Ride Report: Northern California

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Back Story: My wife's family lives in Eureka California (a little town on the North Coast of California). We planned a surprise visit to celebrate her dad's retirement. My sister in law's, husband's, step dad - Mo is a motorcycle enthusiast (to put it mildly) and offered to take me on a ride while I was visiting.

Saturday June 14, 2008 - 7:30am

I got a ride over to Mo's house early on Saturday morning. The fog had rolled in over night and the temp was around 48 degrees (typical summer morning in Eureka). I knew that Mo had several bikes, and he told me on the phone I would be driving "the Ninja" on Saturday. This is what I saw when I walked up the drive:

Mo was warming up his Monster and brand new Kawasaki ZX-6R. I was little nervous to take out this little beast with less than 500 miles, but Mo insisted. We snaked through town on residential streets and made our way to California's 101. We stopped for gas and I'm thinking "I'm not going to be able to stand up tomorrow from riding in this crouched position" After paying $4.80/gallon we headed south on 101. The fog had turned into a driving mist, but the ride was still fun. I was gaining confidence on the bike as we started twisting down the highway. After a break for coffee we continued on south, then exited at the "Avenue of the Giants." The fog was breaking and the sun was starting to peak through as we entered the ancient Redwood forest. The well maintained two lane black top twists and turns through the giant trees parallel to 101. We stopped to rest and take a couple of shots:

I had promised to meet my wife and her family at the "Oyster Festival" in Arcata around noon, so we hit the 101 and rode back north at a "reasonable speed" . We pulled back into Mo's driveway and as we were taking off gear he asked me if I would be interested in riding tomorrow. Short pause - "Yes!"


To be continued...

 

[ColGoodnight]

Ah, love those Texas-sized trees. Wish we actually had some in Texas!

I got a ride over to Mo's house early on Saturday morning...This is what I saw when I walked up the drive...

Hey, looks like Mo is a China scoot owner!

Tom

 

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Sunday June 15, 2008

The weather is pretty much the same on Sunday morning, maybe a little cooler. I get dropped off at around 8:30 and there are two different bikes in the driveway ready to go - a KLR 650 and a Suzuki DR-Z400SM Supermoto. Mo starts rattling off the mods he's made to the DR-Z: sprockets, air box removal, exhaust, etc. He gives me a quick run down of the controls on the DR-Z and we take off - North this time. We stopped for gas and waited for Mo's buddy Al to meet up with us. Al pulls up on a Red KLR and we head East on Highway 299. The road immediately begins to climb a mountain - and I think "Oh, no I'm not wearing enough gear. I'm going to freeze." As we pull away from the coast line the fog lifts and we are in full California sun. We climb higher on 299, twisting and turning up the mountain - traffic is light and we buzz along at a nice pace. We pull off the Highway onto a Forest Service Road to take a break, and I pulled out the camera for the first time:

This is where the fun starts. The service road is a paved one lane with tons of switch backs that starts climbing up to 6000 feet. The little DR-Z is so easy to throw around and the tires stick like glue. I can't wipe the smile off my face as we take a photo opportunity at the top of a ridge. You can see Humbolt Bay to the west and the Trinity Alps to the east from this ridge.
The Ocean in the fog:

Trinity Alps

We continue on the forest service road into the tall pines. It was warming up nice so we stopped for some water, here's Mo getting some snow to cool down the water and Al scaring off the bears:

We came across a couple of guys that had managed to wedge their Lexus in the only snow drift covering the road. They had spent the night on the mountain. We stopped to call AAA for them, as their cell phone was dead. They didn't seem to keen on me snapping a picture, so I had to go stealth:

The road became progressively rougher as we came down off the ridge, full of pot holes and downed trees. It was still fun, but took a lot of concentration. After traveling 54 miles on the forest service road we hit Highway 36 at Mad River. This is a favorite among local sport bike riders, and we saw a lot of them out. We turned West on 36 back towards town. The road twists and turns through pine trees, crosses a river several times and then back into the Red Woods. By the time we got back to town we had gone from Sea Level to 6000 feet and back to Sea Level in about 150 miles. Here we are enjoying a beer back at Mo's house:

In two days I had traveled on 4 of the best roads in the country on two incredible machines. I met two great riders and took some decent pictures. What did I do to get this lucky?

 

[achesley]

Love Northern California. The Redwoods are soooooo awesome. In fact I was kinda dissapointed when doing Sequoia Park last year after being in the Valley of the Giants a few years before. Thanks for sharing your trip.