2021 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa
- Thread starter pashnit
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I had designed a ride for the editors of Cycle World, and we did the photo shoot for the magazine here. This was the centerfold in the magazine.
My bike is the big Yamaha Venture in the back. I got it for $1000, so it was a part of the article published August 2005 issue
These guys were my heroes, Brian Catterson and David Edwards. I had been reading their stuff for years. At least it was Catterson with eyes closed and not me. LOL
One year earlier, David Edwards had interviewed me for an article in Cycle World (November 2004) about what/why I was building with the Pashnit.com site. That article jump started the beginning of the tour company I've been running for the last 18 years. Never planned any of it, it just sort of happened.
We had a lot of odd and goofy bikes on that ride to keep the bikes under $1000, and I led a long circuitous route up the ocean and back south. About 1/3 of the bikes broke down.
My bike is the big Yamaha Venture in the back. I got it for $1000, so it was a part of the article published August 2005 issue
These guys were my heroes, Brian Catterson and David Edwards. I had been reading their stuff for years. At least it was Catterson with eyes closed and not me. LOL
One year earlier, David Edwards had interviewed me for an article in Cycle World (November 2004) about what/why I was building with the Pashnit.com site. That article jump started the beginning of the tour company I've been running for the last 18 years. Never planned any of it, it just sort of happened.We had a lot of odd and goofy bikes on that ride to keep the bikes under $1000, and I led a long circuitous route up the ocean and back south. About 1/3 of the bikes broke down.
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The all-new Pacific Motorcycle Tour was great fun wandering through the Santa Cruz Mountains, pics forthcoming
The Pacific Motorcycle Tour
Our summers here in California are so hot, you can only ride along the ocean in July and August. Last month, in July, I ran the (north) Coast Range Tour. Now, it's August. In past years, I've even skipped planning motorcycle tours in August. But I really want to ride. We need to go to the ocean.
I had this idea a few months ago to run an all-new motorcycle tour in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I have started tours here in the Bay Area, but never planned an entire day here. This small mountain range is the playground of Bay Area riders, and forms the spine of the San Francisco Peninsula. There are several goaty roads, and several fast roads that run from the ocean to the top of the range, not long, 10 miles up, and then 10 miles back down. Then do it again, and zigzag north to south.
My idea was we would ride every road in one day. All of them. Sat down with the mapping program and came up with a plan to ride 45 different roads in 214 miles, which was ambitious. Solo rider, you could do that, but not with a group. That got scaled back to 31 different roads in 185 miles. So not all, but a vast majority. I normally plan tours at 300-mile days, but the mileage count varies based on the type of roads and the group size. About 12 bikes has become my average group size. 10 years ago, it was 6-8 bikes, so my tour group sizes have doubled in the last decade. This group was 14 bikes and a Porsche.
I have led tour groups as large as 23 bikes, but with the size, comes increased difficulty in the logistics. Fuelling up, showing up at a restaurant with 23 hungry bikers. That sort of thing. Plus, the shorter the road lengths, the more it slows down the pace. If there are 31 roads, that also means we have to stop to re-group 31 times to make sure we got everybody, including the slow guy in the back. With experience riders I don't have that issue, and they all ride at the same pace. This group was all very experienced riders. Even Monya, who's probably my newest rider & just recently started riding (2 years ago) has ridden over 30,000 miles in the last 2 years.
All these 31 roads spider and connect to the spine of the range, for nearly the length of the range. San Francisco is at the very top, Santa Cruz is at the bottom of the range. Skyline Blvd, aka Highway 35, runs along the spine of this range and connects these two cities. Highway 35 is superfast, super twisty, and super fun. It often has a view of the ocean on one side, and the Bay Area on the other side. There are also Coast Redwood forests everywhere which gives you a lush forest ride. In winter, it's wet and damp, and rainy- thus the coastal rain forest.
Which sounds like the perfect reasoning for a new tour. With new tours, I wonder if anyone will even show up. But as usual, I'm inundated with bookings and riders wanting to attend. 18 riders signed up for this brand-new tour, and 14 bikes made it. The majority of my tour riders are local riders on local roads. With the usual last minute changes prompting calls to the lodging to ask for more rooms. The other strange issue is in our post-covid world, as things are opening back up again, hotel prices have doubled. I'm hearing that in other states too.
More planning, more changes, then riders cancelling at last minute, other signing up to ride at last minute. One rider signed up, cancelled, signed up again, all in the same day. In the end, it always balances out.
Day Two plans were a huge loop down the coast and back, my original plan was we'll head down the coastline to ride Nacimiento Rd, which is a single lane paved goat trail over the range, but that road fell off into the canyon from winter rains, and it hasn't been fixed yet.
