NormanPCN
02-27-2005, 11:44 PM
The weather gods were kind and the third time was a charm and we got this run in. Bill (beatlejuice), Clark and I did our "Big Dog" day ride to the roads around Lake Isabella, CA (SoCal). Big Dog = lots of miles. I did 437. Probably the same for Clark and Bill was about 90 less (not quite so big dog).
Lake Isabella is not too close to any of us so we had to do a fair bit of crappy multi-lane highway to get to the interesting stuff. For me it was 110 miles to get to Mojave. I called this route a lollipop ride since that is the shape of the route. An out and back stick and a loop at the top.
We met as a group in Santa Clarita and rode to Mojave, CA and had breakfast at Mike's roadhouse. From there we cut over to the wind farm and on to Tehachapi and the Tehachapi loop, a California landmark. This is a loop in the train tracks. The train loop (http://www.tehachapi.com/loop/). Unfortunately it seemed that the tracks leading to the loop from each direction had trains just sitting there. We waiting a while but nothing came through. As we left one of the trains started moving but the wrong way. Also we did not see many "train people" hanging around. Maybe they knew something we did not.
We headed to the Caliente Bodfish road which would take us to Lake Isabella. I did not take any pictures since this site, Caliente Bodfish (http://www.pashnit.com/roads/cal/Caliente-BodfishRd.htm), has a real good selection. The road is a bit rough and due to the recent rains the road is a little grimey with dirt and rocks. We still motored along at a quick pace, but keeping reasonably vertical for necessary manuvers around road grime, and occasionally Cows. On this road there is an opportunity of a mini loop and we tried this out. When we came to Walker Basin road we turned right and this would end up back on Caliente Bodfish via Caliente Creek. Our printed map had too little detail (road names), and the GPS and its computer maps had too much detail. By this I mean all of the dirt roads going to/from houses and ranches and such. I ignored various GPS directions to go on dirt roads and it recalculated. I was looking for a certain road to get from Walker Basin to Calient Creek. We just kept going and then past a street sign and the name of the road we were on had changed to the road we wanted to get on. No chance to get lost. Just stay on the pavement. Back on Calient Bodfish and up the steep incline section for a second time. I think the direction we took the loop. From top to bottom is the best way. Walker Basin was a gradual decline and Caliente Bodfish had the steep incline with some first gear hairpins. I'd rather go up those than down. This is a very pretty road. Blow off the sport riding and enjoy the surroundings.
On to Lake Isabella, great view from up high, and Kernville where we got sandwiches at a deli and sat in the park by the river and ate lunch. Some people were kayacking in the river. The weather was great. It was supposed to be mostly cloudy but we got mostly sunny.
We left Kernville and Lake Isabella via the 178 towards the 14. This is a very fast road if you are so inclined. We kept it at about 70-80. Once at the 14 it was crappy superslab till home. In my case this was 150 miles.
When winter clears there are other alternate routes in this area that can be done as big dog routes. Some even bigger dogs that this one.
This was a good day and proof doing some superslab power runs to "get somewhere" to have some fun is not soimething to be afraid of. It only extends the scope of your "day ride" routes.
Lake Isabella is not too close to any of us so we had to do a fair bit of crappy multi-lane highway to get to the interesting stuff. For me it was 110 miles to get to Mojave. I called this route a lollipop ride since that is the shape of the route. An out and back stick and a loop at the top.
We met as a group in Santa Clarita and rode to Mojave, CA and had breakfast at Mike's roadhouse. From there we cut over to the wind farm and on to Tehachapi and the Tehachapi loop, a California landmark. This is a loop in the train tracks. The train loop (http://www.tehachapi.com/loop/). Unfortunately it seemed that the tracks leading to the loop from each direction had trains just sitting there. We waiting a while but nothing came through. As we left one of the trains started moving but the wrong way. Also we did not see many "train people" hanging around. Maybe they knew something we did not.
We headed to the Caliente Bodfish road which would take us to Lake Isabella. I did not take any pictures since this site, Caliente Bodfish (http://www.pashnit.com/roads/cal/Caliente-BodfishRd.htm), has a real good selection. The road is a bit rough and due to the recent rains the road is a little grimey with dirt and rocks. We still motored along at a quick pace, but keeping reasonably vertical for necessary manuvers around road grime, and occasionally Cows. On this road there is an opportunity of a mini loop and we tried this out. When we came to Walker Basin road we turned right and this would end up back on Caliente Bodfish via Caliente Creek. Our printed map had too little detail (road names), and the GPS and its computer maps had too much detail. By this I mean all of the dirt roads going to/from houses and ranches and such. I ignored various GPS directions to go on dirt roads and it recalculated. I was looking for a certain road to get from Walker Basin to Calient Creek. We just kept going and then past a street sign and the name of the road we were on had changed to the road we wanted to get on. No chance to get lost. Just stay on the pavement. Back on Calient Bodfish and up the steep incline section for a second time. I think the direction we took the loop. From top to bottom is the best way. Walker Basin was a gradual decline and Caliente Bodfish had the steep incline with some first gear hairpins. I'd rather go up those than down. This is a very pretty road. Blow off the sport riding and enjoy the surroundings.
On to Lake Isabella, great view from up high, and Kernville where we got sandwiches at a deli and sat in the park by the river and ate lunch. Some people were kayacking in the river. The weather was great. It was supposed to be mostly cloudy but we got mostly sunny.
We left Kernville and Lake Isabella via the 178 towards the 14. This is a very fast road if you are so inclined. We kept it at about 70-80. Once at the 14 it was crappy superslab till home. In my case this was 150 miles.
When winter clears there are other alternate routes in this area that can be done as big dog routes. Some even bigger dogs that this one.
This was a good day and proof doing some superslab power runs to "get somewhere" to have some fun is not soimething to be afraid of. It only extends the scope of your "day ride" routes.