Big Loop Ride Sun 8/24 *Route has been changed to Sunday!

[GreenMachine]

The one with the handlebar bag.

Not really. 

[Mel]

GM, as you know, I don't drink so you may as well be speaking Chinese talking about wines to me !

Mel

[Mel]

We probably should hold off for lunch until we get into Murphys and can relax and enjoy the atmosphere. I think Firewood would be a great place for lunch. Here's the menu:

http://firewoodeats.com/html/menu.html

Mel

[Mel]

Consider this Big Loop Ride to be just like another "ALS ice bucket challenge", and I'm calling out all of you SSA guys and gals ! See you ALL on Sunday !

Mel

[GreenMachine]

Consider this Big Loop Ride to be just like another "ALS ice bucket challenge"...

What's an ALS ice bucket challenge?  Nevermind, sounds stupid.  Probably causes shrinkage.  I'll stick with the tempting Deliverance with the foothill rednecks.

[Mel]

Hey guys,

It was mentioned in another thread that this ride will be "goat trailing", and that is not even close. There will be maybe 30 miles at most of goat roads out of a 400 mile ride ! There will be every type of road on this ride, from long straights with swooping turns for all those big liter plus bikes, to bumpy narrow goat roads, and everything in between ! See you in the morning!

Mel

[Mel]

T minus 15 hours...who's in??

Mel

[GreenMachine]

I think the '400 miles' is the daunting part.  SL is in Oregon on his trip.  Flamecrow's in Sac tonight.  I think most of the riders from today are worn out from their Grass Valley run.  So unless there's a surprise, I'm sure it'll be just you and me.

And I'm about ready to hit the hay.  Don't be too surprised if you don't see me scrubbing my pucks tomorrow.  I done wore them just about to nothing and I don't have any spares.

[Mel]

GM, you'll be fine...just ride Mel style with your knee hovering just above the pavement ! We may get a surprise rider or two, you never know ! Hell, I haven't done 400 miles in a long time myself, and I'm an old man, but with so many types of road in one ride, who can resist ! See you in the AM, gotta head down to Gilley's tonight !

Mel

[GreenMachine]

8:00 AM, eh?   

I'll try, but I might be a few minutes late.  Night-night.

[Mel]

Yep, KSU at 8:00am! Just got home from Gilley's and hittin' the rack, see you in the morning!

[GreenMachine]

Alright!  Alright!

I'm up and should be on time.   

Looking forward to it actually.

[Mel]

Cool, see you in a few!

Mel

[GreenMachine]

Only one interesting spot to stop and take pictures.  Well two.  I should have taken the camera in with me when we stopped for lunch in Murphys.  Mel found a good one, although getting there was a little bit of going out of the way.

Sounded like my front forks were doing the metal end stop bang for the 17 of 30 miles Mel had planned for the day, the worst of the worst roads ever.  He tried to convince me to go faster, but that made everything worse, so I stuck with my way of just surviving and not going so fast that I ride to my death if a car came flying around one of the 999 blind corners from today.  He was a good trooper about my really slow 1st, 2nd & 3rd gear pace.  I think I topped out at 25 MPH over that 17 mile course.  The last 13 of 30, he suggested I skip over to Murphys via hwy 49.  Only, that took me about 40 miles out of my way.  At least it was familiar smooth or semi-smooth road.  And he beat me to the restaurant by, he said, only 10 - 15 minutes.  So it was worth it.

Here's the wood bridge off of hwy 193, just north of Placerville.  Don't ask me how to get there, I wouldn't be able to tell you.  You'd probably be safe to find the loneliest bone-jarring road you can find.  That's probably it.  

So we were on some of the familiar highway stretches for most of the day, but the little stretch from Placerville to Murphys took us the better part of 2.5+ hours.  I was standing on my pegs riding as safely and as quickly as I could, like I do off-roading on the dirt bike.  At the outset of the second stretch, I had to stop and turn around because I came flying over this one hill and on the other side was like a 10% downhill grade all pot holed and loose gravel.  It went from nice, "you can trust me" on this side of the hill, immediately to "I'm going to take your life right now" scary pot-holed downhill loose gravel and barbed wire fences if you crash.   I stopped as safely as I could without crashing and turned around thinking I must have missed where Mel turned at the top.  This can't be the way.  Surely!!! When I made it to the top, there was no other route, this WAS the route.    I went about a mile down it, going about 5 - 10 MPH, which was about as safely as I could do it without cracking my fairings or absolutely shaking my electronics into submission.  Finally I pulled over in a shading spot.   I couldn't continue, so I figured I'd wait for Mel to come back and plead with him to go back to the main road, instead of this.  And if he didn't, I'd just head back to the last known turn-off.  And if that didn't work, I'd head into Murphys on my own, taking the semi-smooth roads, hoping to see him in town.

Mel returned after about 15 minutes.  There was only about another mile of crap and he'd never been on that road either, so he didn't know.   Strange how circumstance would have it too.  Every time or about that, when I'd come into a tight right had turn where there was gravel on the road, there'd be a car coming the other way, ready to meet me head on if I didn't make the corner.   Modern brakes.  

We continue on to hwy 88, which took us to hwy 26.  That's been repaved and was a hoot going down and briefly going up.  A little trafficked, but not too dangerous.  Still a pretty skinny road.  Wide by 'today's ride' standards though.  About three-quarters the way along, we turned off from the nice smooth pavement onto some gawd-awful road that went out to nowhere.  Don't have a clue what that road was for.  Nobody lived on it, nobody rode on it and there weren't any towns.  I think the asphalt patch guy must be a blind guy, because that was another awful road and long too.  Imagine standing on your sportbike pegs, hunched over trying to hold onto the handlebars doing 15 - 25 MPH, the bike bouncing all over the place underneath you, with the occasional pop-pop of the front forks banging into their stop points, fairings creaking & cracking and making the plastic on plastic flexing sound, water temp hovering right at the 218* mark, less if you're able to find a patch to get into 3rd gear and lower the temps a few degrees, with all the time in the world to ponder why the heck are we on this road at all??  When I finally caught up to Mel, it was five miles back the way I came or five miles more of the same BS, so I soldiered on.

Mel wanted me to wait while he geared up, but I quickly voiced out while riding away, "you can catch me. I'm only going 20 MPH."  He buzzed past me only about 1/8th of a mile later.  It took me at least 15 minutes to make the next road crossing.  There we planned to ride a little further before splitting up.  Mel completed the remaining 13 miles of goaties on his own.  

So how bumpy were the roads if you can't take my word for it?  Glad you asked!  As it turned out, Mel's metal license plate holder broke off on the way to Murphys and fell into the wedge between his tire and swingarm.  That's how bumpy.  I kid you not!  Fortunately the wiring held on or else he'd be back on that road looking for his plate and I'd be home writing this novella.   Not only that, but my previous worst road king, Oregon Hill road has found it's match in three of the three roads I tried today.

Not much to report coming back over hwy 4 and the rest.  Much of the west section of one-lane on Ebbetts past Bear Valley, but before the 8,700' summit has been repaved or tar fogged.  It's quite dreamy to ride on.  We didn't hit much traffic going over.

Another four-hundred forty mile day.  Somehow I'm not as exhausted as I was from doing hwy 49 & La Porte & other yesterday.  Although, it might catch up to me.  

[Mel]

That was an awesome ride and my speedo said 425 miles! GM and I got back about 6:30pm and it was quite an adventure, but I better let GM tell his version !

Mel