An uninspired ride report (with some pictures)

[Scarecrow]

Well, not much really worth reporting about for my ride to Yosemite last weekend. It went like this:

 

So I got together a group of people from work to take a day ride up to Yosemite. We were going to caravan. I potentially had 2 other people on motorcycles (also BMW's) and three people in cars, Mini-cooper's. Jon had never been there before. He's lived here all his life, born & raised in San Francisco and never been to Yosemite.

 

It became apparent that one of the guys riding his bike would have to bail on us. Good reason (almost) - he was getting married the following weekend (today!) and just had way too much stuff to take care of the week before the wedding. The other rider also backed out. I never really expected her to go because she has bad wrists (RSI) and that would be a long day of riding which would be hard on her hands and wrists. In the meantime I coincidentally got a call from a guy I used to work with asking me something about his BMW bike. I told him about the ride and he was in.

 

So it was going to be Dave and me on our bikes; Jon, Tim, and Mike in their Mini's. Mike bailed out with a bad allergy attack. (It's been heavy pollen around here after the long rainy season we've had) So by Saturday morning it was Jon and Tim (with his 2.5 year old kid), me and Dave.

 

Ride up was good. Not much traffic. Dave and I were able to pass a couple of RV's the other guys couldn't. And then we also passed a long string of cars following a very slow one who wouldn't pull over and let people pass. But Dave and I found a straight spot in the normally curvy road, blipped on the throttle and zoomed by. We got to the Park gate, paid our way, then pulled over to the visitor center to wait for Jon and Tim. Nice ride, nice weather, beautiful day. Made it up to the park within 3.25 hours.

 

Stopped for some picture taking as you first come into sight of the Valley. Bridalveil Falls in the distance, beautiful valley.

Then we rode down into the valley and up the other side to Tunnel View, another picture spot. More nice pictures.

can also make out HalfDome in the distance

From their, down to Bridalveil Falls. Parking there was terrible, as it usually is. Dave and I on our bikes managed to squeeze into a couple of spots between cars. The Mini's had to wait a bit, but pretty quickly ended up parked almost next to each other. Walked over to the Falls. With the huge amount of water coming over the Falls, there is a drenching mist at the base. Jon, Tim, and I stopped well away; I was trying to shield my camera from the spray. Dave, still wearing his motorcycle jacket and riding pants went up to the base. Came back pretty drenched. Zak, Tim's kid was having a great time.

Bridalveil Creek flowing strong:

The Falls were full:

So we went back to the lot, Jon and Tim got in their cars and since there was a line of cars waiting, they headed out of the parking lot to wait on the side of the road for Dave and I. Dave and I had to get our helmets on, etc. so it took us a few minutes. We went by them on the road side, and they joined in behind us.

 

Next stop was the meadows across from Yosemite Falls.

Meadows were lush and water filled:

Dave and I pulled in at the first part of the meadow, Jon and Tim had to drive up a little to find parking, pretty close to us. I get off the bike, take my jacket off again, dig out the camera, and go walking up to find Jon and Tim. Saw Tim and walked across the meadow (there was a boardwalk so people wouldn't trample the meadow; the water in the meadow was high enough to put the walkway a few inches below water in one spot.)

The Merced was high above normal banks

and the Falls were spectacular

 

I asked Tim where Jon was, he replied, he's back at the car - he has a flat! OH NOOOOOO! Sure enough he had a flat.

 

Now let me explain that his version of the Mini is a sport model. It comes with tires they call 'run-flats'. Which means if you get a flat, you can still ride on them for limited distance (50-80 miles) at slow speed (maybe 50mph). But Jon didn't like the way the car felt with run-flats, so he got another set of tires. But he has no spare. Yosemite Valley, flat tire, no spare. Not good. Turns out Tim's model of the Mini does come with a spare. A small, undersized spare, but one that would fit on Jon's car and at least let him drive over to the garage. So we got it from Tim's car (which took us a while to figure out how to do), put it on Jon's and I led them to the garage. Guy looked at it and said, nope, couldn't fix it. Nearest tire place was in Oakdale, about 80-90 miles away, fortunately on the direct way home.

