A few shots from my recent trip out west

[Patience]

More to come when I have more time... Unfortunately, my battery charger wasn't working during this trip, so I only had so much power available to take pics. I got a few decent ones though. I'll try and get'em all up as soon as I can. I have to leave town again this evening.

 

 

A little bit of Going to the Sun Hwy in Montana.

 

The start of hwy... umm... 273? in CA. I'll look it up later if I'm incorrect.

 

Thanks to those beautiful California roads, I managed to scrub my new Z6's in pretty well. 15mph hairpins galore... -with- hanging off to the inside like crazy. I was afraid I was going to scrape my bum before I hit the pegs.

 

Part of Route 36 in CA. This road has three distinct sections to it, and is a pretty darn cool ride.

 

This last one is of the HD rider who popped off his fuel hose and drained some into a container for me when I ran out of gas. He was one of 3 seperate HD riders who all stopped to offer a hand, but the only one of the three that understood how a fuel line works.

[AdventurePoser]

As usual, your pix are first rate. Going-to-the-Sun highway is one of my faves. In fact, I proposed to Jennifer while on a moto tour here...Still, we've never had a chance to see it in the fall...

 

Cheers,

Steve

[Jim VonBaden]

Nicely done Adam! I am looking forward to more!

 

Jim

[Wheels Rollin']

As usual, your pix are first rate.

I agree wholeheartedly with Steve, Adam... Outstanding all... I'll say this now -- there'll definitely be some day this winter, the howling northern wind at my windows, the ground covered in a blanket of deep, white snow, my cabin fever-induced "blahs" doin' their darnedest to take me down for the count, when I'll click on your pix and smile warmly... I thank you -- and all the others so generously sharing their images with the rest of us -- for what I know will be the solace of that moment << grateful smile >>...

 

-- Bill

[ian408]

 

Love the shot of Going to the Sun. Can't wait to see more!

 

Ian

[brinkjm]

(Personal note to self: Must ride Highway 36 before I die!)

 

Thanks for the pictures Adam, they were great, and kudos to you for taking such a grand tour on an F650CS! Me thinks that an article worthy of a printed publication is in order!

[dhb]

Nice job, Adam. Enjoyed the photos, and, like wheels a rollin, I'll also enjoy them this winter. Please post some more when you can. Thanks

 

Dave

[Patience]

Okie dokie. Hopefully this won't put me over-bandwidth on my site, with as many members as we have here checking out ride tales and whatnot. I'll attempt to go in Chronological order as best as I can. I'm getting pretty sleepy at the moment, so I doubt I'll get'em all done this evening though.

 

First off, it took me nearly two last days of feverish work to get all the mods done on my bike, so we left a day late. As we were getting ready to go, I mentioned to my dad that I needed to re-park my car once I had moved the bike. He didn't hear me. This resulted in him taking off and getting an hour down the road, thinking I was ahead of him, and me driving around the neighborhood after parking the car, trying to figure out where he went. Not a good start.

 

After catching up to him, we rode a few more hours before calling it a night. The next day we awoke to rain. Approximately 10 hours of riding in the rain and cold. I found out at that point that my rain pants aren't long enough to cover the tops of my boots when I'm seated on the bike. 10 hours of cold feet that were literally floating in the boots was... adventurous. It made me very grumpy.

 

 

 

Two days later, as we were riding toward great falls MT to pick up my mom from the airport, my dad hit a bambi. He was going about 90mph at the time, and I was riding about 200 feet behind him. All I saw was deer body flying off the road on his left side, and deer head and one of the legs flying off the side of the road on his right. Little thing never had a chance. It got its revenge though. It managed to bend the faring, and push it back through the radiator. Here's a pic of some of the damage.

 

 

 

After parting ways with my dad, who went to rent a car after getting his bike to a shop, I decided to snap a couple of pics on the way to meet my mom in great falls. Here's one of my bike. For some reason, I liked taking pics of it.

 

 

 

A couple of miles down the road, a couple of individuals looking for a free ride confronted me. I found out that evening that one managed to stow away on my bike. The other attempted to stow away on my face shield. Fortunately, he didn't stick.

