This ride came up all of a sudden for me. My wife had a trip up to see my son in Wyoming, scheduled for March 30^th to April 3^rd and I was planning on doing a pre-ride for the SabMag SoCal 2006 ride I’ve planned for the 8^th of April. Then around March 23^rd, I got the crazy idea to go on the April Fool’s Day ride that Dave was planning to go on.

Getting off of work was easier then getting the kitchen pass, in spite of the fact that Chris would be out of town. In the end, all of her thoughts on what I should be doing instead of going to Sacramento, fell apart anyway. Including, watching the boys (Dereck 21 & Brett 16, they are good kids and don’t need watching), taking a pre-run of the route with Bobby, my oldest son, with me so he could get in more “riding time” on my V45 Sabre I’m selling him. Well it’s like this; Bobby decided to go out to the desert and took Dereck and Brett with him. That took care of those issues. And from what I understand, it rained down here on Saturday, so I wouldn’t have gone out for a pre-ride anyway. So I was glad I made the right decision by going to Sacramento for the Pashnit April Fool’s Ride!

My ride started by having to go into work for a couple of hours. I was also tagged that morning to bring donuts in. When I stopped at the donut shop, a couple of   guys started asking me about the ST, then asked me how I was going to carry two dozen donuts on the bike. I told one of the guys, “very carefully!” (-:   I was able to rearrange things, so I could put the donuts in the top case, The topcase was big enough I set them in it, side by side!

Once at work, I quickly made sure everything I needed to take care of was done and I left at 10am. 17 miles into the ride on I215 north bound, it started raining on me. That lasted for the next 25 miles. Once I got up to the High Desert, things were dry. And although there were broken clouds and a little sun here and there, no rain. My first stop was Tehachapi where it was breezy and cool. When I stopped, there was a group of about 10 bikes on their way east to Laughlin, NV. After downing a Pepsi, I jumped back on the bike and started down the mountain to Bakersfield. My plan was to follow 58 out to I5, so I picked my way through Bakersfield, which seems to take longer and longer with all the construction on 58 between 99 and I5. I really don’t think you save that much more time these days.  Even though I5 is faster, 99 now has three lanes around most of the towns, so the traffic doesn’t seem to back up like it use to.

Once I got to I5, a little TB was setting in, so I figured I’d stop for gas and a hamburger.  As I was walking out of Carl’s Jr., it started raining. At first it was real light and I thought “this ain’t so bad...”. But it didn’t take long and I was going through parts where it was really heavy. At one point, in Westley (near where I5 heads to Stockton and 580 heads to SF) it was coming down so hard that I stopped at the rest stop there and even parked my bike under one of the picnic covers. I sat there for about an hour waiting for it to die down enough so I could continue. I did see a double rainbow while waiting! (-:

Once the rain had gone back to a light rain, instead of a steady down pour, I put on my gear and headed out again. I was only about 70 miles away from Dave’s home, but it was a very long 70 miles!  It continued to rain on me until I got there. This gave me a chance to find out how good my rain gear wasn’t. I wasn’t soaked, but I was damp in a number of places. Time to look for new rain gear! 

The next morning, Dave and I packed up, got our two-way radios working and off we went. Of course, as soon as we were ready to ride, it started raining. It rained until we were out of Sacramento and threatened to rain all the way to Dixon, but it didn’t. Once in Dixon, we had some breakfast, topped off our gas tanks, then headed to the 76 station, a mile back, where we would meet up with the rest of the Pashnit April Fool’s ride group.

Including Dave and I, 12 bikes showed up. Good turn out considering the weather. Once Jim (Wanderlust – there was two Jim’s and three Bob’s – got to ID us with our handles) figured everyone was there that was going to show up, we broke up into two groups with the Sport Touring bikes going first and the cruisers bringing up the rear. Once we started hitting the wet curves, the group started getting more separated. Some weren’t to sure about the traction of their tires, and of course, the cruisers were not on roads made for them. Our first stop was the dam at Lake Berryessa. Lake Berryessa had some history for our family that I didn’t know about. When I was about four years old (yes, at one time I was that young), Dave’s and my dad worked for State Highways (now called CalTrans) as a surveyor and was working near Lake Berryessa. The under brush was so thick, he had sharpened his long handled axe so that you could shave with it.  While clearing brush the axe glanced off of some scrub oak he was trying to cut and the axe went through his foot. I remember the axe going through his foot and him being on crutches and all, but I never knew where it happened until this ride when Dave mentioned it over the radio.

