NorCal Trip

Day one:
After saying goodbye to my girlfriend (interpret that how you wish) I mounted my CBR and headed south. Riding South on I-5 above Eugene on a game day means heavy, stupid, traffic. Also rain, and sun peering through the clouds to blind me with reflection and glare. I had to stop eventually to switch to my dark visor. The ride was uneventful, slab is like that.

I arrived at my parents place and realized I'd forgotten pants. I borrowed some beaten blue jeans from my dad and suffered through dinner with my brother's in laws. He was jealous of the trip...

Day two:
My dad's friend decided to ride with us as far as Happy Camp. Because the weather was clear we decided to go Siskyou pass to Happy Camp to Eureka. Dad's friend is 350+lbs and rides a 1987 Suzuki Cavalcade.

We burned down I-5 at speeds that would earn us traffic tickets, then turned off onto hwy 96. After a few turns I passed everyone and soloed it into Happy Camp. HWY 96 from I-5 to HC is in good shape with nice variety in turns. Its not tourist season, so traffic was minimal.

At Happy Camp we ate greasy pizza and took obligatory pictures next to the bigfoot statue. Dad's friend returned to Southern Oregon and we continued on. The rest of 96 south to Willow Creek isn't in good shape and has many rough patches and tar snakes. It was fun nontheless.

HWY 299 from Willow Creek to Arcata is busy and we were stuck behind trucks several times. It is also quite scenic. We should have stopped at the vista point to take pictures  but were in a hurry by then with the light failing.

The last few miles on 101 were dark and we eventually arrived at the worlds worst Motel 6 in Eureka. Our first room smelled like dog piss and cleaning products, our second room smelled heavily of just cleaning products and had filthy carpet.

All of Eureka smells like decomposing garbage and fish. There are vagrants (or people that look like vagrants) everywhere. At one gas station we filled up at there were discarded condoms near the pumps. Such a classy place.

That night we dined at the Lost Coast brewery. Good fish tacos there.

Day three:

For breakfast we went to Jack in the Box. The guy working there was the most personable and friendly person I've ever met in the fast food industry. Its weird feeling uncomfortable because someone is chipper and polite.

We departed late down hwy 101 for Ft Bragg. HWY 101 is curvy and 65mph limit, but 80 miles on it gets boring. The one technical section of it has a lot of tourist traffic, cops, and a 35mph speed limit.

At the Junction of 1/101 I dropped my bike on the shoulder waiting for dad. Very embarrassed and upset that my bike isn't pretty anymore.

Hwy 1 into Ft Bragg is 30 miles of very technical riding. RVs should avoid this route as it has many 10-15mph corners where they drag hard parts. The road is in construction in several places and needs repair in others.

We ate at the Cliff House restaurant which was pretty good before filling up and heading for HWY 20.

HWY 20 is 33 miles of sportbike heaven. About half of it is recently paved with ample turnouts. To my surprise the motorists on 20 actually used them too! The turns are mostly 25-35mph marked turns with predictable radius. Its just a fun road, not too difficult, but will give you a workout!

Willits on the other side of 20 is another small town/farm community transitioning to yuppie/tourism. We didn't stay long there. It smelled bad too. Hwy 101 north back to Eureka is a 130 mile trek. Its all curvy, but it gets boring at legal speeds. Light was failing (I didn't have my night visor), rain started falling, and I was tired/bored so I left dad behind and burned back to Eureka.

Dinner again at Lost Coast brewery.

Day four:
Rain. Yuck. We packed up and headed up HWY 101. Traffic thinned out and we made good time despite the rain. There were some beautiful sights of the ocean and the storm. It'd be nice to take pictures of, but stopping and getting out my camera was low on my priority list. Through the redwoods we encountered two dangers: wet pine needles and road grooving. Some idiot engineer thought it'd be good to fuck up the road in corners for better car traction, then to taunt riders by putting signs up warning of the danger they caused.

We took a short break at the beginning of HWY 199, then went in. The rain was getting worse. Visibility was bad and there were some corners where I had a loss of traction from pooled water. It probably didn't help that my Q2s were down to the wear bars in the middle from too much slab. Dad had some issues with bad gas from Eureka, good thing I filled up from a different tank at that station. With my feet wet and my gloves soaked (Joe Rocket "Sub Zero" gloves are not water proof as advertised) we arrived for lunch at Taylors Country Store in Cave Junction Oregon.

Taylors has all your meat needs covered from sausage to hamburger, and a cafe. We enjoyed lunch and snickered at the Harley rider wearing his cut-vest with patches, but who drove his car instead of getting wet.

With full bellies we burned slab in the rain the rest of the way to Eagle Point and called it a day. Almost. I went out for Bike Night with the Medford riders, then called it a night.

Pictured: my parents on my CBR

Day five:
I was rewarded with no rain. It was however in the low 40s with a cold north wind, and my boots and gloves were still wet. Add to that my heated vest ran out of juice halfway home and I was pretty cold when I got home. Nothing interesting. Just burned slab as fast as I could without risking revoking my license. At bike night I'd found out that Tiller Hwy was a mess, so I took the boring fast way back. I was very glad to get out of my gear and take a hot shower. Overall a good adventure.

1200 miles, 5 days.

Will I do a tour like this again on a supersport? YES! I will however take what I learned from this when planning the next one and put more than a week and a half into planning it.

Lessons learned:
-Pack less stuff. I used everything I took tool-wise, but I could probably get away with just a tail bag if I did it in the summer. Winter off-bike clothes are bulky. Turns out I don't need to take spare fuel bottles, there is gas often enough that I never had to stretch my range.
-Get a tank bag for camera/credit card/etc. Its a pain undoing three layers of gear to get to my CC for gas, and I don't take pictures as much as I should when my camera is in my tail bag.
-Get a custom seat. My Airhawk 2 seat pad was good, but not as nice as a good custom seat would be.
-Get more comfortable gear that can take the elements. My 2 piece track leathers plus my Race in the Rain suit got uncomfortable wearing all day. If I do it in the summer I'm wearing my textiles/mesh.