Yakaru and Momaru's Grand California Tour

[Momaru]

Fair warning, this post is gonna be long. We both blew several years of leave-time accumulation for this trip. Will be broken into multiple posts. Also, I’m way too good at procrastinating; thank you VERY MUCH Yakaru for getting this all together. I hope I don't take too much longer in writing this all up before my PoS memory loses it all.

About a year ago, my best friend Yakaru asked me if we'd like to get together and take some vacation. It sounded like a great idea as we hadn’t seen each other in person in a long time, and I’ve never been much west of the Rockies, despite having grown up in Colorado. So, the planning was begun. We (mostly Yakaru) made plans for routes, excellent twisties & scenic roads mixed with efficient travel (read: superslab), maps, schedules, lists of who needs to bring what, backup plans, alternate routes, etc. Essentially, almost everything for a well-organized trip.

The pre-trip complications:
In January, Yakaru started trying to order a track suit for our planned day at the California Superbike School. Due to some odd sizing issues, and the event below, this order didn’t get placed until sometime in February. Some time after the track day, we were informed the company making the track suit couldn’t make an appropriate cut/size for Yakaru. Also, they eventually cancelled the production of the model that had been ordered...

Yakaru decided to pick up a pair of communicators for our trip, so we could chatter away the long highway miles, rock out to music and listen to GPS, as needed. Initially, a set was purchased from a vendor that had a two-pack of Scala Q3s on sale. We received a two-pack of snowmobile headsets that didn't even have the appropriate mountings, much less match the description in the sale posting. After some discussion with the vendor, the comms were returned to them and they sent us a set of top-of-the-line G9s instead. (These worked quite well, once we figured out the controls).

I’d been itching for a pair of better track-day boots for the trip and our time at California SuperBike School. Lo and behold, my favorite online vendor had not one but two pairs I’d been eyeing go on closeout. So, I caved in and bought a set in my usual color scheme (blue & black). They arrived in short order, and I eagerly popped the box to try them on. It took me a few minutes to notice, but one of the ankle support hinges wasn’t attached to the boot. Someone forgot a screw at the factory. Not that it fell out, just never installed it in the first place. Blessedly, this was a minor issue, fixed quickly with a call to the distributor and a screwdriver once the screw showed up.

Some 4 months before the trip was to start, our plans started to experience… complications. To start off, Yakaru was hit by a car, who crossed three lanes of traffic and double yellows in their dire need for some Subway. This, predictably, totaled the 250 Yakaru was riding at the time, for which the car drivers’ insurance has still not paid out. But “no big deal”, Yakaru just shelled out and bought a new 300.

Then, in early April, I decided I’d better get my tank repainted to finish the repairs from a track accident of mine last year (link to the Youtube video) in which I nearly totaled my bike Perigee by flipping her via lowside with frame sliders. Insurance ‘encouraged’ me to have it repainted, saying they wouldn’t pay out for additional damages to it unless I got this fixed. LONG story short, I wound up driving over 400mi to get my tank repainted (5 trips at 80mi each) to the nearest ‘big’ city. The shop doing the work eventually got it right, but goofed up in a number of different ways, including using an entirely wrong shade of paint (my ’08 Plasma blue looked like Candy Thunder from the ’09), not removing the tank decals when they (crookedly) applied the new ones, and nicking the paint in-shop and covering it up with an off-color touch-up. This didn’t get resolved until days before departure and still isn’t quite right but I ran out of energy to fight them on it.

For transit, we had booked a flight to get me there just before Memorial Day weekend. Perigee, my 250, was to be shipped via motorcycle transport company. This was all settled, paperwork signed and schedules set sometime in early March. They were made explicitly aware that the delivery date was of paramount import, even if they had to pick up my bike a month or more in advance. They called me the day they were due to pick up my bike, three weeks before the trip was to begin with my flight, to say they were running two weeks behind schedule for both pickup and delivery. “That’s not a problem, right?” Needless to say, we were just a little Livid. But, they politely offered a full refund of the $200 deposit on the $1000 round trip transit fee they were going to charge. After spending most of a day calling every company I could find, we decided that we couldn’t guarantee Perigee would arrive on time via commercial carrier. So, I decided to load up in my truck and drive. All ~2,500miles (each way) cross country.

