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my bucket list trip up the California coast

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#1 ·
in 2 weeks i'll be taking my 'new' Chief Dark Horse from Austin, TX up the California coast and then wind my way back home. i've always dreamed of riding a bike along the coast up the Pacific Coast Highway. i've never even been west of Texas before. i'm not going to be sticking to any itinerary, but i plan on averaging about 500 miles a day and have picked out some of the top rated roads and routes in each state along my path for a round trip of 5,000 miles. i'm not one to stop and take a bunch of photos and do sight-seeing, but i want to make an exception this time since this is pretty much my bucket list bike trip. so i'll document my travels here as much as i can. below is the tentative route i'll be taking. Google Maps is real finicky when you put in too many destination points (i had to 'hack' 3 maps together) so it's not exact, but pretty close. and the specific destination points listed aren't important, that's just what i had to mark to choose certain roads i want to travel. i may have to alter my route on the fly since there are currently some wildfires raging and road closures in Northern California right in my way.

MAP ROUTE

645941


these are the main destination roads that i picked out that defined this route, mostly picked from :
Valley of Fire Loop, east of Las Vegas
Death Valley Run, through Death Valley National Park
Caliente to Kernville on County Road 483, east of Bakersfield
The Lost Highway 58, Bakersfield to San Luis Obispo
Hwy1 up the California coast from Morro Bay to Fortuna
Rt. 36, 140 miles of twisties
Reno to Lake Tahoe loop
Hwy50, "the loneliest road in America"
Hwy9, Zion Canyon Utah
The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument
Mexican Hat to Bryce Canyon
San Juan Mountain Skyway
Unaweep Tabeguache Scenic Road - CO 141, dubbed "greatest road in America" by Car Trek youtube series

most of these were picked from motorcycleroads.com which has more information about each and which ranks the top roads in each state. i plan on mostly using my Beeline device to guide me along the way - Beeline - smart navigation for bikes | Beeline
love this navigation tool. you put in a mapped trip you want to take and then this compass tells you which direction to go and what distance until you need to make a turn. it also tells you if it's an upcoming ramp, roundabout, or other notable road structure. much simper and easier to follow than a map, though you can also follow along with your map on your phone as well.

not sure what i'm doing for sleeping accommodations each night. will probably just find the cheapest motel in any area when i'm tired of riding for that day, pretty much the strategy i used the last time i took a cross country bike trip. what do you guys do on long trips? find campsites? pull off on the side of the road somewhere? find a 4 star hotel? if any of you have any comments or tips or questions, feel free to share. i see some of you use this Relive app or whatever to share some of your rides. if it's not too much of a hassle for me to figure out and use, i might use that to share the trip.
 
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#75 ·
DAY 4: reached the Pacific coast near San Luis Obispo and ended in San Francisco (L.A. was further south of my route so i was never near there)

my first sight of the smoke from the fires. wasn't that bad today. i would go through about 20 minutes of smoke coverage but then it would clear up for an hour or 2. rinse and repeat. i stayed on Hwy1 through most of the way up California with the ocean on my left. it had been suggested that i do this route in reverse, but i had no trouble pulling over at any of the tons of scenic spots. traffic wasn't bad at all to be able to cross over lanes, and this was Labor Day Weekend. maybe the smoke kept people away?


Water Tire Sky Fuel tank Wheel



the only 'side' venture i took is the La Honda loop which was very similar to riding the Tail Of The Dragon found in Tennessee/North Carolina. just an endless barrage of twists through the woods. very fun and challenging. surprised i had never heard of it until someone suggested it either here or another forum.

made it to San Francisco as the sun was setting and the smoke was now very thick over the city, and the temp was showing 58°. nearly a 50 degrees drop from the day before in Death Valley.
 
#76 ·
DAY 5: San Francisco to Fortuna. Hwy1 all the way through the Redwood forests


The Golden Gate bridge. isn't is majestic? what you can see of it? i thought this shot was funny.

