Just about to saddle up for a nice long ride

[jmgatlin]

I've got a conference to attend in Anaheim, CA, so I've decide to get there in the most enjoyable way possible?it's time for a ride!

Here's the route I'm currently planning on: http://goo.gl/maps/uZqCm

The entire loop is just over 5000 miles, but I'm quite sure we'll get a few more tacked on along the way. I'll have a couple of friends traveling with me this time around, and we're planning to camp most nights while on the road. We'll depart Duluth, MN on Thursday, July 11 bright and early and possibly make it to Denver on day one. I've done a couple of 1000 miles days and I like getting to the twisty Rocky Mtn. roads quickly. After that we'll stay off the slab as much as possible and just enjoy the scenic beauty.

If anyone has some "must-see" or "must-rides" along the way, I'd sure love to hear about it.

And I'll post a few photos along the way. Stay safe out there!

 

[Bigmak96]

Sweet, wish I were one of your buddies.
Think about making a visit to the Moki Dugway. It has special meaning to many. 37.270501,-109.938935 These coordinates are the south side.
Have a great trip.

 

[jmgatlin]

Sweet, wish I were one of your buddies.
Think about making a visit to the Moki Dugway. It has special meaning to many. 37.270501,-109.938935 These coordinates are the south side.
Have a great trip.

Wow, that looks crazy fun. We may have to give that a look!

 

[Bigmak96]

Wow, that looks crazy fun. We may have to give that a look!

It is a slow but great ride. It is easy gravel.

 

[5720]

Good morning,
Will be sending you a PM with a Nor-Cali-Invite.
RM

 

[5720]

Hello,
Not sure the PM went.
I live north of San Fran about 70 miles. I am about 15 miles west of Santa Rosa Ca and would like to extend an invite for a hand shake and a bite.
I am not sure if schedules will allow but I am hoping we can work something out .. if you like.
I will look forward to any reply and be prayin' for you safe travels.
My best,
RM

 

[Bigmak96]

Well worth the ride if time allows.

Please take a Dr Pepper along antoastat Terry while there. Raise it for Putt too. Heck, it's a finplacece to pay respects to all the folks we have lost over the years.
I have to get back, been too long.

 

[ladder106]

Once your getting close to San Francisco, give me a shout, email, PM or phone. I'm on the list.

I'd suggest altering course and using California Hwy 1 rather than 101.

Hwy 1 will take you right along the coast....and I mean RIGHT along the coast. It may tack an extra half day onto your ride but will be well worth it. 101 just goes up through valleys and doesn't get really nice until you get up into the redwoods around Crescent City.

I'd be happy to tag along and show you the route up the coast if the timing works. My wife and I will be staying in Sea Ranch starting Aug 1 and if you decide to alter course to see the Pacific you'd be welcome with us for a night or two.

Maybe we can work something out with 5720 and make it a group ride.

Ray

 

[5720]

Hey Ladder106,
I'm all in brother.
Let's show em whats up out west.
I got a pm from jmgatlin with his cell and will phone him today .. after which I'll look you up with whatever deatils he can provide at this point.
Eiether way I would also look forward to meeting you as well. I just rode the coast to BBQ in Gualala last weekend with 3 others. Excellent ! .
My best,
Randy

 

[jmgatlin]

Once your getting close to San Francisco, give me a shout, email, PM or phone. I'm on the list.

I'd suggest altering course and using California Hwy 1 rather than 101.

Hwy 1 will take you right along the coast....and I mean RIGHT along the coast. It may tack an extra half day onto your ride but will be well worth it. 101 just goes up through valleys and doesn't get really nice until you get up into the redwoods around Crescent City.

I'd be happy to tag along and show you the route up the coast if the timing works. My wife and I will be staying in Sea Ranch starting Aug 1 and if you decide to alter course to see the Pacific you'd be welcome with us for a night or two.

Maybe we can work something out with 5720 and make it a group ride.

Ray

This sounds absolutely great. I did want to try to stay on Hwy 1 as much as possible. I think I left that off my Google map, but only because it was a rough draft, not the final trail I intend to hit.