While at the dam, I think it was Syd (FishWitch), said something about the “Glory Hole”. I had no idea what she was talking about until she said it was right over on the other side of the fence. So I went to look and I was very surprised to see this big funnel like thing in the lake sucking water in. Actually, once the water hits a particular height, the water starts flowing into it, to keep the dam from overflowing, interesting needless to say.

Since neither Dave nor I were familiar with any of these roads we were on, we just followed everyone else. One road was pretty narrow, windy and not as well maintained as the rest. At one curve, I almost misjudged it and took it too tight, but I powered the ST up and was able to pull out of it. I guess Bob (Driftwood) miss judged one of the curves too and had a miss-hap. I heard it wasn’t too bad, but enough that he decided that he had enough fun in the wet stuff and headed home. By the time I got off of that road, I was a bit on the motion sickness side of things. I guess I’m one of the few that can get motion sickness riding a motorcycle. )-:  I was glad to see that road gone. 

Wherever Jim (Wanderlust) was taking us, we just followed, continuing on a number of other country roads, all of which were great roads for riding and scenery! My kind of roads!  (-:   The rain was pretty much off and on. As soon as we thought the sun was coming out, it would cloud up again and we would get some more wet stuff.

We found our way to Guerneville where we stopped and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. I usually don’t do too well with Mexican food anyway, so I thought I would just have something light. Light turned out to be a Chicken enchilada and a Beef Quesida (sp?). Ha, the Quesida was huge! I ate maybe half of both and decided I better stop there. Which later turned out that I ate too much as it was. It was probably the spices, but something didn’t like me. (I really didn’t start feeling it until we got back to Dave’s later, but it kept me up pretty much most of that night.)

After lunch we decided we best get back to Sacramento so that we could take our Mom and Dave’s better half out to dinner.  Dave said our good-byes for us and we took off on HWY116 to 12 then to 101 then to 37 on over to I80. Once we got within a few miles of I80, any threat of rain was pretty much over and besides a little stop, we pretty much flew back to Dave’s. The ride back was pretty straightforward and we didn’t have any issues other a BDC here and there. Only once was I ready to slap a mirror, but one BDC driver saw that cutting between us was not a smart thing to do, he fell back and we didn’t see him again. All we did was; I hit him with my brights, Dave slowed down a little bit, then I did a speed pass to catch back up with Dave and he pretty much left us alone after that.

At our little rest stop off I80, Dave and I swapped saddles. So I had his Corbin and he had HIS stock saddle. Hum, I hate telling Big Bro, but I think I’m going to be happier with my Russell Day-Long. It helped butt, I still say a Russell is better then a Corbin any day.  We shall see. (-:   BTW, my Russell build date [April 21^st] is getting closer!  (-:

On Sunday morning, without the necessary sleep for a ride like I was about to do, I loaded things up and at 8am, Dave and I took off.  Dave had decided to ride down with me to Modesto where he TOOK his Corbin seat back and made me suffer the rest of the way home on the stock saddle (which I might mention is his original saddle, since mine is sitting up at Russell’s for a conversion to a Day-Long saddle!  (-:  )  Anyway, that was about 65 miles, then at about  the 120 mile mark, I had to make another stop. And for the next hour or so, I stopped about every 30 miles because my VSB was setting in big time and I was really tired!

After a few of those quicky stops, I was able to extend out the riding times and cut back on the break times, but I still had VSB!  I rolled into the house around 6:30pm or so. I didn’t feel that was too bad, since I was to avoid any more RAIN, and I was taking somewhat easy. Boy was I tired!   )-:   the nice thing about getting home was that nobody else was at home!  Chris was still in Wyoming and the boys were still out at the desert! Piece and quiet! (-:

Besides the rain, the food that didn’t like me and whatever else there was to try to spoil this ride, I really enjoyed the ride and was very pleased with the riders of the group and how well they all handled everything.  I look forward to going up again sometime and joining you for another ride.

Many thanks to Jim (Wanderlust) for putting this together, even if there was a little rain here and there, it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle! 

See all the pictures: Pashnit April Fool's Ride Pictures