Adventures at the beach

My first truly long ride was to Fort Bragg.

Not the one in North Carolina, the Fort Bragg in Northern California. 

I made it just before sunset and ate the sandwich I brought on the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

What a great ride!

Highway 20 is perfect.

I saw lots of other motorcyclists on the way, and for such a perfect day, that's what anyone with a bike should be doing.

My route was from Chico to Willows via Hoghway 162. Then I got on the I-5 to Williams where I took Highway 20 all the way to the ocean.

The 20 is great.

It climbs the California Coastal mountains and goes around Clear Lake.

Clear Lake

The burned out trees were visible from the Valley Fire last year as you came into the valley where Clear Lake sits.

It was gorgeous.

I wasn't sure if I would be able to get a campsite at Fort Bragg because when I tried to reserve one online it wasn't possible.

But when I got to McKerricher State Park, all but one of the "walk-in" sites were available and for $5, you can't beat that. 

I thought it might be a hike to the site, but my site is about 100 yards from the parking lot.

I was able to fit my sleeping bag, pop up one man tent, a full backpack, a small bag of charcoal, water, toilet paper, an extra blanket, some food and flashlight easily into the saddlebags and trunk of the Goldwing.

I love the bike.

The last 22 miles actually kind of sucked, the road through the redwood forest was beautiful but so twisty and turny I had to go about 25 mph most of the way.it seemed to take forever.

But I've got a small campfire going now and I can hear the ocean's waves breaking on the shore.

This is the good life.

Happy riding.

Riding home

Riding home through the orchards near Durham and Chico.


Video is sped up 4X.

Riding from Chico to Oroville 2/16/2016

Glorious day

Temperature: 74 degrees

Skies: sunny

How I started riding

A dozens bucks.

 12 dollars.

That's all it costs to go for a 200+ mile ride.

A tank of gas costs $12.

I've wondered over the last few months why I didn't just buy a bike 5 years ago. 

I had money then. I had just come back from Iraq, and  I had $10K in the bank.

But I didn't.

I got an apartment and wasted money (although I also bought useful things like furniture) and drooled over motorcycles online but never pulled the plug.

I remember when I was still in the Army, my dad bought a bike.

It was a 1982 Honda Goldwing.

From the aid station (I was a medic) at Fort Polk on a training mission before my unit went back to Iraq, I called home one night and he told me he had bought a motorcycle.

"That's so cool," I said.

"It's an old motorcycle, I'm still getting used to riding it," he said.

He kept riding, and I got out of the Army without using the chance to buy a bike.

A few years later he bought a 1999 Goldwing. He rode all over. 

Yosemite. 

Nearly every weekend. It's only a few hours from home for him.

Yellowstone. Why not? A cross-country ride is an American Dream.

Glacier National Park.

Of course.

If you have a motorcycle, you have to ride to absolutely amazing places.

Then, earlier this year, he crashed.

He was ok, a concussion and soreness but not seriously injured.

Mom said he had to get rid of the bike.

He didn't listen at first, but then he was on a long ride. Like a 14-day ride.

Sitting in a motel room by himself he realized he would rather be home.

Playing with his grandkids.

I've only seen true love a few instances in my life, but my dad is completely, unequivocally, madly in love with his grandchildren.

He's only 51, and they're still all under 5 years old, but I know they will be so spoiled for the rest of forever and that Grandpa will always be fondly remembered.

The decision was made in a crappy hotel room, he told me over coffee when he dropped off the bike.

He was done riding.

For some still unknown reason, my mom suggested he give the bike to me.

Alright so I'm the only one of six kids who actually thought it was cool that dad rode a motorcycle. And I'm the only one of six kids who went for ride with him.

Yeah, I rode in the bitch seat.

We looked totally like two gay lovers.

We even had to stop for gas, and people looked at the bike and us and you could see how their opinions formed about the man-on-man action that must have been going on in their heads.

But it was awesome!

That's was the first time I really experienced riding a motorcycle.

I had been on dirtbikes a few times as a teenager and it was cool, but not really a life experience.

On the back of my dad's bike, riding the curving roads around Lake Isabella, I saw how big the world is.

All we did was drive around the lake, but it was an experience that is lodged in my memory forever.

They call Montana, "Big Sky Country," and I'm sure it is, but on a motorcycle, every inch of the world is big sky country.

The world was new.

A few years later and I still hadn't bought a bike.

I was texting my brother, who was living with my parents with his wife and daughter after being laid off from the Bakersfield oil fields, when he texted to call dad (dad doesn't text, he's old-school like that).

He offered me the motorcycle.

That's how I ended up with a 1999 Honda Goldwing. It's how I got into riding and why everything in life is awesome.

When I think about everything in my life, it can all be wrapped up with a single statement.

"At least I have a motorcycle."

Oroville

Oroville might be made for motorcycles.

Maybe not Oroville itself, but the foothills around the city are wonderful.

It's a totally different experience riding a motorcycle across the dam compared to a car.

The largest dam in the United States, and without much water in the lake, it feels almost even higher.

I met my brother Steven at the top of the dam, at the parking lot at the end. 

I had been planning on hiking/climbing down to the water from there, but he missed the parking lot and went to the Spillway launch ramp area, where he paid the $6 for a day pass.

That was probably worth it, because hiking down that embankment would not have been fun.

I left the bike at the top of the dam and we went fishing from the shore.

Fishing for bass, we tried a few different lures, and had moved from the side of the gravel launch ramp closest to the dam to the other side where I was throwing a Senko. 

As I cast and reeled, I felt a bite, but it was not a big hit, so I let the worm settle.

Another bite, I set the hook and reeled in a Coho salmon.

I caught a Coho salmon today at Lake Oroville. First salmon ever.

A photo posted by Dan Reidel (@dan_reidel) on Dec 4, 2015 at 1:10pm PST

Crazy, a salmon on a Senko.

But this is a motorcycle blog, not a fishing blog, so let's get back to the bike.

An 18-inch salmon easily  fits into the side compartment of a 1999 Honda Goldwing.

I later cooked the fish up and ate it.

Delicious.

More fun than a barrel of monkeys

Motorcycling is too much fun.
I rode the best route so far today. I went straight out to Orland on Highway 32 and kept going when it became County Road 200.
If you haven't taken a ride around Black Butte Lake and you live in the area, go do it.
Seriously, just get on a bike and ride out to Black Butte Lake.
It's beautiful. The road is great too, plenty of straight stretches to go fast and plenty of curves to give you a challenge.
The lake itself is nice, there are also a few places to pull over and have lunch, I stopped at the dam overlook, which also has bathrooms. It is marked as "B" on the Black Butte to Willows  route on the map.

A view from the dam overlook.

Getting back on County Road 200, I didn't actually see the lake again, but riding through rolling hills and seeing old barns and cattle in the fields between the buttes, it reminded me that California is such a gorgeous place to live.

There were a couple places where the road was really torn up. One curve had about half the westbound lane completely eroded but potholes were all easily avoidable.

I thought about turning around and going back the way I had come, but decided to drive south on County Road 306, then hit Highway 162 to get back to Chico through Willows.

Taking a quick break.

I stopped at a small cemetery and looked at the gravestones. There were a bunch of Powells which is my dad's family's name (Reidel is my mother's maiden name, long story and not important to this story).

A couple of Powells buried in the Grindstone Cemetery.

With a roughly 20 minutes stop for lunch, this ride took me about 3 hours.
This route will surely be a regular part of my life, I can't wait to go do it again.