Water Tire Vehicle Sky Motorcycle



i would be riding through smoke through most of the day, so not a lot of photogenic opportunities. was really amazed how twisty Hwy1 is. i think i spent more time on the sides of my tires than the middle. after today i became convinced that this is the best road i've ever been on and definitely deserving of the reason for this whole trip. and unexpected. i just thought the road would be a little curvy, but this had about as many hairpin turns as anything else.

met a younger guy pulled over in the Avenue of the Giants who was working on his rear brake. i thought i was taking a long trip, he had started in Rhode Island to Alaska for a cousin's wedding, was traveling down California in pretty much the reverse faction as me on his way to Florida for another cousin's wedding while hitting 29 different states over 3 weeks. he had a 4.5 gallon tank strapped to his sissy bar rack so he could go twice as far between gas stops that he was having different people sign that he met along his journey. pretty cool. i couldn't complain about my temperature experiences because he had come from 35° in Washington just the day before.


Plant Vehicle Tree Automotive tire Helmet


Hand Automotive tire Hood Leg Motor vehicle
 
#77 ·
DAY 6: Fortuna, CA to Carson City, NV


the pics posted from this day look like they are of decent quality so i won't repost them here.

started the day at 64° on Hwy36 and over the course of 30 minutes the temp had climbed 30 degrees to the mid-90s. we have a saying in Texas - "if you don't like the weather then wait 10 minutes". we get swings of temperature changes of 30-40 degrees in a single day several times a year. but i don't believe i've ever experienced this much of a change in such a short time period before. would see more smoke today since i was basically traveling between several previous or current fires both north and south of me. the road had actually been closed just a week before i began my trip so i was lucky to be on it. although enjoyable to ride, the most remarkable part of it was riding through all the burned forest around me including one town that was burned to the ground. and there were several places where traffic was backed up because they were blocking the road to clear off trees and carnage.

this road was supposed to be the main curvy road of my trip. and it was definitely curvy as it was almost entirely on mountain passages, but it didn't seem any more so than most of Hwy1 with most twists being up or down mountains at 20-30mph with very few straightaways. given the multitude of this type of riding, i was almost begging to change the channel just to get a break. it can get tiresome after a while.

saw 2 bear cubs run across the highway in front of me.








DAY 7: Carson City, NV to St. George, UT

finally got some much sought after straightaways. still a few twisties, but not nearly as many as i traveled down "the loneliest road in America" - Hwy50. a little disappointed in the name. cars were definitely scarce, but not as much as going through Death Valley.


Sky Plant Automotive tire Fuel tank Automotive lighting



saw actual tumbleweed rolling across the road. on Main Street. in St. George, Utah, population 84,500.
 
#79 ·
DAY 9: Cortez, CO to Albuquerque, NM

this is what i considered my last official day of sight-seeing for the trip since the next day would be strictly on flying home as fast as i can with no more pictures. and it was arguably the best. before, i had been going up and down mountains all day, but this is the first time i would actually be going through canyons between the mountains right up next to me. scenery was unbelievable.


Cloud Mirror Sky Land vehicle Plant


Cloud Land vehicle Sky Vehicle Mountain


Tire Wheel Cloud Sky Fuel tank




this one might have been from the day before. these pictures are starting to get mixed up at this point.

Sky Cloud Eyewear Road surface Road




and i drove through a herd of cows

Sky Plant Mountain Cloud Highland
 
#80 ·
FINAL THOUGHTS


equipment:
everything worked. i spent nearly a year customizing this bike and figuring out electrical things on it and was astonished that nothing gave me any problems. only thing i thought was a hiccup was when the emergency light came on the day the temp gauge rose to 109°, and the power button would not turn off the electronics when i shut off the engine to re-fuel. but that remedied itself later in the day so i think it just got a little overheated.

