Santa Maria to Ojai out and back via CA166/CA33; Rode an R1

[jeffb502]

I finally rode the good part of 33, with an acquaintance that rides an R1. Surprisingly he offered to let me take it for a short ride on the boring section.

My impressions:

• The extra seat height is noticeable. I can easily flat foot the 300 with both feet. If I want both feet down with the R1 I can't get my heels down. Not an issue once moving, just something different.
• The extra reach down to the bars wasn't my thing. When moving slow it felt more awkward trying to steer. While cruising down the road I felt like it made me lean forward more than I like to.
• The rearsets didn't feel as uncomfortable as I thought they would from the way it looks, but the foot controls didn't seem as easy to operate (maybe just because I'm used to the 300).
• Overall it felt less willing to turn than the 300.
• It was more tame with throttle response than I thought it would be. I never got above 8000rpm or so, and I found in the lower rev range it had plenty of torque to respond without having to downshift, but it wouldn't suddenly accelerate to crazy speeds by itself. I would have had to have made a conscious effort to get to deadly speeds, but it was somehow nice knowing that there was a ridiculous amount of power on tap that I would probably never use.
• I respected the bike (or was scared of it depending on your point of view) to the point where I never grabbed a handful of throttle, so I didn't get that "rush of speed" others have described.
• I'd consider a 1000 alongside a 650 or similar for a 2nd bike. Now that I've seen the extra power can be controlled simply by not using it, I'm not as scared of liter bikes as I used to be.
• I'd lean more towards a Ninja 1000/FZ1 or similar over a full supersport.
• I really appreciated getting back on my 300 after the short ride (about 30 minutes) on the R1.

A video of me test riding the R1:

Link to original page on YouTube.

CA33 is a great stretch of road. This guy sums it up pretty well:

http://www.lateralg.org/roads/sbarbara/2.htm

The south tunnel that has a sharp right turn in the dark surprised me and I wound up exiting the tunnel on top of the double yellow line...luckily nobody was coming the other way. Keep an eye out for that if it's your first time on this road. It's at about the 33:45 minute mark in the video.

A video of CA33 between Ozena Station and Ojai:

Link to original page on YouTube.

The route:

166 to 33 out and back.jpg

[EternalNewb]

That's a helpful warning about the turn in the tunnel. Nice little write-up. Also, I love using lateralG to find ride routes in CA. It was cool of your buddy to let you ride the R6 for a bit, and it seems like you make a good clinical assessment of the bike, however while it think it's healthy that you respected the machine and kept the revs down, I'd withhold a complete assessment until you've been on one and really opened up the throttle. I know my little ninja handles way differently above and below 7k rpms.

[jeffb502]

Originally Posted by EternalNewb

That's a helpful warning about the turn in the tunnel. Nice little write-up. Also, I love using lateralG to find ride routes in CA. It was cool of your buddy to let you ride the R6 for a bit, and it seems like you make a good clinical assessment of the bike, however while it think it's healthy that you respected the machine and kept the revs down, I'd withhold a complete assessment until you've been on one and really opened up the throttle. I know my little ninja handles way differently above and below 7k rpms.

Thanks! Yeah I found lateralG when I searched for 33. I'm pretty sure I've seen it before when looking up other roads, but this time I went to the main page and browsed around and it has some great stuff.

I think my main assessment is that no matter how much power it has or doesn't have, I am currently just not a fan of the super sport riding position, and it's made me want to try out something like a Ninja 650/Ninja 1000/Yamaha FZ, etc, or even a dual sport with a reasonably low seat height, to see how those feel in comparison.

Oh and the full video of the ride on 33 finally finished uploading last night...yay! My longest youtube video ever. It's just such a great road I couldn't edit anything out.