BluepoofBikes Motorcycle Adventures

13-mile ride on the XT

See, I told you it wouldn't be long before I had a motorcycle update.  Ye of little faith.

Today was warm and sunny (ha ha, East Coasters) and my back was feeling decent, so Peter and I decided to go to lunch and run an errand on the bikes.  

Since we're not exactly racking up the miles lately, our game plan has been to rotate through the bikes so that no one bike sits for a completely unrealistic amount of time.  My last ride (in early December) was on the Beemer, so today I took the XT, which last saw daylight at the end of September.

Peter was going to take the DRZ, for similar reasons, but the battery was utterly toast.  Oops.  Peter now has 2 out of 3 bikes with completely dead-as-doornails batteries, which tells me the boy needs to ride more, hrm? So he took his one remaining bike, the V-Strom that he recently bought from Tony.  Um, did I mention that Peter bought Tony's V-Strom?  If not, there you go.  

About 20 seconds after leaving our driveway, the XT ran out of gas halfway down the hill.  For the 99% of you who have never been to our house, we live on a one-lane twisty hillside road.  So it was exciting for me (and more so for Peter, who was following me, and even more so for the car that was tailgating him) to suddenly sputter to a stop around a blind hairpin.  My bad!  I wasn't expecting that as the bike only had 80 miles to the tank, but apparently I had forgotten about the 192832398 times I'd just let it idle in the driveway for 10 minutes at a time.

At the gas station, I looked back through my records (I use Gas Cubby for the iPhone) and learned I'd last filled up the XT on April 4, 2009.  Sigh.

Anyway, we rode to Jersey Joe's for lunch and then on to Jo Ann Fabrics, where I needed to pick up some embroidery needles.  Yes, I do needlepoint.  What the hell else can I do while sitting on the couch?  Stupid back injury.

OK, I look like a dork and the sun is in my eyes, but at least you have proof that I rode my motorcycle somewhere!

Overall, it was a great experience.  The whole ride wound up being just about 13 miles, which is now officially my longest ride since June (watch out, Iron Butt members).  

I had some stiffness in my back, but nothing terrible, and only a bit of the glute burning that I've come to associate with overextending myself. There was a bit of sacral pain at the very end of the ride, but I was happy to specifically notice it as that means most of my life is now sacral pain-free, which is a marked improvement from a month or two ago.

So, not sure when I'll next ride again, but I'm happy to report that this ride -- however tiny -- was still successful.

What's this? A motorcycle ride??

Your eyes do not deceive you! I went on -- drum roll -- a motorcycle ride today!!

OK, don't get that excited; it was about 7 miles long.  But it was the first time I'd been on a bike since June, so I was still grinning in my helmet the whole time.

All ready and rarin' to go!

It was a gorgeous day, if a little warm. 

The heat made the views of San Francisco a little hazy.

I stumbled upon Vista Park and decided to stop and look around.

It turned out to be a neat little city park, a pilot site for a native plant/pesticide free park.  They have a little landscaping area set up with examples of native plants and a little info about each one.

Behind the landscaping area is a trailhead.  Looks inviting, huh!

I took the opportunity to sit in the shade for a few moments partway along the trail.  I didn't see any of the aforementioned wildlife; only the native beer bottles and discarded trash that people seem to feel appropriate to dump in parks.  Grrr.

I'm pretty sure "hiking in motorcycle gear on a 95F day" isn't one of my PT-approved activities, so I turned around and walked back to the bike.

The round trip was only about 7 miles, but it was riding!  It felt great to ride the XT -- though I'm not entirely sure the new clutch lever I put on was disengaging the clutch completely -- and I'm looking forward to more tiny trips.  :)

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

XT225 tires

There's a tire survey currently on XT225.com.  Here's my post.

•    Type of riding you do (on/off road mix)

60%/40% (on/off road)

• Tire size

Front: 90/90-21
Rear: 120/80-18

• Tire make/model

Metzeler Sahara 3

• Price w/date

Total would be $241.90 (plus tax, S&H) if ordered 12/3/08

• Where purchased (include link if available)

Southwest Moto Tires

• How many miles you've used the tires

~800 miles

• Indicate front and/or rear

Both

• Wet, dry, mud performance as applicable

Dry pavement: Excellent. 
Wet pavement: Very good.
Dry dirt: Excellent.
Mud: Very good. 
Rocks: Very good.

• Your comments, recommendations, observations and review.

These are my favorite tires for my kind of riding on the XT225. If I did 100% off roading, I would want something knobbier, like the Kenda Trakmaster, but the Saharas are perfect for dualsporting.  

• Any other information you deem helpful

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.

Altitude Sickness ride report

The Altitude Sickness ride report is (finally) done!

Clicky clicky for the write-up!

Altitude Sickness Rally, Tom's Place, CA

I took 350 pictures at the Chain Gang rally in the Eastern Sierras this weekend!   

I haven't gone through them all yet -- much less written a ride report -- so to tide you over, here are a few teasers.

Andy (Señor Peligro), Ranier (commo_soulja), Mike (Tex_Tibertus) in Yosemite on Friday:

Tom's Place must have known we were coming:

Nancy (Red) going north on Hwy 182 on Saturday:

Yet more Nancy (Red), this time leaving Bodie:

The BBQ on Saturday night:

Nancy and I found Rock Creek, which the campground was named for.  I loved lying in the tent at night and listening to the creek. :)

The Eastern Sierras do not suck.

Me on my solo ride on Sunday:

Mike (Tex_Tibertus) and his wife Andrea at "The Tub" hot springs on Sunday evening:

Mike (Tex_Tibertus), Ranier (commo_soulja), and Andy (Señor Peligro) along Sonora Pass on our way home:

 

New windscreen for the black XT!

I love the TurboCity windscreen on the white XT so much that I got one for the black XT, too.

Between that and the Happy Trail sideracks that I put on last week, the XT is ready for a fall full of touring and camping.  

It's funny...I've always felt an affinity towards the white XT.  I think it was because I did the SF-Seattle ride on it; you know, got it all tour-worthy and packed up and stuff.  I never really felt the same way towards the black XT...until I put the racks and windscreen on it.

The (black) XT is going on a Sierras ride in early September, camping and everything.  Hopefully I can get another ride in on it before then.

Dualsporting near Seattle

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

Click here to read about it!