 

 

 

The next day my mom went with my dad to missoula via u-haul, with the two week old LT in tow. It was about 300 miles, but was the closest dealership. I took that opportunity to ride going to the sun hwy.

 

I can't remember for sure, but I believe this pic was up near the top. It got down to about.. oh... 50 something degrees up there. I was alright in just my savannah suit, since I wasn't going all that fast. There were some very nice panoramas of valleys, but I couldn't do them justice with a camera, so I didn't end up taking pictures. It's definitely the kind of place you want to visit in person.

 

 

 

Here's a pic through the trees at some of the mountains.

 

 

 

For some reason, I was in a mood where I was taking a few pictures with the sun in them.

 

 

Here's the same valley, slightly different view. I enjoyed how the sun was streaming through the clouds and moisture in the air. You can just see the sunlight glimmering off a river at the bottom of the valley.

 

 

 

There were quite a few neat waterfalls there as well. I greatly recommend having a whole day to visit, so you can hike some of the trails. My dad had a chance to do that last time he was there, but I haven't. He said getting off the road and hiking a bit is well worth the time. There was actually one place I had to ride in the opposite lane, because a waterfall was pouring onto our side of the road. The cars went right through it, but I didn't feel like taking an icewater bath. It would have been an awesome pic, with some of the fall foliage in the background, but I wasn't allowed to stop since they were doing construction in that area at the time. Here's a pic of one of the nice little falls going down a hillside though, with a mountaintop behind.

 

 

That's all I'm going to post for this evening. I'll try and get some out tomorrow or Saturday at some point.

[Francois_Dumas]

Adam, I LOVE your (fall colors !) pictures and always enjoy your way of story telling. Thank you so much and I wish you a safe trip and warm feet !!

 

Kind regards,

Francois

[leikam]

Anybody riding a panhead better know how a fuel line works.

 

Thanks for sharing the pictures. Nice job.

[Patience]

Okay... I'm hoping this post rolls me on to a new page, so these don't all have to load at the same time.

 

The next part of the series is the adventure I had while trying to ride around a lake in Nevada, and ended up lost on dirt roads in the desert at night with no map.

 

After that, I'm hoping you guys like twisties, as I'll post the rest of my pics from California.

 

 

I also took SR20 up across Washington, but wasn't able to get any pics, because my battery was too low. It was quite beautiful up there though. The rivers were a crystal clear blue, and looked soooooo good for fishing.

[Patience]

When in Reno visiting my aunt and uncle, I took a day and decided to do some riding to various places in the area. First I headed west and rode around lake Tahoe. It was a reasonably cool ride, but very commercialized in many sections. The exception was the incredibly cool twisty section surrounding emerald bay on the west side. I forgot my camera on that part of the trip.

 

Getting back in the late afternoon, I figured I'd take a trip up the road to Pyramid lake, which is east of Reno in a reservation. My uncle has lived 10 miles from the lake for the last 7 years, but has never been around it. I figured since it was pretty unpopulated around the lake, I could run it pretty quick, and be back in time for dinner.

 

Note to all:

 

When barbequeued ribs are at stake, do not go somewhere you've never been before.

 

I had a great ride around the west side of the lake, which was all asphalt. About 2/3rds of the way north on the west side, I encountered this sign.

 

 

Look at thos cool little peaks in the background! There's no way I was stopping at the end of the pavement. Going back the way you came is to admit defeat!

 

Here's the peaks sticking out of the water at the north end of the lake.

 

 

I figured that there must be a road somewhere to the north, connecting to the east side of the lake, that I could take, so I rode a bit further.

 

Hmmm. Still no connecting road a couple of miles later. It looked like I had about an hour of daylight left. If I turned around right now, I could probably make it back to the pavement before sunset. Turn around my a$$, I'm an explorer! Okay. Here's what lies ahead. Notice the nice clouds coming in too.

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm. It looks kind of intimidating, but then again, so does the shot behind me.

 

 

That said, I decided to continue on, which I did for about... oh... another 45 minutes. I passed a road called "susanville" and almost took it, but the road I was on seemed a little bit better groomed, so I continued straight, to "sand pass."

