T.O.P. C.H.O.I.C.E.
Tour On the Pacific Coast Highway Offering Incredible
Cycling
Entertainment!
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Day
0
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Eugene, OR to Eureka, CA
Kel, Dean, & I left Springfield at 0900. The first leg was simple:
South on I-5, take a right at Grants Pass on US-199, leave the highway
at O'Brien, just past Cave Junction, on Waldo Road, then find our way through
the Siskiyou Mountains on backroads with a GPS that wants to do things
its own way. I was leading because, supposedly, I had the equipment to
guide the way. But within a quarter mile on Waldo Rd., the GPS was indicating
roads that were obviously not going to take us where WE wanted to go. After
2 or 3 miss starts and a 20-minute jaunt back towards Cave Junction, we
finally got on track. And then we were cookin'! In more ways than one.
The road took us up and over the mountains towards Happy Camp on a marvelously
scenic and twisty route. And nary a car anywhere! But the further south
we got, the hotter it became. By the time we hit CA-96 it was 96-degrees!
And it just got hotter from there. We followed along the beautiful Klamath
River, and I was very tempted to find a place to park and go jump in. But
we pressed on in search of gas and refreshments. Finally, a small convenience
store and bait shop appeared on the horizon, and we ran in there as fast
as possible after we stopped. It was now 100 degrees outside, and the air
conditioning inside the store was bliss! After polishing off a 32-oz Gatorade,
a 24-oz water bottle, and some trail mix, I was prepped to step back out
into the blast furnace. CA-96 began dropping down into the Klamath River
Valley , and the sun had passed its zenith, so the temperatures began dropping
too. At 92, it felt nice and cool! By the time we got to Willow Creek and
US-299, the 84 degrees felt kinda chilly. On to the coast, and about 20
miles out, we ran into thick overcast and the temperature plummeted to
55 degrees. It had dropped 45 degrees in a little more than an hour! In
my mesh jacket and microfiber teeshirt, I was downright cold! But I wasn't
going to stop and change jackets because we'd just managed to pass a bus
that had been constipating the traffic flow because the driver had refused
to use the slow lane. We got into the Motel 6 in Eureka just before 6.
Except for the heat, the ride over roads new to us had been fantastic!
We all would like to redo the route sometime - under cooler conditions!
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Day
1
Monday, September 10, 2007
Eureka, CA to Fort Bragg, CA
Today, many people had their share of humble pie - including me. A number
of really experienced riders overshot corners on the Lost Coast. My own
share of the pie came on the "Honeydew Highlands", the twisty
mountain roads just after leaving Honeydew. The riders of our group, in
order, were Leland, Dean, me, and then Kel. Very close to the summit, I
came around a blind right-hand corner and saw a bunch of dirt-fall on the
road. I went wide to the outside and thought I was going to miss it, but
my rear-end slipped out on the loose dirt. I didn't go down, but I was
startled by the sudden slipperiness. I was still thinking about it a minute
later when I saw Dean's brake lights come on as he was rounding a descending
left-hand corner up ahead. When I got closer, an orange diamond sign appeared
that said "Slide Ahead". Here's where my problem came to a head.
I was still thinking about the "then & there" instead of
the "here & now". I was still thinking about how I could
have handled the previous problem better, when I was suddenly faced with
a new hurdle; my brain locked up as I was expecting to run into a closed
road ahead. The momentary loss of concentration left me way out of position
to decelerate into the corner. I saw that there was a wide space of dirt
past the corner instead of the usual cliff and trees. I straightened the
bike up and clamped on the brakes as hard as I could without locking them
up as I was headed off the road and into the berm. Dirt and gravel flew
through the air as I left the pavement. After scrubbing the speed down
from 40-ish to about 5, and still being upright, I steered Blue Pacific
back up towards the road edge so that I didn't get stuck in soft dirt .
