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Report From Brad aka Beerme aka Magnanimous

True nutshell version:

Day 1 - - Elko to Reno

Day 2 - - First time riding motorcycle in California *popping finger in cheek and twirling finger in the air*. Rode through the redwood tree. Hi, great to meetcha. Highway 211, scraped a peg or two. Saw the ocean for the first time in 20+ years. Hotel sucked.

Day 3 - - Highway 36 out of Fortuna, CA flat out ROCKS! The Magna likes high speed, low gears. Saw an Amazon woman built like the proverbial outhouse on a Harley. Had an Oh, #### moment (nothing to do with the Amazon on a Harley). Had another Oh, #### moment... Press right, go right... nice save. Mental note: Zip tank bag shut while in motion. Mt. Shasta is an awesome sight. Weed, CA... not what I expected from the name. Aaahhhh, beer... My love for you will never die. (Quote from Al Bundy, a great American hero)

Day 4 - - Yaaaaawwwwnnn

Day 5 - - $3+/gallon gas. Lassen National Park... Wow! Great scenery. Childs Meadow resort - good grub prepared by a very cool chef. Goodbye, it was great meeting and riding with ya’s. Reno rush hour traffic sucks. Looooong day... slept ON my motorcycle for the first time. Good to be home, but sad that it’s over.

Those are the highlights. For more details, read on. Better bring a lunch.

* * * *

Day 1/2 July 18-19, 2005
While the main group of West Coast Magna riders was heading up Pacific Coast Highway from Monterey, CA on Day 1, I took a leisurely cruise from Elko to Reno for free room & board at my folks’ house.

Day 2 saw me off to an early start under sunny skies en route to Legget, CA where I would join the main group. Crossing the California line marked the first time that I had ever piloted a motorcycle in the Golden State. I jumped onto Hwy. 20 from the interstate, enjoying relatively light traffic, a leisurely but productive pace, and little construction all the way to Ukiah. I took a brief detour there, to the neighborhood we lived in from ‘79 to ‘82. Back then, it was a relatively new development, but now it’s looking a bit run down. Then it was onward, up US101. It was slow going all the way up through Willits, due to the volume of traffic as well as plenty of construction, which 101 was desperately in need of. A Mendocino County Sheriff’s deputy in a marked unit kept northbound traffic restricted to a speed of not more than 1.275 MPH over the posted speed limit.

From a few miles north of Willits, it was smooth sailing all the way to Leggett. I rode around there for a while, checking to see if the others had arrived. Seeing no sign of them, I followed the signs to drive through the infamous drive-thru redwood tree. I paid my $3 motorcycle entry fee, rode up the narrow, packed dirt trail to the tunneled out tree, and there was a fellow standing there taking pictures of the area. I handed him my camera & asked him if he would shoot me coming through the tree. Sure! Then I thought, I paid $3 for this? Afterward, he told me that he was in the process of removing the luggage rack from atop his jacked up F350 pickup. To me, that seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go through, just to drive through a tree. Especially considering it might not fit through in the first place. *shrug* For what it’s worth, I’m glad I got to go through before he made the attempt and got stuck. From there, I rode back into Leggett, parked in front of the country store and waited for the group to arrive. I made small talk with some friendly older folks who were passing through and taking a break themselves. I broke the ice when I backed into a parking space right in front of the bench they were sharing, dismounted & de-helmeted, and said, “Ya think it’ll get hot today?” I don’t know what the actual temperature was, but the thermometer that was velcroed to my black tank bag was reading 112°.

I had almost a two hour layover in Leggett, waiting for the rest of the group to arrive from their lunch stop in Ft. Bragg. I finally met them at the junction of Highway 1 and US 101, where we all spent a few minutes on introductions & tire kicking. From there, we rode up the 101 to the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. We spent a few humbling miles along the Avenue of the Giants, under the redwoods that were so dense they blocked out almost all of the daylight. I say “humbling”, because those trees are so huge, that everything and everyone else seem rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Somewhere near the Avenue, we got onto SR211, otherwise known as Mattole Road, or the Forgotten Highway, which was the main attraction for this trip. Most of this road was in decent shape, even though it would be more properly described as a paved trail. There were some patches where the pavement was really rough, and a few other spots where the pavement was completely gone. Overall, it was a fantastic motorcycle road, full of wild twists & turns, uphill & downhill tight twisties, short sweepers, and everything in between. I got my first taste of peg scrapage on a tight, uphill turn, then shook my left fist in the air in a triumphant gesture of accomplishment. There, but for a moment, I was... Crazy Joe Weese.

