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About LinkBacksIt's the last day of my summer holiday, back to the Firehouse tomorrow. To celebrate and to give you all a small view of "my world" I did a 8 hour, 420 mile ride out to the coast and back.
So here goes..be warned...you'll likely be well tired of looking at my Transalp by the end.
Start of the ride in the Sacramento (Sacra"tomato" at this time of the year) Valley. Mid morning temps in the mid 70s (21C) but the fog and low clouds in the pass in the distant hills means cooler riding ahead
The subduction of the Pacific tectonic plate and overriding of the American make the ground buckle in north/south ridges with accompanying north/south valleys. So...going west means lots of climbing ridges and decending into valleys. Here we are in the Napa valley with the grapes just about ripe. The fog did, in fact, set in and temps are now in the low 60s (16C). It's humid too so off with the mesh jacket and on with warmer riding gear.
Climbing up out of the Napa Valley put us back into sunshine and warming temps just pushing 80 (26C) but it will get warmer as the day goes on. The blackberrys on the side of the road were ripe so this stop took a while...yumm.
After a few ups and downs (and lots of left and rights) the road begins a steep decent down into a grove of old growth redwood trees. The decent is fun and these type of corners are unmarked and can sneak up in a nasty way if you're pushing the pace too much. You gotta love this kind of road though.
Here we are in the bottom of the valley with a small stream trickling through and a grove of old growth coastal redwood trees. Much of the coastal redwood population was logged in the period from 1880 to 1930. Only private land or land that was too difficult to get the huge logs up and out of were left. Fortunately most of the trees regrew and we have many very nice area of fairly tall "second growth" trees left. This guy is an original and, of course, the one time I should have put something in the shot for scale (a certain Honda motorcycle comes redily to mind) I leave it out. Take my work for it...these are BIG trees. As you walk back into the grove, things get very quite (more quiet than the most strict library you can think of) and very still. One feels like a tree could just sort of reach down and flick you out of the way.
Climbing up out of the redwoods and toward the Pacific we ride through second growth forest mixed with bays alders and oaks. It's getting damp and cool again and will most likely be foggy on Hwy 1 (the coast road)
California Hwy 1 runs almost the entire length of the state right down near the Pacific. It's fog, sun, cambered curves, off camber curves, hills and drop offs where you cant see which way the road goes until you crest the edge...great fun. It was foggy so I stopped for lunch. After riding a while more I got this shot just as I emerged from the fog bank. You can see the contrast between the fog and sun. This mix continues as we ride south.
Manchester....yeah we got that. Ours is a mite smaller though
The fog rolled back in on Hwy 1 so I just rode along without taking any more shots. I thought you guys would know what fog looks like anyway.
We head back inland on one of my all-time favorite roads. It starts like this following a creek back into the hills.
And finishes like this in the Oak grasslands. It's not a great shot but you can see the road at the bottom of the shot and if you look closely in the distance, you can see the road pasted to the ridge as it winds it's way up and down the hills. I don't know who this highway engineer was but I'd like to buy him a beer. All the corners are well cambered, you can see the next turn (sometimes the next 3) coming up and the pavement quality is excellent. The only down-side (there HAS to be one, right?) is that the road is posted at 30mph and 40 mph in the "faster" sections. How they every came up with this is beyond me. 50 to 60 is comfortable and you can push for more if you want to find out how well a 21 in. front tire can stick. I found that the front always goes away before the rear on the TA. Not a charateristic I enjoy but if you want to go fast on this road you should bring another bike. The fun part is that when the road goes into the redwoods, the surface deteriorates because of the moisture and all the roots. The sport-bike guys that fly past you on the smooth road can be found standing on their pegs being uncomfortable while you just fly by on the TA, beep and wave. Suspension is good.
The day's getting old and the suns dropping into the hills. We're on the last ridge and just about back into the great valley. In the hazy distance to the east are the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Great Basin, the Rockies, the Atlantic and.....you guys. Can't see that far though.
Down into the valley where the day has cooled back down from 92 to the middle 70s. There's a cool breeze coming into the valley from all that fog on the coast. The breeze is at our backs and the TA is just humming along as TA's do. A look back to the west to see the sun set on the days ride. Home is just a few minutes away. Dinner and a beer await.
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Originally Posted by ladder106
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