Plain: The Carrizo
Old: Me
Birthday: Mine on March 7th
Ride: My favorite thing to do
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's not every day that one turns <gulp> 49, so I decided to do something about it...and what better way to celebrate than a nice long ride? My friend David and I left Oakland at 10:30am Friday morning...
The van in the driveway was loaded and waiting for Eric when he got off work later that day. He would join us later in the evening.
First stop after gas was Clear Creek. Time to shed some layers...
This was pretty much the view I had all day of David. He's got two speeds: stop and full throttle...
I did manage to stay on his tail on one of my favorite stretches of road in the great state of California...Clear Creek-Coalinga Road. It's tight and twisty and dirty, much more suited to my SM610 than David's fairly new Super Tenere. Plus I knew the road better than he did. It was fun to actually ride *with* him for a change, instead of wondering if I'd ever see him again
Damn, that's a fun stretch of pavement... No photos because David stops for nothing and I didn't want him pulling into camp 3 hours ahead of me while I was taking pretty pictures and flogging my 610 single down Bitterwater Road.
We hit up a local taqueria in Coalinga to fuel up before the assault on Parkfield Grade...super-tasty, inexpensive and the people were really nice. I'll be coming back here again...
Yum...
Looking kinda rough after all that riding...
Last New Years we did this ride in the opposite direction. I was on the back of Slackmeyer's KTM 950 with a broken shoulder and as I came down Parkfield Grade into Coalinga I swore I'd be doing this ride on my own for my birthday. Good call. I had an absolute blast climbing the pavement up to the Parkfield Summit! It looks for all the world just like a supermoto track and it just...it just rocks super hard! Of course, David was nowhere to be seen, but I had a great time ripping up the road on my own. David was waiting for me at the top when I arrived, huge smile on my face and heart racing with pure moto joy...
It was beautiful up there, and we spent too much time taking photos and enjoying the views while the shadows lengthened...
I was glad to see it so green up here. Gave me hope that the Carrizo Plain would be wearing its coat of many colors instead of the brown paper bag it had on in January...
We boogied off the summit down the dirt road into Parkfield. David wanted to do a dead engine Coaster Race down the grade but I foolishly declined. I should have taken him up on it, but instead I followed him with my motor running while he coasted. It was pretty amusing and a whole lotta fun.
Parkfield was quiet and we only stopped once on the way out of town...
Not too far out of town we ran into this unruly gang of cows. They were being herded in our direction and there was really nowhere to go. As they got closer they got a little out of control and started jumping up and down and getting aggressive. It was pretty intense. I tried to move myself and my bike closer to David's but that just made them get even crankier so I stayed put. The cowboys didn't seem too concerned but they were on horses high above the fray. We were kind of shitting bricks but we just stayed still and let the boisterous bovines do their thing til they were past us...
"WTF are you doing, Tami? Let's get the hell out of here!"
The ride out of the Cholame Valley was spectacular with the rapidly dropping sun...not that you'd know, though, because I didn't stop to take photos. David flagged me down as we hopped onto Bitterwater Rd. Seems I was dragging my Camelbak hose. I'd lost the bite valve and water was spewing everywhere. Before I could stop him he took off to look for it, leaving me alone with my thoughts...
He didn't find it but he did provide me with some entertainment...
Bitterwater was a ton o' fun alongside the creek bed in the canyon, but unfortunately there were too many cows in the road for us to really strafe it good and proper. It was beautiful, though, and we had a sense of urgency as we raced the sun. David was determined to win that race as Bitterwater opened up, and he slowly disappeared into the distance as I kept the poor 610's speedo hovering at the triple-digit mark. The 610 is surprisingly stable at those speeds but I felt bad for my motor so I dropped it down to a reasonable 88mph. The sun took advantage of my weakness and ultimately won the 290-mile race...
We had no sooner started setting up David's tent when we saw Eric pulling into the campsite! We had only been there about 10 minutes or so. Excellent timing.
We unloaded his bike, got camp set up, and then started a rippin' fire. We sat and stared in amazement as the blood-red moon started to rise in the southeast...
Once I came to my senses I scrambled to set up my telescope. I spent a good portion of the evening staring off into space, what with the orange moon glowing, Venus and Jupiter slow-dancing together and Mars blazing brightly just east of the Winter Circle. I had an almost-full moon and Mars in my sights all the way to work on my birthday and I thought that was pretty spectacular...a stellar birthday present, as it were. This moon pretty much blew its doors off! We had a tasty dinner of grilled sausages and risotto with asparagus, complemented with red wine, beer, scotch and something really tasty that was in David's flask. Sure wish we knew what it was...it was really good and I drank most of it before teetering off to bed.
What a great day! I'd done exactly what I'd wanted to do for my birthday, and I still had a great day of riding waiting for me in the morning! Turning 49 hasn't been bad at all :-)
More to come...
