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James Burleigh

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My riding day started at 7:03 this morning with an elbow to the head from Fang lying next to me. She is my backup alarm, alerting me that my primary alarm is going off.

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Well, actually my trip began last night when I was setting the alarm at bedtime, a highly unusual event on a Friday night at the Burleighs. The lights were already off, and Fang was folded up somewhere in the blankets on the far side of the bed. I sat on the edge of my side of the bed, holding the alarm clock in both hands and groping in the dark for the buttons that set the alarm hour and minute; an eerie red light glowed on my face.

A flat voice rose from the opposite end of the bed: "What are you doing?"

"I'm setting the alarm, honey-bunch-of-oats. Go to sleep now."

"You're nuts."

"Why? Why am I nuts?"

"Because you are. Setting the alarm for a weekend morning. Nutso, just like all your nutso riding friends...."

"Yes dear. Go to sleep, honey." And that's when I screamed and dropped the radio on the floor because it suddenly came on full volume. A second later the lights went on and I screamed again, feeling like Raymond Burr in Rear Window when Jimmy Stewart hits him with the flash bulbs.

I turned around sheepishly. Honey-bunch was sitting up in bed, her hand on the light switch, a look of infinite patience on her face.

"Hi, baby," I said. "Just about done here."

"Nutso," she repeated, shaking her head.

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Awake, I showered and ate and did my back stretches and my light weight-lifting, popped a couple of aspirin, had my morning constitutional :) , suited up, and hit the road. After a ride that took me less time than it took to suit up, I rolled up to Starbucks. Jerry was there, and so was Silent, up from San Jose; a pleasant surprise. Then pleasant surprise number two came into view: Painman was there as well. Both of them had shown up out of the blue.

With them sitting at the table in front of Starbucks was Andrew, a buddy of Jerry's from ST-Net. Andrew was riding a Yamaha VF-3, or LT-9, or RM-8.... F**k, I don't know what he was riding! :blink: But it wasn't an FJR. So I guess that makes him a prick, though he seemed nice enough to me.

Before long Kurt pulled up, riding a Ducati ("Get a real motorcycle, dude" :glare: ). I won't try to remember the model, though it was gray and said something like Desideratum or some such on the tank. Kurt was from ST-Net too, and also seemed nice enough (for a guy who doesn't ride an FJR).

We talked about me, and then it was time to go. Jerry gave the pre-ride briefing: "I have no freakin' idea where I am or where I'm going." To that we all shouted "Huzzah!" and rushed forward, lifting him onto our shoulders. After carrying him around the parking lot for awhile, somebody said "You guys wanna go riding?" So we dropped Jerry and headed to our bikes. (We waited for Rockwells, but he never showed. You OK, RW?" :( )

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I led the group of six through Concord along four miles of Treat Blvd., telling Silent over the radio at least four times how much I hated Treat Blvd. Getting us all together down Treat (a six-lane arterial with multiple lights and already thick with traffic) was like herding cats. But we managed to get onto Marsh Creek road together, at which time I handed the reins over to Jerry, and it was on....

Jerry led us around the back of Mt. Diablo along Morgan Territory Road, and yes it's true, it turns into a goat trail. Maybe the first indication was the Forest Rat sign: Deer, Next 11 Miles. The road got dark and single-lane, and full of pot holes.

But we didn't lose anyone and finally came out into the daylight on the other side like Dorothy and her three friends to the sound of Optimistic Voices.

We snaked down off the mountain, dodging the thousands of bicycle Nazis riding in the middle of the road (I didn't want to use my blasters but felt compelled to in the interest of saving their lives :rolleyes: ), and we soon rolled into Livermore and civilization. That's when we all got separated.

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Not sure how we came to get separated, but I'm pretty sure it started when Jerry pulled us all over onto the side of the road. He got off his bike while we stayed seated, and he walked up and down saying something to all of us like a quarterback changing the play before taking the snap. We nodded and smiled and looked blankly at him.

With ear plugs and helmets and cars flying by us within inches, it was hard to tell exactly what he said, but it sounded something like, "I'll see you guys later!" Then he got on his bike, and he and his lieutenant, Kurt, blasted off.

