Every Sierra Pass in a day

[beeroux]

June 12th 2013, on my way home from the end of the Spank Rally in Gilroy, I decided to ride all 13 paved passes of the mighty Sierra Nevada mountain range. This had been a dream of mine for some years. I hadn't been riding my bike for 3.5 months while it was in the shop getting a motor swap, and hadn't ridden a long ride since last summer, so in my lame shape, who knew if I could make it?

I started my day at 0425 in Chester, CA, about 35 miles West of Susanville on Hwy 36, and ended it 22.5 hours and 1,012 miles later in Pasadena, CA. Just doing the passes from top to bottom, involved 775 miles and 17.5 hours of mostly twisty riding. In my lame shape, I still had it in me. Who knew.

Riding this route was like eating the fluffiest pancakes with the sweetest maple syrup all day and never getting full. Heaven.

The best part was riding up to Donner Pass through four more passes to Sonora Pass. Endless awesome scenery, great roads, and just the best riding and atmosphere in these parts. Even with all the construction delays and a Performance Award coming off of Carson Pass, it was a completely awesome day.

I nominate this for a new IBA Cert-Ride. Ride any In-State ( or not ) Saddle Sore incorporating all 13 passes in any order. If someone did this as a BBG that'd be pretty impressive. Anybody give me a second on nominating this ride?

Following is a day in pics, the passes in order from North to South.

The Bestest Part

Minaret Vista

Sherman Pass

Walker Pass, the end of quite a journey. I'm happy, but pretty tired.

222 miles to go, and I'm starving, but glad to have bagged such a plumb. All the twisties are behind me now, just a long stretch of highway to beer and a warm bed...

...to dream of endless pancakes.

GZ

( thanks to Jerry White for map images and pic hosting )

 

[TomInPA]

Wow, that's a big ride. Thanks for sharing, and yes, it would make a worthy Cert ride. Glad you did it safely as the passes have a lot of hazards and wildlife.

 

[Bugnatr]

Even Sherman Pass, very impressive George! Nice pictures and a big hats off to you as that is quite an accomplishment.

 

[user 28803]

Sweet ride and quite an accomplishment!

 

[beeroux]

Thanks Doug et al, it was a great ride I hope you can do someday.

Endless sMiles await.

G

 

[101stpathfinder]

Now that looks like on heck of a ride !

Congrats on following through with a very worthwhile dream.

BTW - You had a great posting on the "List" for rally advice. I thought it was so good that I copied it to my desktop.

 

[Tyler]

I don't know how you guys do it... but it's awesome that you do do it... shoo be doo be doo!!

 

[bgross]

Outstanding! Congratulations.

My feeble, chicken-hearted dream has been to make a week of it, traversing in daytime and taking lots of photos.

 

[FJRay]

Great job George. I'm jealous.

I attempted it on my way home from the Gugenhiem show in Vegas but was with two other bikes one was a sportster and the other an old Kawi. They couldn't and wouldn't keep up so it's still on the list someday.

 

[Justin]

That's a tough ride George, nicely done! Toughest cert ride I've done was an all mountain Colorado instate SS1k. 1012 miles of passes and twisties makes a BBG seem like a piece of cake :lol:

 

[Specter]

Awesome ride. I did three on my first saddlesore ( Tioga, Sonora, Donner) and that was hard enough!

 

[TripperMike]

That sounds like a HUGE day of riding. Very cool indeed. With all those twisties, that's a whole lot of intense focus for an entire day. Exhausting.

 

[blrfjr]

Awesome ride man!! Congrats!!

 

[beeroux]

Justin,

while this ride was a small monster, the In-State CO SS1K I created for NAFO 2008 was WAAAYYYY harder. 80% was in horrible rain, almost no visibility at times. 23.75 hours it took me.

A few days later the weather improved, but most of my riders still took 21-22 hours. I know of which you speak.

GZ

 

[Justin]

Justin,
while this ride was a small monster, the In-State CO SS1K I created for NAFO 2008 was WAAAYYYY harder. 80% was in horrible rain, almost no visibility at times. 23.75 hours it took me.

A few days later the weather improved, but most of my riders still took 21-22 hours. I know of which you speak.

GZ

At least it wasn't raining when I did mine :lol: . That must have sucked. I had temperature variations from the 20's to high 80's over the course of the day though on mine.

 

[BIODSL]

How effin cool is that? Too cool. Nice work, George.

 

[Gurock]

One hell of a ride. I did a lot of those passes on my return from California not long ago, certainly not all in one day. That requires a stronger guy then me. That ride over Sherman Pass was quite a ride. We did it from the east side at Nine Canyons Road to the west. There's a 99 mile stretch with no services, just an old country food joint a little east of the pass for the whole 99 miles. Many switchbacks and completely deserted road. There's one cross roads where i went the wrong way and ended up in a camp ground area that turned to sand road. Almost got stuck out in an isolated place.

Anyway my hats off to you. I've done a SS 1,000 and it was pretty tough, but not on roads that are as challenging as the group of California passes.