Old: Me
Birthday: Mine on March 7th
Ride: My favorite thing to do
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's not every day that one turns <gulp> 49, so I decided to do something about it...and what better way to celebrate than a nice long ride? My friend David and I left Oakland at 10:30am Friday morning...
The van in the driveway was loaded and waiting for Eric when he got off work later that day. He would join us later in the evening.
First stop after gas was Clear Creek. Time to shed some layers...
This was pretty much the view I had all day of David. He's got two speeds: stop and full throttle...
I did manage to stay on his tail on one of my favorite stretches of road in the great state of California...Clear Creek-Coalinga Road. It's tight and twisty and dirty, much more suited to my SM610 than David's fairly new Super Tenere. Plus I knew the road better than he did. It was fun to actually ride *with* him for a change, instead of wondering if I'd ever see him again
Damn, that's a fun stretch of pavement... No photos because David stops for nothing and I didn't want him pulling into camp 3 hours ahead of me while I was taking pretty pictures and flogging my 610 single down Bitterwater Road.
We hit up a local taqueria in Coalinga to fuel up before the assault on Parkfield Grade...super-tasty, inexpensive and the people were really nice. I'll be coming back here again...
Yum...
Looking kinda rough after all that riding...
Last New Years we did this ride in the opposite direction. I was on the back of Slackmeyer's KTM 950 with a broken shoulder and as I came down Parkfield Grade into Coalinga I swore I'd be doing this ride on my own for my birthday. Good call. I had an absolute blast climbing the pavement up to the Parkfield Summit! It looks for all the world just like a supermoto track and it just...it just rocks super hard! Of course, David was nowhere to be seen, but I had a great time ripping up the road on my own. David was waiting for me at the top when I arrived, huge smile on my face and heart racing with pure moto joy...
It was beautiful up there, and we spent too much time taking photos and enjoying the views while the shadows lengthened...
I was glad to see it so green up here. Gave me hope that the Carrizo Plain would be wearing its coat of many colors instead of the brown paper bag it had on in January...
We boogied off the summit down the dirt road into Parkfield. David wanted to do a dead engine Coaster Race down the grade but I foolishly declined. I should have taken him up on it, but instead I followed him with my motor running while he coasted. It was pretty amusing and a whole lotta fun.
Parkfield was quiet and we only stopped once on the way out of town...
Not too far out of town we ran into this unruly gang of cows. They were being herded in our direction and there was really nowhere to go. As they got closer they got a little out of control and started jumping up and down and getting aggressive. It was pretty intense. I tried to move myself and my bike closer to David's but that just made them get even crankier so I stayed put. The cowboys didn't seem too concerned but they were on horses high above the fray. We were kind of shitting bricks but we just stayed still and let the boisterous bovines do their thing til they were past us...
"WTF are you doing, Tami? Let's get the hell out of here!"
The ride out of the Cholame Valley was spectacular with the rapidly dropping sun...not that you'd know, though, because I didn't stop to take photos. David flagged me down as we hopped onto Bitterwater Rd. Seems I was dragging my Camelbak hose. I'd lost the bite valve and water was spewing everywhere. Before I could stop him he took off to look for it, leaving me alone with my thoughts...
He didn't find it but he did provide me with some entertainment...
Bitterwater was a ton o' fun alongside the creek bed in the canyon, but unfortunately there were too many cows in the road for us to really strafe it good and proper. It was beautiful, though, and we had a sense of urgency as we raced the sun. David was determined to win that race as Bitterwater opened up, and he slowly disappeared into the distance as I kept the poor 610's speedo hovering at the triple-digit mark. The 610 is surprisingly stable at those speeds but I felt bad for my motor so I dropped it down to a reasonable 88mph. The sun took advantage of my weakness and ultimately won the 290-mile race...
We had no sooner started setting up David's tent when we saw Eric pulling into the campsite! We had only been there about 10 minutes or so. Excellent timing.
We unloaded his bike, got camp set up, and then started a rippin' fire. We sat and stared in amazement as the blood-red moon started to rise in the southeast...
Once I came to my senses I scrambled to set up my telescope. I spent a good portion of the evening staring off into space, what with the orange moon glowing, Venus and Jupiter slow-dancing together and Mars blazing brightly just east of the Winter Circle. I had an almost-full moon and Mars in my sights all the way to work on my birthday and I thought that was pretty spectacular...a stellar birthday present, as it were. This moon pretty much blew its doors off! We had a tasty dinner of grilled sausages and risotto with asparagus, complemented with red wine, beer, scotch and something really tasty that was in David's flask. Sure wish we knew what it was...it was really good and I drank most of it before teetering off to bed.
What a great day! I'd done exactly what I'd wanted to do for my birthday, and I still had a great day of riding waiting for me in the morning! Turning 49 hasn't been bad at all :-)
More to come...
I'd like to be doing this sort of thing when I'm 79, too!
) so he drove the van down after work. It makes it easier to base out of the Plain proper when you have your own gas available. 
