3,189 miles through CA, OR and WA

[motozeke]

Once a year, schedule permitting, I try to do a weeklong motorcycle ride to really stretch my legs (longer rides will probably have to wait until retirement... still a busy breadwinner and family man). My last long ride was the Grand Canyon and Southern Utah. This year I explored Oregon and a bit of Washington. Here's my story.

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So if you live in Southern California, traveling anywhere means getting out of the L.A. megalopolis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalopolis_(city_type)). If you want to avoid the morning traffic, you either get up and go buttcrack early, or you wait until the traffic dies down in the late morning. Since I had to be in Red Bluff, CA, 550 miles up I-5, I opted for buttcrack.

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Gassed up, I hit the road for the hot, boring ride up the San Joaquin Valley. I'll say this for the Central Valley: crossing it means I'm going to great motorcycle roads or coming home from great motorcycle roads. Aside from that, it's pretty much hot, boring and smelly. Sometimes violently smelly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_Ranch).

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In fact the most eventful part of my trip was when, south of Modesto, I reached down to adjust my left Hand Wing and *plop*--out comes my mirror as it flies off onto the highway. Of course now the Baker installation instructions came immediately to mind: "WARNING--DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN!" I remember wondering at the time just how I would know if I did over tighten the bolts. Now I know.

I stopped at a Napa Auto Parts store in Modesto and picked up a really cool, cheap piece of kit that enables you to cut a replacement mirror and stick it onto your existing housing. Since my mirror backplate was back on the highway, I cut the cardboard packaging into a makeshift backing. It was all totally janky, but it did the trick for the rest of the trip.

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I called up a local Honda dealer only to be told that Honda doesn't sell the mirrors separately, you have to buy the entire enclosure for $240--and nobody in California had stock. Screw that! I'm putting in an order for the Muth LED mirrors (http://wingstuff.com/products/35204-...?from_search=1) today.

Once in Red Bluff, I met up with the other riders for a weekend tour with Tim Mayhew from Pashnit (www.pashnit.com). I've done maybe ten tours with Tim and I now have a whole network of riding friends that I've met on his tours. Each tour is about 80% repeat customers, so we all get to know one another pretty well. This tour was the Labor Day Crater Lake tour (http://www.pashnittours.com/tour_15.html), which was a first for me. I decided to extend my trip past the end of the tour on Labor Day through the end of the week so that I could see more of Oregon and to reach Mount St. Helens, which has been a cherished goal of mine for many years. Here's some of the riders in Red Bluff:

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Continued...

[motozeke]

Our first leg was through iconic CA-36 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_36), featuring over 1,000 turns in 140 miles. It makes the Snake look quaint, frankly. Winding through the Trinity Alps and foothills, it is a world-renowned motorcycling road. Easily in a class by itself.

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After working our way through the Trinities, we crashed for the night in Yreka, CA within striking distance of the OR border. It being fire season in California and with us being in the late stages of an epic drought, the local fire crews were mightily busy fighting fires in the area. Our bikes got a nice coating of ash overnight.

The next morning we struck into Southern Oregon, where the roads went from psychotically twisty to, as Tim put it, "rolling and bucolic." I actually prefer those kinds of roads to the hyper-twisty, as the F6B tends to bog down in the tight stuff. As the road opens up a bit, this bike really comes into its own.

Unfortunately it was around this time that I started getting really fatigued and sore. I thought it might mean dehydration from the previous day's ride up the Central Valley, but in fact I wear a Camelback and was diligent about hydration (when you're peeing every hour on a ride, chances are it's because you're adequately hydrated). By the time we pulled in for the night at Cottage Grove, I knew something was up. A trip to the local pharmacy confirmed--I was running a fever. So I popped some flu treatment and went to bed early.

In the morning my fever had broken, but I decided to still take it easy--just a trip to Crater Lake on my own. Turns out it was a great decision; I had a simply fantastic ride south from Cottage Grove to Craker Lake. To be continued...

