BluepoofBikes Motorcycle Adventures

100 mile review of the F650GS

Yesterday was my last day of vacation, so I put it to good use by trying out the new bike.  

I was a little apprehensive at first since I wanted to head to the city for some bridge shots, but break-in procedure states to keep the bike under 5000 rpm.  That wound up being no problem -- I'd forgotten (how? dunno!) that the twin has SIX gears instead of the thumper's five.  Highway cruising at 75mph in 6th gear kept the bike happily under 5k rpm.

Obviously this isn't an ideal freeway ride review since I did have to watch the rpms, but I can confidently say that the bike will work out for those inevitable long hauls.  Downshifting into fifth had enough power to pass people with ease and cruising in sixth was comfortable.  Once the bike can go over 5k rpms, it'll go all day at 80mph, by which of course I mean the safe and legal freeway speed.

I had a little bit of wind buffeting -- not as bad as the taller riders whose reviews I'd read -- but I'm going to hold off on that because I do have a F800GS windscreen on order from the dealer.

30 miles of freeway later, I was in sunny San Francisco.  Time for 19th Avenue and the "stop and go traffic" test! 

Once again, the bike did great.  No overheating (or even warming), no complaints from my clutch hand, no problems putting a foot down every block on the San Francisco hills.

And then I was at Fort Point; time for bike porn!

After a few dozen pictures, I had some unintentional U-turn practice as I got hopelessly lost in the Presidio.  This happens every time I'm in the Presidio and you'd think that I'd remember my way out eventually, but no.  However, I can now say for certain that the twin F650GS is good at parking lot U-turns. ;)

Can't complain, though, as the Presidio district gives photos like this:

Baker Beach:

OK, enough Golden Gate Bridge!

I turned southwest, towards the Sutro district, to pick up the Great Highway south along the coast.

There's not much to review about this bike from this section of road; it's about 40mph and fairly straight, with enough stop lights tossed in to make you have to watch the traffic.

I did entertain myself at said stoplights by spotting myself in duplicate in the F650GS's cockpit.  Hey, look, it's me!  Hi, me!

The Great Highway does, of course, offer more opportunities for bike porn.  So here ya go.

I need to do a separate entry about the onboard computer on this thing -- one of the "non-optional options" that hiked up the MSRP.  I'm a gadget lover, so I confess to loving it, but I swear the thing is probably smarter than I am.

I do wonder why they gave the largest amount of real estate to the single most useless piece of information.  Does anyone ever really need to know what gear they're in?

Not surprisingly, the F650GS handles long sweepers really frickin' well.  The Devil's Slide area was pretty free of traffic and toodling along at about 50mph was fun and easy.   The bike holds a line really well in these conditions and I barely had to think about lane placement at all.  Yum.

Lunch at Cameron's in Half Moon Bay: spinach and artichoke soup with garlic fries.  Nom nom nom!

Time to hit some tighter twisties!  I kept going down the coast for a while, then peeled inland at San Gregorio to hit Stage Road.  Time for some one lane, 1st or 2nd gear curves!

Once again, the bike did great.  There were some times that I wanted "1st and a half" gear, but I think that was mainly because I was still keeping the bike under 5k rpm.  If I could have gone higher in 1st gear, I don't think I would have even noticed the gearing "problem".  Clearly I'll just have to go back to Stage Road over and over to retest. ;)

Along this section, the bike also hit triple-digit mileage! Woo!

I kept on the one-lane curvy theme back up through the Santa Cruz Mountains, turning onto Old La Honda and winding and weaving over the summit back towards Portola.

Once again, the bike was a ton of fun to ride.....and to photograph. :)

The forested portions of Old La Honda even gave me some wet-and-pine-needly curves to play on.  Not a slip nor a slide from the Beemer!  I didn't take many photos of this section as the lighting was bad and there were just enough cars so that I didn't want to block the road, but here's the idea.

So that was my shakedown ride of the new bike.  I really had no complaints at all -- none that won't be nonexistent once I can go above 5000 rpms, at least.  