 

Another 15 minutes later, as it was getting dark, I arrived at these signs:

 

 

Wait a second! I've been bumping my butt around on gravel, sand, dirt, and rock for the last two hours, and NOW the road gets rough?!?!

 

The green one actually says "entering pyramid lake reservation"

 

Ummm... haven't I been in pyramid lake reservation for the last two hours? The signs I passed before seemed to indicate that. I guess this must be the really reserved part of the reservation.

 

Okay. I'm confused... so what does that big white sign say?

 

 

Hmmm. Okay. Good. I'm motorcycling, and since that's not on the list, I don't need a permit, so I can go ahead. Thank God I didn't drive 2 hours into the middle of the desert with absolutely no one around in order to sun bathe... man, I would have been so disappointed.

 

Continuing on, I crested the first hill. They weren't kidding. The road sure did get rougher, but not so bad that I couldn't ride, so I went on down around the bend. That was when I discovered that in translated into the local native american dialect, rough road does not mean 'rough road.' It means, 'nasty deep flat looking sand trap ahead.' I learned this as I swerved multiple times as my nice road tires waded through the sand, and my bike suddenly swayed severly side to side.

 

 

 

 

I managed to stay upright though. I figured there was no way I was going to be able to continue to push forward through that much sand, so I was going to have to hike if I wanted to see more. Immediately, I was overcome with remorse at realizing I was suddenly hiking on the reserved part of the reservation without a permit. Dejected, I turned around, and pushed my bike back up to the more solid part of the road, and figured I'd turn around. Hmm... turn around... musn't be defeated... Susanville sounds like a town. I'll head back to that and go that way! This of course, sounded like a great idea, and the sunset was awful nice at the time.

 

 

It'd been almost 3 hours at this point, and after taking susanville road, I hadn't seen anything other than desert for quite some time. It was now almost dark. I began to get a little worried. "Okay," I thought. "I'll check my cell phone and see if I can get any kind of reception."

 

 

 

What the heck?!?! I'm standing in the middle of flippin' nowhere, on a reservation, and I have a perfect four bars of reception?!?!?!

 

 

I can't be as in the middle of nowhere as I thought... Maybe susanville is close...

 

After riding a little further, I could just see some lights. Maybe that's susanville...

 

 

As I attempted to ride further toward the lights, all the sudden my V1 started hitting me with X band coming from all directions. Okay... I'm in the middle of nowhere, miles away yet from what is hopefully susanville, and my V1's going crazy...

 

After doing the obligatory check all around me for UFO's, I spotted this sign a little further up.

 

 

Oh. Crap. That's not susanville! No wonder my radar is going crazy... Okay... turning around to take the other cut off I saw that continued north. No way I'm turning back now. -Something- has got to be closer than taking the same road back.

 

Continuing further up the dirt road, I came to another sign, and PAVEMENT!!!

 

 

What that little green sign says is "Entering California."

 

Normally, I would cringe at that, but in this case, I have never been so happy to enter the state. Thank God for you CA taxpayers who've shelled out the cash to pave a road in the middle of nowhere!

 

As I continued on, I saw more lights off to the west, and a dirt road heading towards them. Oh... come on... one of these has got to be a town. Turning on to the dirt road, I came to a gate and a sign.

 

 

Geothermal Venture with hazardous conditions???!!?! Are you serious?! Where the heck am I?!

 

Good thing I had called earlier and told them to go ahead and eat without me, since I didn't know how long I'd be. Buggers better save me some ribs though.

 

So I continued on another 40 minutes after that. I came across a lighted facility on the right, which looked suspiciously like a prison. I didn't stop anywhere near there. No way was I going to pick up hitchhikers in the middle of the desert at night next to something that looks like a prison. Come to find out later, it's a maximum security facility.

 

Finally, after another half an hour and about 30 near misses with jackrabbits later, I finally came to an intersection with another paved road. Taking that, I followed it west, where I assumed susanville must be. Eventually, I came to a sign that said Reno, south, 70 miles... Okay... so maybe it would have been quicker to turn around before... Bah. That ended that part of the adventure, and they did save me some ribs.

