The Ride That Almost Wasn't

Jenny and I had been planning a ride for months.  I had scoped out a route that would take us over four passes in the Sierras and had it entered into my Garmin Zumo, but first I had to get to San Francisco.  Carolyn and I can drive there in one day by staying on Interstate 5 most of the way and taking turns driving, but no way can I do it in one day on a motorcycle.  So I had planned a two day route that would use I5 to Yreka and then some more interesting roads through the Trinity Alps to Weaverville where I would spend the first night.  Then I would head over to hwy 101 on some classic motorcycle roads and on in to San Fran.  Jenny was taking Friday off, so I planned to leave on Wednesday, June 17.  Tuesday night I carefully packed the bike and had everything ready for an early start to see if I could beat the rush hour traffic through Portland.  Wednesday morning at 0630 Carolyn took this pic of me about to push the starter button:

Then I pushed the starter, the gauges powered up and then............the screen went blank and nothing......no crank, no lights, nothing. 

It seemed to me that I had blown the main fuse.  I knew there were some fuses under the seat, so I took off the tailpack and side cases to get the seat off.  The fuses under there were minor fuses for lights, horn, instruments, etc, and they were all good.  I knew the main fuse had to be a much higher amperage, but where was it?  Out came the service manual, where I found the main fuse was under a side cover on the right  side of the engine.  Trouble was, the great Honda fit and finish meant that all the plastic body panels are held on with many types of hidden fastening devices, and it took further study of the service manual to find out how to remove the cover I needed to remove.  Eventually I got it done and the main fuse was.........good.  Just to be sure, I checked the battery and the voltage was 12.8 volts; plenty good.  Panic was beginning to set in.  By now it was about 0830.  I called Pro Caliber in Longview where I bought the bike and which is the only Honda dealer in Southwest Washington.  They opened at 0900, so with Carolyn's help I loaded the bike into the truck and headed up to Longview, hoping they could take a look at it right away.  No such luck; they were booked in the service department and would not be able to look at it until the next day.

I figured the trip was screwed. I knew Jenny couldn't change her vacation day to Monday. Despair, depression, anger, you name it, I felt it all.  I texted Jenny and told her the trip was off.  I felt terrible.  Remember from my previous post that the Mustang had quit and had to be towed home the previous weekend, so now I was disappointing another one of my kids.   I unloaded and put away all my stuff for the trip and proceeded to split firewood as a way to work off my frustration. 

Then, at 2pm I got a call from Pro Caliber.  They had had a cancellation and knowing I was anxious to get going, the mechanic took a look at the bike and found there was a short in the battery.  Sometimes it would test good (like when I tested it), and other times it would show only seven to nine volts.  He replaced the battery and the bike was good to go.  Despair turned to hope.  It was late, but I had to go for it.  Carolyn had left to visit her sister in Gig Harbor, so I couldn't get a ride up to Longview, but I repacked all my stuff and tried not to forget anything, and loaded it into the truck and headed up there.  By the time I got the bike and loaded my stuff on it, it was 3:15.  I headed south and promptly got stuck in the Portland evening rush.  Eventually I got through that and had clear sailing.  I planned to go as far as I could before it got dark.  It began to look like maybe I could make Grants Pass, which gave me the opportunity to take hwy 199 over to the coast the next day and avoid the worst of Interstate 5.  Fortunately, it was near the longest day of the year, so I rode until about 9:30 pm and covered 311 miles.  I estimated the next day was going to be 440 miles.......long, but doable.  I was back on the ride.  Dinner that night and breakfast the next morning was at this place:

Some of my old dirt bike riding buddies will recall eating at the Black Bear diner in Madras, until somebody got disgusted with the manager. 