Another day ride, this time to the coast!

Another free afternoon; another nice ride on the XT! I went south again, but this time went straight west to the coast.

My first photo stop was at Pescadero Beach, a beautiful little sandy beach. It's part of the Pescadero Marsh Natural Preserve, which contains over 500 acres of coastal wetlands.


 

But for the real photography stop of the trip, I went a few miles south to the Pigeon Point Bluffs, which is my favorite place for photographs along the peninsula coast. It always amazes me that this little section is open to vehicles, but I've read the signs many many many times and apparently it's A-OK. No camping, though.

Too bad I'm allergic to all those yellow flowers! ;)

 

Pigeon Point is a neat little historical spot. The surrounding area was named after the Carrier Pigeon clipper ship which shipwrecked there in 1853. Unfortunately for the Carrier Pigeon, the lighthouse itself was first lit in 1872 and at 115' is one of the tallest lighthouses in America. 

The lighthouse itself is closed to the public; a piece of the exterior fell off in December 2001 and the state is taking its sweet time to evaluate the building for safety. Visitors can still wander the ground, though, or even stay at the on-site hostel.

The bluffs facing away from the lighthouse:


 

What's a photo stop without some bike porn?


 

 

In a couple of weeks, there should be more ice plants blooming; I'll probably go back and retake those last two photos.

OK, OK, enough Pigeon Point bluffs. I could spend hours there on a clear day. 

I kept heading south on Hwy 1 until my next stop: Año Nuevo State Reserve.

I'd always wondered why the point was named for the new year; turns out that it was thus christianed by Spanish explorer Sebastién Vizcaíno on January 3, 1603 because it was the first point sighted in that year. 

Año Nuevo is best known for its seasonal habitants: elephant seals! The reserve has one of the largest mainland breeding colonies in the word for northern elephant seals. The breeding season lasts from mid-December though late March, so when I visited, there were a few adult females left and a lot of weaners. A sign at the visitors center reported just over 2000 weaners as of February 28, 2009.

To get to the seals this time of year, you need a permit from the ranger when you first enter the park. No one checked mine after I entered the park, but you do need to carry it with you. Other times of the year, the seal area is only accessible via guided tours, but starting April 1 -- coincidentally, the day I visited! -- self-guided tours are fine (provided you have your permit!).

The main seal viewing area is a 1.6-mile walk from the visitors center. It's a very easy hike along some marshlands, though bring water if it's a warm day as the only drinking fountain on site is back at the vistors center.


 

The marsh area is home to the red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake -- I didn't see any frogs but I was momentarily surprised when a twig on the path slithered away from me. 

Just after a little info kiosk on the path, you'll come across the sand dunes. I didn't have any trouble with the dunes even when wearing motorcycle boots, but I wouldn't go out there in stilettos or anything.

 

Can you spot the seal?

 

She wasn't too happy that I was taking her photo!


 

We really are lucky to have two breeding colonies within a day's ride. There are only about seven principal breeding areas in the world, most of which are on the California Coast. Other ride reports of mine have had many photos of seals from another big colony, Piedras Blancas down near Cambria.

Does this video work? Sorry for the background noise; it was super windy!




After my hike, I was running a little late for retuning home, so I didn't stop for photos on the return trip. 

Here are a few on-board pics, though...you can tell it was a gorgeous day to cut home through the Santa Cruz Mountains!

 

Why was I rushing home? Peter's hockey team was playing in the league championship game! I'm proud to announce that The Sahara Deserts won the Winter 2008-09 Stanley Keg!

 

Trip odometer: 102 miles
Moving Time: 2 hours, 56 minutes
Average Moving Speed: 34.6 mph


 

Day ride through the Santa Cruz Mountains

Thanks to a couple of weeks off of work, I'm finding myself with a few free days in which to play around on the XT. On this particular day, I decided to head south into the Santa Cruz Mountains. Better bring some Kleenex -- the spring pollen is already out with a vengence!