This seemed like a fine plan, but in my pre-trip inspection, some mechanical issues became apparent: extremely worn tie-rod, misbalanced tires, a spare tire of the entirely wrong size and some minor tune-up stuff was severely in order (oil change, spark plug replacement, etc). Several hundred dollars in parts, several trips to hardware stores for additonal tools, a handful of hours, a little blood and a lot of sweat & cursing later, that was taken care of.

Departure day finally arrived, 5 days sooner than anticipated. Thankfully, because of all the preparation, I didn’t forget anything (important) and got on the road with a little time to spare. Fast forward about a thousand miles west. I’m coming up on Oklaholma. Phone rings. Yakaru’s on the other end. First words I hear are “Wherever you are, turn South. NOW.” Apparently the neat-looking thunderheads I’d been watching all afternoon were actually a Tornado-storm. You might have heard about it. So, I turned south and made lots of haste. Wound up taking “shelter” in a national park at the northern border of Texas, which was due to be missed by the storm. Aside from some phenomenal lightning and high winds, I didn’t have too much trouble other than having a cramped night sleeping in the cab of my truck. And that was, thankfully, the last of the big issues we had before the trip even got properly started.

[Momaru]

I left Blacksburg, VA late morning on May 19th. I'm skipping pretty much all of my driving the truck cross-continent. Aside from the tornado storms (mentioned above) it was largely uneventful and I made pretty good time. I do recommend staying in parks for the thrifty traveler, that was a great experience and cost practically nothing.

Yakaru met me in Phoenix AZ late in the afternoon of the 22nd, where we dined with some old fencing friends of mine I'd seen just the week before on the opposite coast while they visited Virginia. They graciously let us spend the night before continuing on to CA. Thank you Austin and Katie for letting us use your guest beds! Unfortunately, this is the first ‘on trip’ problem we had. On the westbound drive from Phoenix, we realized Yakaru's favorite sunglasses had been left at the restaurant from the previous night. The pair dates back to our highschool days, so they are long out of print. Needless to say, someone else had already given them a home.

Once in California, over the next few days we made a trip by several of the local motorcycle shops, which included me buying an entirely new set of touring gear for the trip (Rev’It Galactic leather/tex jacket, Gear 2 pants, RSR full gauntlet gloves and Dainese Fulcrum touring boots) at Yakaru’s favourite local retailer, as I didn’t have anything particularly well suited to the temps and touring that wasn’t also bulky. I’d anticipated only some of the expense of this new set but was, and continue to be, very happy with the purchase as the gear is the best-fitting and most comfortable I own. So a big thanks to Denis down at BeachMoto running the best gear shop I’ve ever set foot (and left a lot of money) in.

We took several days to settle in, catch up, generally relax, and get me educated on how motorcycles are expected to behave in CA (lane splitting, etc). At one point Yakaru decided we should go up to Mulholland. Long ride short, discovered that road is actually multiple roads, and isn’t contiguous. We wound up going through a residential area, and found Mulholland Dr, the dirt road. I decided to explore a bit and said “I’m gonna go dirtbiking for a minute.” I’m not sure it lasted that long. As I realized it was gonna be a lot of dirt road ahead of us, I started to turn around. Uphill. I gave Perigee just a little too much throttle (read: anything greater than zero while turning in dirt) and promptly dumped over into the dirt. Bright side, no real damage other than a couple small paint scratches, a scuff on my brand-new Rev’it glove and some pride. While recovering from that though, a pickup came bombing down the dirt road and almost made things MUCH worse for all concerned.