bought a $130 luggage rack so i could sit my $100 80L Givi dry bag on it
used the $120 Firstgear saddlebags i bought for my VStar 950 over a decade ago that might have more storage capacity than any other saddlebags i've ever seen - 18.00”(L) x 12.00”(W) x 12.00”(H).
used a free sissybar bag handed down to me from the folks when they retired from riding, strapped it to a $230 sissybar/luggage rack from TCMT on Amazon
gear accumulated over the past 10-20 years total luggage costs: $580

California gas pumps:
why on Earth does this state use two-handed pumps? for those that don't know, their handles require you to push back this rubber grommet in order for the fuel to be pumped. i assume the structure of most vehicles naturally pushes back this rubber piece, but there is a metal bar just 2-3" below the lip of my tank that prevents the nozzle from going in any further. makes it easier to fuel up as i can just rest the handle on it, but it means that i had to use my free hand to hold this rubber piece for every fuel-up in California. annoying.

i wish i was a better photographer. for every decent photo i shared here, i could have snapped a thousand better ones if i knew what i was doing. every 5 minutes for nearly the entire trip i felt like i was riding through a painting or a postcard. and the few times i did stop to snap a picture, there was usually an even better view just a minute later or around the next bend. and i wasn't going to get in the habit of stopping every other mile or slamming on the brakes or turning around because i just missed a great moment. and the few decent photos i took weren't even close do doing justice to the real thing. for the most part, it was better to just be in the moment and enjoy it rather than try to immortalize it with my camera.

holy freaking cow were there a lot of twisties. i had no idea. i mentioned La Honda was similar to doing the Tail of The Dragon, but it feels like i did about 3,000 miles of Tail of the Dragon. i'm still by no means an expert on slinging my bike through the corners, but i'm definitely better than i was.

my Relive video is coming up that includes even more photos, mainly taken while actually riding down the road. so some of them are a little blurry as it's surprisingly difficult to get a stable photo from a camera phone strapped to a vibrating motorcycle going 80mph down the road, but some of them did turn out quite well. you can pretty much tell which ones are taken while moving if you can't tell that i'm on the shoulder or standing off the bike.






i couldn't stop thinking how much i've become enslaved to technology for this trip. here's everything i've used that i couldn't have 20 years ago:

cruise control
beeline navigation tool
smart phone apps: gas buddy, google maps, internet, streaming music, Relive, camera, and probably a couple others i'm forgetting now
the gas buddy app alone helped me find the passages where gas stations were scarce enough that would have been impossible to know otherwise. there were about a dozen different stretches of road that had no gas stations for at least 90 miles, with some as much as 120 or 140 miles between filling up. since you're not going to re-fuel at every single stop, how would people have taken this same trip 20 years ago without running out of fuel? you couldn't even do this on a bike with a tank that was too small.

and an updated list of all the top roads i took (motorcycleroads.com):

Coronado Trail
Valley of Fire Loop, east of Las Vegas
Death Valley Run, through Death Valley National Park
Caliente to Kernville on County Road 483, east of Bakersfield
The Lost Highway 58, Bakersfield to San Luis Obispo
Hwy1 up the California coast from Morro Bay to Fortuna
La Honda loop
Avenue Of The Giants
Rt. 36, 140 miles of twisties
431 Mt. Rose Hwy
Hwy50, "the loneliest road in America"
Hwy9, Zion Canyon Utah
The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument tour
Valley Of The Gods, Mexican Hat to Bryce Canyon
McElmo Canyon - Bluff Utah to Cortez CO to Bluff Utah - aka WORST ROAD I'VE EVER BEEN ON, aka Highway to Hell
San Juan Mountain Skyway
Unaweep Tabeguache Scenic Road - CO 141, dubbed "greatest road in America" by Car Trek youtube series
 
#83 ·
FINAL THOUGHTS


equipment:
everything worked. i spent nearly a year customizing this bike and figuring out electrical things on it and was astonished that nothing gave me any problems. only thing i thought was a hiccup was when the emergency light came on the day the temp gauge rose to 109°, and the power button would not turn off the electronics when i shut off the engine to re-fuel. but that remedied itself later in the day so i think it just got a little overheated.