I came to a complete stop right at the edge of the road. No damage to anything,
except my pride. Kel was right behind me in the curve and saw the whole
episode. At first he thought that I was going to go hot into the curve,
then he thought I was going to go wide in it, then he was wondering if
there was any cell phone reception to call for an ambulance. When he came
up to me sitting on the upright PC, he looked me over with concern and
asked if I was all right. I told him that I was still there, then I indicated
for him to go ahead of me. I was shaken and intent upon slowing down my
riding for a while, and I did not want a faster rider on my tail. Just
as I was coming off the hill and into the thick redwoods, I caught up to
the three lead riders. They had sensed that something wasn't right and
had throttled back. I was surprised to actually catch up to them as they
were still moving. Shortly, on the Avenue of the Giants, we stopped for
a rest and regrouping. I was a bit subdued, but we were now on mostly relatively
flat roads and wouldn't be challenging any cliffside roads for a while.
After lunch at Garberville, we pressed down 101 to Leggett and began assailing
the 22 miles of twistiness of the "Ugly Iguana". I was pursuing
Dave Misunas, but was having a hard time keeping up with the pace. The
specter of my earlier miscalculation was still with me and I was not pressing
as hard as I might have. The only thing that kept me up with the leaders
was when they were delayed by slower traffic. But we got down to the shoreline
road without incident. About a half-hour later, Dean, Kel, & I were
signing in at the Super 8 in Ft. Bragg. That evening at "The Wharf",
as we were waiting in the parking lot for the rest of the PCers to arrive,
a couple of red CBRs pulled which were emblazoned with DestinationHighways.com
logos. I surmised that these were the authors of the Destination Highways
motorcycling guides. I went into the bar, found the riders, and learned
that they were indeed the authors of the books. I spent 20 minutes talking
with Brian Bosworth. He waxed eloquent on the fabulous roads around Mendocino
and suggested that we should take in the nearby Ukiah-Comptche road. I
explained that we were on a planned trip and probably wouldn't be able
to deviate from the plan. He said that was too bad and that we'd truly
miss out on a great cycling experience if we bypassed that road. But then,
plans can change.
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Day
2
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Fort Bragg, CA to Pacifica, CA
Kel left us at 0230 am to return to Eugene to go to work. I told him not
to wake me for his departure. At 9 am, Dean Williams, Roy Coss, Dave Misunas,
and I waited alongside CA1 for the Pacific Coast Horde to sweep down from
the north. We joined in at the end of the procession and headed south.
Just past Albion, not far down the coast, we came to a stop behind a long
stream of traffic backed up behind an accident. Leland and Roy put their
heads together and came up with an alternate route to take us around the
constipation up ahead. They settled on the Ukiah-Comptche Road! Just the
previous night, Brian Bosworth had recommended to us in The Wharf that
we would really regret not doing the Ukiah-Comptche road. Deja Vu! Plans
Do change! We took the airport road to meet up with the Ukiah-Comptche
Road part way through, and the airport road was underwhelming to say the
least, but the U-C road was very, very good! Brian had been right - this
was a road that shouldn't be missed! We were twisting through the forests
for over an hour, and by the time we got back to CA1, we had only progressed
a few miles past where we had stopped for the accident! But we had been
moving and having fun instead of sitting on the road. The weather in the
morning had been overcast, but by the time we had lunch at The Boathouse
in Bodega Bay, it was bright and sunning and warm, but not hot. Dean &
I headed down the coast, but by Stinson Beach, I was getting tired and
sloppy. At a stopsign, I told Dean that I had to take a break, so we pulled
off down a side road and rested for 15-20 minutes. Back on the road, we
headed for the Marin headlands at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge.
