Several years ago when @Pyndon was giving a Races2Places talk in SF Paul and I had bumped up into each other on the forum as we preplanned routes. We met in real life world at the talk. We began planning a desert ride. These kept never happening. In fact our initial planned ride up to SF never happened thanks to my work pranging itself shortly before and trash canning my plans to leave early and use some of that twelve weeks of vacation that kept stacking up. Anyway, a couple of months ago we had planned a ride to a museum for an Adventure display, in fact Basil Bike was there. Pretty cool. Only my bike chose that day and thankfully only a block from the house for the ignition wires to break inside the bottom ignition cap. From that we began more planning that became what is now a short ride up from LA/OC area to somewhere sort of the middle of California, but not quite. Sort of like this: And of course some prep was involved since we aren't riding dirt, camping or cooking outdoors a lot of stuff is not needed. For me that meant hard cases, lots of room and oh, yeah the Sunday afternoon before we sort of start I find my key turned to ON, and a completely flat five year-old Shorai battery. Not really the battery's fault as I was in the habit of leaving my key in the ignition in the garage and our grandson has advanced his climbing abilities to the point where he can scramble onto the big 990R about as fast as I can. Totally fearless barefoot on off-road pegs. I can't do that. Oh, and he is fascinated with buttons and switches and I made the mistake of showing how the key works to make all those lights come on and the pump whirr. No idea when he or I left the ignition on, but it was long enough to discharge the battery to 195mV. Luckily 3 Brothers is open on Monday so a quick call there secured a replacement as well as the fancy charger I'd always meant to buy and never remembered to. I mean I had that tender. That didn't work. Dead New Checking the old battery for revival So far so good, if this holds I have a spare at worst, or somebody else can get a five year old used battery for cheap. I'll check the recovery when I get home from this ride. Now, I need to go change to riding gear and finish the last packing items. more in a bit...
OK, I can get this going. First off the route didn't follow the route we had outlined exactly. It was better. About eight hours of riding the first day in a lot of heat. Just about the top of the hill out of Ojai. CA-33. But, I got ahead of myself. I rode up to Paul's Monday afternoon the routing app told me an hour and a bit, but I figured that couldn't be right. The 405 is under construction for a long way and so is the 5 down here. I figured I'd get there about 5, or a bit before. I got there about 4 something. So, we had some stuff to do. We had to shuffle some bikes and gather some gear and do some grocery shopping. Oh, and try for a sunset. The marine layer stamped paid to that, so we rode to Ralph's and found food, back to the boat and grilled up some salmon on cedar planks. If you've not done this, do it. Unbelievable. better use for old cedar than fences or shingles by a wide margin. I've not slept aboard a boat since the days of crewing on a sailboat back in the 70's, but it is pure wonder. Your mother's arms can only rock you to sleep better. Tuesday morning we to things going, breakfast then packing the bikes and headed out of the clearing gloom and city to the freeway and up to the canyons. No photo stops until outside of Ojai at a little camp and picnic ground. Two bucks paid for our table in the shade and some of Paul's amazing food. Vacuum packed panini sandwiches of the most amazing stuff. Food, far too explicit to take or even think of posting photos of. I'll let Paul chime in with the details.As a warning those details are not for the faint of heart. I mean people driving by were gaining weight as we spend the pouches.You could se their cars slow and weave. No really. Hahaha Down in Ojai we stopped for fuel, then up the 33. Where we stopped for photos and that above shot of the road. There was a lot more riding after this stop. We stopped at a pistachio place for water, restrooms and shade. Hot out there. Our next stop near where oil was first found in California the temperature was more than 100°F. in the shade. More small roads through the oil fields. We caught CA-58 then turned onto Bitterwater Road to CA -41 to Cholame road into Parkfield. We had this three story water tower as our rooms for the evening. An amazing place. https://www.v6ranch.com/lodge More tomorrow.
