2017 Long Ride.......Getting Ready

I like to get in at least one ride every year that is a week or so long.  Last year Jenny and I did the Pacific Northwest Grand Tour and this year we are going to visit the Canadian Rockies.  Unlike last year, though, where it was just me and Jen, this trip may have as many as six riders.  One of them is going to be my son Brian, so it will be sort of a family affair.  I've got the route figured out and reservations made at motels.  The highlight of the trip should be the Ice Field Parkway between Banff and Jasper.  Carolyn and I rode this highway back in the early 80's and it is pretty spectacular.  Here is the planned route:

The plan is to start riding from my house on Sept 18 and return here on the 23rd.  Since Jen could only take a week off, we had to find a way to get her bike to my house because otherwise she would have to take an additional four days getting from, and back to, San Francisco.  So Carolyn and I are going to take our pickup truck down there the week before the ride to fetch the bike, and Jen is going to fly up the day before we start the ride.  Then, after the ride she will fly back and we will truck the bike back down to her house.  Preparation for this trip actually started last winter when I replaced the head gasket on the truck and also installed a new exhaust manifold, water pump, cam, cam chain, and sprockets.  It should be in good shape for the drive, but I'm still having some problems with the temperature gauge that I should get sorted before we leave.  We hope to get to SF in one day and then back in a day.  That's about 700 miles each way, and the truck doesn't have air conditioning.  Right now the high temps in Redding on interstate five are over 100 degrees.  Hopefully that will change to cooler by the time we leave.  Another problem that has me worried is that there are forest fires all over the west, including British Columbia, and it would be a real bummer if the views on the Ice Field Parkway are obscured by smoke.  What we need is a good rain, but NOT while we are riding.
But, as we get closer to the departure date, it looks like rain is exactly what is going to happen.  That's still six days away and things can change, but it looks like we may be in for a real adventure.  Tomorrow we leave to get Jenny's bike.

If You Ride an Adventure Bike........

You've got to have an adventure, right? We did, but more on that later. Brian, Mike and I had planned on a ride to eastern Oregon and Washington a couple of weeks ago, but we ran into a hot spell with temps predicted to be near 100 degrees in that area, so we postponed the ride to this past weekend. Unfortunately, another hot spell was predicted. This time we had a secret weapon to combat the heat.......cooling vests. These are garments containing some kind of gel material that holds water, so that when they are soaked they provide evaporative cooling provided by the air stream from the moving motorcycle. It's really a high-tech form of the old wet t-shirt that riders have used for years. The advantage over the wet t-shirt is that the effect lasts a lot longer. The vest is worn under your jacket, so the more vents the jacket has the better. In fact, my mesh summer jacket was perfect. Here is what my cooling vest looks like:

It really works, too. It's not exactly air conditioning, but makes the difference between unbearable and bearable.

Brian rode down from his home in Tacoma on Saturday morning, arriving about 0815. So by the time we got started he had already ridden 135 miles, and we had about 350 ahead for the day. He was riding his new (to him) Triumph Tiger 800 xcx adventure bike fully kitted out with all the off road stuff including semi knobby tires, which didn't look like they would work so well in the curves.

Our first day's destination was Unity, Oregon, and we got there by the oft-traveled route through Maupin, Shaniko, Fossil, and John Day. After Shaniko, the route was identical to the one Jenny and I rode last year, at least for the first day-and-a-half, as reported in my blog back then.

When we got to Fossil, it was time to put on the cooling vests, and a couple of hours later we took and break and Mike was recharging his in the parking lot of a mini-mart gas station:

We stayed at the same motel in Unity and ate at the same bar/restaurant that I had been to before. It is beginning to seem harder for me to find new roads and places, but Good Roads are worth revisiting. Here is the only motel in Unity:

And here is the bar/restaurant:

It was quite a wait to get our food, but we didn't care.....we weren't going anywhere. After the hustle and bustle of the Portland/Vancouver area, it is quite a contrast to be in a town where you can stand out in the middle of the road and take a picture in either direction without fear of being run over:

The next day we headed for Dooley Mountain Road. I first rode this road several years ago and it was fantastic. I was anxious to show it to Jenny last year but it was a bust. There had been a huge fire in the area and the pavement was destroyed in a lot of places and there was road construction that caused us long delays. This year, however, it was perfect. Except for a bit of gravel in some of the turns, the pavement had been fixed, and one advantage of the fire was that there were improved sight-lines around corners because the vegetation was gone. It was on this road that Brian got impatient with the rate of Mike and I and charged on up the road ahead of us. I guess the knobbies worked after all. It kills me to think that I taught him to ride motorcycles and to ski, and in no time at all he was better than me at both. Makes me a bit proud, actually.

