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Yeah, it really does. I just got back from sacramento, took the red eye and landed at 10am so I don't really feel like working all that hard today, so I'm gonna ramble about riding in california, which I'd never done before.
First off, the roads are insane, at least in Sacramento. Corner upon corner, big sweepers, tight 15mph signed switchbacks, it's a total playground. And the cars are courteous and whatnot, they actually pull to the side to let you by! What a concept!
Oh yeah, and lanesplitting, very very cool. We got stuck in what would have been 3-4 hours of traffic on interstate 80 due to what must have been one hell of an accident. Instead, we were out of there in under an hour by splitting the centerline, passed miles and miles of cars. And you know what? Most of them actually waved to us, moved to let us pass as much as possible, and just didnt' seem at all upset that we were passing them. Try somethign like that in boston, you're liable to get a car door in the face
The heat wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. We headed out from sacramento to lake tahoe and then to reno, lake tahoe was actually quite temperate and reno was hot but it was a dry heat. Still got a pretty nasty sunburn, but I should have known better, my own fault on that one.
Anyway, just wanted to share my first experience riding west of the rockies, and if you haven't had the chance to ride out there, find a way, it really is quite the experience.
Oh and many thanks to Elaine for letting me come out there and graciously riding bitch with a 60 pound backpack for 500 miles on that uncomfortable plank of an F4i backseat while I zipped around the countryside on her bike. After such a selfless act, I guess you'll be wanting to ride the ZX6R for the october trackday, huh?
Oh yeah, I'm real sorry about that f4i engine, I think I can fix it though, don't worry, I'll send you some new sparkplugs