James Burleigh
Well-known member
Just got home from an 11-hour, 315-mile day riding with RsvlFeej through the Northern California Wine Country. I pulled away from home at 8 AM suited up in Widder vest and winter gloves, and pulled back into the driveway suited up just the same at 7:10 PM with a sore wrist and aching knees from all the left-right shifting of my weight from one side of the bike to the next.
Feej and I met at Babs Delta Diner in Suisun City at 9 AM. Over breakfast I fessed up that I had never used fifth gear, and we agreed that I've been riding my bike one or two gears too low. So that's been corrected (thanks to all who volunteered to send me my fifth gear in the mail).
It was windy and cold when we got to Bab's Diner, and it was cold and windy when we left. So we kept bundled up as we pulled away to start our ride after an excellent breakfast. We took Suisun Valley Rd (which turns into Wooden Valley) through a beautiful wine-growing valley north out of Fairfield. We turned left when it dead-ended on Hwy 121 and took those twisties over the mountain and down into Napa, where we picked up the Silverado Trail north.
The Silverado Trail runs through some beautiful vineyards, but it's a tourist route and thick with traffic. So we pulled off on 128 west, then picked up 29 north through St. Helena. From there we cut right (east) back across the Silverado Trail and went up over the mountain on Feej's newest "Whee" road: Mountain Road to Pope Valley. Feej liked it so much, once we hit the bottom we turned around and ran it the other way, then back down again.
I watched in amazement at the speeds with which Feej entered and disappeared around those downhill decreasing-radius turns. I kept expecting to find him wrapped around a tree or bumper on the other side. In fact, at one point when we stopped side by side off the road I yelled across at him through our ear plugs and helmets:
"How in the hell do you do that!?
"What?!
"Enter those turns that fast?!"
"What?!
"The turns! How do you do it."
"I'm good! How are you?!"
"What?!"
Anyway, early in the ride on Wooden Valley, imagining I could keep up with him, I had a Come to Jesus moment on a right-hander with an SUV coming around the other way. I didn't cross over the double yellow, and it wasn't even a close call, but it made me realize I was riding over my limit, that I could not ride Feej's pace. In fact, during the rest of the day whenever I started to think, "Ha ha! I'm keeping up with Feej!" I'd conclude that he was just slowing down to make sure I hadn't run off the road yet and was still in the ride.
So we headed north on Pope Valley, by now having shed all our cold-weather gear because temps had hit the 80s, and came out at Middletown. Some of this part of our day touched on roads that Highlander took us through during his Napa ride earlier this year. From Middletown we got on 29 and headed south over the mountain with a lunch destination in Calistoga. That's when we hit the Roller Coaster!
Highway 29 over the mountain between Middletown and Calistoga is a freakin' high-speed roller coaster with wide, positively cambered sweepers. Incredible! But you have to watch out for the traffic, because it's a major throughway, and dense with all manner of vehicles. But once you get ahead on the passing lanes, it feels like Laguna Seca's Corkscrew. Yeah Baby! (That one went on the Whee list too.)
Naturally I only just caught glimpses of Feej's tailpipes disappearing around the next bend. My only chances to catch up all day were when he got trapped behind slow-moving traffic. (Earlier in the day, over breakfast, we had discussed our strategies and agreed-upon behaviors related to passing slow cars.) Going up the mountain out of Middletown it was Laguna Seca, but coming down we got stuck behind traffic and had to buck up and ride it out.
We rolled into Calistoga and parked the bikes. As we were stowing our gear, a rider came by on a shiny new BMW K1200RS and parked next to us. The rider was wearing a gray Aerostitch and looking pretty damn good in it. The hair flowing out the back of the helmet told us our insticts about the cut of the Aerostitch were right--it was a woman. When she took her helmet off we saw she was probably in her 40s or even older. But she was looking very sexy on that hugely fast bike. We chatted with her. She had just picked it up for a song with practically no miles from a guy who hurt his back and couldn't ride it anymore.
Over lunch we talked about cornering technique, and I picked up some good pointers that I put to use the rest of the day, with I think at least a 25% increase in my corner speeds. After lunch we headed north out of Calistoga, achieving speeds on Hwy 128 of Warp Factor 3 or better, with some handsome passing maneuvers (legal: dotted lines) punctuated with prayers that no cars or farm vehicles would exit the myriad driveways on either side. Then we turned onto the route we'd identified and targeted at lunch: Geysers Road. This was a squiggly inch-long line on our maps that looked like it could be a goat trail. But we were feeling adventurous and willing to explore new roads.
Okay, so it was a goat trail. But Geysers Road did have some great sections. It was all those pot holes and dirt and gravel sections, and one-laners, and slippery **** that kinda had us turning our attention dials up to maximum. And the sumbitch was about 30 miles long, so it took us awhile to get through it. After coming out on the other end of that road I initiated a high five in congratulations to ourselves for not dumping our bikes, 'cause this road threw everything at us! It was not for the skills-challenged.
By now it was about 3 PM. From there we shot on up to Lake Sonoma (after getting lost for a spell trying to find 128 west), and ran Rockpile Rd in and back out (Whee list). From there we headed south to Healdsbugh (ran into a CHP sobriety checkpoint) to gas up the bikes and our bloodsugar levels before making the couple-hour rides home, Feej to Roseville northeast of Sacramento; me to the Bay Area due south.
Coming across 37 to Vallejo (now by myself) the temps dropped and the wind picked up, and I stopped at Mare Island to don all my cold-weather gear, including Widder vest.