Next Good Road on the agenda was Rattlesnake Grade, and here is where the adventure began. We had pretty much completed the best parts of the road when Brian's bike went into survival mode and would only let him go about 10 mph. It looked like a flat tire was to blame. There was a state park just a little way up the road that we got to for an inspection. Both Mike and I carry items necessary to plug a hole in our tubeless tires, but here was the problem: first there was no hole or nail visible, and second, Brian's bike does not use tubeless tires. Because it is a more off-road capable bike, it uses spoked wheels which require tubed tires. Because we could find no hole in the tire, I thought that maybe the tire had spun on the rim and pulled the valve stem out of the tube. It happens on dirt bikes when there is no rim lock or the rim lock is too loose. We took the wheel off to see if we could break the bead and get to the tube:

But it was impossible to break the bead. Because the tire is actually a tubeless tire with a tube in it, it fits the rim like a tubeless tire, which is to say, very tightly. Even with Big Mike standing on the tire it would not budge off the rim. This is a major problem that Brian is going to have to find a solution for. Flats happen, and you need to be able to fix them on the road since bikes don't carry a spare. This is where good fortune and some very nice people came into our lives. There was a Forest Service maintenance station at the park, and since this was Sunday there was only one person working there, but he was a young high-school grad who was working there for the summer. His shift was ending and he offered to take Brian and the wheel down to Clarkston, WA. We put the wheel back on the bike, rode it to their garage and then took the wheel back off again. Brian got the clothes he needed to spend the night and took the wheel with him while Mike and I rode down the hill into Clarkston.

So, we had a place to stay for the night, but we had serious problems with no obvious solutions. There were some motorcycle shops in Clarkston, but the next day was Monday and, typical of bike shops, they were closed on Mondays. The closest shop open on Monday, which also happened to be a Triumph dealer, was in Kennewick, which was 130 miles away and opened at 0900. Even if we could get the wheel there somehow, by the time we got it fixed and back up to where the bike was it would be a late start for a long day's ride and Brian needed to get to work on Tuesday. Things were looking bleak. Then Brian or Mike, I don't remember which, was surfing the web a discovered a 24-hour emergency motorcycle service IN Clarkston! We called the guy and he came to the motel in 10 minutes, picked up the wheel, and he and Brian went back to his shop where he dismounted the tire and discovered the tube was torn in half. He had only 16 inch tubes because he mainly provided service for Harleys (because they need it more?), but that was good enough. For this emergency service late at night and providing a tube, he charged Brian $50. That's only abut $10 more than it would cost to change a tubeless tire in a shop during normal working hours. I took a picture of he and Brian when they got back to the motel, but I was in a hurry and didn't get the settings right, so it is blurry. Nevertheless, I think it worth posting:

You can't really see what is on his t-shirt, but it is a picture of an m-16 rifle with the logo "Black Rifles Matter". I think it best that I make no further comment.

Brian texted the kid who drove him down to the motel and offered to pay him $60 to take him back up to the motorcycle the next morning. I rode up to help him put the wheel back on the bike, but by the time I suited up and rode up there they had already got it mounted. So by 0900 on Monday we were on our way, except we were about 85 miles further from where we planned to start the day. Still, we were feeling VERY good about how it turned out. However, the adventure wasn't quite over yet. We stopped for lunch in Walla Walla and discovered the tire was going flat again! This time we found a shop open just 3.5 miles away, so we shot some CO2 in the tire and quickly put the valve cap back on and rode over to the shop. There they put the bike up on the rack for an inspection:

Turns out the valve stem core was defective, so they replaced it and also provided a valve cap that was metal with a sealing washer. Total charge for that job? Zero. On our way again, I told Brian we had had enough adventures. We split up south of the Tri Cities where Brian headed up to the 90 freeway to Tacoma, while Mike and I took hwy 14 to Vancouver. We had no more "adventures", but it was a long, hot day. Mike and I took a break near Bonneville dam and re-hydrated our cooling vests.