We decided to get underway on the trip a little early, to help things be more relaxed pace-wise. So, Tuesday morning we set about doing our pre-flight and doing final checks of our luggage. As part of pre-flight, we changed Yakaru’s oil, cleaned up the apartment, took out the trash (including kitty litter), and a bunch of other small things. So many, in fact, we didn’t really get fully prepared to leave before about 5pm. But we had plenty of daylight left, so we grabbed our water bottles and said our goodbyes to Yakaru's beautiful two cats, and set out.

Somewhere in the process, I'd suggested we freeze some water in our hydration packs to keep it cold. This wound up freezing Yakaru's water bladder in a shape that made it nigh impossible to install into the luggage. Stomping ensued (to break up the ice), which led to a busted membrane leaking water and a trip to REI on the way out of town to replace the bladder. Word to the wise: Don't stomp on your camelback, and if you freeze it, set it in a good position. :blush:

By the time we got that sorted, got us fed and on the way out of town, it was getting close to 6. We decided to not do Mulholland and Topanga canyon in the dark, so turned about and snuggled the kitties another night.

Wednesday (the 28th), we got started bright and early. No muss, no fuss, just straight on the way. Sortof. Yakaru’s route (map)had us taking some pretty twisty road out of town. While this sounds awesome, we discovered why some of them weren’t listed as motorcycle roads. Especially the one that was at a (no kidding) 40% incline going up hill with hairpins called Fernwood Pacific Dr. I DO NOT understand how that’s desirable real estate, or even reasonably habitable at all. That road is a death trap, not to mention for anything moving. Good summit view though; I took this pic at the top of that road
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We hopped through Topanga Canyon on the way out, which was rather pleasant, but we took it easy, still working on really waking up and not wanting to abruptly end the trip. We also cut through sections of Tuna Canyon and a good bit of Stunt Rd. Eventually, we reached the big road itself, Mulholland. It was deserted (Tuesday morning) so I almost missed the Rock Store before Yakaru pointed it out. To be quite blunt, we were both pretty disappointed. With all the hullabaloo that road gets, I’d expected it to be miles of bendy roads that really push ya, not 2 minutes of interesting curves, of which the highlight was the Snake. Frankly, I’ll stick to the Tail of the Dragon any day. (Yes, I accept that we maybe didn’t know all of the best sections to hit, but still…) Snapped this pic at the overlook just past the Snake.
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Fast forwarding through some straight-flat, we went over to Ojai. Taking 150 into and 33 out of Ojai was some of the best riding of the whole freaking trip. Those roads were just the right amount of bend to hit solidly but safely, the scenery was excellent and visibility was good. We stopped in Ojai for gas and lunch at a local diner Eggs ‘n’ Potatoes (which earns every bit of the 3.5 stars on Yelp).
I snapped took this pic as we stopped on the north side of 33 to check maps/GPS.
2013-05-28 12.25.42.jpg

From there, we took 166 up through Nipomo, and caught up with Highway 1. The coastal highway’s reputation is well deserved. It offered some absolutely stunning views, good road quality and a variety of sweepers and some sharper corners to sweeten the deal.
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DSC09674.jpg (yes, that’s my finger at the top of the frame. I probably have more pictures of my fingers/gloves than anything else)
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The single most awful thing about that road, was the RVs. We spent probably an additional hour on that road, stuck behind one dipstick or another that ignored the multitudes of signs saying DO NOT BRING LONG VEHICLES ON THIS ROAD. Please, don’t be one of those people.

We pulled over at the Riverside cabins to swap visors (from shaded to clear) and pop in some liners as the temp dropped in the late afternoon. We carried on with Highway 1, and drove through some low clouds clinging to the cliffs, which was a bit chilly but rather neat. Yakaru scared me at one point in the clouds by darting ahead then losing radio contact due to the hillside between us. Monterey was our final stop for the night, pulling into a motel 8 there around 10pm, some 390mi since we started that morning. We both had intended to write this report as we went, but after spending the whole day in the saddle, we each got a shower, prepped a little for the next day and passed out.

