Last Rides

[grado]

m143 wrote

The trend remains positive.

Man……what a shot. 👍

[m143]

oldironnow wrote

This is good news.
And THAT looks gorgeous !

There is about 8 miles of that between there and my house.
Happy summer everybody!

[hacksaw]

I hardly believe that’s Ct.
My part of the state sux.
Enjoy.

[m143]

Hack, that's RT 72 from Plymouth to Harwinton.

[hacksaw]

I tried to figure it out from the maps. Thanks for letting me know. Gorgeous green spring ride.
I should fire up my T100 and go look  for it

[m143]

hacksaw wrote

I tried to figure it out from the maps. Thanks for letting me know. Gorgeous green spring ride.
I should fire up my T100 and go look  for it

From there Litchfield county offers some great riding.
We could show you around.

[hacksaw]

That would be cool.
I like it up there.
Hopefully I can get riding more regular than I have been .
It would take me about an hour to get up that way and that’s about as far as I can get these days .
I need to work on that.
I Also hope to find that road north into Ma you have told us about.
I been on a few roads up that way I just don’t remember where or what . I do recall some very bumpy ride thru amazing woodlands . Hopefully that’s been repaved since then .
I wish I could remember . I was heading East with murdercycles mc. Several years back .

[hacksaw]

New Hartford maybe? Route 219?
It seemed like a connecting side route in the white mountains . Amazing .
Ct has some amazing spots .
They are taxing me outta here I am afraid .
😢

[m143]

New Hartford yes
We ride through Peoples State Forest


If you ever feel up to it let me know

[oldironnow]

hacksaw wrote

I tried to figure it out from the maps. Thanks for letting me know. Gorgeous green spring ride.
I should fire up my T100 and go look  for it

[oldironnow]

Took a Mother’s Day ride to meet up with North Bay family.
But also, finally making the effort to join the infamous Sunday Morning Ride out of Tam Junction north on Hwy1 to Tomales.
The Ride dates back to the ‘50s, and there has always been a tension between Law and Speed, and during the rise of the dedicated sportbike, there was a lot of carnage and a lot of cops.
So I have no actual context between then and now, but on a cold Mother’s Day, less-than 10 grey-haired riders, almost all KTMs, hit the road around 08:00.
Most riders come out of the City and the North Bay counties, get a cuppa at Coyote Coffee’s shack, and talk about the missing riders and other coming rides (dualsport Garberville(?) Run).
I was frozen from a 5 a.m. star-lit leaving and then getting soaked in the wind-driven river of fog enveloping the Golden Gate bridge, with Ratana slithering along the many wet steel seams and repairs on the decking. A coffee and piroshki amongst the wind-blown parked bikes don’t quell my shivering.
Several riders give righteous advice (with tales) to not over-ride my skill level. I was going to leave last anyway.
Hwy1 to the coast is almost completely smooth, and paved in a series of highly cambered half bowls where you feel as if you’re being tossed side-to-side in God’s-own cupped hands. Swooping left and right and left endlessly, ascending, climbing the shoulders of Mt. Tamalpais. Rising back into the cloud level. The fog storm is back, and the Bell’s visor goes murky with water, inside and out.
I can’t see a thing. Nearly blind coming down to the ocean. I let a sportscar go past, and pull in to the first stop at the Stinson Beach overlook.
I don’t know why this is a stop. Maybe people would ride back and forth over the hill. Maybe groups would check up to see if someone binned it. The fire house is in the town just below - maybe one didn’t want to be seen looping into town all day.




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[oldironnow]

The overlook is an awkwardly sloped slice of gravel and dust  between the curve’s verge and a tumble-down cliff to the California sea. It feels more like a gaggle of potholes surrounded by small sections of flatness.
I nose across the on-coming lane, aim for a space, and Ratana eventually skids and slides backwards to a settled place.
This group is closer than many families; there’s more talk and more stories and it all seem to be retelling and continued threads. It’s a little hard on my social dysmorphia, trying to find some connection, but i hang, dutifully cleaning the visor and dutifully taking photos. A tall guy named Dan gives me some advice about a pinned visor system that eliminates fogging, details the evolution to using KTM ADV-level bikes, and what’s ahead, as in, “I-We-Us crashed here,here,here,here,here and oh yeah, here. So watch yourself.”




.

[oldironnow]

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[hacksaw]

Thank you !

[hacksaw]

Wow!

[oldironnow]

”The Iqama is the second call to Prayer, given immediately before prayer begins.”

