BRAG Day 5

[tugrik]

As the week kept going, I kept getting a little more tired each night. This is why you've not seen posts from me in their usual timely fashion; I'd get to the hotel, and after the food-and-chat, there would be this loud, heavy THUDding sound of a big bluefurred critter passing out asleep. My earlier fear of not sleeping well in motel beds became pointless. By the end of Day 4 you could have wedged me into a broom closet and I'd have slept Just Fine, Thank You Very Much. *grin*

Thankfully, the early morning of Day 5 brought with it the news that today was to be a relaxing day spent in Yosemite. Ferris had gone back home, as had Erik Buell... and the ride organizers decided some downtime was in order. The route sheet at breakfast showed a straight, lazy shot into the park's south entrance, continuing on through the touristy bits and straight out into our early evening in Modesto.


With the strong leadership role of Ferris no longer there, the only remaining inter-rider organization was a loose combo of the SacBORG members and personal friendships. As I'd fixed the Autocom back in Fresno (thanks to a local Radio Shack -- replaced the little $20 FRS which was bad) and re-mounted the PTT switch, Dusty and I had good communications going. We fell into the head/tail role somewhat. Dusty stayed up front with Vic (the SacBORG fearless leader), and asked me to be 'sweep' -- the job taken previously by the husband/wife pair (who were easy to spot, being the only doubled-up riders). The goal here was to make sure everybody got through the lights as we got out of town. I ended up keeping the position most all the day, as it turned out we were able to keep the pack pretty tight. No real 'fast' and 'slow' groups formed... everybody was too busy being heads-up most the day to see the sights.

The roads were nothing special, nor were they difficult. It was an easy little wind up in altitude to the park entry. Everybody dismounted together, and mobbed the pay-booth. $10 per bike to get in... 'cept for me! I whipped out my 'get outta jail free' card (national parks yearly membership pass), and marched back to my bike to get a few photos. It was about here that I noticed there was an issue with my kickstand. At some point it took too much stress; most likely on the previous day when I had to park a few times on off-angled surfaces, with full luggage on the bike. It made for a very funky, almost problematic lean when I got off the bike. I'm going to have to get this fixed sometime soon, and I don't know if they'll take it as warranty or wear-and-tear. Feh.

By the time we got to that park entry, there was snow aside the roads. The sun was out and the roads were wonderfully dry... but the air was just plain cold. The Held gloves were definatley not working. Their too-thin construction meant that while my knuckles froze in the oncoming air, my palms burned against the heated grips. I was very glad for the stop to both insert the jacket-liner (my blue fuzzy zip-up) and change to the Joe Rocket winter gloves. Those did their job perfectly: the heavy padding on the back of the hand kept the wind off, and the thin leather pads on the palm conducted just enough heat to keep the fingers toasty. The tank panniers continued to impress me with how well they kept the air off my legs; I was able to continue the entire day (and the next, which I'll get to next entry) without having to put the sweats on. The only real issue was visor-air management, balancing internal fogging vs. letting in too much cold. I need to find a better breath guard for my Arai.

I've been in Yosemite a few times, but always from the West entrance. revar and I have driven in, and down to Bridal Veil falls and all the touristy stuff. Each time, we'd turn around and head back up to Tioga Pass to either go over to the east side, or turn around to exit if the pass was closed. Now I know what I've been missing, and how close it was! A mere 5 miles past the touristy stuff on the valley floor, you get to the big tunnel that has a vista-point where all those post-cards were made. You know, the cheezy ones you see in all the tourist shops, showing all the major hills? I always wondered where they took that shot, and now I know.

Riding through the long, dark tunnel with sunglasses on was a bit scary. You can see NOTHING, and have to follow the reflectors/tail-lights of the bike before you. The teeny little safety lights on the roof are yellow dots that flick by like some bad Tron flashback. The roar of 20 bikes, close-packed, going through a solid rock half-cylinder is hard to describe. Even with 31dB earplugs and a helmet on, the rumble makes your skull flex. The bass component of the bikes' exhausts makes your chest rattle. It's both disturbing and kind of neat-feeling at the same time. I dread what any other cars in the tunnel must have been hearing, or the poor saps standing at the vista just on the exit of this stone pipe.