The next day was familiar route over hwy 199 to 101 and then a little side trip through the redwoods:

I got to Jen's house just as she was getting off her bike after riding home from work.  The next morning we were loaded a ready to roll:

We headed south and then east across the San Mateo bridge, eventually getting to our first pass road, which was hwy 108.........destination Markleeville.  One of the features of Markleeville is a state operated hot springs just outside of town.  We were not too interested in a dip in a hot pool as we had been plenty warm all day, but we thought we would give it a look.  It was not too savory, but we walked up to the source of the hot water and Jen gave it a test.  It was supposed to be 140 degrees at the source and it certainly was too hot to keep your hand in it for very long:

The next morning we had a really nice breakfast outdoors at a little local market:

Then we headed down hwy 4.  What a road!  Surely I had been on it before when I lived in California, but I don't remember it.  A lot of it was too narrow to have a stripe down the middle and was basically a wide one-laner.  And curves! Some so sharp you had to look over your shoulder to see around them.  Combine the narrowness of the road, the sharpness of the curves, and the altitude of about 9,000 feet meant we were not going very fast.  But some of the scenery was outstanding:

Eventually we got down to the bottom of hwy 4 and then went north on 49 for a ways to catch the next pass road, which was hwy 88.  This leads to hwy 395 and the 89 over Monitor pass.  Here are some pics from that pass: (edit: this section was actually on the way to Markleeville)

I expected traffic to be a real hassle, since it was summer vacation time and a weekend to boot, but it wasn't bad at all. 

Now we headed down again, on hwy 50.  At some point Jenny had had to go onto reserve on her gas.  We had gassed up in Markleeville, but that was beginning to be a long way back.  We had both been getting about the same gas mileage (around 70 mpg) and with the same size tanks we were very compatible in when we needed to stop for gas.  I was keeping an eye on my gas gauge and when it was showing I still had about a quarter of a tank, I got a call from Jen over the intercom that she was running out of gas.  We were going slightly down hill and had just passed an off ramp.  I looked over and saw that there was a gas station at the bottom of the off ramp, but Jen was already past the exit.  She couldn't go back and the slope of the hill was not steep enough for her to coast downhill, so she got off and started pushing down to where I was near the on ramp.  It was probably close to 100 yards and with her helmet and riding gear on plus the warm weather, there was a lot of heavy breathing in my helmet intercom.  We ended up going backwards down the on ramp, which was steep enough for her to coast, with me leading with hazard blinkers on.  When we filled up, Jen's bike took the full four gallons and got about 60 mpg, while mine got 85 mpg!  I'm not lying, I checked it twice.  Here is my explanation:  My bike is fuel injected and the ECU compensated for the high altitude by making the mixture leaner and getting me the great mileage.  Jen's bike is carburetted and would have been running extra rich at altitude.  Whatever the cause, that was our only "incident" of the whole ride and it was lucky the gas station was so close. 

We stayed that night in Jackson, and because the day kept getting hotter and hotter as we descended, we were cooking by the time we stopped.  A quick dip in the pool got the core temps back to normal. 

The next day was our last on the ride and I had planned for it to be a short one so we could beat the traffic coming back into San Francisco after a weekend.  Since we were early, and Skyline drive didn't seem too far out of our way, I suggested we have lunch at Alice's restaurant.  It's always fun to check out the bike scene at Alice's.  I just missed getting a pic of a guy doing smoky burnouts in the parking lot:

More of Alice's:

Lunch.  First time either of us had actually eaten inside.  They made a good burger. 

After lunch we rode a curvy road with a bunch of slow traffic down to hwy 1 and home to Jen's house:

The next day I headed for home, while Jenny rode off to work.  She keeps her work clothes in the backpack and is probably the envy of all her cubicle mates:

We washed both our bikes the evening before and mine was looking spiffy too:

The route I took back home was some of the route I had originally planned to take to get to San Francisco, but reverse order............101 to 36 to 3 to Weaverville for overnight.  I had my only real scare of the ride on the section of 3 leading into Weaverville.  It's a great road, with lots of curves and very little traffic, but it has tar snakes.  While banked over on a sharp down hill right hander I crossed one of these that caused my front wheel to slip and I was instantly in the other lane.  Had there been a car coming it would have been real bad news, but I lucked out again. 

After my overnight in Weaverville I decided to head over to hwy 1 rather than go up I5, because it was predicted that temps would reach 100 degrees in Redding and I wanted no part of that.  This meant I would need an extra day, but that's the benefit of retirement, right?  That night I stayed in Newport, Oregon and got this privileged parking right outside my room:

I got home on Wednesday shortly after noon, with 2,659 miles on the trip odometer.  It was a safe ride on a lot of Good Roads with a fine riding partner.  And best of all, it actually happened.