Day 5 and Day 6

Day five was my last day of riding with the group. After my little spill at the gnarley corner of Breton and Clemenceau, I have to say I lost a lot of confidence, so I took it pretty east that day.

We started off by riding down to the San Diego area, Mt. Palomar to be exact. Mt. Palomar is a famous motorcycle road in southern california, it was fun, I was missing my old tire though, even if the carcass was starting to poke through, I would've been on the sides the whole time anyway.

We got some food at the top, they serve the biggest pancakes I've ever seen. Then it was off and down the back side.

We stopped at a viewpoint for a break and some pictures. Once we finished there, we finished Mt. Palomar and rode back over to Borrego Springs where we went over Montezuma's Pass again and then to the 243. We then rode over to the biggest motorcycle store that I have ever seen, Chapparral.

Your host.

Gino rockin a wheelie on the RR

A massive sales floor, this store was bigger than the local Wal-Mart!

This is just overstock, waiting to get to the salesfloor!

The ugliest bike i've ever swung a leg over.

The KTM Superduke type R. Yes please.

After Chapparral, we ate dinner at Chilies and then it was off to bed, well, kind of, it's hard to sleep next to this...

First thing on the 26th, I was up and riding home. I was meeting Ashley in St. George where we'd get lunch and she'd go home while I stayed the night there. The plan was to take a long route home on the 27th, hitting the 14, 12, 72 and Wolf Creek Pass. Unfortunatley weather wasn't great, so I decided to tough it out and ride back on the 26th. It was cold, but mostly dry, I got a little rain in Beaver again, but no snow this time. I made it back at 11pm and hit the sack. It was a long trip that took me about a week to recover from, I wasn't sore where I thought i'd be, but I was still sore in a few spots. The people I met were great, it was a ton of fun. There's another get together in Sept, out in NC, it'll be a longshot, but i'd like to go.

Day 4

Day 4 for me was the funnest as far as riding is concerned. Dan took us through some great twisty roads till we got to Montezuma's pass. Montezum's pass takes you into Borrego Springs, a little desert town. For the first day of this trip I didn't have my back pack on me, I felt free to move off the bike more. We spent most the day on Montezuma's pass going up and down and up and down again. Dan parked in one of the corners and got pictures of everyone. Jim mounted one of his camera's on the back of Adam's Daytona and one on the front of his RR. We got a lot of action photos on this run.
DJ

Dan and I

My favorite picture of the trip.

Brad giving my triple a try.
We ate lunch at a great Mexican restraunt in Borrego Springs. The food was really good. It was a nice break form the hard riding and by the time we finished, the weather had cleared up quite a bit.

Gino, ready to dig in and Jim in the back stuffing his face.






So once we were done there, It was time again to try and get my rear tire changed. We rode out to Joe's house in Temecula. I got a hold of Rodger at Cycle Gear in Temecula and talked him into waiting for me if we were a bit late. We got ot Joe's house adn he was ready to go. The rear wheel was off like that and Joe and I were on the road to Cycle Gear. Rodger stayed true to his word (unlike the triumph dealer) and stayed open to help me out.

So I got the new rear tire mounted, headed back to Joe's house and put it on my bike. We found out later taht some shenanigans were taking place in Joe's neighborhood while we were gone.

And although I wasn't even trying, I too got my knee down like Gino. Both of them, and my butt, and my back and then I rolled a couple of times.

But don't worry Mom, I was OK

And so was the bike, glad I spent all that money on crash protection....

New tires are very slick, especially when they're cold. I knew this alreay and had "scrubbed" in a couple of sets already, but I only made it 50 ft. on this tire when I apparently gave it too much gas and it spun out on me. It was really kind of fun, not that i'm going to go out and try to recreate it. I got lucky that the bike diddn't break anything and my leathers kept me from even getting a bruise.

This ended Day 4.

Day 3

So after a few hours sleep in Monterey, we were all up and ready to ride back down.

By the end of day 2, I had put 1203 miles on the trip.

We stopped a few time to take in some of the views, it was pretty foggy that day.

Then we stopped to do some wheelies. Gino, Brad and Dan provided all the entertainment.

Once we made it to Cambria myself, Brendan and Shelby b-lined it back to get to the Triumph shop in time to have some new tires put on. We rode through a lot of wine county, I didn't get any pictures though, we were hurrying.

We made it in time, but true to the Triumph dealer name, they clained to not know we were coming and sent the machanic home. Do we hurried for nothing. I spent some time with Brendan's family while we waited for the other's to catch up. Brendan has a boy and girl the exact same ages as Hailey and Austin, It made me a little homesick.