Home safe and sound (you, Patrick?) now with a glass of wine.
Here's a couple of pics taken as we were fixin' to call it a day and head home from Healdsburgh:
Feej and I met at Babs Delta Diner in Suisun City at 9 AM. Over breakfast I fessed up that I had never used fifth gear, and we agreed that I've been riding my bike one or two gears too low. So that's been corrected (thanks to all who volunteered to send me my fifth gear in the mail).
It was windy and cold when we got to Bab's Diner, and it was cold and windy when we left. So we kept bundled up as we pulled away to start our ride after an excellent breakfast. We took Suisun Valley Rd (which turns into Wooden Valley) through a beautiful wine-growing valley north out of Fairfield. We turned left when it dead-ended on Hwy 121 and took those twisties over the mountain and down into Napa, where we picked up the Silverado Trail north.
The Silverado Trail runs through some beautiful vineyards, but it's a tourist route and thick with traffic. So we pulled off on 128 west, then picked up 29 north through St. Helena. From there we cut right (east) back across the Silverado Trail and went up over the mountain on Feej's newest "Whee" road: Mountain Road to Pope Valley. Feej liked it so much, once we hit the bottom we turned around and ran it the other way, then back down again.
I watched in amazement at the speeds with which Feej entered and disappeared around those downhill decreasing-radius turns. I kept expecting to find him wrapped around a tree or bumper on the other side. In fact, at one point when we stopped side by side off the road I yelled across at him through our ear plugs and helmets:
"How in the hell do you do that!?
"What?!
"Enter those turns that fast?!"
"What?!
"The turns! How do you do it."
"I'm good! How are you?!"
"What?!"
Anyway, early in the ride on Wooden Valley, imagining I could keep up with him, I had a Come to Jesus moment on a right-hander with an SUV coming around the other way. I didn't cross over the double yellow, and it wasn't even a close call, but it made me realize I was riding over my limit, that I could not ride Feej's pace. In fact, during the rest of the day whenever I started to think, "Ha ha! I'm keeping up with Feej!" I'd conclude that he was just slowing down to make sure I hadn't run off the road yet and was still in the ride.
So we headed north on Pope Valley, by now having shed all our cold-weather gear because temps had hit the 80s, and came out at Middletown. Some of this part of our day touched on roads that Highlander took us through during his Napa ride earlier this year. From Middletown we got on 29 and headed south over the mountain with a lunch destination in Calistoga. That's when we hit the Roller Coaster!
Highway 29 over the mountain between Middletown and Calistoga is a freakin' high-speed roller coaster with wide, positively cambered sweepers. Incredible! But you have to watch out for the traffic, because it's a major throughway, and dense with all manner of vehicles. But once you get ahead on the passing lanes, it feels like Laguna Seca's Corkscrew. Yeah Baby! (That one went on the Whee list too.)
Naturally I only just caught glimpses of Feej's tailpipes disappearing around the next bend. My only chances to catch up all day were when he got trapped behind slow-moving traffic. (Earlier in the day, over breakfast, we had discussed our strategies and agreed-upon behaviors related to passing slow cars.) Going up the mountain out of Middletown it was Laguna Seca, but coming down we got stuck behind traffic and had to buck up and ride it out.
We rolled into Calistoga and parked the bikes. As we were stowing our gear, a rider came by on a shiny new BMW K1200RS and parked next to us. The rider was wearing a gray Aerostitch and looking pretty damn good in it. The hair flowing out the back of the helmet told us our insticts about the cut of the Aerostitch were right--it was a woman. When she took her helmet off we saw she was probably in her 40s or even older. But she was looking very sexy on that hugely fast bike. We chatted with her. She had just picked it up for a song with practically no miles from a guy who hurt his back and couldn't ride it anymore.
Over lunch we talked about cornering technique, and I picked up some good pointers that I put to use the rest of the day, with I think at least a 25% increase in my corner speeds. After lunch we headed north out of Calistoga, achieving speeds on Hwy 128 of Warp Factor 3 or better, with some handsome passing maneuvers (legal: dotted lines) punctuated with prayers that no cars or farm vehicles would exit the myriad driveways on either side. Then we turned onto the route we'd identified and targeted at lunch: Geysers Road. This was a squiggly inch-long line on our maps that looked like it could be a goat trail. But we were feeling adventurous and willing to explore new roads.
Okay, so it was a goat trail. But Geysers Road did have some great sections. It was all those pot holes and dirt and gravel sections, and one-laners, and slippery **** that kinda had us turning our attention dials up to maximum. And the sumbitch was about 30 miles long, so it took us awhile to get through it. After coming out on the other end of that road I initiated a high five in congratulations to ourselves for not dumping our bikes, 'cause this road threw everything at us! It was not for the skills-challenged.
By now it was about 3 PM. From there we shot on up to Lake Sonoma (after getting lost for a spell trying to find 128 west), and ran Rockpile Rd in and back out (Whee list). From there we headed south to Healdsbugh (ran into a CHP sobriety checkpoint) to gas up the bikes and our bloodsugar levels before making the couple-hour rides home, Feej to Roseville northeast of Sacramento; me to the Bay Area due south.
Coming across 37 to Vallejo (now by myself) the temps dropped and the wind picked up, and I stopped at Mare Island to don all my cold-weather gear, including Widder vest.
Home safe and sound (you, Patrick?) now with a glass of wine.
Here's a couple of pics taken as we were fixin' to call it a day and head home from Healdsburgh:
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