The road led us out of the trees and into rolling hill country. Eventually, we crested one such hill and I was startled by a sudden view of the ocean below, off to our left. I hadn’t been to the coast in close to 25 years, and the smell of the sea and the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks were once again newly foreign to me. After a few sightseeing breaks, we continued on down the loop as it was getting to be almost sunset. At least a couple of us almost had a close encounter of the Jeep kind. We were riding directly into the sun, coming up on a slow right hand turn. With our retinas burned out by the intense sunlight, it was hard to even make out the road edge. The next thing I saw was a Jeep passing by on my left at extremely close range. I was really worried about the Goldwing trike behind me, because Val had the added disadvantage of having to look through the glare in both her helmet visor and the tall windshield. Once we got around the turn, she was still right behind me. It was a pucker moment for sure. We chased the sun into Ferndale, a charming little town with lots of Victorian architecture. From there, we rode along the coast into Eureka, fighting fog and the coastal evening chill, and stopped for the night. A late evening tire-kicking session revealed that our back tires had rounded off nicely that afternoon.

Day 3 July 20, 2005
Keith proposed that we start an hour later than our pre-planned 8:00 AM departure time from Eureka, which I’m sure met with unanimous approval. The theory was that since we got in so late the night before, the extra hour of AM downtime might afford us more rest for the long day ahead, not to mention allowing the temperature to come up and for the morning fog to burn off some. Magilla from Orygun that joined us in Eureka. We passed him the day before while riding through the redwoods, but he and his passenger weren’t able to join us for the ride along the Forgotten Highway. In the morning he discovered that some of the local riffraff had decided to relieve him of some of his belongings that he left in his saddlebags overnight. Another nearby Honda Shadow was similarly burgled. Since there was nothing of value on the bike, they just made off with the registration. Most of the bikes apparently weren’t disturbed at all. I’m of the opinion that nylon motorcycle covers offer a good deterrent to thieves that don’t want to attract attention by ruffling the covers. I could be wrong, and maybe just lucky that my motorcycle wasn’t touched.

After a leisurely breakfast at the nearby Chalet House of Omelettes, we pulled out of the motel parking lot and headed south on 101 to Fortuna. SR36 east of Fortuna was the most amazing road. It puts the Lolo Pass run on US 12 and its 77 miles of winding road to shame! There was one particular section that lasted for several miles; starting underneath the shade of giant trees, leading to open road with vast fields & meadows off to both sides. I was next to the last in line, with the Goldwing trike bringing up the rear, and we were cruising right along at moderate speeds. Since we were fairly evenly spaced and everybody was taking pretty much the same lines through the turns, our in-line formation looked like a rhythmically undulating serpent through the twists, turns, and whoop-de-doo’s.

We stopped for gas & cool-down in Dinsmore. While we were just hanging out in the shade, a tall, voluptuous blonde rode up to the pumps on her similarly stacked Harley Ultra-Glide. Her New York license plate read PRFSOR, or something to that effect. I don’t know what she teaches, but wouldn’t be surprised to know that failure rates among male students might be rather high due to a lack of attention given to the subject matter.