 

At this point, Dave had to leave to get back home. The rest of us stopped and had a nice lunch. At that point Jon wanted to just start the drive back since he would have to go slow the whole way. I went with him in case he needed further assistance. Tim stayed behind to get some more pictures at the base of Yosemite Falls. I really wanted to get pictures there too, but Jon didn't want to stop. So, I ended following Jon all the way back to Oakdale. Found a Big O Tire store and got there as they were shutting up shop. They didn't have a tire which would fit the Mini. So we continued on. Stopped in the next town (Manteca) with a tire store, but by that time it was closed. Decided we may just as well drive all the way back; we'd just have to drive slow. So all the way home at 50 mph. Not a fun ride at all. Took about 5+ hours to get home.

 

Saw Tim at work Monday morning. Turns out: He got a flat!!!!! And of course he had no spare!!! Poor poor poor Tim. He was on the side of the road about 12 miles from the park entrance, middle of no[censored]ingwhere. No cell phone reception. With a 2.5 year old. Tim said Zak was just a trooper through it all. The "it all" was: missed a tow truck twice because he was walking up the road to where he could get phone reception, back at his car he waited and waited. Some nice people passing by stopped and helped him. Went down the road to a store and brought him back diapers and some water. He finally towed got out of there and made it to Sacramento at 11:30PM. Sacramento where a Mini dealer was and where the tow truck left him. Next morning, rented a car, drove the rest of the way home and got there around 2. About 24 hours to make it home from Yosemite. Just too much!!

 

So, sorry, more of a tale than a ride tale. But sometimes that happens.

[flyingreg]

Great ride report, the falls look great this year. I have seen them when they were just a trickle. Thanks for posting the awesome pictures.

 

Curious here, you and Dave don't carry tire plugging kits on your bikes? Rope plugs, even Stop-n-Go plugs would have at least fixed the hole. Air would have been another issue, but the store in the valley has services.

 

Anyway, thanks for the ride tale!

[Whip]

Very nice.....What inspires you...if that doesn't?

 

 

Whip

[Scarecrow]

Curious here, you and Dave don't carry tire plugging kits on your bikes? Rope plugs, even Stop-n-Go plugs would have at least fixed the hole. Air would have been another issue, but the store in the valley has services.

Dave was better prepared than I; he had a tire plugging kit of some kind. Unfortunately, the tire was slashed on the inside side wall. Jon had some kind of goop/air-in-a-can, but that didn't work because of the size/shape of the hole. We didn't think Dave's kit would work either. We thought if we could get the garage guy to pull the tire, he might have been able to patch it from the inside. He took one look at the tire and said, no way.

 

So... I will order and start carrying a tire plug kit of some kind. Any one have a recommendation?

 

The one plus of my ride home was that I achieved the best gas mileage I've ever gotten: just over 49 miles per gallon. I wish I could get that under normal riding conditions.

[Shawnee Bill]

Great pictures, a little different than the usual Yosmite pictues. I gotta get back up there.

I've been broke down a longs ways from help before, not fun, but as it turns out not so bad either.

As for flats, all I can say is I never leave town in a cage without a spare, as for a plug kit, there are some holes that a plug kit won't fix.

[GelStra]

Uninspired, huh? Yosemite is one of my top 3 places in the lower 48, along with Jackson Hole and Yellowstone (of the places I've been). Kinda like the old saying:"A bad day in Yosemite beats.....well, most anything!" Great pictures. How fortunate you are to have that as a day trip. Thanks for posting.

[ChrisNYC]

Nice pictures and writeup ... I've never been to Yosemite so your tale is whetting my appetite

 

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Chris (aka Tender Vittles )

Little '77 KZ400 in the Big Apple

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