A great riding adventure in California

13th Sept 2017

In Feb. 17 on my tour of Myanmar I met Jay, an American living in Oakland, California. As it happens my son, who is married to an American lady, happens to live in Castro Valley just 20 mins drive from Oakland. We visit our son and his family including 2 young grandsons at least once a year and this time we booked 29th Aug to 11th Sept. We rented a house in Oakland for this visit, as our son’s current home does not have room for us all to stay.

I had kept in touch with Jay since we met. He has two bikes, a Ducati Monster and a old BMW GS; when he knew I was coming over he suggested that we have a day’s riding together and I could ride one of his bikes…YES PLEASE 🙂

We met for breakfast to arrange the day. Unfortunately the rear wheel bearing on the GS had seized up shortly before my arrival and he was in the process of repairing it, which may or not be ready for the day we were planning. The fall back was that he would borrow an 1980’s BMW R80 Dakar (forerunner to the GS) from one of his friends.

The day came for our ride; blue sky, sunny and HOT in the 90s! Jay had problems getting one of the bearings out of his GS so it was still in pieces..the R80 was available, so we can ride. 🙂

Jay lent me one of his old helmets and I took a Knox armour vest, knee pads and my gloves over to wear. The plan was to ride down on the Freeway to the start of Mines Road and follow this over Mount Hamilton to San Jose to meet up for lunch in a Vietnamese café with another of our friends from Thailand, Alan from TBB, who by coincidence also happened to be in California at the same time.

I started out on the BMW. Jay fired up his Ducati Monster and woke up the neighbourhood with the sound of his twin Terminonis..very loud!! We set off to get some petrol and put some air in the tyres; the riding position of old BMW felt very much like a GS, so I was at home..apart from the brakes. Only a single disc at the front which certainly didn’t have the stopping power I am used to! We rode down the 580 freeway and made it to the start of Mines road near Livermore, about 40 miles. This is where the road gets twisty, very twisty, as it climbs up through the mountains and Jay offered me his Monster, so we switched bikes.

Mines Rd. is a great road, narrow, good surface, twisty and great scenery through the mountains with sheer drops and no barrier on our side! Just like the roads in the Alps and the mountains of Spain..it was hot. Its quite a while since I have ridden in a more crouched, sporty position and it seemed strange to begin with, but soon settled in. The suspension on the Monster was rock hard, a great thumping 1000 cc twin engine, good brakes and a fantastic sound from the Termis. Reminded me very much of my old Aprilia RSVR. After 30 miles we stopped at a biker café for some water; we found a group of Harley riders there and started chatting. Turned out they were on a tour up from LA led by a Dutch guy who ran guided tours. Don’t think I’d want to be riding a big Harley round those twisties!

By now we were running well behind schedule and tried to contact Alan to let him know, but no signal out in the wilds here! Jay reckoned it was still 2 hrs ride to San Jose. So we set off for the summit of Mt Hamilton, about 20 miles further on, where it should be possible to get some reception. More of this great road and as we wound our way up to the top and it got even hotter. We stopped at Lick Observatory right on the summit, great views. Managed to send a message to Alan, who unfortunately couldn’t wait for us as he had a business meeting planned..we were on “Jay time” 2hrs behind schedule! Apologies Alan, we owe you a beer or 3.

Having done 50 miles on the Monster I decided it was time to ease my aching neck, so rode the last 20 miles of VERY twisty downhill road on the comfy BMW to lunch stop in San Jose. In total about 70 miles of great road through lovely scenery and only a couple of cars to overtake the whole way.

We arrived at the lunch stop; a Vietnamese café with waitresses dressed in very skimpy swimsuits…a perfect place for a couple of aging bikers to have lunch! Only in America…Lunch was spicy noodle soup; reminded me of the lunch stops in Thailand/Laos..but with a difference 🙂

Lunch stop USA style

After being fed and watered we filled up with gas and being 4.30 by now realised that there was no way we could finish the planned route as I had to be back for dinner with the whole family by 7pm. So it had to be freeway back to Oakland. We set off and joined the freeway North..by now it was rush hour and we faced 5 lanes of heavy traffic. Jay led the way lane splitting ( American version of filtering) the cars could hear his Monster coming and parted like the Red Sea to let us through. This was often 2nd gear stuff and sometimes down to 1st. As I went to change up to 2nd I felt for the gear lever..it wasn’t there!!! This was a 30 year old bike and the whole gear lever and linkage had come off! So there I was in the outside lane stuck in 1st gear and Jay, who hadn’t seen my predicament, disappearing up the road into the distance…help!

I managed to get the bike over the 5 lanes of traffic onto the hard shoulder, thinking I was completely stuffed and stranded! Took off my helmet to take a look and could see that everything was still there but hanging loose as the bolt holding the lever and linkage on had come unscrewed; thankfully the bolt had not fallen off. So, screwed it back in and was back in the game..phew! I set off again and a few miles up the road saw Jay had pulled over and was trying to call me. He was thinking the worst and was very relieved to see me!

We decided to take the next exit and take a back road to avoid the freeway, all was going well till we came to a detour sign saying that our road ahead was closed; this took us back to another freeway.

Finally made it back to Oakland at 6pm all in one piece.. what a GREAT day, what an adventure. Cant wait for my next Californian adventure 🙂

Thank you Jay !!

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