The BMW Club of Northern California’s Range of Light ride has stuck with me for a couple of weeks. Being up in Quincy reminded me how much I really do enjoy that part of California and how much I miss the many secondary roads that crisscross the landscape.

In the central Sierra, many motorcyclists know Carson, Evans, Sonora, and Tioga passes. However, in the Shasta Cascade, there are equally good highways: 32, the Feather River Canyon 70, Oroville–Quincy Highway, and Quincy–La Porte Road. My goal this weekend is to sneak through all four of those roads before winter starts making the highways inaccessible.

With Truckee and Tahoe becoming more and more crowded, I keep looking for other areas in California that have similar beauty but are significantly less populated. I’ve been poking at areas from Happy Camp to Graeagle to remind myself what’s out there and to find a pocket of the state to hold close. While I could leave Saturday and return Sunday, that would make for two very long days. I decided to leave Friday night and make it to Chico, setting myself up for a much more leisurely Saturday and Sunday.

I did a similar Friday night ride to Red Bluff in early May with my buddy J. I remember it being a very leisurely ride up the freeway with a beautiful sunset about two-thirds of the way through. I wanted to capture a Central Valley sunset on this ride, as I remember the beauty and tenderness of the sunset against the busy freeway as a moment to remember.

I left the Bay Area about 6 PM—the same time I did on the ride earlier in the year. What I didn’t connect was how much earlier the sunset would be tonight. Late summer doesn’t have the daylight profile that a late spring evening does. As many Fridays go, traffic was a complete grind for the first 20 minutes of the ride and then loosened up considerably. Crossing the Benicia Bridge, the traffic eased, but the wind quickly took its place. It had been a while since I’d been knocked around on that section of freeway. It wasn’t super aggressive, but it caught me off guard if I didn’t keep the wind in focus.

Sunset came about a third of the way up Interstate 505. I was hoping to make it to Interstate 5, but that wasn’t in the cards for the evening. That being said, the clouds tonight were significantly more prolific than they were back in early May—creating an equally dramatic sunset.

Everybody around me was going somewhere, and aggressively so. This freeway is the epitome of busy. Many of us travel at a high rate of speed, together getting to disparate places all around the area. The bike’s low fuel warning started flashing, and I didn’t have an easy answer to silence as. I don’t really know this part of California like I do the Sierra Nevada, the North Coast, and the Central Coast. To make matters worse, I didn’t have Internet, so I wasn’t really sure where to go either.

Patience eventually paid off—even though it took more nerve than I was willing to admit.

With a tank full of gas, I headed back to the freeway at full speed. By the time I was climbing the bridge to cross over Interstate 5, it was dark. As the bridge plunged down toward the freeway into the darkness, the pavement seemed to all but disappear. Oh fudge! They were paving Interstate 5 in Yolo County. The pavement was stripped away, and what was a mellow evening cruise turned into a nerve-wracking ride up the disheveled freeway, surrounded by angry cars and trucks flying up the freeway as frustrated as I was.

Throughout the construction zone, cars and trucks ahead of me threw up dust, dirt, and rocks from the road with little reprieve. Ugh. Dinner was calling in Williams, and the relative difficulty of the ride was starting to wear on me. It was dark. Aggressive traffic was all around me. Furthermore, it felt like the road was barely hanging on throughout the construction zone.

I landed in Williams about 8:15 PM, frustrated with the relative difficulty of the ride tonight. Somehow, I had it in my mind that this was going to be an easy sunset cruise—and the reality was anything but. They say a bad day on a motorcycle is still better than a great day in the office—and in most cases, I agree. Tonight was touching the harder part of adventuring. Dinner tonight is at Granzella’s, a find near the Tesla supercharger station that I’d come to know their fantastic meatball sandwich. I’d stumbled into this restaurant making my way back and forth from Canada, as Williams is right about the distance for my battery needing a charge heading north to Canada.

The meatball sandwich is a solid eight out of ten. It’s no Southie, but for a hungry, tired motorcyclist—this meatball sandwich could’ve been a twelve out of ten. Granzella’s is a regular stop for me when I go through this area. With the EV, it’s almost a mandatory stop. With the motorcycle—I choose to stop here.

With the construction zone and dinner behind me, I shifted to focus on time and miles in the saddle. Only an hour and change remained in the ride. I could feel night’s grip tightening as the air got significantly cooler heading further north into the valley. I had made the decision to stick to the freeway all the way up to Orland rather than snake through small towns in the Central Valley on secondary highways. Somehow, staying on the super slab felt better, as I didn’t want a critter to jump onto the road from the darkness all around me.

I was about five miles out of Chico on Highway 32 and found the road backed up due to one-way traffic from an intensive paving operation in town. Uuuuugggggghhhhh! I’m so close!! I debated sneaking up to the flagger on the right-hand side. My butt was getting sore, so I could use the time to stretch. After about ten minutes, I rode up to the front of the line to talk to the flagger to see how long we were going to be held. She laughed and flipped the sign, letting us all through.

I touched down a little bit after 10, scratching my head, thinking this ride was nothing like the ride in May, yet it was effectively the same ride. That’s what makes motorcycling adventurous. Sometimes the exact same thing can feel radically different based on the weather, time of year, traffic, pavement—you name it. It’s always an adventure out there!

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