Wordjanitor Strikes Again

Destination: Castro Valley via Livermore to Tracy and back, freeway free Mileage: 100-mile loop Route It's January. The weather is insane -- in a good way, kinda. So far, January 2014 has been chock full of fabulously beautiful days. Warm, sunny, and ripe for riding. It should be raining. We need the rain. But until the water falls from the sky, it must be time to ride. Our group of 30 met up at Peet's for coffee, conversation, croissants (chocolate, thankyouverymuch ), and all that good stuff. We broke into two groups. The first section of the route took Palomares Road, which winds along farms and a few wineries, oak trees, and a creek until it meets up with Highway 84 near Sunol. We continued east on 84 to Tesla Road, which skirts the south edge of Livermore and heads over the hills. By some magical magic of some sort, Tesla Road becomes Corral Hollow Road along the way. OK, so the signage about explosives testing "next four miles" was a bit disturbing. But...

Truth: Planning a birthday celebration for myself is only slightly more difficult than learning calculus in a foreign language. Having not been raised in a family that was big on celebrations and such, it's not a natural act. (Taking the day off is a good first step!) I gave TG carte blanche to plan the day and didn't ask about wheres and whys. I just put on my gear and away we went. Good call on my part. Destination: Watsonville, Moss Landing, Santa Cruz Mileage: 125 miles, round trip Route/Map: Over the hills and through the woods Food & activity notes here... Part 1: Escape SJ, Find Pie First leg of the journey was through the Almaden Valley to Highway 152. After abruptly leaving the confines of San Jose suburbia, you find yourself in the middle of fields that could be in the middle of any number of nowheres. It's a quick out of the mayhem and into rural territory. After meandering to and along Calero Reservoir , wind along in oak trees past Uvas Reservoir...

Notes from stops along the way on the Central Coast... Watsonville Food: Gizdich Ranch  Moss Landing Food: Phil's Fish Market Santa Cruz Relax: Well Within Check out the Friday Funday Central Coast Day Trip here. Watsonville Gizdich Ranch 55 Peckham Road, Watsonville, California It's all about the pie. Yes, they have sandwiches, but how on earth do you expect me to focus on some bread with stuff in the middle of it when the air is aroma-fied with apples, cinnamon, ollalieberries, and other good things? Here's a hint. Don't expect me to focus on the sandwich or even remember it exists.  The first time I went, I had straight-up apple pie. These things are so loaded with apples that the crust is probably eight inches high at the middle, the crown, the summit, the apex of pie-ness. Most recently, I had the apple-ollalieberry pie. You can do the whole a la mode thing, but I don't like to dilute my pie with unnecessary dairy produc...

It was entertaining -- for awhile. TG mumbles at laptop, hops up, goes to garage, comes back mumbling. Lather, rinse, repeat. He was trying -- unsuccessfully -- to create GPX files from Google Maps for the GPS on the Wing-a-bago. (Integrated on the bike and Garmin -based, by the way.) But the dogs were getting annoyed at the back and forth to the garage. That's where we keep the dog food. After the first few trips, even the spastic caffeinated dog figured out it wasn't about her. Sad story: You can't save directly from Google to a .gpx file for GPS devices. Good news: You can easily convert a Google . kml file to a .gpx. Here's how...

Destination: Stillwater Cove, Fort Ross, California Mileage: Approx. 340 miles, round trip Food & lodging notes here...  Should we ride 150 miles to go camping for one night? Let's do the math: Good people, good roads, good food, good laughs? That's 25 miles for each good. The math works for me, even without one of TG's grand spreadsheets. Load up, let's go. And really, by the time we got home, there were far more goods than that, so the goods per mile just kept getting better. TG wrassled with MapQuest and the Garmin zumo to map the route. It should be as easy as creating the map hiding behind that little link right below this paragraph, but... Oh well. I wanted to say, "Head North, Young Man," but you know how boys are with their electronic devices. Day 1: 2+2 Wheels Up the Coast Route: Silicon Valley to Fort Ross via CA-1 150 miles

Notes from stops along the way on the North Coast... Point Reyes Station Food: Cafe Reyes, Station House Cafe Marshall Food: Hog Island Oyster Co. Jenner/Fort Ross Sleep: Stillwater Cove Campground

Feather River Canyon. Cars above train above river. Destination: Quincy, California Mileage: Approx 500 round trip Food & lodging notes here... I'd been hearing about last year's Quincy trip ever since the minute everyone got back. So when they posted it to the Meetup schedule waaaaaaaay back last winter, it was a quick click click click, sign me up! Day 1: Ugly Fish & Pretty Rivers Route: Quincy via the Delta and Feather River Canyon The morning started with 50+ of us descending upon on an unsuspecting Livermore Starbucks from random bay area points for pre-ride caffeinating and safety talking. It's a funny thing, when that many motorcycles show up in a suburban strip mall, the coffee sales go up but the minivans seem to scatter. Go figure. We staged in four groups, each with a lead rider and a sweep rider. We're big on safety and small on egos. It's safer, less stressful, and therefore more fun. As for the sweeps, it's a bit like the ...

In this post find out about food and lodging from our Feather River Weekend trip... Natomas Food: Virgin Sturgeon Quincy Food: Pangea Cafe and Pub, Courthouse Cafe, Cafe Le Coq, Morning Thunder Cafe Lodging: Spanish Creek Motel, Ada's Place Penryn Food: Cattle Baron's Click here to get the story about the trip. FOOOOD! Virgin Sturgeon   Natomas, California Right on the river, lots of parking, and very casual. They knew we were coming, so they were prepared for enough that 50 people in jeans and leather jackets didn't throw them for a loop. The pulled pork sandwich was great. No fries on the menu because the restaurant is actually on a houseboat -- no fryers on floaters. Learned something new on that one.

New roads, goofy friends, and lots of laughing. That's an understatement -- the part about the laughing. Maybe goofy is an understatement too. And on our last ride, some of the roads were really, really new. As in they were being paved as we rode by. Riding a motorcycle on a brand-new road is kinda like hot fudge on a sundae: smoooooooth.  As for helmet hair? No understatement there. Bumble and Bumble have nothing on Arai and Shoei . I got my M-1 two years ago and bought a motorcycle. Two months later, I was rear-ended while in my car -- my really easy to see red car -- and my back hasn't been the same since. It's one way to keep the chrome on a bike bug-free. :-( Anyway... But I'm a heck of a pillion . No, not an animal pelt.