My first destination was Lexington Reservoir. Alma Bridge Road was nearly empty except for a couple of bicyclists. Even the dam workers were nowhere to be found. It was a nice smooth ride around the reservoir. Warning: skeletal hands!

It looks like there's some big construction going on at the Summit Store! The store was still open for business, but the parking lot was full of trucks and dirt.

I took Mt Bache over to Highland Way. Highland has some nice new pavement on it now that they're almost done with the construction from the most recent landslides. Yum! At the intersection with Ormbsy Trail/Buzzard Lagoon, I decided to finally take the latter. I've been riding the XT in the Bay Area for 4 years and I'd never been on Buzzard Lagoon...pfffft, and I call myself a dualsporter. The sign at the road says access is restricted until mid-April, but it was open all the way through on March 31. Partway down Buzzard Lagoon is a fork in the road; heading left continues down Buzzard Lagoon and heading right took me to a road that my GPS called Hinckley Creek Road but that Google Maps calls Aptos Creek Road. So there ya go. This mystery road twists and winds through the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. The park was originally built on land that was clearcut between 1883-1923, so it's neat to see so much forest regrown.

It wasn't a difficult road but it was definitely the most technical of the random dirt roads I've stumbled across in the Bay Area. I had fun with deep washouts, large chunks of slate, some sand, and of course twisty elevation changes.

Unfortunately, the road ended at a gate which looked impossible to get around. But that's OK; that just means backtracking on the same fun road. I retraced my steps back to the Buzzard Lagoon intersection, then took the latter down towards Corralitos. Buzzard Lagoon is a fun, easy dirt road that has beautiful scenery both within the forest and once it bursts out on the mountain ridge, overlooking Monterey Bay. Tall redwoods:

A fun little downhill section:

One of the open ridgetop sections:

Buzzard Lagoon winds up on Rider Road, which almost immediately intersects with Eureka Canyon. I headed south down into Soquel to top off my tank and have a Clif bar, when I received some bad new via email. I wasn't much in the mood to be a tourist and take photos after that, so I pointed north along East Zayante Road until Hwy 35. I took 35, also known as Skyline Blvd, all the way north to Hwy 92, then cut east to go home. I did stop along the way to pick up the current Sport-Touring.net photo tag:

Skyline offers a great view of Crystal Springs Reservoir, Hwy 280, and San Francisco:

Trip odometer: 147 miles Moving Time: 4 hours, 57 minutes Average Moving Speed: 29.7 mph

Puttering around California Caverns

We got an invitation to go caving at California Cavern with Viv, her boyfriend Aaron, and their friends Loren and Esther this weekend. 

Peter jumped at the idea, but caving isn't really my thing.  I liked doing the touristy thing at Carlsbad and Meramec Caverns on my bike trips, but four-hour excursions to places like "the meat grinder" and "pancake"?  Eh, no thanks.

So we tossed the XT in the back of the truck and I puttered around the area while the rest of the kids were being grinded and pancaked and muddied up.

When we got there, I started gearing up in the parking lot, only to discover.....

I'd left my boots at home.

Go me!  Well now, this is interesting.  The only shoes I had with me were my canvas hightop Converse sneakers.  Awesome.  There went my ideas of finding some cool offroad trails.  Oh, and did I mention it was raining?  What could be better than canvas shoes?  

Well, I made do.  I borrowed some gaffers tape from Esther and taped up my shoes the best I could.  Nothing but style and class, that's me.

Fortunately the riding itself was pretty cool.  Once I realized that Converse meant no Stanislaus National Forest roads for me, I asked the guides at the visitors center/giftshop for suggestions.  I wound up with a nice 50-mile loop on some great backroads, including 10 miles of easy dirt.

Michel Road, the road leading to and from California Cavern, is pretty neat in and of itself:

Another great back road, Old Gulch Road:

Fricot City Road is paved up until Fricot City (really just a few buildings; more on that in a second) and turns to dirt afterwards.

The paved section is wonderful and has great panoramas and vistas.

I met this little friend along the road in Fricot City.

