1019.8 miles in California reloaded

[Major_Grooves]

Six years ago I did a short tour round California on a Harley. I'm heading out there again next month so I thought I'd take the opportunity to re-post my write-up and pics. Here you go:

WARNING This is a long post. I don’t blame you if you can’t be bothered reading it – but once I got started typing I just wanted to mention everything. It will probably act more as a record of my route for me!


There are photo links throughour the post relevant to where I was, but if you just want to see the pictures go to the end of the thread for a link.

This thread has been posted to bikechatforums.com, bayarearidersforum.com, and sport-touring.net.



San Francisco

So, after a week of listening to science seminars from 0830 to 2100 every day in San Diego, it was time to fly up to San Francisco.

The next day I walked from my Hotel in Chinatown to the Harley rental place. SF is not a good place to look lost in. It's a pretty cool city but I have never seen so many beggars, and people sleeping in the streets! It makes London and Paris look good.

Mapman

Anyway standing around with my map, "mapman" comes up to help me. "Hey man where you looking for? I'm the mapman!" I tell him where I'm aiming for and he proceeds to walk me most of the way there. "My black ass used to earn $70K but I lost my job and now I'm the map man!" As we walked into the less busy area near the retal shop I did have visions of me getting mugged, but I managed to convince him I was okay from there.

As I walked the last bit I saw a familiar orange cruiser riding by, and I have to admit I felt relived/excited that someone would be riding with me that day. So at the shop, Thorick from Bay Area Riders Forum was waiting for me.

Had to phone credit card company to get limit extended to cover liability insurance. Then I checked out the bike for and damage (photo).


Who needs a helmet?!

Next was to pick a helmet. I had decided not to bring mine, as I couldn't be bothered with it on 6 flights. Mistake! They were the worst collection of helmets I have ever seen. They were nearly all half helmets, and all looked like they had been in major crashes. I managed to pick a medium sized open faced helmet. My helmet is an XL, and this M rattled about on my head. It would have been absolutely no use in an accident and that made me a tad nervous! I found that when I was riding at anything above 65mph the thing would act like a parachute and really pull my head back. I think if I hadn’t decided to wear earplugs after a few miles I would be completely deaf by now!

First off Thorick guided me away from the shop. I nearly dropped the bike the first time we stopped ad the huge pegs were where I would normally put my feet on the ground. Luckily Thorick didn't seem to notice me nearly collapse into him!

The bike falls apart on Redtree road

He then took us on a detour to some very twisty roads called Redtree road. Definitely the twistiest roads I had been on. On the first corner I took I heard Scrape... and thought I was getting the pegs down. This wasn't a good sign as I was taking the corner at about 20mph with barely any lean. Anyway we stopped to get a foggy view over San Francisco (photo), and found the heat shield had fallen off (photo). I think I would have felt cheated if I had hired a Harley and something hadn't fallen off!

ChiPs

At that point a police biker pulled up and asked if we'd seen any cars drive off the embankment! He then let me have a photo on his bike (photo) which was very cool of him.

Dodgy roads

Then it was onto some busy Interstate roads to head towards Highway 120. Whilst the Highways generally had good surfaces, the Interstate roads were abysmal. There were at time huge cracks between the lanes, which looked a few inches wide and deep. Most of the lanes were covered in cracks. Most of the time I chose the lane based on whether or not it huge deep lorry grooves in them or not. At one point we were riding at about 70mph and must have gone over a 2 inch bump from the new tarmac onto the old. I though I might have buckled the wheel at that point as it gave me a hell of a shock through the arms.

Hells Angels on Highway 120

Eventually we got onto Highway 120 (photo) and it felt absolutely amazing to be riding. It was so cool to be getting waves from all the other bikers - much better than the British nod which can be mistaken for a sneeze! By now I was really feeling the "Spirit of the Harley" - despite looking like a pasty underfed Scottish refugee, inside I felt like a Hells Angel complete with beard and belly (photo).

Reaching Yosemite – bye Thorick!

Once we reached Groveland, just outside of Yosemite National Park, it was time for a meal, and time to say goodbye to Thorick who had to ride home (photo). Once Thorick had gone I tried to ride to Glacier point to get a view across the whole valley. Unfortunately I missed the turning so and didn't have enough fuel to get up there once I had realised.

Yosemite National Parl

The next day I rode the 120 straight through and got some fantastic views (Photo, photo, photo).

Mono Lake

And I then made it through to Mono Lake (photo, arty photo innit), where I had some grub at the Woah Nellie Deli.

Highway 89

Now I was on the other side of the Sierra Nevada mountains I was in the rain shadow so the landscape was completely different. I had gone from lush and green to dry and arid. Still the roads were good and completely deserted, and I got some great views. I met some guys up there including the first time I had seen the Triumph Rocket III (photo)

Lake Tahoe

The roads there were great, but there were also some long straights (photo) before I eventually reached Lake Tahoe (photo).

Highway 20 – good!

From there I had to make some distance so I wouldn’t have too much to do the next day so I set off on Interstate 80 (possible the worst road I have ever been on). For some reason I decided to take the Nevada City turn off and head along Highway 20. I so glad I did this as it was a fantastic road. Long tree lined straights and long sweeping corners with barely another vehicle in sight.

That night I stayed a real American style motel (photo).

Highway 20 – bad!

The next day I set off on Highway 20 again, but this road got very boring but still kind of cool in an Easy rider style (photo).

