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"ROAD TRIPS" by THE OLD SQUID |
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"Road Trips" by The Old Squid
Warmer Memories! Pt. 1
Spring is somewhere in the future and last summer a rapidly cooling memory. All the leaves are off the alders and the NW is colored brown and purple until the new buds break out in a few months. There are still rides. Short, wet, cold ones! Rather than dwell on this winter, lets remember warmer times. Here is the story of the 2001 Monterey trip taken by myself and a few other intrepid Island riders. Remember that all riding stunts were performed by unprofessional riders on open roads. Don't try this at home! Stories contain descriptions of illegal acts of motor mayhem and should not be read by children, teens, or people with a tendency to get uptight at displays of juvenile behavior. You've been warned! Monterey 2001 I'm back. 3046.8 miles and 91 gallons of gas. Two weeks and a day and three states later. All spring I anticipated this road trip...the great American road trip. I planned, packed in advance, and pored over maps. Last year I didn't get much travel in so this year was to make up for that. The economy needs boosting. Texaco need my money. The ostensible destination, the reason for all this madness was the World Superbike Race in Laguna Seca (Monterey CA). In this country, motorcycle racing is not a major sport. Nascar may be but ball sports are far ahead in TV coverage compared to bike racing. That's not the case in the rest of the world where these races are carefully followed. WSB bikes are similar to stock motorcycles that you can buy from the dealer so the various marks have a strong following. The two dozen riders are superstars and are "personalities" in addition to their racing abilities. I've always been a bike nut (38 years, 500,000 miles) and recently have started following the WSB series so attending the only North American race seemed like a good idea. I would ride down with a group from my home. San Juan Island. We would hook up with a Seattle based Honda VFR (a Honda model) group for part of the ride. We would "shun pike" and avoid the Interstates as much as possible. We would explore our skills on mountain roads. On the way back, I wanted to split off and visit some friends and see new country, take pictures of California and Oregon. In general, it would get some of the two- wheel itch out of my system. It had been a long time between long rides and I needed to travel to Mecca for the "4-stroke church of internal combustion". What I'll do in the next few installments is write up various aspects of the trip and my impression of the ride. The Start, Days 1 and 2 7:30 AM on the last day of June I suit up and have my Fearless Wife take a "before" picture as I head to the ferry on my own. Boy Dog ride! My wife doesn't want to be on this bike for this trip. Smart girl. I'm on my 1100cc Honda XX. This is a sport bike bike, crotch rocket...or at least it thinks it is. Turns out its a sport touring bike masquerading as a sport bike though I wouldn't know this for 1000 miles. The four guys I'm going to meet up with will leave later in the day. We'll ride different routes to Oregon. They'll hook up with the Seattle area group first and ride Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. I'll zip down the freeway and visit with friends in Vancouver. I stayed with good friends Saturday after an uneventful ride down the worst strip of superslab on earth: I-5 thru the Seattle corridor. Urban junk, bad traffic, worse drivers. I am convinced that Washington has the worst drivers in the world. California has the best but more on them later. Nowhere else but Washington do I find as many "Guardians of the Lane". They drive the left lane at speeds 10 mph under flow and choke the freeway with frustrated drivers. WA state patrol could do wonders for traffic congestion by simply enforcing the "keep right except to pass" law. This has to be the most ignored traffic law on the books! For the "Guardians" though, it seems to be a moral imperative for them. They seem to feel that going at or below the speed limit, it is their job to see that the rest of us don't sin by exceeding the limit. There seem to be a lot of traffic Puritans in this state. At least Saturday's freeways got me eager for a change on Sunday. My only freeway was over the river to I-84 and quickly up to the old Columbia River Gorge highway. This was built during the 20's and 30's and winds along the waterfalls and shadows of the Oregon side of the Columbia. I was looking forward to this because I grew up here. In college, we rode this byway on whatever ratty old bikes we had. Tight and twisty and very scenic, it didn't disappoint. I did have one small excursion by mistake when I saw three sport bikes zip by and I decided to play with them. They were headed the same way so I fell in. The sign said "Vista House 3" miles so I figured I'd have time to talk to them later. We went blasting up the road and a car, an RX7 Mazda, decided to play too. He did OK untill he started to get sideways on the corners so he backed off and let us by. Meanwhile I'm thinking that this was a long three miles and suddenly we reach a dead end on the top of Larch Mt. oops! Missed my turn in the excitement of the chase. The low fuel lights been on for awhile now so I nurse it back to Corbett where an open gas station saves me from the ignominy of an empty tank in plain view of "cagers" (note to non-biking friends: a "cage" is a car. You're surrounded by a cage of metal. "Cager" are the drivers except when they pull dumb stunts like running bikes into median strips on freeways. Then they are brain dead cagers...usually indicated by the initials BDC). After revisiting the waterfalls along the old highway, I jumped onto the freeway for a short sprint to Hood River to meet the gang coming down from their ride on the back roads of Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. I pulled into a park at the south end of the Bridge of the Gods toll bridge (hmmm, would that toll be a religious offering and is it tax deductible?) and turned on my cell phone to await a call. While there, I watched the wind surfers and kite surfers do their thing in the Columbia. I also took time to look in the small, local museum. Every small town we went through had a museum dedicated to its founders. All were full of the requisite pioneer clothes and rusty gun/old Indian gear. The names on the postal letters that were preserved are the names on today's town streets. All museums do this but it only shows a thin slice of history. Hood River's museum has something unique in that it tries to preserve the present. Wind surfing has had a huge impact on this small town. Hood River has gone from a sleepy orchard town to a world destination for tanned young folks from all continents. A wing of the museum is being prepared to document this and the colorful sails of the boards are a stunning contrast to the faded dresses and sepia toned memories of other eras. The other riders are late. I''ve waited four hours, napped, read a book. I'm bored. Finally my phone rings to tell me that they're close and soon I see them crossing the bridge. The local riders are Denny, Mark, Marshall, and Albert from the island and "the graduates" from Seattle; Bruce, Bill, Hegge (a Norwegian woman who rode her bike in from Idaho to join us), Santiago who I met last year and others who'll need to allow for my lack of short term memory and failure to write all the names down. We assemble, eat, mill about and after many false starts we get underway. I hate riding in large groups if we have a distance to go. You're always waiting for someone who forgot something in the restaurant or who took a wrong turn and if you ride ahead then you have to wait at intersections for them to catch up. My Island group is going to Bend to stay at my sister's house so I ride ahead and wait, and ride and wait as we go up OR35 over Mt Hood. The gang is tired from the twisty roads they've been on. I'm fresh so I want to sprint while they plod. I'll get my come-upance in days to come. For now, I just try to enjoy a nice road on a nice day and amble along at the head of the pack. - The Old Squid |
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