[motozeke]

Turns out Cottage Grove is home to a number of historic covered bridges, so I decided to catch a few on my way down to Crater Lake:

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The road going out of town passes several on its way along Dorena Lake before the real treat of the day--the single-track BLM roads through the Umpqua National Forest. I admit when I loaded up the route on my GPS that it looked like a lot of travel on BLM roads (like "BLM Road 25-1E31") and I was unsure just what kind of condition they would be in, but it turns out any concern was totally unwarranted--these roads were in excellent condition! I spent about 90 minutes winding through lush and beautiful forest, filled with scenery like this:

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Truly one of the most memorable rides I've taken. If I lived in Southern Oregon, I would be exploring all these kinds of roads. In California these kinds of roads would be dicey as hell, as nobody maintains them. Our group's speculation is that the roads in Oregon are maintained by the logging companies, so they are always in good shape. Makes sense to me.

Once I hit OR-138, it was sweeper city all the way to Crater Lake. Paused just below the crater for a shot of the bike:

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And then, the Crater itself!

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[motozeke]

After Crater Lake, I hunkered down at our Sunday night stop, the Prospect Hotel in Prospect, OR.

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Welcoming staff and a quiet, comfortable surrounding. Highly recommended for moto travelers--they even hand out towels for cleaning your bike, though I've found that the hotels that do this do it defensively, figuring that if they don't give you old towels to clean your bike, you'll use their newer towels. That's a jerk move that I've never done, but clearly it's enough of a problem that they've had to come up with a solution. For me, I carry my own towels with me. Besides, hotels don't use microfiber.

Unfortunately for the rest of the Pashnit group, their attempts to reach Crater Lake were upset by a road closure due to a tragic double fatality motorcycle accident. Apparently a man and a woman on a Harley swung wide in a turn and ran into a camper. RIP riders...

The next morning we parted ways and I headed east to take the back way up to the Columbia Gorge via Bend. Lots of lovely views along the way, like this:

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Stopped for lunch in Bend. Lovely town:

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[motozeke]

By the mid afternoon I was on the Columbia Gorge, which ended up being so much more than I had even anticipated! Truly spectacular views.

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I only post the best picture here, but there are plenty more on my Instagram feed (http://instagram.com/motozeke).

As some of you probably noted from my tire wear thread, I had started to reach my wear bars on my rear and was concerned enough that I decided to bunk down in Tigard to catch Beaverton Honda when they opened on Tuesday morning. Sure enough the dealer felt that I had gone more than long enough on that tire and slapped on a new one, putting me back on the road before lunch. On my way to Mount St. Helens, the crown jewel of my trip!

So the weather report wasn't promising--mostly cloudy with a 30% chance of rain--but I had come this far so there's no way I wasn't going to give it a shot. Unfortunately, as I started to close in on the mountain and I saw the first vista points, it was clear that I was in for a disappointment. The cloud cover was uniform and well below the summit. This was the best view I got, from Johnston Ridge:

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It was cold and blustery, but I figured I could at least get my money's worth by going on a 90-minute ranger-led narrative hike that left an hour after I got there. So I wandered the visitor center, and put on my hiking garb. And then, and I mean *right* then--it started raining. So I bugged out. Another time, Mount St. Helens...

[motozeke]

I settled in for the night at Astoria, Oregon, a lovely little fishing village on the mouth of the Columbia.

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I set out the next morning for a run along the Oregon coast to Fortuna, CA--516 miles of Pacific coastline. Oh, yeah...

[motozeke]

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[motozeke]

So I'm now home and at over 13,000 miles on this bike and 9 months of ownership, I can say that it is pretty much everything I want in a motorcycle. Comfortable, fast, reliable, lots of storage, amazing wind and weather protection, cool stereo, and it looks the business--as confirmed by the endless compliments I get literally every day, everywhere I go. This bike is f***ing amazing. Just amazing.

See you all on the road!

[kjelders]

Great trip and write-up. Too bad about the weather at Mt. St. Helen. I ride down there at least once every year. If I can't see the mountain by the halfway point, I just turn around.

On a clear day:

[motozeke]

Great trip and write-up. Too bad about the weather at Mt. St. Helen. I ride down there at least once every year. If I can't see the mountain by the halfway point, I just turn around.

On a clear day:

So that's what it looks like! LOL... I was robbed!