The guide at California Cavern had told me that Fricot City is a "really weird little town".  I figured he meant in the same way that all rural Sierra foothill towns are a little weird...but no.  Fricot City really is sort of strange.  

Its main attraction seems to be the Rite of Passage high school, which looks like a normal school at first, until you notice the "visitation" parking areas.  The best I can find online is that it's a "residential treatment site" for "at-risk" boys.   According to the website, one of the core tenets is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is pretty neat stuff.  At any rate, there were no students or faculty around when I drove by, so the residence buildings looked like a gray and misty ghost town on this rainy day.

After the high school, the road turns to easy dirt.  I took it slow, second gear, because of the whole no-boots thing.  I stopped for a bazillion photos and had a great time.

It started raining in earnest as I neared the town of San Andreas and the gaffers tape on my shoes was giving up.  I stopped at the Calaveras County Museum, which was spectacular and well worth the $3 admission.

My favorite part of the museum was the jailyard, which included photos of the sheriffs of Calaveras County from 1849 - present.

The whole museum really is cool, though, and I definitely recommend it if you're at all interested in California history.

The ride back to California Cavern was pretty uneventful and I hung around the gift shop for a while waiting for the gang to get back from caving.

You can see the shoes didn't really work out so well:

The triumphant -- but muddy -- cavers return!

Yuck!

All in all, everyone had a great time.  Though next time I'll try to remember my boots.

Dualsporting near Seattle

I spent the weekend up in Seattle, dualsporting with Colleen.

Click here to read about it!

Frank Raines, part 2

OK, so last we left our intrepid adventurers, they were about to encounter The Hill.

After dissecting the following events with the benefit of hindsight, it seems that the problem was that Peter thought that he was riding up The Hill on the DRZ to scout for the rest of us; unfortunately, Doug and Don thought that he was leading, so they followed him up.

Doug will be the first to admit that he has no idea how he made it up The Hill. Beginner's luck?

Don wasn't so lucky -- when Doug slowed down at the top, Don had to brake while he was still behind Doug, and Don's TW200 went ker-plopsky.

Andy and I were still at the bottom at this point, parked, saying things to one another like, "oh, HEYYYY-L no".

For some reason that is probably unknown even to Andy, he decided that he was going to try to make it up after all. To be fair, he did make it up about 3/4 of the way before losing traction and sliding back down the hill. On his side.

So now Peter and Doug are at the top, Don and Andy are resting partway up, and I'm parked down at the bottom.

Don's bike is easily righted since it's close to the top and very lightweight. Andy's bike was a little trickier. I helped by staying out of the way and, y'know, taking pictures of people doing actually useful things.

The guys get Andy's bike back up on the rubber bits, but there's a problem. It won't shift out of neutral -- rather, the lever itself will shift but the clutch won't engage, or disengage, or something. No power was getting from the clutch to the final drive. "Oh poo," we said.

So that decided what we'd already mostly figured out -- we would have to get everyone back down The Hill since the park entrance was downhill and mechanical issues meant the day was pretty much over.

Peter rode his DRZ down without trouble and parked it in a flat area at the base of The Hill. Doug happily turned his bike over to Peter as well, who rode it down and parked it. My bike was a little tricky, since it was far enough up The Hill that I couldn't back it down; Peter wound up riding it UP and THEN BACK DOWN The Hill. I will insist until my dying day that I married a superstar.

As you can see in that pic, Doug and Andy were still hanging out at Andy's bike. Eventually, that bike also made it down to the flat area, where I got out my tools and started checking the obvious parts. His clutch cable and shift lever were both fine; I started taking off the clutch cover before realizing that it was a bigger deal than it should have been, due to being a BMW. Thank you, Die Korp, for necessitating removing the water pump to take off the clutch cover. Oh, but I found the drain bolt that has the coolant under pressure. Thanks for that, too. *spits out antifreeze* Pfeh!

