Oakland to Portland

The trip from Oakland to Portland took a few days, which was nice because the idea was to stay on slow side roads and camp quite a bit.

 


 

Total distance: 202.61 mi
Max elevation: 1216 ft
Total climbing: 9064 ft
Total time: 10:36:37
Download file: 20120810.gpx

Total distance: 121.69 mi
Max elevation: 709 ft
Total climbing: 8443 ft
Total time: 10:10:16
Download file: 20120809.gpx
Total distance: 131.82 mi
Max elevation: 1439 ft
Total climbing: 11036 ft
Total time: 12:37:35
Download file: 20120808.gpx
Total distance: 207.82 mi
Max elevation: 1889 ft
Total climbing: 16423 ft
Total time: 10:51:30
Download file: 20120807.gpx

Bay Area

Spent the day in the Bay Area mostly getting lost because navigating is really hard on a motorcycle.  Met up with Gibbons and the Sluts in Golden Gate Park for a moment to sit in the sun and eat bread with cheese.  There were a lot of people I wanted to see but just didn’t have time to do so.  🙁  I picked up a rain suit because it’s probably going to rain.  Only one photo was taken today; my giant dslr is not really the right camera for this kinda trip.  Here is a photo that I stole from Flickr that has something to do with San Francisco.

I took this one, which is a typical neighborhood in San Francisco.

Next stop, Lost Coast.  I hope we don’t run out of gas out there!

Total distance: 24.83 mi
Max elevation: 486 ft
Total climbing: 4697 ft
Total time: 07:42:04
Download file: 20120806.gpx

SLO to Oakland

We decided to take Highway 1 from SLO to the Bay area, which meant everything was beautiful.  I have attached a couple photos below, but they will never to the region justice.  You have to visit to appreciate it.

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Raina’s bike ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere, but luckily we were able to find some cheap gas.  After filling up the tank, the bike slowly tipped over, removing 2/3’s of the front brake lever!  Crap!  Also, we noticed a little bit down the road the the speedo cable detached it’s self from the instrument cluster!  I removed the cable completely.  Oh well, the speedo didn’t work on her bike anyways.

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Here is a photo of some sand at a beach we visited.  I’m not a geologist, but it looks like the quartz content of this sand is minimal.  It looks like small granite bits to me.

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Total distance: 264.54 mi
Max elevation: 984 ft
Total climbing: 12323 ft
Total time: 11:05:21
Download file: 20120805.gpx

los Angeles to San Luis Obispo

The trip started much later than I intended.  Larsen thought that Raina needed to adjust her valves before the trip, however there was only an adjustable wrench available to do the job.  While this minor maintenance was going on I headed to the TWBG Hub were I met up with Nicole, Ranger Brad and Mr. Rollerzz.  Nicole gave me some cereal with coconut milk, which was much needed as I was up the night before drinking and giving crappy tattoos to some members of LA’s favorite bike gang.  Once the valves were adjusted I left the Hub to get Raina and hit the road.  The traffic getting out of LA was hellish as it seemed everyone decided to make it a beach day.  Splitting lanes most of the way was not only stressful, but very slow.  We met up with our friend Jeff in Malibu where he joined us for a day ride up to SLO.

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The ride up was nice, except I lost my moca pot off the back of the bike!  How am I going to make coffee now?  This is horrible!  Gahh!!  We stopped in downtown SLO and had a hot bowl of pho, which I thought was mediocre compared to what I normally get in LA.  After dinner Jeff parted ways to head back to Los Angeles and Raina and I headed over to my friend Scott’s house.  I’ve know Scott for probably 10 years now.  He builds really rad guitars.  We drank the passing time and caught up, as it’s been a couple years since I’ve seen him.  In the morning I woke up still drunk from the night before.  Scott gave me a spare tarp he had for when we encounter rain in the Pacific North West, then attempted to grab some produce from a TJ dumpster, however it was guarded by people with hibiscus print t-shirts.  Gah!!  We hit the road around 1:30, which was way too late.

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Total distance: 187.32 mi
Max elevation: 953 ft
Total climbing: 7722 ft
Total time: 11:22:29
Download file: 20120804.gpx

Mounting motorcycle tires

When I bought the BMW, the tires were old, dry rotted, and worn out. It was time to replace them, so I bought a new pair of Michelin Pilot Activ’s off the ‘net. The idea was to ride the motorcycle to the shop and have them install the new tires. Sounds simple enough, right? The back tire went on without giving the installer any trouble. The front tire however caused the man a great deal of pain; the bead wouldn’t seat on the rim! He tried for over an hour, screaming, yelling, and bleeding all over the place before giving up. His solution to the problem was to just sell me a different tire as the one I bought was “too small”. I figured since this guy puts motorcycle tires on motorcycle rims all day he probably knows what he is doing. A few blocks away the bike started feeling really weird. I looked down and the front tire was flat! Grahhgh!!! The bike went back into the shop where he decided to install a tube this time. By the time I got home, the tire was flat again. I thought “What the hell?”. I talked to some people over at the BMW R65 forum and they advised me to seek a second opinion. Off came the front tire and to the second motorcycle tire shop we went. The installer at this shop was a younger guy. He had a bit of trouble putting the tire on as well, but he was able to do so within 10 minutes. “It’s just a new tire” he said. Great! He also informed me that the tube the original installer used was much to big; it was all bunched up in the rim! You can bet I’ll never go back to the shop that does shoddy work.

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Got it on!
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