Weekend ride report: Saturday night and Sunday

The ride west on 299 was absolutely fantastic. Blue skies, light traffic, smooth roads, good tunes on the iPod.

Party in Weaverville:

Trinity River:

I mean, it just doesn’t get better than this, am I right?

I think autumn in Six Rivers State Park has got to be pretty much perfection. The leaves are changing, the rivers are murmuring, the fishermen wave to you from the banks. There’s just a hint of a nip in the air as the sun starts to fall behind the Coast Range…which is why I thought nothing of coming up on Peter, pulled to the side of the road, pulling on another layer of clothes.

Until I noticed that his seat was off.

And he was removing plastics.

And he looked very, very grumpy.

It turned out that he really had pulled over into the turnout to put on another layer; he kept the bike running just to make sure it wouldn’t die. When he was backing up against the curb, though, he put the handlebars at full right lock and the windscreen hit the brights switch. He said something went “POP!!” and the whole bike went dead. When I came upon him, he had already checked the fuses by the battery and was now going for the main fuses under the tail plastic.

Unfortunately, all the fuses were fine. The battery was also OK, because turning on the heated vest controller as an experiment lit up the little LED. The battery, however, was about 15000 degrees hotter than the sun. Anyway, didn’t matter, the bike was dead as a doornail. No headlight, no idiot lights, no WUBBAWUBBA, nothing.

After a few minutes of discussion in which I said I would absolutely not leave him alone on the side of the road after dark in the mountains, we decided to ride the Beemer 2-up the 45 or so miles to Gil and Becky’s house. And this we did.

It was fairly horrifying at first. It took about 10 miles for me to stop shitting myself every time we took a curve. I really hate being a passenger. Also, have I ever mentioned that my Beemer doesn’t have rear footpegs? Fun! Peter did well though and we made it to the “Sport-Touring.net B&B&B” without further incident.

Naturally, the U-Haul place was closing just as Becky called and, no, they would not stay open for 5 more minutes for us. Thbbbbbt. So we left the Superhawk overnight along 299, both of us pretty stressed about whether Bigfoot would steal it under cover of darkness.

In happier news, we had a wonderful time at Gil and Becky’s. They truly are the epitome of hospitality and we enjoyed pizza, beer, Kipper the tailless cat, exchanging “how we met” stories, and much more.

The “Wall of Shame” in the guest room…are YOU on it?

Becky and Kipper:

I forget exactly why we were looking at placemats here:

Bedside table in the guest room — can you tell these fine folk cater to motorcyclists?

After a restful sleep, we woke up to find the big ol’ Pacific Northwest middle finger of storm fronts headed right towards Eureka.

Yay!

We went to the U-Haul place for a 14′ truck….

…and drove back up the hill to where we’d left the Superhawk…

Yay! It was still there!

Hilarity ensued but we did manage to get the bike into the truck. It helped that it hadn’t quite started raining yet — it held off until the bike was firmly tied down.

By the time we got back to Gil and Becky’s, though, the storm front was hitting pretty hard. We decided to put my F650GS in the truck, too, and I’d ride home warm and dry with Peter and the dead Superhawk. Getting the Beemer in the truck was trivial thanks to Gil and Becky’s considerate neighbors who had thoughtfully built their driveway with a decline.

The “I *heart* manatees” hat is good for sun OR rain!

Becky and Gil say “yay, both bikes are in!”

You gotta make your own fun in these situations.

We warmed up with some coffee, and Gil showed me how he entertains himself by pretending Babe the Blue Ox pepper shaker is inside his placemats.

Meta-Babe…Babe with Paul and Babe.

Unfortunately, we had to then leave. The truck ride down was uneventful and we made pretty good time — we left Eureka at 4:30pm and arrived home at almost exactly 10:30pm. 410 or so miles of Hwy 101, gotta love it.

Rainy day redwoods:

Ah, look, almost home:

And that was our “relaxing” weekend in which I had every good intention of showing Peter a good time. Ah well, he says that he still had fun, we had a blast with Gil and Becky, and had some great road time before the bike died. And, really, I guess that’s the important part.

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