Grass Valley to Seattle on business

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fJROB

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 25, 2005
Messages
108
Reaction score
20
Location
Grass Valley, CA
I am the owner of an independent auto service business, in order to keep my business on the cutting edge I am a member of a business development group.

The group consists of up to 20 other auto shop owners from all over the country.

We share all of our secrets for success with each other as we work to improve our own businesses.

Three times a year we meet in a member’s city and take a tour of their shop, clipboards in hand, telling them what we like and what we don’t.

Our January meeting was scheduled to be in Seattle, Washington.

I like to turn these little business trips into cycletherapy sessions, so I had to prepare for some winter riding.

My first project was to make a heated jacket. So I took my cortech accelerator jacket liner and proceeded to wire it up with instructions found on the internet.

The second project was to add heated grips to my FJR, I ordered up a heated grip kit from dual-star.

Kudos to dual-star! The grip kit arrived 3 days before my departure date.

My ride began on Monday morning January 14th; the FJR was loaded up with my laptop, meeting materials, and enough clothes for 3 days worth of meetings. I departed from Grass Valley at about 8:00 am.

It was great to be on the FJR again. The first sign of winter riding showed up on hwy 99 just after Chico,Ca.

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The fog was pretty thick! It never ceases to amaze me, seeing people drive through fog with their lights off!

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The fog thinned out and was gone by the time I hit hwy 5. (Yes Interstate 5, boring but efficient)

I had to stop at the first glimpse of snow covered Mt Shasta.

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I stopped for lunch in Ashland, Oregon and had a Curry tuna melt. It was excellent! (Sorry no pics)

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Before stopping for lunch my toes had been getting cold, so after lunch I put some chemical heated insoles in my boots and all was well! Heated grips, heated jacket, and now heated insoles. Life is good!

It started raining somewhere around Sutherlin, hoping it would stop I waited to put on my rain gear until I stopped for fuel.

My plan was to make it to Portland, but the sun was setting, the rain was getting more intense, and I was having a hard time finding the sweet spot with windshield adjustment and keeping my face shield clear. So I stopped in Salem and began my search for a hotel with a hot tub.

I can’t believe how dependent I had become to my now absent GPS. (It was stolen from a hotel room last September)

I finally found a hotel with a hot tub so I stopped for the night.

The next morning the news was showing frozen roads in Portland and cars on Interstate 5 that had spun out and crashed. So over breakfast I calculated a new route. The plan was to head out to the coast on hwy 22.

Hwy 22 was a really cool little road; I really liked the moss covered trees

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My FJR liked the trees too, but she didn’t like the snow on the road!

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made it to hwy 101 and the snow disappeared!

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It was nice to see dry road for a change!

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I continued up 101 through Tillamook.

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I stayed on 101 until Aberdeen, Washington and stayed the night there.

From there I went to Seattle. After unloading my bike at the hotel I went to Pike Street Marketplace for a late lunch/early dinner.

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I had grilled Salmon for lunch at the market grill.

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I spent the rest of the day walking around Seattle. Sidi Evo Tepor’s are not bad as walking shoes! but tennis shoes would have been better!

I stopped to watch an amazingly efficient tow truck operator snatch up a parking offender.

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I went into Seattle Yamaha, and look what I saw!

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I explained to the Salesman that I preferred the faster color………Blue!

I met the shop dog, his name is Monkey!

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They had some cool engines on display

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And a top secret project in the works….. It is an FJR based streetfighter! But they would not allow any camera’s into the top secret workshop.

The obligatory Space Needle picture, too bad the cranes were in the way!

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The meeting went well! The shop that we visited was the Auburn Tire Factory in Auburn Washington owned by Dan and Mary(wearing the Brown Jacket and red plaid shirt). They have a very nice shop and they were marvelous hosts.

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This is our group hard at work in the meeting.

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After the three day meeting was over, it was raining, so I started out with my rain suit on and headed south.

My destination for the night was my sister’s house in Lebanon Oregon (240 miles) it rained the entire way, but I still made it to Lebanon in time for dinner.

After a nice Chinese food dinner a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast I was ready to hit the Road.

The FJR got to stay the night in the barn!

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Just before my departure I got a picture of my generous hosts, Don, Carmen, Andrew, and Julianne.

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The Ride home was great; my sister packed a lunch for me so I was able to save a lot of time by eating lunch at a rest stop.

It rained pretty much all of the way through Oregon, with the exception of the mountain passes where it turned to snow!

Thankfully the snowfall was light and it never got beyond slush on the road. I was very thankful for the heated jacket, heated grips, and insoles!