It was along this fantastic stretch of highway where I discovered how the Magna really deserves to be ridden. It likes low gears and high RPMs to devour hilly, crooked roads with low advisory (as opposed to regulatory) speed limit signs. I had one scary moment after a couple hours of aggressive riding like that, where I thought I might have destroyed the motor. I was trying to signal the rider behind me in our formation by pointing out some rocks in the road in our lane. This was on a fast downhill left sweeper. I took my hand off the throttle to signal the others when I heard a pop from one of the left side pipes, then my engine died. WTF?! I pulled in the clutch and tried a restart – no luck. In my haste to point out the hazard, I had inadvertently hit the kill switch. I figured out the problem & got restarted before coming to a stop. The next scary moment wasn’t but a couple of hours later when I had yet another H.U.A. moment. We were just cruising along around 60 MPH, rounding a gentle right hand curve. I could have sworn I saw, heard, and felt something drop from the area of my tank bag. I reflexively looked down, but saw no sign of what might have caused the apparition, other than the tank bag lid flopping loosely in the breeze. When I looked up, I discovered that I was now on the wrong side of the double yellow center line, heading for the opposite road edge. Target fixation took full effect as I stared wide-eyed at the ditch beyond the pavement. A sudden push on the right handlebar got me headed back in the right direction. You could say that I was a wee bit thankful that no traffic was coming the other way. I frequently checked the tank bag zippers after that. I have no idea what it was that I saw, heard, and felt against my leg. Nobody behind me saw anything fall on the road or fly away, and nothing appeared to be missing out of the bag. *shrug* Those two incidents kept me spooked for pretty much the rest of the day, and I was grateful for the frequent scenery stops.

We stopped for lunch in Weaverville, at a cozy little sports bar & grill called the Saw Mill. After that it was a pleasant, relaxing ride through farm country, past the monstrous Trinity Lake, the monolithic Mt. Shasta, and onward to Weed, CA. I’d bet that the businesses that cater to tourists there get a lot of mileage out the town’s name. I just had to have a shot glass to add to my collection that proclaims in big letters, “I [HEART] Weed”; then in small letters right below it, “California”.

We stayed at the Hi-Lo motel in Weed, which has its own restaurant on the premises. Couldn’t beat it; clean and comfortable cheap room, with good food right there. After dinner, a handful of us repaired to a picnic table in the “courtyard”, armed with a trash can from one of the rooms filled with ice & beer. We swapped a couple beers’ worth of stories before calling it a night. In the morning, we were saddened to learn that two of our riders wouldn’t be able to continue on the rest of the way. Val had developed a nasty bronchial viral infection, and was too ill to go on. After breakfast we said our goodbyes to her & Dobie, and then there were six. Which brings us to...

Day 4 July 21, 2005
This was the most uneventful day of the whole trip. The roads were long and straight, and the scenery, for the most part was nothing to brag about at all. The highlight of the day had to be the rest stop at a little store out in the middle of nowhere near Termo. The storekeeper must have been in his 80's, but he was as sharp as a tack and had a good sense of humor. My guess would be that he probably either founded or inherited the business, based on the building’s seemingly ancient structure & furnishings. There was a ton of tack & ironworks hanging on the walls outside, similar to all the crap you might see hanging from the walls at T.G.I. Friday’s. Then there was the attractive lady truck driver in a SWIFT rig, who was stranded right there since her company hadn’t bought her enough gas at her last fuel stop to make it to her next stop.

Hanging a right at Termo on a nicely maintained local road, we caught SR 139 and traveled around the east shore of Eagle Lake before proceeding on to Susanville where we spent the night.

Day 5 July 22, 2005
This morning had the group facing a breakfast dilemma. Another meal at the Black Bear restaurant, located two or three doors down from our motel, would have made the 4th or 5th meal at such an establishment in the last three days. It wouldn’t have mattered much to me personally, because A) it would have only been the 3rd Black Bear meal for me (since I joined the group late); and B) I didn’t mind the Black Bear experience at all. Food, service, and value were top notch as far as I’m concerned. So, for a change of pace we chose to walk a block in the other direction to a restaurant with a 50's rock & roll theme for breakfast. This turned out to be a fine choice. No complaints at all. Wish I could remember the name, though.

After breakfast, we motored west out of Susanville on SR 44 to Old Station. The gas station we pulled into there had the most expensive gas I remember seeing on the trip. Regular was $2.94 and premium was $3.08. Unbelievable!

