The Long Way Around

Yes. I screwed up. Yes. I deserved this. Though I should say in my defense, my passing on the right was going by a dude who was making a really slow left hand and was simply not done with his turn. He was out of the lane.

I just couldn't bother to argue this point. An according to Patrick, this is not illegal in California.

Sigh. Another reason today sucked.

...and not so much by the police.

But, I get ahead of myself.

This past weekend was the Three Peaks Challenge, put on by the Vespa Club of Los Gatos. Leading the ride was Rich, Glasseye on ModernVespa.com, taking a gaggle of us scooterists up to each of the big peaks in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The entire week, I had been making preparations back and forth between the San Francisco folk (Patrick, who won the Cannonball Run in '06 for the vintage class, Ryan who was to be Knighted that day, Scott who was smart enough to go to the chripractor's the day before, and Lucky, who somehow managed to be awake more than any of us at 7:00AM), knowing full well that the weather prediction called for rain on Saturday near every peak we'd be at. Bad news. The decision was made at some point that at the very least, Ryan would be knighted, but we would try the Three Peaks Challenge if the weather didn't turn out to be too bad.

We got lucky.

Misty in SF at 7:20 by departure time, the ground was covered in a slick glaze of oil and water which made the Octavia onramp to 101 a bit more slippery than I'd want, but the ride to San Jose was remarkably fast. We met up at the Bite of Wyoming (a very small little eatery) by 8:15, said our hellos to the VCLG and milled about until the rest of the people showed. Coffee was had, and slowly but surely the remainder of the people showed up - around 15 or so of us to take the challenge.

Josh (of Scoot! Quarterly fame) was using a Kymco People 250 that Rich was using prior, but unfortunately he did not fill the tank after having assumed that Rich had done that. Kymcos have a habit of lying severely when it comes to gas gauges, and this would bite us in the ass later.

Once Bagel was done eating breakfast, we all set out for Mt. Hamilton. On this trip, we had several interesting bikes with us:
1) Unstealth - Patrick's bike, the very small frame that did the Cannonball Run in '06. The bike is insane, the fastest small frame I've ever seen. Made a lot of GTS' eat crow.
2) Valentino - Rachel's MP3 that Jess was borrowing. It was a bit like cheating, yes, but the MP3 needed to be put through its paces. Plus, Jess had the sword for Ryan's knighting, and that needed to be taken to Mt. Tam somehow. The MP3 seemed a reasonable cargo van.
3) DaBinChe's Ruckus - that's right, a kitted 50cc Honda Ruckus made the Three Peaks Challenge. DaBinChe's a damned good rider, and seemingly a bit nuts.

The first to the top of Hamilton, and basically every peak, were always Rich, Patrick, and Jed. It was all the rest of us could do to keep up. Hamilton was by far the most difficult of the mountains, with switchbacks galore and narrow roads curling into blind turns - just the sort of thing a scooterist likes to careen up at 35 miles per hour.

We did pretty much exactly that. At the top of Hamilton we took a brief moment to breathe and let a few bikers analyze Rachel's MP3, and then we were back on down the other side of the mountain through Livermore to Walnut Creek.

That's when I discovered that apparently I was leaning more than I thought I was.

Somewhere in those back roads, I heard several loud scratches and felt my steering go a little funny in the turns. It would happen that I scraped both the center stand and the security loop on the GT. Examples:




It might not look like much, but understand exactly how far one has to be leaning in order to get that particular scuff. An example. Below is a picture of a GT modified to display the lean necessary to scuff that particular loop:



This is accomplished (without falling off) by a technique called, "dragging the knee" or "dropping the knee". You've seen it before on the cover of motorcycle mags - this is an extreme example:



Now, I don't think I'd ever ride like that, as I greatly appreciate the skin present on the surface of my knee. But, there were some very tight leans that required a bit more controlled balance and center of gravity to pull off, and lo - the center stand and security loop get scraped.

After Hamilton, Josh's Kymco situation caught up to him - he ran out of gas close to Livermore (about a mile). We caught him pushing his bike and decided it's probably a good idea to give him some of our gas, so we filled up an empty water bottle and siphoned some gas into the Kymco (enough to get him to the next station). We filled up and were on our way to Diablo.

Diablo was where the police caught up to us. The trip was already squirrely enough given we passed a whole line of Harley riders up near North Gate road, but after that we rolled up, paid our $6 apiece ('cept for one of the Bobs, and Rolf, who qualified for the senior discount), and we rode up to the peak. Unfortunately, some of us were speeding a bit. The Ranger station heard us come by and decided to persue, but they had problems keeping up with these aforementioned speeders. Unfortunately, the rangers got their chance at Devil's Elbow, when Rich hit some gravel on a sharp turn and went down. Fortunately, Rich is OK with the exception of a sprained ankle, but this gave the rangers the opportunity they were looking for to catch us all as we one by one found Rich and pulled over to help. Our licenses were in their hands the next minute, and we all waited patiently for our fate.

The ranger suggested we thank Rich for dropping the GT, which avoided us getting officially clocked by the police and getting citations.

The moral of the story here is simple: try not to ride too fast on Mt. Diablo. It's tempting, but nothing says "high insurance" like a speeding ticket.

We waited for Rich to feel a bit better and proceeded up the rest of Mt. Diablo, then took it back down to Walnut Creek where we ate at a deli next to Vespa Walnut Creek.

After lunch (which happened at 2pm), we headed off to Mt. Tam, my old stomping grounds. We rode through Richmond to the Richmond / San Rafael bridge (including DaBinChe, on the Ruckus[!]) and made our way to Sir Francis Drake through Magnolia, up Mill Valley and towards Tam's East Peak without incident. At the top of East Peak, Ryan proceeded to get knighted in the cold, witnessed by Lucky and Jess, and the sword was passed on to him for the next Knighting.

With the brief ceremony (it was a bit on the chilly side to be taking too much longer, plus many of the people on the ride had another 70 miles or more to ride back home), we headed off, Jed and I up 101 North. I ended up with around 280 or so mi for the day, a few new scratches on my center stand, and a whole lot more tired. Still, though, I was excited about the challenge and the learning I did that day as a rider, and I know for certain my next run in '07 will be much better (and likely on the Honda Elite 250).

Thanks again go out to Vespa Club of Los Gatos for the excellent ride. That was definitely a day I don't anticipate forgetting any time soon.  It was a pleasure to ride with so many phenomenal riders (Patrick, Jed, I'm looking at you), and I am glad I made it out with you guys.

Pictures up in the gallery, but none of them are mine. Scott and Rich are the photographers. Click on the pic for more...