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After a little snow at the top of California, the rest of the ride home to Grass Valley was pretty dry and I finally got home and reunited with my family.

This was pretty much my first winter ride and it went very well! I never had to use my tire chains, my gear kept me warm and dry, and of course my FJR performed flawlessly!

Thanks for coming along!

FJROB

 
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fjROB, you are The Man! I admire your initiative and courage to take that trip in January in the Northwest. You are the real deal. And your trip report should be posted as a perfect model ("paragon") of a trip report. Good write-up, good pictures, interesting, just the right level of detail. Thank you.

In other news, my wife's best friend lives in Grass Valley, and though Fang hates to get on the back of the Blue Rocketship, now that our son has just left for a 2-month rock-band tour of the U.S., his Nissan 300Z is available to us (let's our daughter have the other car while we're gone), so I said "Let's go visit the Iz in Grass Valley." So if I head up that way, I'm gonna need someone to talk motorcycles with while the women talk about baby shoes and wedding dresses, etc.

Jb

 
fjROB, you are The Man! I admire your initiative and courage to take that trip in January in the Northwest. You are the real deal. And your trip report should be posted as a perfect model ("paragon") of a trip report. Good write-up, good pictures, interesting, just the right level of detail. Thank you.
In other news, my wife's best friend lives in Grass Valley, and though Fang hates to get on the back of the Blue Rocketship, now that our son has just left for a 2-month rock-band tour of the U.S., his Nissan 300Z is available to us (let's our daughter have the other car while we're gone), so I said "Let's go visit the Iz in Grass Valley." So if I head up that way, I'm gonna need someone to talk motorcycles with while the women talk about baby shoes and wedding dresses, etc.

Jb

Thanks JB, this was actually my first ride report ever! I now understand how much work you regular posters put into a ride report.

If you are in Grass Valley give me a shout! I have a couple of Dualsports and I could show you the hills! or if we can convince my son to let me ride his SV, we could do some street.

 
If you are in Grass Valley give me a shout! I have a couple of Dualsports and I could show you the hills! or if we can convince my son to let me ride his SV, we could do some street.
Dude, this trip just became mandatory! Let's keep in touch. I'll PM you with my contact info so we can establish a connection.

Jb

 
Nice job on the trip, but I would never consider traveling on this route in Jan unless I had a lot of schedule flexibility. While the roads are generally passable, especially on the coast, they do go down for long periods with snow/ice where riding them would be just completely foolhardy. If you can afford to wait out the weather for a day or three, no big deal and it becomes part of the adventure, but if you're on a schedule and you just "press on" regardless, you're asking for BIG trouble.

- Mark

 
Very nice ride report Bob. It does take guts to ride up north as JB mentioned this time of year. Good pics and makes me want to go back to Seattle and I heard they made those guys stop throwing the fish at the fish market cause somebody got hurt. That was some great entertainment. And you were kidding about the chains....right? :blink: PM. <>< ;)

 
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Nice job on the trip, but I would never consider traveling on this route in Jan unless I had a lot of schedule flexibility. While the roads are generally passable, especially on the coast, they do go down for long periods with snow/ice where riding them would be just completely foolhardy. If you can afford to wait out the weather for a day or three, no big deal and it becomes part of the adventure, but if you're on a schedule and you just "press on" regardless, you're asking for BIG trouble.
- Mark
I did have a lot of schedule flexibility, I started on Monday, and I did not have to be in Seattle until Wednesday night. and going home I made it short and sweet but I could have taken as long as necessary.

"Foolhardy" that is a lot nicer name than what my wife called me! :rolleyes:

 
I enjoyed your post of your winter trip! I'm from the area and glad that you made it safe the snow like snot stuff we get here can be treacherous. Again Good job, you need some of those bulls balls you see hang from the pick me up trucks for the back of your bike!

 
Great post and pics. I like the guys at Seattle Yamaha / Honda though the dog is something else! Hey, what was your total mileage. It would be great to get it into the million mile challenge log.

 
That is a great ride and great report. Although you might be in for a name change to something like this "Big Chief Brave Balls" great Job :clapping:

 
Hey neighbor, great report. With the snow we have on this side of town it looks like I won't even get mine out the driveway for at least another 3 days. Let's chain up the dual sports and ride!

 
Yeah, I'm Not a consistent poster! But I own the bike, and I butt in here quite a bit!

I've gotta "admit that", that was a great report and written with some passion!

I liked it, and I trust (?), you came home with a clip board full of notes! :yahoo:

I do trips like this, but I'm not always able to write them off (for tax purposes, etc.).

However, the research always proves to be invaluable in some way? <_<

cheers... to FJRob!

 
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