Hey Heady, Your report is coming along nicely. I had also started one as well and I’ll post your link onto mine. Here’s my “B” side… https://advrider.com/f/threads/of-b...-in-central-california.1520114/#post-43008757
OK, grandson back in his mommy's embrace. House is back in order enough to get back on this. Oh, in my earlier haste I forgot about the morning we left photos of me faffing about packing stuff into and out of and back into panniers and the tank bag. A security tip: Always park between the pretty bikes. Paul up ahead of me, leading me back into my youth on these twisting and turning roads. That catches us up to getting to the Lodge. Next is dinner. Yes, I forgot to take pictures. In my defense there was scotch involved and the weariness of a long hot at times ride. There is a large community room with a serving kitchen off in a separate room. A fridge, microwave, coffee maker and such. There were paper plates and some utensils cups and such. Paul's skills with a gas grill and vacuum packaging meant we had an incredible microwavable meals awaiting us. We found cups, ice and I poured the scotch. The great room: I couldn't attach this one, so you'll have to have a link: https://nowels.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/2021/A-Short-Ride-North-092021/Day-One/i-HzXrwD6/A We began with bacon wrapped asparagus, grilled. If you've not done this, do it. Do it now. Make too much too. Wow. Then came grilled shrimp and rice pilaf with mushrooms. Then grilled steak. And margaritas on the rocks. There is a hot tub and pool and the hot tub was perfect place to finish our cocktails and the evening as our road weariness melted away. Paul will need to school us all on his cooking techniques, seasonings and that vacuum packing. Very cool idea. Ideal for a short ride like this. The food was all still cold when he pulled it out of his self designed and created insulated bag. I crawled into my bed and was asleep in a blink. I woke only once during the night. Normal nights have be waking about every two hours thanks to old injuries and a back that doesn't like being in one position long. Not that night. Zzzzzz More in a bit...
We did not rise early on day two. But, I got up and showered, used the in unit coffee maker and coffee instead of my own stash. Sat on the porch and enjoyed the morning. Paul had prepared breakfast and vacuum sealed it so was busy in the community room preparing that. We sat under the shade and ate enjoying the day. Yes, I forgot to take a picture of breakfast, Sausage and eggs and my favorite potatoes. I wandered around the grounds a bit after packing and sipping a second cup of coffee. I'll have to continue this later.
Great pics of the Lodge. I’ll borrow some. What a great place that was! I touched on my food prep in my thread. It really came in handy considering the Cafe was closed. But with the bbq at the veranda we could have just bought items on the way and cooked it up too. Who knew the Lodge was so set up.
The ride home on Wednesday was great. We headed up Vineyard Canyon road, rocking and rolling along it to 101 at San Miguel. Down to Paso Robles for fuel then back on the 101 south. At Santa Maria we head east winding our way south on Foxen Canyon Road. Vineyard Canyon Road, A stop on top of Foxen Canyon Road, And an unflattering photo of Paul crossing against the heavy traffic, We pass some grow-house green houses as we wind our way toward lunch at a bar. Foxen Canyon eventually hits CA154 which we take southeast to CA246 west to lunch at Santa Ynez at the Maverick Saloon. After lunch we headed back to CA154 down to Foothill road, where we ducked into the shade and ran the low speed back streets, Foothill Road Mission Ridge Road to Starwood Drive to Sycamore Canyon Road to East Valley Road, to Toro Canyon Road, back to Foothill Road, to Nidever Road, then back to Foothill Road to Casitas Pass Road and finally back on the 101 to Oxnard where we stopped for fuel and parted ways. Paul heading back to his boat and me back into the evening rush. My remaining ride was nasty traffic. splitting lanes and finally high speeds and growing dark from 101 to the 405 to the 5 to the beach garage and home. My neck was sore from the high speeds and traffic from Oxnard and my ass was sore from two days on my nearing 90,000 mile worn OEM saddle. I have a reserved space for a new one come November from Renazco. What a great trip. The GPX file from the ride home:
Hey Heady, Good write up! Thanks for coming along and sharing this fun little adventure route. Maybe next time an additional day added with first day tent camping in Carrizo plains and then dirt ride up Old Chalome Trail to Parkfield Lodge and following day taking the ride out to Pizo Saloon and dirt section through Butterfield? I really liked your Adventure Spec gear. You don’t see it often here in the States and it looks very quality with Lyndon’s R&D behind it. I was considering it but no knee padding provided. I guess if you’re Lyndon… who needs it? Hahaha!
An excellent idea. The newer model stuff has knee padding in both the Atacama and the Mojave pants. These are the first generation Atacama pants. If I were buying now, I'd maybe go with the Mojave pant as it is over the boot style. The KLIM pants I had would catch my pegs. Never caused a full tip-over, but very close a few times. When I bought the se pants they did not come with padding and I never remembered to buy the hip padding, (there was/is no provision for knee padding in the early version). Yesterday I got to rain test the jacket with my rain layer too. The two deep cargo pockets in the pants are more to my liking for storage than in the jacket waist pockets. My light rain layers can fit the lower back rear pocket if I desire.