I was surprised to see Leland & Co. there already - I had expected
them to be enroute to Pt. Reyes Lighthouse. But they had bypassed that
and had passed us while we rested at Stinson Beach. The GG Bridge was as
picturesque as always - brilliant orange steel latticework backdropped
by the blue of the bay and sky, and the white of the city. We left the
headlands and crossed over the bridge in time to make it for the motorcycle
no-toll period ("Carpool vehicles with three or more persons, motorcycles,
and buses receive free toll passage between the hours of 5 am to 9 am and
4 pm to 6 pm, weekdays...", http://goldengatebridge.org/tolls_traffic/toll_rates_carpools.php ). Then the harrowing passage through the Streets of San Francisco on
our way to Pacifica, just down the road. But we pulled in to Nick's Sea
Breeze Motel at Rockaway Beach without incident.
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Day
3
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Pacifica, CA to Monterey, CA
Dean and I went out early to fill up the bikes and ourselves. We quickly
discovered the joys of Bay Area morning traffic! We crossed over CA1, hoping
to pull in to the Shell station on the east side of the road, but the traffic
coming down the hill was too thick and we couldn't get across, so we went
up the hill only to discover that the traffic congestion coming down was
about a mile long! To get back down to CA1 and the Shell station, we'd
have to go through that. Neither of us was too interested in doing our
first lane-splitting exercise, so we followed the flow back down the hill.
After filling the fuel tanks, we then pressed south to find Denny's - and
Dave Misunas! The three of us had breakfast and waited for the north-bound
congestion on CA1 to die down before we headed back to Nick's and loaded
the bikes for departure. In years past, lunch has been at Alice's restaurant
in LaHonda, but this year, we accepted the offer of Jim Geary to partake
of his Cowboy Diner in Felton, just a few miles north of Santa Cruz. We
left CA1 to take Skyline Drive from LaHonda to Felton. The road is a wonderful
motorcycling road, but this day it seemed misnamed - it really should have
been CLOUDline Drive, as the overcast ceiling was at about 2400 feet and
the road at the ridge went up and down between 2300 and 2500 feet. We were
in and out of the clouds so often that I thought that I should have had
an instrument pilot's license to be there. I expect that on a sunny day,
that Skyline Drive is a fun and popular road for motorcyclists - today,
it was challenging with low visibility and damp corners. But we came down
into Felton and had a great time at the Cowboy Diner with Jim, Katherine,
and family. Many thanks to the Geary family for extending such a great
invitation to us! Lunch was delicious, and we were given wonderful gifts
of Pacific Coast teeshirts - they even had an XXL size that fit me! In
Santa Cruz, we found our way to a lovely park commanded by a picturesque
lighthouse by the bay for a PC photo opportunity. Then southward again
towards Monterey. The road now was pretty much straight freeway lined with
various crop fields, including Strawberry Fields Forever! Dean & I
stopped in Marina, about 10 miles short of the way into Monterey. We have
traditionally stayed at a motel here because of its easy access on and
off the freeway. Later, we moseyed into Monterey to join the rest of the
PCers at Bullwhackers. While cruising for a place to park, we discovered
that the street one back from Cannery Row was sealed off by Police and
Fire vehicles. The K-9 units were out and barking up a storm. After parking,
I saw a fellow with a badge walking past, so I asked him what was going
on. But he was just a rent-a-cop out on break to find his dinner - he didn't
even know that there were any real police in the area. His answer to my
question? "Somebody must have done something wrong." Oh, really?!
My, he was astute! Dean & I had a little free time before dinner, so
we checked out the waterfront. Sealions lazily adorned the rocks a short
ways off the beach. The slanting sunlight glinted off the buildings on
the hills overlooking the bay. It was all quite peaceful and picturesque.
We then wandered back to Bullwhackers just as the PC Horde showed up. The
hostess showed us to a couple tables around a fireplace out in the open
courtyard. After a wonderful dinner in the company of friends, Dean &
I said our farewells to everyone; on the morrow, we would be turning northward
and heading for home.