 

I'll post the California pics on another reply.

[Patience]

Okay. So this actually should be titled "Warning, a whole lot of shots from my recent trip out west."

[Dave McReynolds]

Enjoyed your pictures, Adam. First time I've ever seen Glacier Park when it wasn't raining! Glad your trip ended better than it started, and look forward to seeing you again someday.

[Jim VonBaden]

Great pictures Adam! But you ruined my image of you! To me, you are the kid on the windshield! Now I will have to live with reality!

 

You definitely have a talent for story telling. I would suggest that you get a GPS for those unplanned explorations, but it would ruin the stories!

 

Jim

[ctforand]

How much gas does that bike hold!? I would have died from fear of running out after like your second or third turn back or press on decision.

 

By the way, that was a NICE save in the sand. I've experienced that on a mountain bike before. Didn't really like it there and don't think I'd fancy it one bit on a heavy laden motorcycle.

[Patience]

Thanks Dave

 

Yup. Not a drop of rain. Just lots of waterfalls.

 

Jim. Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

Actually, the GPS wouldn't make for less adventures. It just changes the type of adventures. I can -never- escape adventures. They follow me.

 

ctf, It holds about 3.8 useable gallons, and I'll usually get about 180 miles out of a tank. Fortunately, I had JUST filled up.

 

I used to do a lot of mountain biking in the sand as well, which is probably the reason I made that save at all. I so was not expecting the front to suddenly dig in and dive to the side.

[dhb]

It was fun reading about your adventure in the desert and the pix really added to it. The sand trap looked like a major bummer-- the only consolation that you apparently didn't have any deep water crossings (my bete noir). Looking forward to California with you.

 

Dave

[Patience]

Okie dokie. After I left Nevada, I rode west on I80 to Sacramento, where Dave McReynolds was kind enough to let me crash on an extra bed for a few hours. Thanks again Dave! On a side note, Dave has a beautiful KGT which I envy, having only ~50hp myself. Even more than the hp, I REALLY envy the 880!!! (just checked the specs) watt alternator. That's just sick... I want one so bad. You could put like... 4 sets of driving lights. *sigh*

 

Anyway, I left Dave's house just before 6am and headed west on 50 over to I-5 north.

 

After riding north for a bit, I cut over to clear lake to take 175.

 

Here's a map of most of the day's riding.

 

175 to 253 to Mt. View Rd, then north on Hwy 1 to Legett

 

It was a long day. 12 hours of curves.

 

When I cut off the freeway on the way to clear lake, I wasn't sure for a minute I was on the right route. Fortunately, the signs indicated I was.

 

My spirits lifted, I continued west to 175.

 

On the way, there was some very nice sections on hwy... 12? I think it was.

 

 

 

Not having a gps, I took the wrong section of 175. It wasn't as impressive as the correct section, but ended up being a nice ride, and did yield a nice picture.

 

 

From there, I circled around and got on the correct section of 175 which was rather amazing. Now that it's two weeks later, that road, 273, and mt view rd are all kind of blending together in my memory, but they were all pretty darn neat.

 

The picture at the top of this thread with the 17 miles of curves sign is the beginning of 175. Here's another. Some of the views were spectacular.

 

 

Note... these are just the places that I thought made for decent pictures. What you don't see are the hundreds of tight curves in places that didn't make for good photo opportunities, or places I was having too much fun to stop.

 

Here's a couple from the same spot on what I believe was 253. This was a very neat, and though tight, relaxing section because of the scenery and quiet in the forest.

 

 

This one gives you a bit more perspective. You can just make out my bike on the bottom right. The trees were pretty good sized. The weather was around 75 degrees, very little wind, and few if any clouds. Man that was a good day.

 

 

Here's another, of a forested section.

 

 

253 was pretty tiring IIRC, and pretty. It seems like I took more pictures of it, but apparently not. 253 was where I came within about 6 inches of the outside edge of the road on a tight hairpin, and was probably my biggest pucker moment of the trip.