About this time, I suddenly heard Peter yelling "BRAKE! BRAKE BRAKE BRAKE!" and Andy and I looked up from the antifreeze puddle in horror to see Don SCREAMING past us on his TW200 going much much much too fast, his legs sticking straight out and the front wheel wobbling like mad until BAM! Don flopped face first into the ground with a sickening thud.

I ran to my tailbag for my first aid kit while the others bolted over to pull the bike off of Don.

He was conscious and insisting that he was OK, but had a nasty gash on his face and he let us remove his glasses and lay him back down on his back. I asked the usual "Who are you? Who am I? Where are we? What day is it?" questions and he had no trouble. To be on the safe side, Andy and I removed his helmet using the two-man system, which was harder than I remembered. I should practice that.

Anyway, luckily the only things needed out of my first aid kit were the antiseptic wipes and band-aids. Don had a mouthful of dirt and a bunch of scratches and bruises but his helmet and gear did its job and he's already looking forward to riding with us again.

Don's bike was now unrideable, too, with bent forks and the mirror glass shattered out of one mirror.

We decided to leave the broken bikes at the flat spot and all re-convene at a shaded camping area near the entrance. Don and Andy walked down; Doug, Peter, and I rode.

Don had a friend in Modesto who could come and get him and his bike, but Andy was pretty trapped. Long story short, Peter and I decided to ride home, get our pickup, and come back for Andy. Because Doug is also a superstar, he offered to stay at the park with Andy until we returned.

We left the park around 2:30, got home around 4:30 (after an admittedly awesome ride over Mt Hamilton), left home around 5:00 and got back to the park around 7:00.

We loaded Andy's bike into the truck and said goodbye to Doug.

Andy took us out to dinner and a beer in Livermore on the way home and we dropped him off at Cal BMW around 10pm.

So that was our day at Frank Raines. Apparently we don't really learn anything, since we're already planning an upcoming trip to Hollister Hills. ;)

Frank Raines, part 1

In the immortal words of my coworker: "Why is there so much dirt on your bike?"

The short answer:

Andy, Don, and Doug from the Chain Gang met up with Peter and I at Emil Villa's in Livermore on Sunday for some great dualsport riding.

First, we had much yummy goodness.

(Yes, I ate more than bacon -- though who would want to? -- my waffle just arrived a few minutes late.)

Andy, Doug, and I had our F650GSs; Peter rode his NEW DR-Z400S (!! more on that in a bit); Don brought his Yamaha TW200.

We took Mines Road from breakfast down to Frank Raines Off-Road Park.

The original plan was to get a trail map and play around on the easy jeep roads but, unfortunately, that plan was right out the window when the ranger said they were out of trail maps. No problem, we said, "what could possibly go wrong?"

Well, what went wrong was that we pretty much instantaneously got lost.

I believe that I was the first to bite the dust as I was leading...I tried to stop on what I THOUGHT was a flat section, but it wound up being sloped and my foot couldn't touch ground. Rather than pulling a muscle trying to save it, I just let the bike tip over. Plop. That'd be the photo up above there.

Doug came up behind me, looked at me and my sleepy bike, and decided to join in the fun.

Peter hides behind a bush and pretends he doesn't know us:

So, hey, how about that DR-Z400S, huh? I found it on Craigslist last week and we bought it on Saturday night.

Here's another pic of it:

Peter seems really happy with it (which, of course, makes me thrilled -- more riding with my sweetie!). He was certainly kicking all of our asses at the park.

Which brings us to the fateful hill. Or, as I like to call it, The Hill.

But I must now leave the internets to go vote -- and you should, too! -- and thus I must return to this blog entry at a later time. I promise there are many more entertaining photos of carnage.

New Idria Loop

My ride report from yesterday's ST.n Bay Area Dual Sport ride got a little long, so instead of posting it all here, click here for the write-up.

A fun little XT ride

I had to go into work for a little while on Saturday so, on my way home, I decided to check out a local rural road that I'd always wondered about.

The first couple of miles are paved, but that's ok -- the scenery is beautiful!!