Highway 1 Big Sur also fell off into the ocean with a huge washout last winter and I thought that'd be closed for a year, but CalTrans fixed it crazy fast, within months. Maybe the tourism dollars are so huge, they've got to get the road open. And with the opening of Highway 1, our Day 2 was set, huge loop down and then back up Highway 1 Big Sur.
Sacramento, where I'm based, is only 90 miles from San Francisco, but from my place to the meet point is still 2-1/2 hours. Easiest to leave my place at 4:30am and head down to Woodside, where I set up the meet point.
On the road at 4am
Clearwater Lights sent me some new lens covers, the new enhanced yellow color is supposed to make me even more visible to other cars. Old yellow on the right, new yellow on the left.
Our summers here in California are so hot, you can only ride along the ocean in July and August. Last month, in July, I ran the (north) Coast Range Tour. Now, it's August. In past years, I've even skipped planning motorcycle tours in August. But I really want to ride. We need to go to the ocean.
I had this idea a few months ago to run an all-new motorcycle tour in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I have started tours here in the Bay Area, but never planned an entire day here. This small mountain range is the playground of Bay Area riders, and forms the spine of the San Francisco Peninsula. There are several goaty roads, and several fast roads that run from the ocean to the top of the range, not long, 10 miles up, and then 10 miles back down. Then do it again, and zigzag north to south.
My idea was we would ride every road in one day. All of them. Sat down with the mapping program and came up with a plan to ride 45 different roads in 214 miles, which was ambitious. Solo rider, you could do that, but not with a group. That got scaled back to 31 different roads in 185 miles. So not all, but a vast majority. I normally plan tours at 300-mile days, but the mileage count varies based on the type of roads and the group size. About 12 bikes has become my average group size. 10 years ago, it was 6-8 bikes, so my tour group sizes have doubled in the last decade. This group was 14 bikes and a Porsche.
I have led tour groups as large as 23 bikes, but with the size, comes increased difficulty in the logistics. Fuelling up, showing up at a restaurant with 23 hungry bikers. That sort of thing. Plus, the shorter the road lengths, the more it slows down the pace. If there are 31 roads, that also means we have to stop to re-group 31 times to make sure we got everybody, including the slow guy in the back. With experience riders I don't have that issue, and they all ride at the same pace. This group was all very experienced riders. Even Monya, who's probably my newest rider & just recently started riding (2 years ago) has ridden over 30,000 miles in the last 2 years.
All these 31 roads spider and connect to the spine of the range, for nearly the length of the range. San Francisco is at the very top, Santa Cruz is at the bottom of the range. Skyline Blvd, aka Highway 35, runs along the spine of this range and connects these two cities. Highway 35 is superfast, super twisty, and super fun. It often has a view of the ocean on one side, and the Bay Area on the other side. There are also Coast Redwood forests everywhere which gives you a lush forest ride. In winter, it's wet and damp, and rainy- thus the coastal rain forest.
Which sounds like the perfect reasoning for a new tour. With new tours, I wonder if anyone will even show up. But as usual, I'm inundated with bookings and riders wanting to attend. 18 riders signed up for this brand-new tour, and 14 bikes made it. The majority of my tour riders are local riders on local roads. With the usual last minute changes prompting calls to the lodging to ask for more rooms. The other strange issue is in our post-covid world, as things are opening back up again, hotel prices have doubled. I'm hearing that in other states too.
More planning, more changes, then riders cancelling at last minute, other signing up to ride at last minute. One rider signed up, cancelled, signed up again, all in the same day. In the end, it always balances out.
Day Two plans were a huge loop down the coast and back, my original plan was we'll head down the coastline to ride Nacimiento Rd, which is a single lane paved goat trail over the range, but that road fell off into the canyon from winter rains, and it hasn't been fixed yet.
Highway 1 Big Sur also fell off into the ocean with a huge washout last winter and I thought that'd be closed for a year, but CalTrans fixed it crazy fast, within months. Maybe the tourism dollars are so huge, they've got to get the road open. And with the opening of Highway 1, our Day 2 was set, huge loop down and then back up Highway 1 Big Sur.
Sacramento, where I'm based, is only 90 miles from San Francisco, but from my place to the meet point is still 2-1/2 hours. Easiest to leave my place at 4:30am and head down to Woodside, where I set up the meet point.
On the road at 4am
Clearwater Lights sent me some new lens covers, the new enhanced yellow color is supposed to make me even more visible to other cars. Old yellow on the right, new yellow on the left.