[Momaru]

Reserved for Day 2

[Momaru]

Reserved for Day 3

[Momaru]

Reserved for Day 4

[Momaru]

Reserved for Day 5

[Momaru]

Reserved for Day 6

[Momaru]

Reserved for Day 7

[Momaru]

Reserved for trip wrap-up and additional notes

[NevadaWolf]

Subscribed!

[Yakaru]

Glad to see you're finally getting this posted. I've been waiting for it! Minor correction: I believe you meant Memorial Day, not Labor Day

I swear we're forgetting a few things that went wrong pre-trip too; but can't remember any for the life of me.

[JohnnyBravo]

[Driddle]

I just now realized this was over Memorial day :P
Hope you enjoyed riding California though!

[dave42]

Man that's a lot of stuff to deal with before the tour even started. Looking forward to your follow up.

[Panda]

Subbed.

[Momaru]

Originally Posted by Driddle

I just now realized this was over Memorial day :P
Hope you enjoyed riding California though!

I enjoyed CA rather a lot Driddle, especially lanesplitting and the 'normality' of motorcycles out there, not to mention the cuisine Yakaru treated me to. Hope to be back one of these days, sooner rather than later.
I did miss temperature variation and the rain a bit, but there's been more than enough of both since I got back to VA

[Yakaru]

Momaru's posted Day 1 everybody
I miss my sunglasses terribly -- for anyone curious they were Oakley Pennys. They shall be remembered fondly. They were kind of falling apart though .

I've got a video of Momaru on trying to Dirt Bike Mullholland, I'll see if he will let me post it :P For anyone who wants to know where that is here's a quick Street View. It was partly my mistake for thinking Mulholland Dr and Mulholland Blvd would actually meet somewhere and make for a nice long bike ride.

The 150/33 is AMAZING road, btw, highly recommended.
The 1 was fun, but honestly we spent most of it behind RVs going 10 MPH. We tried 'pulling over' a few times but the road was just covered with them and we could never get a nice gap going before another one came around the corner.

[tfkrocks]

Been waiting for this

[Yakaru]

Oh, and for reference it looks like the map isn't 100% accurate, for example it shows us 'bypassing' the snake on Mulholland :P It's close though! I think Google's algorithm must've changed or something for the path it picked to draw along the waypoints. (I made that map the night after we did this ride, so if google didn't change anything it was totally my bad)

[Momaru]

Originally Posted by Yakaru

Oh, and for reference it looks like the map isn't 100% accurate, for example it shows us 'bypassing' the snake on Mulholland :P It's close though! I think Google's algorithm must've changed or something for the path it picked to draw along the waypoints.

Fixed

Originally Posted by Yakaru

I've got a video of Momaru on trying to Dirt Bike Mullholland, I'll see if he will let me post it :P For anyone who wants to know where that is here's a quick Street View. It was partly my mistake for thinking Mulholland Dr and Mulholland Blvd would actually meet somewhere and make for a nice long bike ride.

Yes, you can post the video of me failing the dirtbiking. Might need to *bleep* some audio though


I'm going to try and post a new day of the write-up whenever I can muster the energy to sit down and write. As you can see, it's a good bit of writing and because I've taken so long to start this, I'm having to do a lot of digging around in my memory. Thanks all that continue to stick with this; it was a truly awesome adventure and I want to do it justice in the telling

[oroboros]

yes, go on...

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Momaru

Word to the wise: Don't stomp on your camelback

I'm not sure that "wise" is the cutoff here. In hindsight, it probably makes sense to just about everyone.

Camelbacks leak eventually no matter what you do to them, anyway.

[NevadaWolf]

Another thing about freezing Camelbacks - ensure the port where the hose connects is away from the water when you put it in the freezer. Otherwise... yeah, long wait to be able to actually drink anything. :/

[antiant]

Geigerrig > Camelback.

[Yakaru]

Originally Posted by Momaru

Yes, you can post the video of me failing the dirtbiking. Might need to *bleep* some audio though

PUNISHMENT for not finishing this has come! With love.

Link to original page on YouTube.

[EsrTek]

Nice write up.. subbed for rest!