And I'd love to connect for a bit of a group ride, if the timing works out. I plan to leave Anaheim on Saturday am and see how far north we can make it. We're also planning to camp and would love to be near the coast. I originally grew up near the bay area and the Oregon coast. I'm solo looking forward to smelling the salt in the air again.

I'll stay in touch as we get closer. Thanks so much!

 

[jmgatlin]

Hey Ladder106,
I'm all in brother.
Let's show em whats up out west.
I got a pm from jmgatlin with his cell and will phone him today .. after which I'll look you up with whatever deatils he can provide at this point.
Eiether way I would also look forward to meeting you as well. I just rode the coast to BBQ in Gualala last weekend with 3 others. Excellent ! .
My best,
Randy

I may try to give you a call later this evening, if you're free. My day hours are just booked solid. Except for typing this note, that is…

 

[ladder106]

My apologies but a friend has a family emergency that he needs assistance to mitigate.

I'll be riding down to Santa Cruz tomorrow to help and won't be available for the ride up the coast.

Sorry to disappoint.

My best wishes for a great trip.

Ray

 

[ruut66]

What a trip........Your taking in the best of 66 too, in my humble opinion, best towns for R66 souvenir shops, not to mention the Road Kill Cafe....Send a postcard LOL....

I've got a conference to attend in Anaheim, CA, so I've decide to get there in the most enjoyable way possible?it's time for a ride!

Here's the route I'm currently planning on: http://goo.gl/maps/uZqCm

The entire loop is just over 5000 miles, but I'm quite sure we'll get a few more tacked on along the way. I'll have a couple of friends traveling with me this time around, and we're planning to camp most nights while on the road. We'll depart Duluth, MN on Thursday, July 11 bright and early and possibly make it to Denver on day one. I've done a couple of 1000 miles days and I like getting to the twisty Rocky Mtn. roads quickly. After that we'll stay off the slab as much as possible and just enjoy the scenic beauty.

If anyone has some "must-see" or "must-rides" along the way, I'd sure love to hear about it.

And I'll post a few photos along the way. Stay safe out there!

 

[5720]

Ladder106,
Sorry for you urgent assist. Please hollar if there is anything I can do.
Out late last night playing fireman and into work at 0500 this AM... kinda draggin' wagon.
I have yet to hear from jmgatlin as to specifics on West coast portion of his journey. Still hopin' our paths can cross.
Lookin' forward to meeting ya one fine day.
My best,
Randy

 

[jmgatlin]

Well, I'm back! And what a great trip this was. There were lots of great roads, perfect weather, but I always say this. And some great new friends. And best of all, all the riders made it home safe and sound. Here's a brief recap for those interested:

day one: two of us started from Duluth, MN at 5am. The rider who was joining me from the home town hadn't made a cross country trip before and really wanted to score a SS1000. I explained that its way harder than it sounds, but that we'd see what we could do. He grabbed all the required paperwork, we topped off the tanks and hit the road. Just as I reached the top of the hill, heading away from Lake Superior of I35 south, right where the speed limit increases to 70mph, a seagull sat rats jumping across the road right in front of me. I'm rolling on the throttle and heading into the left lane just as that dumb bird begins to take off...right into my path. I heard a bit of a thump and that was it for me. At the next gas stop I noticed a white feather stuck to a pin which secures the front plastic. Ha! An early suvioner. The rider following me, Wade (riding an 1100 Yamaha cruiser), said he saw the bird shoot straight up over his head and them plummet towards earth, never to fly again. Oh well.

We made a brief stop to connect with our third rider, Ross (riding a 2003 Harley Ultra Classic), just south of the Twin Cities and then took off towards Des Moines, IA. We were on a decent pace to make the 1000 miles and not completely wear ourselves out for the next few days. Along the way, Wade needed some encouragement about how to make the gas stops a bit shorter. Given that this was his first ride I tried to be patient, but internally I struggled because I could see our arrival time getting later and later. Another "oh well." Why get stressed about this. Hey, I'm riding. Relax. Chill. This is supposed to be fun!