That left Silent and Painman and Andrew and me left wondering WTF? :blink: Well, thanks to an old Marine war wound or something, Silent had to use the head (I hope it wasn't anything like Jake's in The Sun Also Rises :unsure: ). So we fired up our bikes and got going too--in the completely wrong direction. I guess Jerry and Kurt headed east on the freeway; we headed south into town, or so we thought. Six miles later due south we pulled into a gas station.

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At the gas station we took care of business, got our bearings, and six miles north to the freeway and about the same east, we met up with Jerry and Kurt, who had stopped at the so-called rendezvous point that I guess is what Jerry had really been talking to us about back at the meat-grinder briefing earlier.

From there it was green hills, twisty roads, and spectacular views. Jerry even took us into Altamont Speedway, site of the famous Stones concert and Hells Angels knifing. Jerry pulled up to a woman in a booth and asked if we could go on the track. She called boss-man over to ask, and he said no. So we doubled back to a rise overlooking the track, where we admired the small cages (literally, they were four-wheeled cages) power-sliding around the small, banked oval.

From there we headed south on 5 in the Valley, cut westward, and wound up having lunch in Livermore, where we sat on the grass eating our Togos sandwiches and burritos and talking about what a great rider I am.

From there we all headed home.

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Just kidding, Jerry! A great ride, a great day, good friends..... Thank you for organizing and leading this. Look forward to riding with you again soon!

JB

P.S. Nice outfit....

 
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Tilting windmills

Small respit to check out the windmills from the overlook

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The Bobbsey Twins :lol: ok, jwhite and JB :p

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Andrew (ST.N), Ray (Silent), Kurt (ST.N), Jerry (Jwhite), Hans (JB), Del (Painman). The pic (and about 50 others, damn auto-wind cameras) was taken by one of the over zealous bike nazi's (nice guy really :) )

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Windmills, and our nice little 1 lane road wiggling off into the distance

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Lots of windmills! Didn't know there were this many back here. I've always seen them from the freeway, and you can't see near this many from the freeway.

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Kurt and Del discuss existentialism, or the meaning of life, or something completely different, I wasnt listening :p

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Altamont Speedway. To bad they wouldn't let us take a few laps. I guess it's ok tho, there wasn't much run-off other than the concrete wall :blink: :blink: :blink:

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The little cages JB refered to. They were haulin around that track too!

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Once we split up, Andrew and I headed down 508 to south 680. About the Sunol exit, I waved Andrew over. After a quick pow-wow, we decided to take the back way in. We followed Calaveras thru the mountains to Sierra road. A nice wide 1 lane road around the lake.

Andrew contemplating a repeat preformance of Evil Knievel's Snake River jump

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Once we hit Sierra Road, we had our goodbyes and went our seperate ways. Cows on Sierra Road :rolleyes:

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Great day, great ride, great people! I enjoyed the day and meeting new people. B)

 
Tremendously entertaining as usual Jb. :lol:

Happy to hear it went well. Don't those Altamont hills look great when they're green?

Oooh! Just saw Silent's pics and commentary. Great! Any tilting?

 
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Wow JB, as usual your writting style is most interesting and humorous and yes it was a good day and one much needed as I haven't had any opportunities for riding as of late mostly due to work. And thanks Jerry for a great ride just about in my own backyard! Morgan Territory Rd. is worse than I remember and more fitting to some type of offroad vehicle types but we made it. Silent caught my attention when he asked if there was room for a helicoptor landing site on that road and when the answer was "no" he just grimised and shook his head probably thinking maybe he shouldn't go after all.

I did see some wildlife on the trip. When we were making a u-turn in Livermore looking for Silent and a possible much needed P-break, to my supprise a squirel was in the middle of the road and did a complete back flip and I thought he was trying to jump on Andrew's back seat but didn't make it. Hey, nobody rides for free. The other was while we were coming out of the canyon from Carnegie SVRA park, dirt bike mecca of NorCal, a very large coyote crossed the road right in front of me and stopped on the side of the road and gave me a dirty look. I really don't think he liked Yamaha's. But was interesting to say the least.

Some beautiful stops above the vast windmills that were working away below Patterson Pass Rd. was a sight to behold. And one of the kind bicycle Nazi's pack took a group picture of the vetern bike crew I was proud to be part of. Silent, those are some excellent pics from your most awesome camera!