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Wasn't expecting the traffic this early, backed up traffic for miles in downtown San Fran. Split lanes for a couple miles and out of the heavy traffic.
If you're not familiar with splitting lanes, it's a learned skill, like any other skill on a bike. It's legal here in CA, and my considerable experience is vehicles are used to it and can even be very polite to allow you to ride on by.
If it's a hot button topic for you as a rider, come live here, and you'll be converted to a believer in about five minutes. When I first moved to CA 25 year ago, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The yellow Clearwaters are super bright, and I love the headlight modulator. People see that blinking headlight in their mirrors, and it parts the seas.
The guys with the BMWs and the Clearwaters will turn them up and the Clearwaters will blink rapidly, again super bright for lane splitting.
Pull the mirrors in on the Hayabusa and zip on by
If you're not familiar with splitting lanes, it's a learned skill, like any other skill on a bike. It's legal here in CA, and my considerable experience is vehicles are used to it and can even be very polite to allow you to ride on by.
If it's a hot button topic for you as a rider, come live here, and you'll be converted to a believer in about five minutes. When I first moved to CA 25 year ago, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The yellow Clearwaters are super bright, and I love the headlight modulator. People see that blinking headlight in their mirrors, and it parts the seas.
The guys with the BMWs and the Clearwaters will turn them up and the Clearwaters will blink rapidly, again super bright for lane splitting.
Pull the mirrors in on the Hayabusa and zip on by
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Foggy morning in Woodside, typical for the Bay Area
We also had the rare treat of a chase car on his ride. Mark's wife Carrie likes to come with us, but doesn't want to ride pillion, so she drives the Porsche Cayman on the end.
BMW seems to be the winner on this ride. We also had three R1250RS's, an RT, a GT, and two GS's.
There are so many roads and turns to memorize, and my stroke messed-up my short-term memory so much, I made a list, old school style, of the road sequence. There are three pages to this list. With a combination of my list, detailed map, and Wayz, I managed to only miss one turn. The running joke is the tour guide gets one wrong turn per day and that's all I'm allowed. Making a wrong turn involves turning around 14 bikes and a Porsche.
We also had the rare treat of a chase car on his ride. Mark's wife Carrie likes to come with us, but doesn't want to ride pillion, so she drives the Porsche Cayman on the end.
BMW seems to be the winner on this ride. We also had three R1250RS's, an RT, a GT, and two GS's.
There are so many roads and turns to memorize, and my stroke messed-up my short-term memory so much, I made a list, old school style, of the road sequence. There are three pages to this list. With a combination of my list, detailed map, and Wayz, I managed to only miss one turn. The running joke is the tour guide gets one wrong turn per day and that's all I'm allowed. Making a wrong turn involves turning around 14 bikes and a Porsche.
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Bruce also brought his brand new Goldwing. He's a dyed in wool Victory guy, and has ridden many miles with me, but he recently took his Victory and started building a custom bike out of it, and pulling the entire rear end of the bike off to build something more custom. Still needed a daily rider, so he got the new Goldwing. I don't advise VLM's (very large motorcycles) for these rides, but Bruce is one of these guys that is completely unaffected by that rule and is comfortable on any road.
Besides the R1250RS, The new Yamaha Tracer 900 has also been a popular choice for sport-touring with our riders. Mike sold his Triumph Trophy (way too big) and got a Tracer.
Yours Truly and pre-ride briefing
Besides the R1250RS, The new Yamaha Tracer 900 has also been a popular choice for sport-touring with our riders. Mike sold his Triumph Trophy (way too big) and got a Tracer.
Yours Truly and pre-ride briefing
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Headed out of Woodside with the group
Kings Mountain Rd is a super twisty ride up to the top of the ridge through multiple switchbacks (I probably haven't ridden it in 20 years!). I remember this road as really bumpy and goaty, but it was recently repaved, what a treat! It's short at 5 miles, but the new pavement is a delight through the redwood forest.
Kings Mountain Rd is a super twisty ride up to the top of the ridge through multiple switchbacks (I probably haven't ridden it in 20 years!). I remember this road as really bumpy and goaty, but it was recently repaved, what a treat! It's short at 5 miles, but the new pavement is a delight through the redwood forest.
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5 miles is a quick shot in the arm. No warmups on this ride, we dive right into the super-twisty climb to the top of the range.
How crazy is this, My ZX-11D before the Hayabusa was even released to the market. Same corner? Maybe. Seems a lifetime ago! Taken around 1998.
How crazy is this, My ZX-11D before the Hayabusa was even released to the market. Same corner? Maybe. Seems a lifetime ago! Taken around 1998.
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