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Just finished four days riding around northern california and southern oregon. I'm sitting in SFO waiting for my flight home (yeah redeye flight) so I thought I would do a quick write up of my trip.
For those with short attention spans here is the summary: cold (low 30s to low 40s), lots and lots of rain, great roads, no drama.
I rented a BMW R1200R in San Fran on Thursday from motorcycle rentals dubbelju motorbikes in san francisco. This guy is great. The bikes are well taken care of (meaty brake pads and plenty of wear left on the tires). He also knows his California roads and is helpful with suggested routes. Basically, he looks at the weather, asks how far you want to go, and suggests a route. You are free to do whatever route you want, but he knows some great roads and I used a bunch of his suggestions.
Just a couple of hours of travel on Thursday night. It was neat leaving San Fran over the golden gate bridge and seeing a bunch of other folks on bikes. Only downside was the rain and rush hour traffic.
Friday morning I headed out early and drove up along the california coast. Along the way I hit some silly roads like this
hales grove, ca - Google Maps
and
northspur ca - Google Maps
I simply cannot say how amazing the roads out there are. Beautiful pavement and 20-30 mile stretches of curves (imagine rt 17 going for 20-30 miles and including flat sections). And these types of roads are everywhere in Northern California and they are empty!!!! In some cases I would only see another car every 20 minutes or so. Also, folks in california seem really good about staying on their side of the yellow line. The pavement is often in perfect condition (no bumps mid corner) and sometimes the corners are banked (how cool is that). I only saw cops/speed traps in the towns...when you are out in the country (at least in January) there are no speed traps.
One interesting part of the day was meeting a couple that was traveling around the world on bikes 2ridetheworld.com . Nice folks and I wish them well on their continued travels.
Ended up in Coos Bay Oregon on Friday night. After 14 hours and riding 500+ miles of twisties I was exhausted.
Tomorrow I'll finish the write up and add a bunch of pictures.