Missives from the 6th Floor

Another bit of show and tell - Dawnise and I got back this evening from another jaunt up the coast - new roads, cold weather, and a good time had.

Our plans to meet up with Scott and Amanda at Ragged Point fell through some time ago - the last chance being completely demolished when Scott decided to go work for the Evil Empire (tm) in Redmond, WA.

Dawnise and I decided to go anyway - so Wed. morning we set out with reservations at Ragged Point that evening.

Splitting lanes down the 10 freeway toward the beach I had plenty of time to remember why I don't commute on a bike. Once we finally made PCH the traffic lightened significantly and we were on our way.

I looked down at the speedo around Ventura only to discover we were standing still. Since I had just had the front tire changed I figured the speedo cable'd come loose and was probably being ground to nothing against the pavement. Got off the 101 at the next exit and pulled into a CDF Fire station parking lot. The cable was attached, and some quick diagnostics (with Jeremy, the mechanic at So. Cal Triumph) on the phone revealed it was a problem with the speedo drive in the front wheel, and that bike was safe to ride, so back on the freeway we went.

I realized over the next several hundred miles that I look at the speedo pretty frequently -- and it's very disconcerting for it to constantly read "0."

We decided (god knows why) to once again take the 1 through Lompoc (they have a lovely federal penitentiary there) and Guadalupe (they have absolutely nothing lovely - it's a windy dump - really). We stopped at Pismo State beach and ate a picnic lunch watching some fellow get dragged across the beach by his kite -- quite entertaining.

We passed through San Luis Obispo and continued north to our ultimate destination at Ragged Point.

If you haven't heard me (us) rave about ragged point, you haven't been listening. It's a very cool little place - a 22 room inn located on the bluffs on the ocean almost exactly halfway between LA and SF.

All the rooms have glass walls facing the ocean and the view is, well, indescribable. We had an exquisite dinner (I heartily recommend the Fillet) and took a few minutes to thank the head chef, Roger Wall, in person before retiring to our room.

The next morning, with much regret, we left Ragged Point with a plan to get to San Luis Obispo by the most indirect route possible.

We headed down the 1 to route 46 - a lovely road running between 1 and 101. We took a short detour from our detour to ride by a number of the wineries in the area -- many were open for tastings that we didn't take advantage of. We took a hop north on the 101 to rejoin the rest of the 46 - slightly straighter but no less scenic. We took a sharp right at Shandon - another town that time forgot (in a not-so-good-way) and got on the 41. 4.5/5 stars - a great road, with wonderful scenery -- twisty, but never unpredictably so. That met up with the 229, then the 58, back to the 101 and in to San Luis where we had reservations at the Adobe Inn.

We pulled in just in time to meet another pair of wanderers on two wheels (well, four between them). Turns out one of the pair, Ivor, lives in OC and has a Sprint ST on order from So Cal Triumph. We chatted a bit about my Trophy and Triumphs in general before heading to our respective rooms. They met up with another friend and his wife who arrived in their car (and were given a small amount of grief for having done so :)

Dawnise and I freshened up (ok, I took a nap - but only a short one) and walked down to the weekly farmers market/street fair down town. The fair was nice, and we (once again) ran into the group from the hotel.

After walking the fair, we returned to the hotel and hopped on the bike to head to dinner at "our" favorite Indian restaurant in SLO. The owner of the Taj Palace recognized us from our previous two visits (apparently they don't get too many couples on bikes out there) and we had our third wonderful meal - Chicken Tika Masala, Chicken Vindaloo, and Paneer Makhani with enough Naan to devour all the sauces.

Delish'.

We ran into Ivor and party at breakfast this morning and exchanged contact info.

There were reports of rain coming in from the north, so we suited up (including our cheap just-in-case rain pants) and jumped on the 101 north to route 58.

58 winds it's way through some beautiful scenery - with views literally for miles. No rain yet, but the temp continued to drop as we gained elevation -- we stopped just over the Kern county line so I could don my heavy gloves -- frozen fingers are generally a bad thing.

58 continues into oil country - where the scenery (unfortunately) get's much less spectacular. Still, it was a very nice road through some great scenery.

By the time we hit the junction with the 33 we were both quite cold - the First Gear jackets were doing just fine - but jeans and thermals weren't cutting it. The air temp. was in the high 40's which translated to "pretty cold" at 70mph.

We turned south toward Taft with the intention of stopping for something warm in the immediate future. Taft came and went with no likely break spots observed. We took the 166 east toward the 5 and I decided that enough was enough - we were buying over-pants at our first opportunity.

As we started to climb the grape vine "pretty cold" turned into "god damn it's cold" - my thoughts returned to the Aerostich Ivor and friend were both wearing -- by the time it started to rain on us (one of those cold, driving rains) I would have done some very distasteful things to have been wearing that 'stich.

Our plan called for taking the 138 east to N2 through Palmdale, Littlerock and Pearlblossom - but the rain clouds were even thicker in that direction and I made an executive decision to stay on the 5.

We made it into Newhall and Dawnise was having trouble feeling her fingers. Her PVC rain pants had pretty much disintegrated about the time we passed Mt. Pinos - she was dry but very cold. Took a few minutes before she rejoined the land of the living.

We stopped at Cycle Gear and spent about 40 minutes trying on various brands of over-pants. We ended up leaving with a new pair of winter gloves for Dawnise. They didn't have over-pants in either of our sizes. "We can order them" - they offered - not what I wanted to hear. Did learn that they have a new store in Fullerton that I'll be heading down to check out in the near future.

The remainder of the trip home was (thankfully) a bit warmer and was made without incident.

The First Gear jackets performed as advertised -- keeping us warm and dry. We will be buying over-pants before the next adventure.

We both had a terrific time (getting a bit colder than we bargained for not withstanding) and spent a portion of this evening looking over the map in front of the fire planning the next trip.

By the way, Scott -- we're more determined than ever to get you and Amanda down to Ragged Point. Now that you've more than doubled the distance you'll likely end up flying into San Luis (or Monterrey) and driving -- but trust us - it's worth it.