The rest of the day was pretty straight forward until we began to approach Denver, CO. There was a great electrical storm brewing off in the distance. All up and down the horizon we saw lightening flashing over and over and over again. I bet we saw 300-400 flashed in the hour we were coming into town. Finally near 11pm Mountian time, we are rolling into North Denver heading to the hotel with huge webs of lightening making it seem like daylight right over our heads. There wasn't much rain yet, but the power was brilliant. By the time we parked as had logged 1080 miles on the GPS. Wade had the signed beginning and ending forms and all the timed gas receipts he needed. I was an exhausted feeling of success.

Right before I went to bed my daughter, who lives in Denver, called and wanted to get together for breakfast in the morning...at 6:30am. Whew. When I asked the front desk for a 5:50am wake up call, the lady asked, "Aren't you one of the guys who just arrived on a motorcycle? And you want to get up when?" Haha!

 

[jmgatlin]

Day two: I woke up and felt pretty good, considering what we'd accomplished the day before. I guess the Day-Long seat I put on last year was really worth it. My first couple of 1000 mile rides on the stock seat left my aging body feeling a bot more tired than I felt on this day. After breakfast with my daughter and her boyfriend, I reconnected with Ross and Wade and promised to lead them towards some sweet Mountian roads.

My plan was to eventually get to hwy 550 and camp somewhere near Durango. And I didn't want to travel on an interstate. We picked 285 out of the Denver area and eventually connected to 50 and then to 550. Those were some great roads and we made it as far as Ouray. I have visited this town several times over the years and just love the location, the landscape, the feel of the place. The problem is that without prior planning, lodging at night is difficult to find! After checking the main camp ground above the town and several of the less expensive hotels, Ross has get the idea to check with the local pastor. He rode by the church, saw a light on and the study door cracked open, and an older guy inside. He went up and began a conversation, telling him our situation and that a couple of us were pastors as well. Then this guys tells us about a retreat center for pastors that he has in that building, and asks if $50 a night would be alright. Awesome. This was a great couple of rooms with a full kitchen and a very nice host.

I had told Ross that we'd be doing lots of camping on this trip and his response was a clear, "I hate camping." Ross was very pleased we hadn't camped yet. In fact, because there wasn't enough room to get all three bikes off the street and sidewalk, this pastor had Ross put the Harley in the entryway of the church over night. Yep, the Harley got to be indoors and Ross had a silly grin on his face all night and for most of the next day.

 

[jmgatlin]

Day three: I wanted to get started a bit early from Ouray because of the rain that was forecast to begin in the area around 9am. We made our oatmeal and coffee and were riding by 7am. I love the 550 and there was almost zero traffic this early in the morning. Perfect. There was quite a bit of fog until we got up over the first pass, headed toward Silverton. These roads and the cool weather were perfect. It was a great combination of slowly sweeping and tight technical corners all morning on the way to Durango. And the ST is perfect for passing the slower moving vehicles...or all the other vehicles along the way. Ah, perfect.

After Durango we headed out along 550 toward Aztec, NM, and then 516 towards Farmington, and then 64 to Shiprock, before taking 491 to Gallup. My Dad has a place is Show Low, AZ, and I wanted to get there this afternoon to help him cook up a big pile of baby back ribs. I could almost smell them through the southwestern heat already.

One of the saddest stretches of road was through Zuni, NM. The poverty was stunning. I'm sure you know what I mean and have ridden through similar areas. Afterwards on the long straight stretches I got my speed up a bit over the limit. Just a bit. This bake feels so solid at higher speeds that I just kept it there for several miles, all the time scanning the sides of the road for little critters that might jump out. And sure enough, a scrawny coyote wanders out in front of me after I had slowed down to some safer speeds.

W got into my dads place about 3pm and he had the ribs ready to go. I think he remembers my friends and I as much younger guys, because he was working on 5-6 full racks. Wow. We sure ate great that night. Ad Ross got out of camping once again.