bought a $130 luggage rack so i could sit my $100 80L Givi dry bag on it
used the $120 Firstgear saddlebags i bought for my VStar 950 over a decade ago that might have more storage capacity than any other saddlebags i've ever seen - 18.00”(L) x 12.00”(W) x 12.00”(H).
used a free sissybar bag handed down to me from the folks when they retired from riding, strapped it to a $230 sissybar/luggage rack from TCMT on Amazon
gear accumulated over the past 10-20 years total luggage costs: $580

California gas pumps:
why on Earth does this state use two-handed pumps? for those that don't know, their handles require you to push back this rubber grommet in order for the fuel to be pumped. i assume the structure of most vehicles naturally pushes back this rubber piece, but there is a metal bar just 2-3" below the lip of my tank that prevents the nozzle from going in any further. makes it easier to fuel up as i can just rest the handle on it, but it means that i had to use my free hand to hold this rubber piece for every fuel-up in California. annoying.

i wish i was a better photographer. for every decent photo i shared here, i could have snapped a thousand better ones if i knew what i was doing. every 5 minutes for nearly the entire trip i felt like i was riding through a painting or a postcard. and the few times i did stop to snap a picture, there was usually an even better view just a minute later or around the next bend. and i wasn't going to get in the habit of stopping every other mile or slamming on the brakes or turning around because i just missed a great moment. and the few decent photos i took weren't even close do doing justice to the real thing. for the most part, it was better to just be in the moment and enjoy it rather than try to immortalize it with my camera.

holy freaking cow were there a lot of twisties. i had no idea. i mentioned La Honda was similar to doing the Tail of The Dragon, but it feels like i did about 3,000 miles of Tail of the Dragon. i'm still by no means an expert on slinging my bike through the corners, but i'm definitely better than i was.

my Relive video is coming up that includes even more photos, mainly taken while actually riding down the road. so some of them are a little blurry as it's surprisingly difficult to get a stable photo from a camera phone strapped to a vibrating motorcycle going 80mph down the road, but some of them did turn out quite well. you can pretty much tell which ones are taken while moving if you can't tell that i'm on the shoulder or standing off the bike.






i couldn't stop thinking how much i've become enslaved to technology for this trip. here's everything i've used that i couldn't have 20 years ago:

cruise control
beeline navigation tool
smart phone apps: gas buddy, google maps, internet, streaming music, Relive, camera, and probably a couple others i'm forgetting now
the gas buddy app alone helped me find the passages where gas stations were scarce enough that would have been impossible to know otherwise. there were about a dozen different stretches of road that had no gas stations for at least 90 miles, with some as much as 120 or 140 miles between filling up. since you're not going to re-fuel at every single stop, how would people have taken this same trip 20 years ago without running out of fuel? you couldn't even do this on a bike with a tank that was too small.

and an updated list of all the top roads i took (motorcycleroads.com):

Coronado Trail
Valley of Fire Loop, east of Las Vegas
Death Valley Run, through Death Valley National Park
Caliente to Kernville on County Road 483, east of Bakersfield
The Lost Highway 58, Bakersfield to San Luis Obispo
Hwy1 up the California coast from Morro Bay to Fortuna
La Honda loop
Avenue Of The Giants
Rt. 36, 140 miles of twisties
431 Mt. Rose Hwy
Hwy50, "the loneliest road in America"
Hwy9, Zion Canyon Utah
The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument tour
Valley Of The Gods, Mexican Hat to Bryce Canyon
McElmo Canyon - Bluff Utah to Cortez CO to Bluff Utah - aka WORST ROAD I'VE EVER BEEN ON, aka Highway to Hell
San Juan Mountain Skyway
Unaweep Tabeguache Scenic Road - CO 141, dubbed "greatest road in America" by Car Trek youtube series
What camera are you using? The photos/colors are beautiful.
 
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