russell_bynum Posted December 10, 2001 Share Posted December 10, 2001 Christmas Party in the Bay Area? Hey Dick...wanna go for a ride? That's about how it all started. After a couple of weeks of route planning and gathering RSVP's, the ride was on...a 560 mile ride through some of the state's best motorcycle roads. Laney and I had bounced some emails around and decided that since Yoda was leading us, this should be the Jedi Knights Tour. Here's my fuzzy recollection... Brian T and I had our times mixed up (thought we were supposed to be at Kramer at 7:45 instead of 8:45) AND we were both 30 minutes late leaving, so we FLEW all the way. 85-90 down the 15, 100+ down 395 and 115-120 all the way across the 58 to Mojave. (or at least until the construction zone where we got locked into a one-lane behind other cars). I have no idea what happened with our times, but it all turned out OK in the end. We hit Mojave just after 9 and met Barry, Dick, Laney, Steve, and Brant. The Tehachapi pass wasn't as cold as I was expecting...actually, I was just fine in my First Gear jacket and pants with stuff layered underneath. We hit some VERY thick fog on the 58. We were riding sweep and would completely loose sight of Brant every few minutes even though he was only 15 feet ahead of us. His extra brake light was about all we could see. Some observations about extra lights on the back of the RT....Brian's Hyperlites wired as running lights were VERY visible. Brant's extra brake light was also very good. Gleno had rear running lights and we could BARELY see them. Since we were riding sweep, we had our hazards on in case someone came up behind us. Interestingly enough, Gleno's running lights were more visible at night than Brian's Hyperlites, but during the daytime, the Hyperlites ruled. Eventually the fog cleared and we, um...sped up. I remember one part of the 58 where we were riding sweep behind Brant. We were in a big left-hand sweeper. You know how when you're in a turn and you want to stand the bike up a bit to open up your line? We were running a little inside, so I went for more throttle, but found it already almost on the stop. I glanced down at the speedo...105. My favorite part of the ride was chasin' Gleno and Terri across the 25. We didn't have on enough preload and so we kept dragging the centerstand but we were haulin' some SERIOUS booty anyway. At one point, we made a quick transition from a right turn to a left and gounded the stand pretty hard. The rear end slid a little, but grabbed again wtih no problem. About that time, Lisa starts pounding on my back. I guess I'm glad we left without her headset lead, I couldn't hear what she was no doubt yelling at me at that point. At the next rest stop, Steve A (who was behind us) accused me of trying to set his bike on fire because of all the sparks. I wonder if I can change my BBS username to "Sparky" On the next leg, Dick hit the afterburners across a long, straight section of road across the valley. Throttles pinned, the RT's tried to keep up (buck and a quarter on my speedo). Gleno claims he was about to pass Dick when he flashed us the 1-4-0, but decided not to so he wouldn't hurt Dick's feelings. Saturday morning, we buzzed over to ShortCut's place to meet up for some riding. This dude is cool. First thing you notice when you go in the house is the beautiful R69S IN THE LIVING ROOM!!!!! When I went in the garage, I was even more impressed. I didn't even notice the Porsche for a long time because of all the bikes. I couldn't find the RT at first either. Think about that for a minute...a 3-car garage and you have to TRY to notice the RT and almost miss the Porsche alltogether! Much to our suprise, the FastMoFo himself, Mr. Tom Roe had flown/drove in for the event and had pictures of his RT with him...well, half of it anyway. Saturday's ride was to include 3 bridges (Golden Gate, Bay, and Richmond) Gleno led us on a nice tour of San Franciso inculding about 28 U-turns. (Actually, that's the way it works, the 101 "freeway" winds through the city before it crosses the bridge). After we crossed the Golden Gate, we made our stop at Marin BMW. There was Tom Roe. "Hey, how'd you get here so fast?" We met Carry, had some KK's, bought a new helmet lead for Lisa's headset, then headed out with Gleno, BrianT, Fernando, Zeke, and BigMak. We wound our way into Bodega Bay and cruised into the restaurant. Hey, there's Tom....how'd he do that? Food in Bodega Bay, then blast back home. The party was great fun, and it was amazing the number of people that were there. Bikes everywhere out front, people overflowing from the house into the backyard, etc. BigMak made his appearance in a home-made Santa suit to pass out gifts. The gift exchange turned brutal, but was LOTS of fun. Sunday morning, we had breakfast with Lisa's parents, then bugged out. We decided to go 101 all the way home and try to just make time. We stopped in Paso Robles for some warm soup because we were frozen just about solid by that point. We stopped again in Santa Maria for fuel, then went nonstop the rest of the way home. We had wet roads all the way home, but didn't actually get rained on until the last 10 miles. Lisa and I had a great time. ShortCut definitely knows how to throw a party, Dick led us on a GREAT sport tour up to Northern Cal, and Gleno led a fun tour of the Bay Area complete with a stop at Marin BMW to get our pictures on the wall. It was great fun, everybody. When are we doin' it again? ------------------ Russell '00 R1100RT Graphite '93 K75 Blue BMWMOA Vegas Tech Daze Graduate "We will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail." -George W. Bush [This message has been edited by russell_bynum (edited 12-10-2001).] [This message has been edited by russell_bynum (edited 12-10-2001).] Link to comment
murrayg Posted December 10, 2001 Share Posted December 10, 2001 Let me get this straight, you looked down in a sweeper to learn that you're doing 105?? You guys scare me. I'm glad that you made it safely and didn't donate to the police benevolence fund. Thanks for the trip report and the feedback about lighting. ------------------ Murrayg B'Safe, Have Fun Link to comment
russell_bynum Posted December 10, 2001 Author Share Posted December 10, 2001 quote: Originally posted by murrayg: Let me get this straight, you looked down in a sweeper to learn that you're doing 105?? You guys scare me. I'm glad that you made it safely and didn't donate to the police benevolence fund. Thanks for the trip report and the feedback about lighting. I couldn't believe it either. I thought we were going, maybe 70-80. The bike just plants and stays planted. One thing that Gleno commented about...in the tighter stuff, two things help out a bunch...1. Keep the RPMS up to stay in the RT's powerband (Yes, Dick...RT's have a powerband!). When it feels like you need to shift, don't. You'll be pleasantly suprised. 2. The bike really does nice things when you trail a little bit of rear brake into a corner and keep it on as you apply power. I can't explain it the physics of it, but Gleno and I both had the same observations. ------------------ Russell '00 R1100RT Graphite '93 K75 Blue BMWMOA Vegas Tech Daze Graduate "We will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail." -George W. Bush Link to comment
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