As we popped out into the daylight, we missed the turn into the vista, making us go in the Out path beyond, trying to act all innocent about it. The photo crew was there, and so we parked and spent the better part of a half-hour taking pics of everything: the bikes, the mountains, each other. Sunglasses off so we could see this time, we went in and out of that tunnel numerous times. Sometimes for fun, sometimes for the photographers. Some of the guys got to goofin' as they played with the sounds using their throttles. Video Fred got some good footage of Vic doing 'swan lake' moves, standing on one peg, his other foot and same-side hand way up in the air, dancing around on his bike. It was all rather silly.

We finally got enough of the vista, and took only a few minutes to toddle on down to the valley floor and its tourist traps. Much ooo!ing and aaAah!ing was had at Bridal Veil and Lower Yosemite falls, and the unavoidable super-greasy Tourist Chow lunch was had at the store there: burgers and onion rings.

A quick distraction here: I swear, while I've been eating in small amounts, this trip has been horrible for me, dietarily. Each dealer thinks that they're the only one to think of serving us Beans, Nachos, and Greasy Food. If we're not eating tacos, we're eating burgers. If we're not having sauce-laden buffalo wings, we're having triple-grease pizza. Combine this with the Tourist Chow of various places, and I think that most of us did our internal plumbing a disservice. Many TMI (too much information) comments were had through the week about the various gaseous and rumbly effects we were experiencing. I'll leave it at that.

The group was fracturing up a bit at this point, as the lack of a coherent plan and a strong leader convinced more of them to enjoy the park in their own ways. Most of us geared back up together to head out, but a few drifted off back to other photo opportunities. A general plan was hashed out: we knew Tioga Pass was closed, but we were going to head up it anyways to see how high in altitude we could get before the road stopped. 11,400 was the top, and so far we'd never broken 9K. I told Dusty and the crew that there was a gas station at the 120 junction we could stop at, and those who wanted to could veer off there to join us or continue on.

We got up to said junction, and about 10 of us stopped. Others continued on, without comment. The group was definatley fracturing now; not a bad thing, considering the lazy pace of the day, but still there was an odd feeling to it. I think folks wanted someone definate to follow, and any who'd been in the lead that day had been real fuzzy and 'well, you can do this or that or whatever' wishy-washy in the decisions. As I took a moment to re-install the liner and earplugs, the others just kind of sat and waited for me. As it turns out, they didn't know we were at the junction; they thought Dusty stopped us simply so I could change gear! Dusty must have thought this too, because he blasted on down the road, instead of turning towards the gas station.

About 10 miles later, both the park-exit and my talk on the radio convinced him that we'd missed the exit. He felt we'd gone too far to backtrack, so figured we'd just find some wiggly roads and take the long way home instead. A quick peek at the map and he selected Buck Meadows road, which would take us through some backcountry to Coulterville, and then on into our destination at Modesto Buell/Ducati. As we turned down it... we hit dirt.

Good, chewy dirt, in fact. Happy dirt. I-liked-this-as-did-my-bike dirt. They of course slowed to a crawl, and kept looking at each other wondering what they should do. This was a fire-road at best, but it was the kind my GS was made for. They pulled over at the first wide spot to bump heads about what to do, and I giddily galloped on past, standing on the pegs and bouncing the bike like some cheezy BMXer, openly teasing them. They decided to "send the dualsport ahead to scout", which made me grin quite a bit. I rode to radio-range, and continued on for another two miles, sliding around happily in the grit. I came upon a "Y" in the road, and could see a utility truck on the upslope to the left, through a little bit of a mud-ditch. I hopped through it and blasted up hill to park beside the road-workers. They informed me that pavement was only another three miles up-road, and then on to Coulterville, no problem. However, if the sportbikers didn't want to do it, they could backtrack and take the next parallel road, a little one called J132.

I raced back to them, feeling glad to be on my own kind of turf, and told them of what was up. I let them know about the mud and the ugly hill, which got a few frowns. Dusty took half of them and they turned around to find the J-road, and the others said they'd be glad to follow me on. We all agreed to meet in Coulterville to make sure everybody was OK. Throttling away, I gave them a bit of a dustcloud to keep up with, and slowed down guiltily after a mile or two.

We got back to the "Y"... and the utility truck was now downhill at the junction. I stopped to thank them before trying to lead the sportbikes over the mud and uphill, only to be told that it was the OTHER fork of the "Y" that they meant... and it was all very simple, graded dirt. No challenge. We continued on, and were on pavement in no time. I kept the lead, and it wasn't until Bobby (aka 'Captain America' due to his american flag leathers and bike paintjob) got around me as I tried to pass a slow truck that I lost the leader-job. Bobby's just like that, I found out later. No malice in it... just when he sees a way around, he takes it. It's cool.