We missed riding the Old Spiral Highway out of Lewiston, but we'll get it another day. I ended up riding 1100 miles, and they were all good. There is still the mystery of why that tube broke apart. I have no clue.

A Perfect Day

What makes a perfect day?.....For riding anyway, it means weather in the 70s, no wind, no traffic, curvy roads, and riding with my two Amigos Ross and Orv. Orv is experiencing some serious health issues, so anytime we can get out for a ride together is to be treasured. We took a relatively short ride of about 160 miles, but it is one of our favorites and has been done many, many times. We call it the Carson/Cougar loop.

We always stop at the McClellan overlook of Mt St.Helens, which you have seen several times in this blog. It is either at the end or the beginning (depending on direction of travel) of a really nice smooth curvy section, plus it has a nice view and a toilet.

That is Mt St. Helens in the distance under a cloud cap. We had lunch of some pretty tasty Clam Chowder in Cougar and then home by 1:30 in time for some house chores.

Long Day

My plan for today was to skip riding hwy 1 and go all the way to Grants Pass so that I would get through Portland before rush hour. However when I got to the turnoff at Coverdale to take hwy 128 to Ft Bragg, I couldln't resist. It was supposed to be clear and sunny on hwy 1, and that doesn't happen very often. So I did hwy 1 AND rode all the way to Grants Pass, for a total of 487 miles and 11 hours of riding with very few breaks.....and most of it into a headwind. I am a tired puppy tonight. I was a little disappointed in hwy 1, though. It has also had storm damage with washouts and lots of gravel in the turns. The bottom half towards the coast was OK, but the upper part towards Leggett required extra caution. I think I will steer clear of it for awhile. Tomorrow should be a relatively easy day with 300 freeway miles and about six hours of riding. A blog has to have pictures, right? I didn't have time to take any today, so here is one of my trusty Honda getting a well deserved rest after a hard day. I seems to be able to shrug off anything I dish out.

Somehow I have lost the ability to make paragraphs in this blog when using my Ipad. That big mess above was actually supposed to be four paragraphs which is how it looks before I post it. Oh well, technology strikes again.

Observatory Ride

Yesterday I was checking over Jenny's bike and discovered the front brake pads were about worn out, so we made a quick run to the downtown San Francisco Cycle Gear and bought some new ones that I installed:

I also tried to lube the clutch cable but was not too successful without the cable lubing tool that pressure feeds lube down the the length of the cable. Jenny suggested an early start today for our ride to Lick observatory so that we could beat the traffic. We stopped for breakfast on the way at "Just Breakfast" in San Jose:

Her suggestion to start early was right on the mark as we had no traffic on the way up to the observatory on one of the best roads I have been on. It's only flaw was that it was a little bumpy. Here is a pic of my GPS when we got to the top:

Now that's a curve:

Some more pics taken at the top:

I could hardly believe it, but the ride down the backside of the mountain was even better. The road was smoother and had more "flow" to it. You can never have too many curves, but I found you can have enough, and by the time we got down off the mountain I had had enough. At one point it got kind of narrow and there were even a couple of water crossings. Who needs an adventure bike?

There were more views of the beauty of California after a rainy year:

What is a ride to San Francisco without a stop at Alice's Restaurant? So we went by there on the way back, but it was such a jam up, with no parking even for motorcycles that we just kept on going. We got back to Jen's around 3pm and a cold PBR and a snack really hit the spot:

Tomorrow I head back. Maybe I can get to grant's Pass which will allow me to beat the Portland rush hour on Tuesday.

Rainy Start

Woke up yesterday to rain, as expected. Sure glad I wasn't camping. One of the advantages of starting a rainy day from the motel is that I can put all the rain gear on before I leave the room, as opposed to having to do it alongside the road or under a tree or overpass. I was also lucky to find a parking spot for the bike that was under cover. Finding rain gear that works has taken me a long time and several failed attempts, and I'm still not 100% there. Early on I thought a full rain suit would be the way to go since you alway wear the pants if you need the jacket, so why not combine the two into one garment. The problem is that in order for these "onesies" to be able to be put on, they need to have a zipper that extends to at least below crotch level. Then when in the seated position, a pocket forms in the crotch that collects water. No zipper made can withstand that kind of puddle. I also had an anorak type jacket at one time but it was almost impossible to put on over my leather jacket. My boots are basic waterproof motorcyle boots and they work fine. Here is a pic of me in my current rain gear. I still have some problems; the pants need longer zippers in the legs so they would be easier to put on over boots, and the glove covers are also difficult to pull on over gloves. I don't have them on in the pic because I can't operate the camera with them on. My Tourmaster jacket is fantastic.