Anyway, I love riding my FJR with the bags off, feels like a different bike and the weather was perfect to say the least. And it was nice meeting the guy's from STN and riding with some different style bikes. I'm really looking forward to many more rides this year as it just keeps getting better and better. Any excuse for a ride. PM. <>< :D

 
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Once we hit Sierra Road, we had our goodbyes and went our seperate ways. Cows on Sierra Road

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It is so cruel when they dehorn cows.

Thanks for another great ride report JB and Silent, us shut-ins here in the Midwest sure appreciate your efforts.

 
Nice bike! Whose is that anyway? :rolleyes: (I learned that pose watching Stoner on the podium.)

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Kurt and Del discuss existentialism, or the meaning of life, or something completely different, I wasnt listening

I was. They were actually discussing Heidegerrian existential phenomenology (Kurt took Heidegger's perspective, Pain took Husserl's, which everybody knows was wrong--duh! :blink: ).

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Cows on Sierra Road

Um, I think you mean the "H" animals, Silent.--Hogs. Hogs on Sierra Road.

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Thanks for the pics, Silent. And I'm glad you could join us, so you and I could exchange loads of static and incomprehensible words all morning over the walkie-talkies. BTW, this morning Fang read my ride report and had one word for me: "Nutso." Isn't she a dear?

Jb

 
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Nice bike! Whose is that anyway? :rolleyes: (I learned that pose watching Stoner on the podium.)
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You need to "work on it", JB. It looks like you are ready to.......pass gas...while thinking, "OMG, I hope its a 'silent-stinker'. Jeez, I just forgot I was wearing the 'Stitch, this probably isn't going to be good." :lol:

 
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Great story and pics guys!

We followed Calaveras thru the mountains
Love that road...hate that road, my experience has been it's actually too twisty and defies rhythm.

 
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P.S. And a special mention to yesterday's Hardley poseur who robbed us of some of the best twisties going back up over the hills to lunch in Livermore when, seeing six headlights suddenly appear on his tail, refused--ever--to nudge to the right of his lane and let us pass, forcing us for several miles to act like weekend riders on low-performance machines. You're a dick. Learn how to ride.

P.P.S. And a special mention to Kurt on the Ducati Desideratum, who knows how to move that baby through the twisties.

P.P.P.S And a special mention to Silent for riding sweep and helping keep us together: Me up ahead: "Uh, Silent, breaker one-niner, JB here. Turn right at the stop sign, over." Silent: "Glpset...fristl... psfsst... crackle... ****." Me: "Copy."

P.P.P.P.S. And a special mention to Painman, who kept Silent company at the back even though Pain likes to go real fast and be at the front, and who is always good company on a ride.

P.P.P.P.P.S. And a special mention to Andrew, on his Blue Yamaha LT-9, who also knows how to carve a canyon, and is a good riding mate.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. And most of all a special mention to Jerry for organizing and leading the ride even though everyone who ever leads a ride in the history of mankind gets his balls busted for one thing or another, going back to the cavemen who invented motorcycles (I think that's right). Because that's half the fun of going on a ride. [And that reminds me, Jerry.... About that pass of the poseur.... Can we talk? :blink: :p ]

 
DAAAAMMMMMMM IT! For whatever stoopid reason, had the date of the ride in my planner for NEXT WEEKEND! Didn't realise my error until yesterday afternoon. Sorry for the foul-up, glad you all had a nice ride!

 
DAAAAMMMMMMM IT! For whatever stoopid reason, had the date of the ride in my planner for NEXT WEEKEND! Didn't realise my error until yesterday afternoon. Sorry for the foul-up, glad you all had a nice ride!
Yes...well...I guess ANY story will do when the need arises. Uhm, THAT'S your story and you're sticking to it?

 
Hey guys,

Thanks for putting up with my semi-inept ride captaining. I dunno what I was thinking there...somehow I thought that the freeway and city streets section coming up would be too much of a PITA to keep the group together. I thought that we should just do our best to stay together, but in case we got separated, meet at "the spot." But when Silent said he needed to use the facilities, I should have just found us a toilet as a group instead of saying, "You're on your own!" A thousand apologies, friend. It won't happen again. Lesson learned.

In any case, you can't beat a springtime ride through the Altamont hills. It was fun to share it with this group. I only have one photo to add to those already posted, it's this one from the top of Morgan Territory, right in the downhill roller coaster section.

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