Day 2

It was up at 6am or so for day two. We had to ride about an hour and a half to meet out whole group. The forcast wasn't too friendly for motorcyclists though, so on went the rain gear again. We headed out onto southern californias freeways which always seem to be packed with traffic. Luckily for us, the traffic wasn't much of a prablem tahnks to california's lane shareing law (or lack thereof) Lane splitting was fun, I hope the lawmakers in Utah can make this possible here, it may get more people on bikes which would reduce emmisions and traffic congestion.

Dan and Brendan

We first met with Brendan, Joe and Chad. Then we were off to redondo beach to meet the rest of th group riding up to Monterey. Again some more lanesplitting. Once we were riding through Beverly Hills, I could smell the flowers that were planted in the center medians of the street. They were pretty strong, this is one of the great things of riding a motorcycle, you can smell what's around you. (although this wasn't the greatest perk when I was stopped next to a pig truck on I-15 while the road was shut down for a few) We made it to the hotel in Redondo Beach and met the rest of the group, Brad Jim and Gino. These are the guys I would spend the entire week with, a few others came and rode with us for a bit, but myself, Brad, Gino Jim and Dan and DJ made every ride. (well I did miss the ride on Monday, and we met DJ in Monterey)

We started out and began our jouney to the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) The PCH in the southern part of the state is much different from the northern part, some of it like a freeway. A section of the road takes you inland where we rode past some strawberry fields, again, I could smell the strawberries as we rode through, that's not something you always experience in a car.

The hotel in redondo beach, here you see Joe (with Backpack) Chad and Dan in the back

Here you see Chad, Brad is standing behind Chad, Brendan and Dan again (camera hog)

Here's the group as soon as we hit the PCH

Here's a video of us rolling up the PCH

We stopped at a few places along the way, Neptune's Net apparently is a famous seafood place, I wouldn't know.

Neptunes net, Joe, Gino (facing away), Chad, Jim in the background, Brad, Dan and Brendan

Jim at Neptune's Net

The trip to Moneterey from Moreno Valley is somewhere around 300 miles, the bikes have a range of 120-150 miles, so we made a few stops along the way. Although we talk talk to eachother via the net and I felt like I knew these guys, we'd talk and get to know eachother a bit better at the stops.

Brad and Gino with Joe trying to be funny. There was a inside joke about me only coming so that I could document illegal activities like speeding and wheelies and later arrest the offenders, Hence the how fast were you going question.

Jim and Brad Checking out Chad's Triple.Dan, Gino, Brad and Joe.

Brad and Gino

Again we started out for Monterey. After lunch (somewhere past Pismo) we were finally to the more scenic challenging part of the road. The Sights were beautiful, even with a full face helmet on you can everything, there's no roof, or pillars to blck you view, sure you can scoot forward and look up or out the window, but it's not the same, you don't see the whole picture. It's kind of like an I-max movie. And again the smells, this time it was the sea. I don't like seafood, but I love the smell of the ocean.

Finally some proof that I was on this trip.

The View

It was pretty windy that day, I don't know if these quirrels were trying to stay low so they wern't blown away or if they were trying to stay out of view, but I thought they looked funny.

We had a couple of mishaps along the way, first was Bendan's bike, the fuel line cracked and began to leak fuel, this could have been pretty bad had we not stopped when we did.

Dano washing his hands..... There was a hose there.

Luckily the leak was at the end of the fuel line and the line was a little long. Everyone picthed in a bit and the bike was fixed.

Next was Brad's rental bike. It was obvious that this bike had been crashed before (even though it only had 500 or so miles on it) One of the bolts to the shifter mount fell out and Brad lost the ability to shift. The passenger peg was removed and the bolt fit the shitfer mount perfectly, again we were on our way, this time we would make it to the Ramada in Monterey. Dj was there waiting for us when we got there, we checked in and found an Italian restraunt to eat at.

Another member met up with us there at the hotel, Shelby Brendan's brother. I don't think I got any pictures with Shelby in them. I'm also waiting for some of the others to share some pictures, I'll try and edit these posts when I get them.

Day two was a fun ride the road (past Pismo) was really fun, about 50 miles or so of tight twisty technical roads. The only problem was some strong wind gusts. When leaned over in a corner coming around the mountain, you'd get hit with a stong gust of wind that would puch your tires (a motorcycle wheel acts much like a sail at speed) One corner felt like my wheels slid a foot or so in dirt, the road was clean, it was just the wind, but it still scared me. The night up in Pismo was a lot of fun, by the end of the day I felt like I knew these guys a lot better. Most were definetly far ahead of me as far as riding skill goes (or guts, they were fast riders) I diddn't try to keep up, I love to ride fast, there's nothing like speed, but I told myself before giong down there that I wouldn't push myself, I did after all have to ride the bike home. Had I pushed myself and tried to keep up with these crazies, I probably would've had a bad experience. However I had a great time riding my own pace. The road is awesome. I will be back for a PCH ride, only I'll ride the entire way up.

More to come, i'll keep you posted.