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Day
4
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Monterey, CA to Eugene, OR
Neither Dean nor I wanted to wait around, so breakfast was quick at Denny's
and we were on the road northward by 7:15. We had a long way to go - 650
miles from Marina to Eugene. We had originally planned to do some twisty
backroads north of Oroville and around Lassen Nat'l Park, but I'd had many
days of good riding and my hunger for riding was satiated, so we headed
straight to I-5 and then cruised north on the supereslab. At lunch in Weed,
CA, I brought in the GPS to do some route planning. I had an idea that
I might be able to make it all the way home to Federal Way after dropping
Dean off in Eugene; that would work out to just over 900 miles. I also
had some thoughts that if I could make it home, that with only a little
more effort, I could stretch it into a SaddleSore 1000. Before hitting
the Oregon border, the last exit in California on I-5 is #799. That's a
long road! We got onto I-5 at exit #407, so we had traversed about half
of the state heading northward. But we still had another 195 miles to make
it to Eugene, and another 260 more to make it to Federal Way. By the time
we hit Medford, I was starting to show the first signs of weariness. I
felt that I could safely make it to Eugene, but any further would be pushing
it. I decided to forgo any attempts to do an impromptu SS1k, or even trying
to make it home. I stopped in Eugene at the same Motel 6 I stayed at on
the way down. Dean stopped long enough to see that I got a room and extend
farewells, then he headed for the barn. By 9 pm, I had the bike cleaned
up and covered. I did a couple checks of routes with the GPS; to get home,
the shortest distances were via either I-5 or I-205 through or around Portland,
but both were notorious for severe constipation during rush hours. I figured
that it would probably be just as well to wait until 8 in the morning to
leave in order to get to Portland around 9:30 and try to miss the bulk
of the "rush". I put myself down for a well-deserved good night's
sleep.
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Day
5
Friday, September 14, 2007
Eugene, OR to Federal Way, WA
I guess I've been around Dean too long - I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn't
go back to sleep, so I got up at 5:20. I did the morning rituals and was
on the road by 6. I figured I could either wait around the room or wait
in traffic around Portland. But I was wrong; I ended up waiting in traffic
in Coburg! I-5 came to a standstill just south of Sprague Road, then I
essentially walked the bike most of the way to Egge Road where the contents
of a semi-trailer was being transferred to another trailer beside the road.
The OSP had the right lane closed around the trailers. All the way to Portland,
I was weighing the merits and deficiencies of I-5 vs. I-205. Which would
be best? I-5 is the shorter of the two, but it goes right through the middle
of the heaviest congestion in downtown Portland. But I-205 has earned a
reputation of having almost as much congestion, and its longer. But at
the junction where I-205 splits off to the east from I-5, the choice was
clear - I-5 northward were long lines of stopped vehicles in all lanes,
and the exit for I-205 was moving. Traffic on this bypass turned out to
be slower than normal, but it was moving all the way. Thirty-six miles
later, after crossing the Columbia River and into Washington, I rejoined
I-5. The way north from the Portland area was uneventful, and I got home
safe at 10:40 am. This trip covered 2111 miles. It had taken 5 days to
go south and 2 days to come back north. And in those miles there were lots
of sMiles. And lots of friends. I
thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I greatly appreciate the time and effort
that Leland has put into hosting this event every year. And I also want
to extend my thanks to the Geary family for their tremendous hospitality
at the Cowboy Diner in Felton. To all the old friends that came back to
the Pacific Coast Highway, and all the new friends I met there for the
first time, I extend my hearty thanks for coming and best wishes until
we meet again.
'On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road
again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to
get on the road again
On the road again
Goin' places that I've never
been
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on
the road again.'
"On the road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down
the highway
We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world be turnin'
our way
And our way
Is on the road again
Just can't wait to get on the
road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't
wait to get on the road again"
"On the road again
Like a band of
gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends
Insisting that
the world be turnin' our way
And our way
Is on the road
again"
"Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is
makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again
And
I can't wait to get on the road again"
--
Be seeing you,
Bruce
Pickett
Federal Way, WA
'90 PC800 "Blue Pacific"
'97 KZ1000 Police
Special
'05 GL1800A "Big Blue"
http://bluepc.home.comcast.net
IBA,
AMA, HRCA