 

From there, I went on to mountain view road. This got -very- tight in places, and almost a bit scary. Some very gorgeous views as well though.

 

 

Mountain view road stops to the west at Hwy 1, where I continued north.

 

Hwy 1 winds through a few towns, as well as meanders along the coast. There are a few good photo opportunities, as well as a few canyons you ride down into that can provide some twisty entertainment.

 

 

 

To me, it was a fairly dull ride after the stretch from 175 west to the coast, especially since there was a fair amount of car traffic, even on a thursday afternoon. I'm not a huge fan of towns, even if they are little cute touristy coastal towns.

 

Again, there was no shortage of photo op places though.

 

 

 

I did meet an incredibly nice couple from france that I did not get a picture of. We chatted for about 20 minutes, and he advised I take a road called trail of the giants north of Legett, as it was beautiful. I did, and he was right, but it was also getting late and cold, and I didn't stop for pics. I did get a shot on route 36 that was similar though, with all the trees.

 

Though I stated Hwy 1 was dull, it was only dull for most of the way. Eventually, you get to a place where you leave the coast and head into the forest starting about 20mi south of Leggett. It is there the pavement is perfect, the corners all 15 to 35mph, and the ambiance of the forest intoxicating. That was my favorite part of the trip, and one part you definitely won't see a picture from. There was no WAY I was stopping at that point. The curves were... you just have to go there.

 

That night, I hit the sack tired and Happy in Eureka, intending to get up the next day and hit route 36.

 

As the plan became reality that Friday, I was treated to another awesome road.

 

 

Hwy 36 plays out in 3 mostly distinct sections. It starts on the western end with forests and some really tight mountain curves with no road lines. For some reason, I enjoy lines, as not having them made me more nervous every time I came upon a blind turn. Unfortunately, there were many of them, but the road was still very entertaining.

 

This picture reminded me of the trail of the giants, and was on hwy 36 before you get to the part with no lines. This part was very enjoyable.

 

 

After leaving the section with no lines, you come to some very entertaining stretches. Here's a couple I turned around and rode back to get pictures of.

 

 

 

Notice on the second one the camera angle looking down at the road. I climbed, in full gear, up a really slippery dirt slope, into a small gully, where I could get a decent shot. The things I do to get good pics of roads for you people!!!

 

 

From there, you go on to the middle section which consists largely of riding through valleys on endless sweepers. It was rather cool, and would be the best part, if you're into sweepers.

 

 

Here's a random one of a small side road I took that appeared as though it would be entertaining, and would take me north to redding. What I found out after the first few curves however is that they virtually all had loose gravel on them, the same color as the road!

 

 

Needless to say, repeated front tire slippage in curves makes a darn good reason to go get back on the road that didn't have them. In hindsight, I'm glad I turned around and went back to 36, because I would have missed the last section, where it turned into a veritable roller coaster for a good 30 or 40 miles. Along with the rolling picture in the first 5 I posted, this was another neat spot, but didn't photo as well as the first, despite being taken from multiple angles.

 

 

After reaching I-5 in Red Bluff, I took it north to Oregon, where I spent the night. From there, it was a slab north to SR 20 east, then slabbing it back to MN. I'm thankful for XM radio, as that made the trip a whole lot nicer.

 

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I definitely enjoyed being there to take them, though putting 8000 miles total on my bike really killed my 3 miles per post. Bah!

[Francois_Dumas]

I truly enjoyed seeing your photos (made with risk of your own life climbing to vantage points !) and even more your hilarious story. Especially the desert night adventure was excellent ! And I was glad it was not me... LOL !!

 

Well done Adam, great trip, great story and Thank You for takig the time to post it all here for us !!!

[Patience]

Welcome

 

I'm so afraid to go home and see my bandwidth report now.

[Francois_Dumas]

Get yourself a Smugmug account too... saves on bandwidth !

[Patience]

The one I've got is cheaper than smugmug, gives me unlimited flexibility, and 60GB of bandwidth for $5 USD a month. I think It'll probably be enough, but having only had it for a few weeks, I'm not sure what the useage will be like.