Just down the road from Old Station, we entered Lassen National Park. The ride through the park was incredible. Even though the posted speed limit through the park is 45 MPH, I still found a tight turn or two that provided Crazy Joe’esque peg scrapage. Well, at least boot heel scrapage. Cage traffic was pretty well behaved. Very few center line crossers, and the slow ones pulled over to let us pass. Once we were into the park a ways, most of our group pretty much rode their own ride; stopping, visiting, and photographing sights as we each saw fit. Eventually, we all gathered at the park exit, then motored on down to the Child’s Meadow Resort on SR89. The sign read: LUNCH SERVED 11:00 - 2:00, and it was a little past 2:30 when we rolled in. A guy with an apron on stepped out, asked if we were hungry and invited us right in. He struck me as being instantly likeable. He had a great sense of humor & took very good care of us. The service there was excellent, the food tasty, and the prices were quite reasonable given the remoteness of the place.

Fortunately, the first gas stop after lunch wasn’t too terribly far down the road. Lunch sat in our guts like a brick, and I’m sure every rider was getting to be just as sleepy as the next one. We stopped for gas in Greenville and took another long relaxation break.

By now it was getting to be late afternoon, even though we had only ridden about 150 miles for the day. The idea of spending another night on the road was becoming less and less appealing to me, especially considering that I was not quite 400 miles from home. I decided to split from the group here and make tracks for Reno. I didn’t make very good time, though. Traffic was fairly heavy on the 2-laner, and there weren’t many opportunities to pass, so it was slow going. I stopped briefly in Quincy to fill up the Camelback with cold water, and left just as my former riding mates were pulling in for a quick top-off.

From Quincy, I made decent time to US395 and south into Reno. The closer I got to town, the worse traffic got and it was time for some seriously defensive riding. I kept to the left lanes for the most part, since most traffic seemed to be just going from on-ramp to off-ramp, and there were several miles to go before my exit. The left-most lanes offered the most spacing between vehicles and it seemed like that was a good place to be on 2 wheels. I made it to my folks’ house without incident and told a few stories about the trip over a slice of angel food cake topped with homegrown strawberries.

Despite my parents’ best efforts to convince me to stay the night, I elected to keep riding the last 300 miles home. Leaving there at 8:00 pm, I thought I might be able to make it home by not too long after midnight. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. The crosswinds east of Reno were brutal for about the first 50 miles or so, as they usually are. Then in Lovelock, I stopped for gas and got to chatting with the rider of an 1100 Shadow that was all choppered out. Earlier, he had passed me like I was tied to a post (I was only going 65-70), even though his riding gear consisted of jeans, wife-beater, and a beanie helmet & sunglasses; all while riding in the dark. Far be it from me to judge, though; to each his own.

I knew I would have to make at least one more fuel stop between Lovelock and Elko. I elected to gas up in Winnemucca, rather than taking a chance of going all the way to Battle Mountain from Lovelock. I knew I could make it as far as Carlin from Winnemucca for sure, so if I hadn’t hit reserve by then, I’d be golden. About 35 miles east of Winnemucca, I finally hit a wall, and couldn’t go any further without a nap. Frankly, I had probably put this off a little too long, but I really wanted to get home. Having experienced a number of unanticipated delays through the evening I decided there was no way I was going to make it home at a decent hour, so I should just do what I gotta do.

I pulled off at the very desolate 203 exit, went to the end of the dead-end frontage road just south of the interstate, faced my motorcycle east, and laid down. The Camelback made a decent mattress, and the Joe Rocket pants I had bungeed to the sixpack rack made a decent pillow. I use the word “decent” only in the narrowest context of these particular circumstances. Truth be told, it was very uncomfortable! I kept my earplugs in and my helmet on, and opened the visor just a crack. It wasn’t long before I was out cold, and my mind was completely taken over by a series of very bizarre dreams. I awoke staring straight up into the nearly full moon, wondering where in the hell I was. I checked out of the Ironbutt Motel and was underway shortly after the sudden realization struck me. The gas from Winnemucca carried me all the way home, with enough to spare for errands the next day. I rolled into the garage shortly after 2:00 AM, glad to be home, yet I was already missing the trip & the people behind me.

This vacation couldn’t have come at a better time. The prior 3 weeks at work consisted of one complicated train-wreck of events leading up to (and in some cases, INTO) another. My 3rd day back to work after the trip found me in the middle of another mongolian monkey cluster in the form of an 18 vehicle/4 fatality traffic pile-up. I’m such a #### magnet. *siiiigh* Back to the ol’ grind...