My original plan for yesterday was to ride down 101 to Leggett and then take the famous hwy 1 down to the coast to Ft Bragg. From there it would be 128 back up to 101 at Coverdale. However, since it was raining in Eureka, I was pretty sure it would be raining on hwy 1 on the coast so I decided to stay on 101 and get more inland and hopefully away from the rain. I also happened to read the latest issue of Rider magazine the night before that had an article about riding to the Geysers. Back in the 80's Carolyn and I were on a ride up 101 and took a side trip to some geothermal hot spring resort that was at the end of a fantastically curvy road. We have often wondered where that was, and the article in the magazine made it sound like that was the place. If I stayed on 101 I would be going right past the turnoff and the map in the magazine showed a loop down to the Geysers and back that looked really tempting. Once I got off 101 I stopped for lunch:

If you are wondering why my phone is in my lunch container it's because it was windy and the phone kept it from blowing away (I was having a light lunch, har har). The map from the magazine is underneath. The road to the Geysers turned out to be the very one that Carolyn and I had remembered. Unfortunately it probably has not been repaved since the 80's, and it was in terrible shape. It reminded me of the Lost Coast highway out of Ferndale, which is another road that we loved back then but which is only suitable for long travel suspension adventure bikes now. On top of that, the loop shown in the Rider article couldn't be done because the road back up from the Geysers was closed, probably due to a washout from the rainy year California had.

So the ride was sort of a bust. Here is a picture of part of the road to give an idea of just how curvy it is:

I also got some pictures of the countryside on the way. California wine country is sure beautiful this year.

I got to Jenny's house around 6pm after 338 miles. It was so windy in San Francisco that one of the coast roads on the way to her house was closed due to blowing sand. Today was predicted to be just as windy, so we plan to take our ride to Lick observatory tomorrow.

Long Ride For a Weekend

Lat Fall, when Orv, Mike and I rode rented bikes back on the east coast, Orv started talking about trucking the bikes down to Northern California and riding some of the spectacular roads around Weaverville that I have written about in this blog. It seemed like a good idea to me and I began to look forward to it. Unfortunately, Orv couldn't make it, and that is not where the suck stops, either. But I needed a good long ride. This has been a tough winter and spring. In January we had more snow and cold weather than at any time in the 22 years we have lived here. A nearby pond froze over thick enough that people were ice skating on it, and the schools had so many snow days that they had to request a break from the state requirement for a certain number of days in the school year. In February I was recovering from my knee surgery and the weather wasn't fit for riding anyway. Then came March and April. It rained 48 out of the 62 days. I had to have a ride to look forward to, so I proposed to Jenny that I ride down to San Francisco and we go for a ride over the weekend. The first weekend in May was chosen as one that she was available and the destination was to be the Lick observatory on top of Mt Hamilton. Jenny has done this ride before and the way she described the road going up to the observatory made me want to give it a go. I started out this morning with a plan to stay overnight in Crescent City, CA, which is my normal overnight for the two day ride to SF. The weather has done a complete flip flop and today was beautiful, verging on being too hot in the afternoon. I first took the liner out of my jacket and then took off my long sleeve shirt. I couldn't do anything more to get cool. About that time, though, I was approaching the coast and before too long I was putting everything back on. I decided not to stop in Crescent City because it was still pretty early and another rider I met advised me that hwy 101 was really messed up by the winter rains and would not be fun tomorrow in the expected rain. So I continued on to Eureka, and before long I put my heated vest on and plugged it in. Today was a long one. No stopping for lunch and dinner was at 8pm, but I covered 476 miles. Needless to say, I don't have many photos to share, which is a shame because all that rain has made the countryside a lush green and very beautiful. I did take one photo with my new camera. This was taken at a rest stop:

Tomorrow I should have more time to take photos.