The call to leave starts as a lull in the talk, and a shrug of Aerostitch, and a clearing of the throat… “Guess it’s ‘bout time…”
It is time to do what we do.
We came to ride some curves as best we can.
Smokes are finished. Gravel underfoot crunches out the sound of the waves far below. Helmets and gloves, pulled on.
Because of my visor cleaning, i happen to be ready first. I quit trying to feather the clutch to pull forward and turn on the slope, risking dropping Ratana. Instead, I just decide to back into the highway. And now that I’m in the lanes, I just decide to leave first.
This feels good. They already know I’m slow. Now, they’ll know just how slow I am, and I will find out the true pace of the group.
Bright gray above. Dark gray below.
Green trees to the side. Wind-tossed Bolinas Lagoon to the left.
The road hugs the lip of land where the toes of Bolinas Ridge touch the water. Right and left Ratana swoops north along the twisted two-lane, each promontory into the lagoon giving a glimpse of what’s ahead. Each turn in the cusp of the hillside filling in holes in the earlier stories…
‘This must be the swampy place where Dan lost the rear and backed it into the mud, tearing off the tail and the ECM (which they had to dig out and reconnect).
‘Ah. Bet this shaded spot is where the black ice got that other guy and his friend.’
I discreetly pass a few cars over the double yellow with a long wave for no hard feelings.
Then the first bike comes by. So fast. He knows the way and what’s unseen and seems to have no fear.
Another half mile, and two more. Locked at the hip. I watch them course along all through this wrinkle in the shoreline. They’re using all of the road.
More come by in pairs. And then another loner, and by the time I leave the lagoon and reach the tree-covered womb of Olema Valley, I feel like I’m on my own again.
This is the fault zone for the relentless San Andreas. Just up ahead, the earth on the west side of the line shifted 32 feet to the north in less than a minute.
The road unwinds a-bit. Less crenelated. The coiled rope of pavement has been stretched out. The road, flowing now, brings Ratana into its long-wheelbase element.
I can see ahead enough to speed along and make clean passes on cars out early and trolling at five under.
Light flickers down because I’ve outrun the marine layer. The air is still cold as it dutifully invades my helmet, jacket and gloves, but I can feel the sun heating the back of my jacket. The shadows hide the damp spots. Caution.
Tiny, wizened Pt. Reyes Station used to be the destination: back in the day, first one there got their breakfast paid for by the group. The early opening restaurant closed, so now the Ride heads further north to Tomales.
I stop for a minute.




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[grado]

Man I wish I was there.

[hacksaw]

Then why aren’t you ?
I decided many years ago that if I was going to really wish to be somewhere i would just go .
Any family or financial or even comfort excuses not to go where actually on me. What I mean is my decision that I would rather be doing what ever I was doing rather than wish to be somewhere else.  
Now I am becoming more limited due to getting older and I can honestly say I wish I was younger!
Lol.

[grado]

hacksaw wrote

Then why aren’t you ?
I decided many years ago that if I was going to really wish to be somewhere i would just go .
Any family or financial or even comfort excuses not to go where actually on me. What I mean is my decision that I would rather be doing what ever I was doing rather than wish to be somewhere else.  
Now I am becoming more limited due to getting older and I can honestly say I wish I was younger!
Lol.

Well….I guess I’ve been kind of domesticated.
Sucked into the land of the comfortable couch
and happy significant other.

EZ livin got a hold on me.  

[oldironnow]

Nearly getting hit by a minivan while taking a picture is a sign that it's time to go.
Just because I was standing in the street is no reason to stop. Clearly my fault.

Downtown Pt. Reyes Station, is (if you squint right) about five blocks by three blocks. It takes longer to stow my phone and writhe-on the helmet and gloves than it does to troll out of town.
And I go briskly, standing on the pegs, because this country, the north end of Olema Valley and beyond, is more familiar to me. I know these roads from a time when I lived here as an allegedly responsible adult of 18 years old and dreamed all the time of being a motorcyclist.

But all those memories came from behind the wheel of a '72 Ford station wagon. I never actually wrecked, (it caught fire on the way to the junkyard), but I did get all my first tickets with it. So I'm eager to finally savor the feeling of arcing through the corners that I yearned for decades ago.
It's still two-lane out here, but more rolling, with less trees and a tsunami of morning sunshine pouring over the grassy dairy farms that line Tomales Bay. It looks like someone took Sandhills Nebraska grassland and "sqouzzed" it all together down to the size of Iowa. And then walked away. Leaving it all lumped-up next to a giant salt water lake.
The road to Tomales has been here all this time, waiting for us. Ratana, and I, and the road have been coming towards this moment for 40 years. And it is good.
Deliciously three-dimensional. A sweet mix of left/right and up/down, and all at the same time. I can keep Ratana in fourth and just surf its torque, revving out the engine more and not chopping the throttle to keep the bike stable on its weepy old legs. Trying to run smooth AND fast at 55 in a 35. Trying to trust myself.

And in short order, I come up behind a white pickup with a utility bed and the nice big letters on the tailgate, R A N G E R.

This party is over. I've heard to never pass a ranger's car, pickup, mule... whatever, that's doing the speed limit. They have the power to cite. So hand on hip, Ratana and I troll along at a hopefully annoying long distance behind, keeping just in sight of the ranger's mirrors on the short straights. This goes on until we get to Marconi where the R A N G E R pulls over so I can lead.
And I do.
Pleasantly maintaining this fraud of a display of my good behavior for a total of nine miles through all the little shoreline villages set out onto piles over the bay, Until the R A N G E R pulls into the Miller boat launch.
And then we're back at it, this time with a Mazda and a 911 who have also been liberated. I let them by, and then they let me by when we come upon a slow SUV. And we're all shortly in Tomales.
I park Ratana down onto the curb next to a stunning BMW, and the Porsche driver comes over to say thanks for letting him through for a short while.





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