The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
Technical Discussion => Ride Reports and Event Reviews => Topic started by: Melena on July 30, 2010, 11:29:49 PM
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Finally, eh? ;) This is the story of the R65 and the R100T on their trip to the National Rally. 8-)
We were off to Redmond on Sunday, July 11. I walked out my back door and realized that the water leak to the house (my side of the meter, but before the house turn off) that I thought I had fixed was leaking again. Aaarrgghh. Okay, so get the bike loaded up, but then have to drive the car to the hardware store 3 times to get the right pipes and stuff to fix the leak. Finally, about 3 pm, we get it done and head on out. We ARE going to get on the road no matter what. :D Stop at Mary's Pizza, a local restaurant, for dinner and we are finally on the road for real about 4:00.
Lucky for us it's summer and we've still got lots of light. Are we going to make it to Eureka as planned? Who knows. We stop about every 45 minutes to an hour to stretch, get gas, drink something, eat a bite, and/or just look around. Stopped in Ukiah for gas. It was HOT up that way - probably about 95 or so.
From here on it is mostly freeway with short strips of 2 lane highway where they haven't widened the road becausse of the Redwoods. The next stop is at a little store in the Redwoods along Hwy 101 somewhere where there was a few "other" bikes and a BMW that looked like he was headed our way. ;D At this point we were leap-frogging with a couple of guys on some kind dual sport bikes.
As we went past Patrick's Point State Park I was keeping a look out for the famous elk herd that lives around there. We turn a corner and there they are in the front yard of a house right at the side of the road. Thought about turning around and taking a picture, but we were running late and needed to keep going. Oh well. Next time. The closer we get to the coast the cooler it gets. Finally the fog is right there in front of us and it is getting downright cold. So we stop and put in the jacket liners and change to cold weather gloves. This proves to be not quite enough, but it keeps us awake.
We are so close to Eureka now, and with no other place to stop at this point, that we push on. The sun has gone down, I think - can't tall because of the fog, but there is still a lightness to the sky. The fog is so thick as we get to the ocean that I didn't at first realize that we had gotten there. The helmet shields are full of gnats that are now getting hydrated with the mist from the fog. What do I do now? Wipe it off and smear all those gnats all over my shield? :P We take an offramp that proves to go nowhere but this gives us time to regroup and decide to go all the way to Eureka, which is only about 10 more miles. The gnats are brushed right off with the water. Whew, now I can almost see. It really is getting dark now, and I finally get to see how my headlight really works. I don't ride in the dark on purpose, you see. ;) But the headlight is nice and bright. We get to Eureka, finally, after moving along rather briskly, and I finally see the Motel 6 (not one I would stay in again though). It's 9:30 when we check in. Not bad at all. Miles covered - 213. Ride Time - 3 hrs 50 min. Max Speed 80.3 (I said we were moving briskly. ;D )
Luckily there is a 24 hour restaurant right next door. As we are finishing up, the 2 guys that just came on asked me if we were the folks on the BMW's. Yep! I turn around and realize it's probably the 2 guys were leap-frogging with along the highway. I asked them if they were the guys in the red riding jackets. Yep! They were riding from Santa Barbara and on their way up to Alaska. I forgot what kind of bikes though - Honda dualsport bikes maybe?
After a bit of breakfast the next morning, we remember how cold it was the day before and so layer up. The fog is higher though so it's not so wet and cold. We head on up Hwy 101 along the coast to Crescent City. It's pretty, but very foggy. Then head on up the Smith River, which is a really nice road. We stop a ways up there to take off the layers as it did start getting quite warm. What a trip! Hot to cold to hot again. We stop again in Cave Junction for a bite to eat and head on down the road to Grants Pass. Before we start heading down Larry makes me aware that he needs gas. Oh great. Well, it's downhill from here. The road down is good, but the weather is getting hotter. We make it to Grants Pass and pull into the first gas station, no matter what it is. :o Whew! Just made it. My gas was fine, but it was definitely time to fill up.
Grants Pass has changed dramatically since I lived there in 1979, 1980. I didn't recognize anything. We had trouble even finding the hotels. Finally, just before we got to I-5, there was a Best Western. A bit pricey, but it was a very nice comfy room, and the shower was great!
Miles for the day: 179. Ride time: 3 hrs 50 mins. Max speed 75.8
More in the next section. I'm running out of room!
