Ride: Blurose and Hubby riding from So. Cal to meet & ride with the Nor. Cal crew.
Friday: We left at about 8:30 am from Simi Valley, Ca headed for Rhubarb's home just outside of San Francisco, CA.
It was in the mid-60's to low 70's with some great sun so we figured we would hit the coast for a nice ride up. We took the 101 to San luis Obispo then hung a left out toward the ocean.
The elephant seals were lazing in the sun just north of San Simeon so the overlooks were packed and the camera's were out. For some reason I had packed my camera in the back pack so we decided not to stop and continued north. Just as we got to the head of the twisted road between San Simeon and Carmel we found ourselves behind the car that had to do 35 the whole way. It was running just about lunch time So we stopped at Ragged Point Resturant.
Ragged point sports a resort, resturant, outdoor snack bar, a mini market, and gas. There is even a shop that sells locally made jewelry. They seemed very friendly to the bikes.
For the most part the ride was uneventful though I seemed to collect every slow polk on the PCH (Hwy 1) between Ragged Point and Carmel. The road was in decent condition after the recent fires and several known land slides.
After Carmel it was staring to get late so we beelined it for the 101 and headed north to Rhubarb's.
When we got there we found poor Rhubarb with his bike in pieces! Turns out he was trying to get his new HD heated grips on his bike. He said he thought it would only take a little bit but it was a bit more then he bargined for....Hubby and I hopped right in to help get it straightened out. I even caught them reading the directions 
They did well though and got it all done and put back together for the morning ride. 
The ride up was just over 400 Miles.
Saturday: Rhubarb had us up before dawn and on the road! Have I ever said I don't do mornings? 
I got us running late so we hightailed it on to the freeway and headed over to pick-up Airborne and his friend RoadKingJimmy...Then off we went again to meet the rest of crew in Santa Rosa at the Black Bear Diner
After a great breakfest with good people BaggerRon had a great route worked out for us up the coast. So we headed out the 12 to the coast through Bodega Bay to PCH (Hwy 1)
Such a great day for the coast too! It got time to turn in land and head for this great BBQ joint near Napa so we hung a right just past Port Arena at Mountian View Road.
Now I don't have any pictures of Mountian View Road because it was such an interesting ride. We started off on a road that had been recently tarred and chip coated...the light gravel was spraying up from the backs of the bikes like roster tails and a few folks were sliding a bit. We kept rolling forward though I think all of us were worried this windy road was not going to get better. After several miles they had stopped trying to "repair" the road and the road cleared up to a nice tightly wound mountian road. Our group broke into 3 groups with the super speed demons leading the way....The road narrowed to a single lane in a few places and only once did a car and a bike get almost too close. Our leaders stopped in a nice side pocket to wait for us slow pokes 
By this time I was starving! So from here it was off to lunch so we hopped on the 128/101/128
to Calistoga
Finally Lunch! (And a darn good one)
From lunch (OK this was Lunch/dinner) we headed over to the Napa sign for a group picture.
(Wanna see more pictures? Go here: My Album)
The ride lasted just over 300 miles for Rhubarb, Hubby, and I
Sunday: I don't have the pictures posted for the ride down yet but I do have some.
We were really lazy getting going and didn't leave until about 9:45 am. That meant we needed to get a move on so we hit the freeway and cooked to Hollister CA. We had never take the 25 and on Rhubarb's suggestion we figured we ough to try it.
The 25 is a very nice ride of moderate twisties and fields. Along the route you can see Pinnacles National Monument but bring some tennis shoes because there are several short trails to the view points. Unfortunately because we were running late we sort of did a short ride through and used the restrooms, then got back on the road.
From Pinnacles we thought we were going to head straight to the 198 but Hubby's GPS had a different route that saved us some much needed time. Going south...There is a very tight turn as you had into a valley once you cross the first field there is a road off to the right (King City/ Bitterwater Rd.)....if your planning on taking the 101 this will save you close to an hour over riding all the way to the 198. Next time I'd like to finish the ride to the 198 but for us running so late it worked out great!
It also turned out to be a good choice to go the 101 as there were fires in our way going south on the 5 and turning west on the 118 from the 5. Several freeways were closed....all in all we did well.
Total Ride: 1187 miles
We had a great Time!
Thanks for the Hospitality-- Rhubarb, BaggerRon, Tread, Airborne, RoadKingJimmy, Dynamic, and Mr. Dynamic!!!!!!!
--'08 HD Ultra Classic w/ ABS
The content person enjoys the scenery of a detour.