I have to admit that I went around a gate at the end of the paved section -- the first time I've ever done so. Normally I don't do that, but I'd heard from mountain biking friends and coworkers that this section is very lightly-trafficked and I likely wouldn't annoy anyone.

It had rained pretty hard the day before so the trail was perfect: muddy enough to be fun and slippery but the ground wasn't saturated yet so it was easy to maintain control.

Since I was alone and no one knew where I was, I took it pretty cautiously and never even had a pucker moment. Lots of smiles, though!

I was glad I had my knobby Kendas on!

A fun hairpin:

Sadly, another gate appeared and this time, I didn't go around it. I walked a little past the gate and found the road was pretty washed out. There was a mountain bike detour around the washed-out section but it was very narrow and technical -- again, since I was alone, I decided to skip it and instead just turn around.

These would be pretty fun jumps in the dry!

I came upon some mountain bikers when I was almost back to the original gate, but instead of seeming angry to see me, they waved and said "hi". In fact, there was a bicyclist at the first gate who waited to make sure I could get my XT back around it without trouble. We got to chatting and he told me about his R1200GS -- he laughed and said he didn't think that big pig of a bike would make it around the gate...but he wished he could try! ;)

I don't think I'll make it a habit to go around gates, but I was very glad that I didn't seem to make anyone angry that I did it this time. It's important to me to be a "good representative" for our sport.

It was just a couple of miles of dirt, but what fun!

No one told me it was a Funduro ride!

A couple of weeks ago, violagal on the Chain Gang website posted that she would be in the Bay Area while on her cross-country trip from Vermont -- would anyone be interested in riding together? Why yes, yes we would!

We all met in Greenbrae, a tiny little burb just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Even at 9am, the weather in San Francisco was gorgeous and completely fog-free -- very unusual!

A little boy was eyeing us up in the parking lot; Cole made his day by asking if he'd like to sit on his bike. The little boy's mom made MY day by being happy and enthusiastic about that and talking about how she can't wait to get him a little dirtbike. Cool moms rock.

Shortly thereafter, the guest of honor arrived. Miriam is quite possibly the coolest person I've met in a while: after defending her thesis in astrophysics from MIT, she's decompressing by taking two months to ride her F650 around the country.

We headed west on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and it occurred to me that I'd never actually been on that road before. It's a fun sweeping ride through sections of trees and wide open areas.

When we hit Hwy 1 at Point Reyes Station, Don took the lead from Cole and led us towards Occidental. Our original plan was to eat at Point Reyes Station and call it a day, but the weather was gorgeous and none of us had any other plans, so we decided to make it a much longer ride.

Lunch was at Howard's Cafe in Occidental. I'd last eaten there in August 2002, when Diana and I led a Wind Dancers ride up through this area. Great memories!

Three Funduros and me:

Cole, me, Miriam, Don:

During lunch, Miriam and I agreed that it was a shame that Howard's didn't have ice cream. "Aha," Don said, "the best ice cream in the Bay Area is at the Chocolate Cow in Sonoma!" And so we made plans to ride to Sonoma....via the coast.

We headed out of Occidental on Coleman Valley Road, another little gem that heads west out to the Pacific.

Don on Coleman Valley:

Cole:

Miriam:

Coming up on the ocean:

Cole left us at Hwy 1 once we hit the ocean, since he had to head back to San Francisco and get some other stuff done. Miriam, Don, and I turned back east onto the Bodega Highway -- within spitting distance of our lunch stop in Occidental -- and wound our way to Sonoma.

Lots of vineyards in Napa County:

The Chocolate Cow lived up to its reputation -- I had a yummy chocolate milkshake and was sorely tempted to try out the truffles.

Me and Miriam at the Chocolate Cow:

After the sugar intake, we headed south towards Sears Point raceway. Miriam was going to head west back to San Rafael, Don would go east towards his home in Stockton, and I was heading south.

Miriam right before we split off:

Don heading east on Hwy 37:

Approaching the Carquinez Bridge to cross from the North Bay to the East Bay:

All in all, it was a wonderful day. Good riding, good company, and a new friend! Can't ask for more than that.