Wordjanitor Strikes Again

S taging for Bikers for Babies will be on Park Avenue. Park your bike on either side of the street (someone will be there to direct you).  Check in with me to get your wristband and grab some coffeecake provided by Hobee's in the main festival area. Come back for the safety talk.  The event starts with speeches and a ceremony hosted by an executive from my company. A family will speak about their personal experience.  After the opening ceremony, they'll have a countdown, and the walkers will go down the middle of Park Street -- with us cheering them on!  Once they're clear, we're on our way!!! Vroooooom! A very personal request: Please observe the moment of silence during the bagpiper's playing of Amazing Grace to recognize babies who didn't survive. 

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...

I have that damned Disney song in my head. Because apparently, it's a small world after all. Here I was, minding my own business going through my Facebook feed. Well, actually, I guess going through my Facebook feed means I'm minding everyone else's business. Unless I'm only reading my own posts, which is either freakishly boring or narcissistic. But I wasn't, so I don't have to decide between the two.  Anyway... My friend Christine posted a cool new profile picture doing a yoga pose that, should I attempt it, would likely result in damaged furniture and a bloody nose (mine). The usual " Kermit the Frog and 22 other people commented on this post" message was with the post.

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

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.

Avoiding danger in the long run is no safer than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. - Helen Keller I recently decided to do something for myself. Pedicures and massages are great and all that. I guess shopping does it for some girls. OK, lots of them. Maybe even legions of them, given stacks of evidence ranging from