride to take.   (Gotta love tangents.)

We get to the Hidden Springs campground right at sundown, pick up some firewood, set up camp, and plan for the next day’s ride.  (insert picture)

The campground at Hidden Springs had amazingly secluded sites, considering how many sites there were.  We had a site 124 (I think) and it was perfect.  The vegatation that surrounded each site kept everything private, unlike some of the other campgrounds in the HRSP, where everyone is out in the open and one can see from one side of the campground to the other.

Day 2:  Loop from Hidden Springs Campground to Capetown to Fernbridge and back (130 miles, seven hours)

After waking up to the sights and sounds of nature (the birds chirping, the sunlight permeating through the tent, and me yawning and moaning for coffee), we start our day with a hearty breakfast of eggs, spam, toast (with butter and jelly, of course), and coffee (nothing beats a french press out in the woods).  Our first loop would be considerably short, however, it still took a long time due to the roads and terrain.

We made our way through the HRSP on the Avenue of Giants.  What great ride to be amongst what truly are giants.  Riding at a slow speed to enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells is definitely the way to go.  No point in speeding because there are plenty enough cars on that road.

We knew we started to approach the coast when the temp began to drop and it got downright chilly when going 45-50mph.  The high speed winds didn’t help, as they just pushed Sarah and I around,  but made for some really neat coastline action; there were lots of violent wave crashes and the color of the water was an odd brownish gray (probably due to the high wind conditions stirring everything up?).    As we finished the coastal ride and began to turn inland towards Fernbridge, the road began to narrow and get a little goaty.

Fernbridge was a perfect place to stop for some food.  There are quite a few restaurants/eateries on the main strip.  After lunch, we stopped by Jamie’s Jams, a tiny hole in the wall store  that sold fresh jams and preserves.  We were quite surprised to see that there wasn’t a store clerk in sight, and that you actually purchased the jams by the honor system.  After putting the eight bucks (pricey!) into the money holer, we got the red plum preserves and headed out.

Day 3: Loop from HRSP to Fortuna to Weaverville to Willow Creek and back (320 miles, 8 hours)

This loop had lots of scenery and very few cars on the road with us.  It started out really cold, but ended up warm as we made our way back to basecamp.

Heading north from basecamp on the 101, we exited HWy 36.  It was a scenic route that led us east into Shasta Trinity Forest.  It was a gradual climb, and higher we got, the colder it became.

We had to pull over more than a couple times to warm up before getting to the juntion with Hwy 3.   The turn onto the 3 was kind of tricky.  It came up real fast at the top of a hill and we had to make a quick left onto the 3 towards Weaverville.

We took a brake for lunch in Weaverville at a Noelle’s Garden Cafe on Main St.  It was a gorgeous day and the place had some really cute outdoor seating, where we had studel!  I was thinking apple strudel, but it turned out that they were actual meals!  I had the ham and egg strudel, Sarah had the spinach and cheese strudel.  They were both yummy.  The town itself was very rustic and had looked like an town you might imagine from the old west.

After lunch we headed on Hwy 299.  Great ride with lots of high speed sweepers.  The whole road paralled the Trinity River (I think that’s the name).  After having the river well below us on the left for most of the ride, we finally hit the 101 and went south to Eureka.

We stopped at the Lost Coast Brewery for some nachos and a beer.  Afterwards, made our way back towards basecamp stopping in a the really small town of Scotia for some chicken to barbeque for the night.

Day 4:  Headed back home (sort of)

On this last leg of the journey, Sarah and I decided to try out some other routes inland, since we’ve been up and down the coast on several occasions.  We decided to see what Napa Valley had to offer in terms of riding.  There wasn’t much.  But there were A LOT of wineries…it is Napa Valley.  It was really hot, and we changed our minds about heading home and decided to stay out another night.

We took the 101 South for a while and broke off east on the 175 and headed towards Calistoga hoping to find a place to stay.  We couldn’t find anything that was in a town that had anything to do!  Sure we saw places to stay, but the towns were sooo small, and we wanted somewhere to hang out, besides in the hotel.

We decided to hit the coast again and hoped to find a place to stay.  We didn’t think it would be too hard as it was the Monday of Memorial Day and everyone was heading home from their holiday.  We took the 128 west out of Calistoga and headed towards Stewarts Point on the coast.  That road was very interesting as the tail end of it had a small town, in the mountains right before the road descended to the coast.

Once e headed south on Hwy 1, we began to get a little anxious to find a place to stay because the sun was going down.  We finally found the Salt Point Lodge just north of Jenner.  It was your standard hotel by the coast.  Great views, high price.  Side note, we spent a lot of money on dinner at the restaurant at the hotel.  The food was mediocre, at best, and  way overpriced.  But when you’re the only game in town, I guess you can do that.

We headed home the next morning taking the freeways (yuck) to make up time.  It didn’t matter, though, because we had a wonderful time taking in the gorgeous weather, scenery, and roads Northern California had to offer!

Panel off

I always wondered what I would do I if I my battery went dead while I was out riding.  I mean, the thought of coming back to my moto and it not starting up, isn’t pleasant.  

Thankfully, my battery hasn’t died, yet.  So what’s the point of this post?  Well, it didn’t die on me.  It actually died when Sarah took the BMW for a ride. 

Fortunately, she was able to call me  in the afternoon in Santa Cruz and I made it on time to San Jose BMW to get a battery.  After getting to Berkeley (she was in a weeklong class at Cal), I proceeded to change the battery for the first time…on a slope…on the street…without the proper tools and without a manual.  I figured it would be really simple…but then Sarah reminded me that it’s BMW.  To BMW’s defense, it was relatively easy to figure out, but damn were there a lot of screws to take out! 

After about an hour and a half (I was using this multi-sized allen wrench tool that was not conducive to easy removal of the screws, but coincidently, very adept at causing me to gouge my knuckles on hard parts), the job was done.  Sarah was super helpful and without her, it would’ve taken me twice the time.  I know she could’ve done it herself, though.  (Thanks for letting me pretend like I know something about motorcycles, honey.)

Although it wasn’t the most ideal situation for me to be changing the battery for the first time without a manual (still don’t have one), it was a great learning experience. 

I’m still wondering what I’m going to do when my battery conks out on ME.

Side Stand Up : The World's Only Motorcycle Radio Road Show

Sarah & Christopher: Thank you to Tom and Jerry at Side Stand Up for having us on the show! We had a great time and hope we can be on again in the future! Check out Side Stand Up online and the episode from July 15, 2008.