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Part 2 -
A mention on the pictures above. This was near Crescent City. A nice stop. But it is so windy there that they have built shelters that are closed off to the ocean side but open on the other side with picnic tables inside. We hid out there for a bit and had a snack. Note the flag on the back of my bike. That's the one I did in Tapestry Crochet. I tried to take pictures of it with the bike in some places that are unique to the area we were in.
Lucky again for us, there was a good restaurant right next door to our motel. When we finished dinner and were walking back, there were 2 guys looking at our bikes. Hmmm. Oh! They own the other 2 Beemers parked down a few spots. They were on their way to Redmond also, having come from Chicago! I wish I could remember everyone's name, but they seemed to be very involved with their club in Chicago and were even written up in the MOA about their showing at the Motorcycle Show. Nice guys and very knowledgeable.
So, we left Grants Pass on Tuesday and headed up towards Crater Lake. The area was so different to me that we just hopped on I-5 for a few miles and took the offramp that headed us towards Crater Lake. There was already some striking scenery. There was a big cone shaped mountain (volcano) to the south with snow covering the summit. The sky was blue and the air was so clear that everything sparkled. We wended our way up into the mountains which now took us along the Rogue River and made a stop at a day use area where there were lots of people fishing. We decided not to go up to Crater Lake this trip as we had both been there before and we had other things we wanted to do. So, we just kept on this road and it took us up into the higher forests and the huge trees. It was so beautiful that I just had to pull off at the next wide spot in the road and take some pictures.
Just a bit later we pulled off at another spot that had a great view of the mountain where Crater Lake sits - the Mt. Mazama Lookout. This place has some good information on how Mt. Mazama probably looked before it blew out to create the caldera that is now Crater Lake. Very stunning view. The pictures don't do it justice.
From there it was downhill. There in front of us was a huge mountain - another old volcano, but right in front of us. I had to slow down a bit as I was paying way too much attention to this fantastic view. No place to stop and take a picture though.
Then we turned onto the road that goes down to Hwy 97. This road is straight as an arrow and you can see for miles and miles and miles and miles...............Oh, sorry, that's the Byrds song. ::) Anyway, that road is so straight they must have used a straight edge on the map to make it. It has some dips and hills, but is basically down and straight. As we go down it gets drier and hotter. High desert for sure. Once on Hwy 97 we think maybe we'll stop somewhere, but the little towns are very desolate and really nothing there. We continue on and get gas at one place. We get to Bend where I thought maybe we'd stay that night, but it is a very busy little city and way too busy for us at this point. We do get a bite and head on to Redmond, only about 10 miles down the road. It was getting late and they really weren't ready for us at the Rally site and I was tired and didn't want to set up the tent yet. There was a motel - a Super 8 - right at the entrance to the fairgrounds so we pulled in thinking that it would be worth a try to see if they had a vacancy. And they had 2 rooms left for that night. We got the downstairs one where the bikes could be parked right outside the window. Perfect. But with all the other bikes already parked out in front I wasn't too concerned. And there was another good restaurant right next door. ;D
To the Rally tomorrow. Less than 1 mile to go tomorrow. ;D
Miles for the day: 208. Ride Time: 3 hrs. 56 mins.
Max speed: 75.8 (hmmm, isn't the speed limit on Hwy 97 55mph? :o I was just keeping up with the traffic. :) )
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Wednesday through Saturday we spent at the Rally. There was so much to do there that we only left one time to go into town to the local Safeway to pick up some groceries. We actually made breakfast burritos on Saturday morning instead of making the usual oatmeal.
We went in to the rally on Wednesday morning and got our tent set up. We had our pick of spots. They didn't have the registration set up until noon. It was nice being there early as we got to see some people we know as they came in that we didn't see again during the rally. There were over 6,100 people there.
Here are some pictures of just the section we were camped at. The first tent picture is Wednesday evening and we were practically alone. The next ones are on Thursday evening. These show the area from left to right to give an idea. Pretty amazing.
But I've had it for the night. I'll finish this tomorrow. Need to sleep. zzzzzzzzzzz
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Thanks Melena! I have seen a lot of pictures of Crater Lake lately.
Here is one I "borrowed" from Ken Whitehawk on Boxerworks. (http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w238/kenwhitehawk/REDMOND%20RALLY/REDMONDRALLY2010156.jpg) It sure is beautiful.
Yeah, he built that bike!
That road up and down (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=42.994603,-122.095871&spn=0.328956,0.617294&z=11) looks like it would impact a day's ride, for sure!