 

[jmgatlin]

Day Four: We spent the morning with dad and got on the road a bit later in the am. I knew this would cost us later in the day as we corssed the desert, but the time with dad was well spend and good for both of us. We headed out through Payson, Happy Jack and Mormon Lake before connecting with I40 at Flagstaff. The fun riding was done for a bit and now we just put the hammer down and try to stay alive till we made it to LA.

By the time we got to Needles, it was 115 out. I'd never seen the ST gauge reach that on a ride and I hope I never do again! At a stop on Ludlow the cashier stated that she seldom saw bikers come through there in the middle of the day, most came through in the morning hours...and she wanted to know if we were just tough or something. We got a great laugh out of that.

But the scenery was so worth it as we came over the San Bernadino mountains that evening. They were stunningly beautiful layers of blue shapes piled on top of each other as we cruised down I15 towards Anaheim. When we arrived at the house we rented I headed straight to the pool in an attempt to rehydrate my body. A pool has never felt that good, at least to me.

ill post some more about the ride home and the wonderful hospitality provided a member of the forum after the weekend!

 

[jmgatlin]

Day five: (of riding) after an entire week at our national conference, I was pretty tired and I wasn't sure how long I would sleep on Saturday am, so I told the other two guys to not expect me to rise too early, but hey, you never know. And sure enough at about 5am I was awake and anticipating the beautiful curves of hwy 1 heading north up the SoCal coast. S we packed up and were riding by 6am. Traffic was pretty easy that time of the day, even in LA! And we made it over to the coast by shortly after 7am, and after that I was just enjoying the scenery. Beautiful!

i had talked with a couple other forum members, on this thread, about riding together later in the day just north of the bay area, and I found out rather quickly that I was quite optimistic. Along the way, at a scenic overlook, an Asian tourist walks right up to us offering six tickets for the motorcycle races taking place all weekend in Monterey. What a nice guy! I took the tickets thinking we could either stay around the area an extra day or give them away to someone else as we got closer to the event. One of our riders needed to be back in the office on Thursday morning, and since we were still 3000 miles away from home, we opted to give them away. A we were going through the farmland on the approach to SanFran, there we many sport bikers riding around. Must have been becau of the races. I decided to pull over at a gas stop when I saw a bunch of other riders nearby, and offer them the tickets. They were so grateful as a couple of them had tickets, but several others wanted them. Nice. They weren't going to go to waste.

We pushed on and crossed the Golden Gate in the usual dense fog. It was an earie experience riding across that sweet bridge with just about 20 feet of visibility. Kind of felt like a cool movie scene. After we get free of the fog and traffic opened up a bit I called Ladder106 (Randy), one of the members of this forum who wanted to ride with us, and we talked about how it had gotten too late and we were just going to look for a place to camp, or hotel it for the night. He offered to call some of the local hotels around Santa Rosa for us so that we could continue riding, and I hesitated just because I didn't want to impose on him. After a bit he called back to say that absolutely everything was booked. Seriously?

After a bit more conversation he offered to let us stay at his place. Really? It was getting pretty late in the day, we were getting pretty tired having left LA earlier that morning, and we decided to take him up on the offer. After getting directions and getting turned around at a gas stop for an extra few minutes, we arrived at Randy's place just as the sun was setting. Ad the little road to get there, the Bohemian Hwy, if I remember correctly, was a perfect sunset road to end the day of riding.

You really do meet the nicest people on a Honda! We had a delightful time with he and his wife, swapping stories and enjoying wonderful hospitality. Thanks so much for taking in some fellow riders weary from the day's riding!! We may not have gotten to ride together, but sharing a keel, and our stories, and becoming friends along the way---we just couldn't have asked for anything better.

We took off the next morning and following Randy's advice, we got to enjoy some even more beautiful roads. But that's the next post...

 

[5720]

Good morning Michael,
Great reading in this thread .. and the photos sure tell a story eh ??
Very glad ya'll were able to stay with us. It was great meeting .. the three amigos while out ridin' the west.
Trust the remaining events in this tale went smooth and schedules were met. Will be watching for further.
Take care friend,
Randy/5720