yum.
Oh man, while looking for the link for the Beemer R1200C, I noticed that they had the F650CS listed. US launch: March 9, MSRP: $8690. Go Danger!

back | next
back to archives | bluepoof.com
email me

saturday.
On Saturday morning, I headed over to Fremont and met Diana for breakfast. We met up with the rest of the Women on Wheels gals at a nearby Starbucks, chugged some caffeine, and planned the route for the day. On every last Saturday of the month, our WOW chapter has what's known as an End-of-Month Putt. We meet at the Starbucks, plan a route, and ride. This was actually the first Putt I'd been to -- there's usually something going on that Friday night which makes the prospect of getting up early on Saturday...well, a little uninviting.

Before really starting the ride, we headed down to Mountain View to pick up Paula, another of the WOW gals. While we waited for her to come out of the YMCA, we took the requisite "lookit all the pretty bikes!" pictures. ;)

From the Y, we headed down to Saratoga, to take the famous Highway 9 up to the famous Highway 35 (aka Skyline Blvd) to the famous Alice's Restaurant. Unlike most weekend days, 9 and 35 were remarkably squid-free. Usually you're guaranteed at least one asshole who'll come up behind you at 60mph and pass you in your lane in a turn before you have the chance to pull over, but the Gods of Decent Motorcyclists were smiling benevolently upon us that day. 9 and 35 were, as always, nice rides. 9 is at the point with me where I can hold a pretty consistent 40mph up the hill, and it feels rather like a little dance. You know what I mean? Where you just lean one way, and then the other, and your partner (in this case, the bike) lets you lead and never steps on your toes. It's quite nice. 35 is....well, it has some of the most amazing views of the Bay ever, but I'll get to that later. Once we got to Alice's, at the corner of highways 35 and 84, we kicked some tires in the parking lot, posed for pictures, and headed over for lunch. Lunch was the usual for Alice's -- pretty decent food at pretty expensive prices. You pay for the privilege of looking at all the bikes while you eat. ;) Though, just FYI, their garlic fries are really good.

After lunch, the rest of the gals headed off somewhere, but Diana and I both had business back in Palo Alto, so we took off together back down 35. Diana was a very good sport and stopped to take pictures with me. Unfortunately, the pictures can't do the views justice -- on a clear day, you can see across the Bay to the East Bay hills, and all of the neighborhoods and rooftops of Palo Alto, Mountain View, Atherton, Menlo Park, etc. Stanford is really noticeable from up there because of its tower and red rooftops. It really is a wonderful view. While we were loitering along the side of the road, my friend Paul happened to ride by. He recognized me and pulled over to chat for a while. :)

From 35, we turned north onto Page Mill Road, which is quickly becoming a vendetta of sorts for me. Page Mill runs from 35 down into Palo Alto; down at the bottom of the hill, it's fun and sweepy and wide with good pavement, but the top of Page Mill is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. It's hairpin-y and narrow and tends to have surprises like potholes and sand in the middle of the road. It, too, offers some amazing views of the Bay. I've mentioned Page Mill before. It hasn't improved any. This time, though, I risked life and limb (and those of Diana, who is still a good sport) to take some pictures.

We surived Page Mill, and Diana went off to work, and I headed home. Round trip total: around 100 miles.

sunday.
Sunday's ride started out as more or less unintentional -- I was supposed to meet Kim at 1:30pm, and I woke up at 10:00am to a warm, clear, gorgeous day. What better way to kill time than riding? I decided to make Page Mill the theme of the morning; the bottom (sane) portion is only a few blocks from me, and it has some fun little intersecting roads. I puttered around those roads for a while -- there's a horse farm right off Page Mill, and I rode by slowly and saw all the horsies grazing, which was pretty cool. I tried to take a picture of the Bay from the stop light at the horse farm, but it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped.

After a little while, I decided to head east on Foothill Expressway, since I'd never been on it before. It was fairly annoying and tedious down through Cupertino -- lots of traffic, stop lights, etc. Once I got into northern San Jose, though, it turned into Canyon Vista Drive, which was a nice surprise find. Canyon Vista takes you to the Stevens Creek Reservoir, so I stopped and -- you guessed it! -- took some pictures. I noticed a couple on a bike pull in just after me, and as I was packing up to leave again, they rode past me as if to leave too. I waved hello, and they stopped -- turns out that the woman riding pillion was thinking of getting an SVS, and saw that I was, ahem, vertically challenged, so she wanted to ask how I liked it and etc. She said she'd just passed her MSF course, and was really excited about starting to ride. She and her husband (assumedly) were on a BMW R1200C, which, truth be told, I find more and more attractive the more I see them in person. We waved goodbye, and they rode off.

Naturally, since I'd just finished saying how maneuverable the SVS is, when I went to leave, I stuck my foot in a gravel-filled pothole and dropped the damned thing on its right side. A nearby woman helped me pick it up ("oh, this one's light -- I'm always having to help my husband pick his motorcycle up, and it's a heavy cruiser"), and I noticed with some minor irritation that the gravel had chipped some of the paint on the fairing. It's not very noticeable -- I had to work to take a picture where it showed up -- but somewhat annyoing nonetheless.

From the reservoir, I kept heading south until I hit a road I'd never heard of, called Mt. Eden. I wasn't quite sure where the name originated, and I sort of mulled it over as it started uphill again. I got to the crest of the hill, and realized why it's called that -- the view was astounding. To my left was nothing but forested hills, and to my right, deep valleys dotted with huge mansions. There weren't many; maybe a dozen or so two-, three-, and even four-story houses peeking out from the shadows, but it was really pretty. There were hardly any cars and no other motorcyclists -- only a handful of bicyclists. I stayed on Mt. Eden as it quickly became a steep downhill slope (at one point, I got passed by a sharp-featured bicyclist who scowled at me as he coasted past). I took an arbitrary right at Pierce Road, and was somewhat surprised to find that it intersected with our old favorite, Highway 9. So I took 9 back up to 35 and down Page Mill once more. That stupid road; I'll get it eventually. I know roads are harder downhill than uphill, but it frustrates me to putter along at 20mph with my eyes glued to the road searching for the sand and gravel that I just know is there. At any rate, I stopped at my usual Bad Place To Stop (I'm very good at finding the steepest section of downhill to stop for pictures), and tried in vain once more to capture the view of the Bay. From the bottom of Page Mill, I hopped onto highway 280 and headed to Kim's. Round trip: about another 100 miles.

I'll say this for the southern portion of Page Mill -- you never feel quite so good on the freeway as you do after having been on that evil road. 80mph was like a blessing.

I feel good about the weekend rides, though. 9 and 35, which once seemed scary, are now almost second-nature to me; I feel very smooth and graceful on them. Luckily, I've got Page Mill to keep me humble, though I can even notice an improvement on that road, having taken it almost a half-dozen times in the past couple of months (intentionally, even!). It's a good challenge for me, and having it so close by makes it an accessible challenge -- I could leave my apartment, zip up Page Mill, come slowly and creakily back down it, and get into work less than an hour later. Probably a lot less, depending on how creakily I come down. ;)

wednesday teaser.
I was going to talk about yesterday's DangerRiders ride, but this turned into the mega entry, and I have a hard time believing that anyone's still reading this with any interest whatsoever. ;) I'll talk about that next time.