Clearlake

Eventually I reached Clearlake which was quite nice to ride round (crap panoramic photo).

Eeediot!!!

Anyway then I rode on a bit, stopping off at a Café for some Mexican grub. I had decided to keep on Highway 20 to eventually reach Fort Bragg, and then ride down Pacific Highway1 which I had been told had fantastic roads and views. So I set off after lunch with a lot of miles to cover. After 40 miles I stopped to check the map. I could not find the map. Neither could I find my digital camera! Argghh! Cue lots of jumping up and down, hitting myself with my gloves and swearing (probably quite loud – I had the earplugs in). I then set off back to the Café which I had left over an hour ago! All the way I was riding far too fast, and just praying the camera was still there. Which of course it wasn’t. Check back again. Oh there it is. Oh what a merry moment that was. How I rolled my eyes and laughed at myself for being such a silly boy. No not really. Actually I kind of slumped head in hands into the nearest seat, whilst they brought me something to drink.

Napa valley

Anyway now I didn’t have time to reach the Pacific Highway so I took a combination of roads that allowed me to go through the Napa Valley. Once I started heading down the valley the roads changed a lot. They were incredibly twisty. Possibly even more so than the Redtree road. Unfortunately my poor riding skills were exposed then and I had real trouble on these roads. I’d like to blame the bike but I think I was most a fault. I had lorries overtaking me, and when you have two lanes of traffic overtaking each other coming towards you round blind U bends it gets a bit unnerving. Also saw one car which had messed up a corner and hit the rock on the side of the road, so that I came round to the corner onto loads of rubble. Didn’t seem serious but I passes a lot of emergency vehicles heading that way.


Golden Gate Bridge

Anyway, I rode quickly as possible down to San Rafael and stayed the night in a motel there. The next day I had to drop the bike off by 0900 and I wanted to ride over the Golden Gate Bridge as the last experience of my California tour. Thankfully I managed that without any mishaps and after getting slightly lost in San Francisco I reached the hire shop at 0845. Bike was inspected – no damage! Hurrah!

Miles and miles and miles…

So the mileometer read 1019.8 miles, over 3 days. Not bad considering that is 1/3 of what I usually cover in a year (or at least what I tell my insurance company!).

Acknowledgements

So thanks to everyone from bikechatforums.com, bayarearidersforum.com, and sport-touring.net who helped me with planning my trip.
Special thanks to Thorick from BARF for taking a day off work and meeting me up, helping me ride out of the city, and showing me some great roads!

Apologies to the few people that offered to meet me but I didn’t properly contact to arrange it.

Condolences to the guy who was on his way but crashed on-route (He’s okay!)!


Overall I can say it was an absolutely amazing experience. I loved nearly every minute of it (digital camera mad dash excepted). I definitely have the touring bug now, but unfortunately not the budget!


Gallery link Here you go!. The first page is of La Jolla, and San Diego zoo, then biking photos, then back to pictures of San Francisco, then pictures of San Diego beach. There are lots more photos of the trip in there that I haven't linked to here. They are all more or less in chronological order.

I also have some video I shot on my camera that I will post once I work out how to compress it, and Thorick has some bullet camera footage he is going to send me.
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[Dazbo666]

A bike tour in the US is something I'd looove to do - but whether I'll ever get the opportunity and the money together is something else.

I'll just enjoy your tour by proxy for now...
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[Nai]

Nice write up and cool pics! Camera dash aside sounded fun!

[L4Isoside]

Very cool

I'd love to travel the US on a motorbike (worst case scenario car)

wonder if ill ever have the budget ?

[Phoenix]

I must have missed this the first time around, I remember you going just not the writeup. Sounds like a good trip, not that different to mine last year albeit longer and in a car. Did you go to the shore of Mono Lake and see the thick sheets of black flies? Pretty gross but fairly interesting.

Probably did the right thing ditching Map Man, i purposefully try not to look lost but it doesn't always work as i've had really dodgy looking people offer to show me the way to where I'm going before, not falling for that one.

[Fbyte]

Hi, Major_Grooves

I've to go to San Jose (flying to SFA) in two weeks times for a 4 week residency, so I was hopping to hire a bike and do some touring during the weekends.

Can I ask you where did you rent the bike and how much (I'll prefer a sport bike but I guess that less common than Harleys )

Cheers

[Major_Grooves]

@Phoenix - didn't see the flies. Sounds pretty gross!

@L4Ioside - it's not /too/ expensive. Both times I have combined it with a conference I was going to in California anyway (this time it is my g/f's conference) so some or all of the air fare was paid for. The actual trip itself wasn't too bad. I rented the smallest Harley possible. This time I will be getting the biggest one possible, but splitting it with my g/f will make it reasonable.

@Fbyte - https://www.eaglerider.com/ - they have plenty of non-HDs to choose from. Prices vary quite a bit depending on size of bike. I advise you to bring your own helmet though. The ones they give you are rubbish.
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[AL-]

Great write up. How much do you reckon the whole trip cost roughly?

[oriel dave]

Good read. I'd like to do an America trip one day. How much did it cost in total?
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Europe Trip 2009

[Major_Grooves]

I can't really remember how much that trip cost. Bear in mind it was 6 years ago so costs will have gone up. I was a student at the time so I tried to keep things as cheap as possible. Also the exchange rate was a bit better back then.

I doubt I paid much more than £400-500. Best thing was how cheap the petrol was!

I got the cheapest bike possible. This time I'm getting the most expensive.
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