Ninjette Lunch in Half Moon Bay

I’m a member over at Ninjette.org and the Bay Area peeps do a roughly-monthly lunch somewhere that’s nice to ride.  Last month, we ate at Cameron’s and Peter and I attended, though we took the truck as my back was being uncooperative.

Yesterday was our June meet, also in Half Moon Bay, but this time at Sam’s Chowderhouse, a little further up the coast.  My back has been feeling pretty good, so I decided to ride to my weekly Saturday volunteer gig and then over to lunch.

Blah blah words, here are some photos:

Lots of Ninjettes, all in a row (mine was the only pre-08 “pre-gen” model. Old skool!):

More Ninjettes all in a row…this time as we tried to make the left hand turn out of Sam’s onto Highway 1.  I think we’re all actually still out there, waiting for traffic, and our minds have hallucinated us away into happier times.

Poor Brian wore his mesh jacket…it was 55F on the coast.  Welcome to summer in Half Moon Bay!

Tri led us to some remote parking lot where we hoped we could photograph the bikes.  It turned out that the lot was full, but it was fun to scope out some of Half Moon Bay’s back roads.  Even if we were starting to think Tri’s route along warehouse row past barking dogs and Harley-riding group wearing colors was leading us to certain doom.

Turning around at the parking lot — U-turn practice for everyone!  I love the Ninjette; I can actually pull a U-turn like a normal rider.  It only took me 12 years of riding to accomplish; go me!

We did eventually find a nice place to photograph the bikes.

My poor little pre-gen looks so out of place!  And we definitely need to make friends with someone who rides a red Ninjette, to round out the photo. Hrm, maybe I just need to kill two birds with one stone and buy a red new-gen. 😉

We ruin the bikes’ beauty by getting into a shot:

I didn’t want to head straight home from Half Moon Bay, so when the group dismantled, I rode south a few miles and took Purisima Creek Road over to Higgins Canyon and back around to Hwy 1.  It’s a nice loop of about 10 miles of some seriously great riding (especially Higgins Canyon).

Right where Purisima Creek Road becomes Higgins Canyon is Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve.  I’ve never stopped (I should have yesterday) but I hear the hiking there is terrific.  I’ll pimp my friend Kevin’s website by linking to his page about it.

Next time I do Higgins, I’ll go west-to-east, so that I’m on the correct side of the road to take glamour bike pics. I couldn’t stop this time because the road cambers down to the cliff side, and I would have had to park in the middle of the road to get my sidestand down…too many blind corners to risk that!

Once back on Highway 1, I just took Highway 92 back over the hill and to home. The ride wound up being just about exactly 55 miles — perfect!  My ride 2 weeks ago was 35, then 45 last weekend, and 55 this weekend.

I was a bit more sore than usual after last weekend’s ride to Cupertino, which made me nervous, but so far I’m doing OK after yesterday.  I felt better while actually riding — I had muscle pain; you know, like when you’re really sore after a 500 mile day? Like that but after about 40 miles. 😉  Last night and today so far have mostly been just a dull burning in my mid-low back, which is annoying but better than stabbing nerve pain or the SI joint pain.  So, hey, OK!