We pulled into Coulterville and I got both praised for my good riding on the pavement and teased for the 'and you said it was gonna be HARD' about the dirt. I had to explain about the truck and the hard uphill that we didn't end up taking. We sat around for a good 15 minutes before the rest of the group caught up with us; enough time to get drinks at the little general store and get some pictures.

Another little diversion: I'd been noticing a few tensions building as the trip went on. People were more tired each morning, and more worn out each day's end. This translated into thinner skins and quicker moods with each other. It was still quite pleasant, but the more attitudy fellows were getting short in patience. One of these fellows drove a yellow buell with a yellow helmet. He was already pissing folks off earlier with the way he would glibly join the group, leap up to leader, then fall back and wait so he could jam his own pace before getting back up to us... without communicating. As long as you tell people what you plan to do, it's cool. When you get folks wondering what you're going to do or if you're OK, and then are rude to them when they ask... well, that sucks. That's what he'd done most of the trip, and now that he was tired as well, he started to get rude. He was with my group, and waited with us for the latecomers from the J-road, assuming we were going to find some more twisties before going back to the barn. When they got there, Dusty and the crew were wanting to just head straight for Modesto; it was to be one of the better parties. Mr. Yellow shouted about having to 'wait for all you jerkoffs only to be told he'd miss His Chance At The Roads', mumbled barely-audibly about various lewd acts we could do with ourselves, and blasted off down the 49 back towards the mountains. The general feeling of those left was "good riddance".

Pissed off by this, Dusty and a few others got on their bikes and pounded it high-speed into Modesto. They didn't even wait for me to re-gear, leaving me as the last man standing, and a bit grumpy about it. I got on, and rode just as hard, trying to catch up. As this was not very curvy at all, some of the highest speeds of the trip were reached here and I'm glad it wasn't a heavily patrolled area. As we hit the 30-miles-from-town point, I caught up with the pack, all gassing up at the station. My 8 gallon tank enabled me to say "The hell with 'em", and I left them behind just as handily as they left me. As a result, I wound up at the dealership far ahead of any in our original group, which made me feel a little better.

The party helped bury any bad feelings by the time it was over. This was by far the best dealer-stop of the trip. Sure, I didn't go for the seafood gumbo (I hate shrimp), but the rest was good. Everybody was happy, folks were having fun, and the shop was great to us. Most folks were using Modesto to buy and mount new tires and other late-trip updates since their service dept was so good, and so many fine, long, smoky burnouts were had as riders playfully used up their old tires before dismounting them. No blowouts happened, and a few smiley faces were burned into the lot. I thought the dealer would be upset... but in fact, they found it all quite fun.

They had a dyno set up, and were doing dyno tests for only $25 (normally twice to three times that). I had them do my BMW, just for fun. The results? 75.9hp, 70.5lb/ft of torque. Not Bad. I'll put the chart up with the photos when I get them all posted. The motel was decidedly better than the one in Fresno, and the hot-tub was host to groups of 12 riders at a time, making for fun convo into the evening. Mr. Yellow was nowhere to be found, thankfully.

Each rider was supposed to sign up for one of the 7 days as their 'photo day'. On that day, you were supposed to follow the photo team to a pre-chosen spot, and do a løt of back-forth and posing for the camera. They also had a chase-truck with a camera mounted, that they'd have bikes follow through the turns to get action shots. Dusty and I had signed up for the next day, and while in the hot-tub I asked the photographers what was involved. Where would we meet? Should we gear differently? etc. I was told in no uncertain terms that, Hey, Sorry... this is for BUELLS as it's for a BUELL MAGAZINE. Do not show up. Showing up will make it difficult. The photo assistant was rather rude about this, in fact, which really broke my good mood. I went back to tell Dusty to go talk to the photographer to get his info for tomorrow, and that we'd ride separately the next day. I can understand their reasons, but I still felt it was handled a little harshly.

I fell asleep quickly, and solidly; I was tired. Thoughts of the wonderful national park we'd been in helped to get me un-grumpy, and overall I think the day went great. Tomorrow would be Tahoe, so things were looking uphill, both mood-wise and literally. The morning would be better.