Category: Bay Area
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Lifelong Learning: A Ride In the Rain
Tyler, a good friend of mine and a wonderful person in the motorcycling community, recounts a story that I never really understood. She was riding through Kern Canyon at night in the pouring rain. She spoke of that evening as a wonderful experience and as I listened intently I kept thinking what an awful ride…
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Going to See the Bay Model
The Bay Model is a fully functional representation of San Francisco Bay. Scientists in the 1940s and 1950s were looking for ways to understand the ecosystem around the bay. Since computer technology was not near as advanced then as it is today, scientists had an alternate solution. They built a to scale model of San…
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Up to San Francisco!
Wow, it’s hard to believe a year has gone by. The Death Valley ride generally marks the closing of the riding season for the fair weather riders in California. The climate here is such that one can write a motorcycle from the Bay Area all year long. The destinations will differ by the season but…
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Returning to the Marin County Coast
A few months ago a buddy and I went out hiking near the Green Gulch Zen Center. When I was first moved to California my future hiring manager took me to this hike. It’s a steep, but short hike up to the ridge line and the hike has great views of San Francisco and the…
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Good Night San Francisco!
Earlier in the week I was up in the city taking photos of the Bay Bridge at sunrise. People were talking about this so-called quote “super moon” this weekend. I heard through the web that there would be great photo opportunities at the Golden Gate Bridge. While websites like Meetup and Facebook are great to…
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Good Morning San Francisco!
A friend of mine, Matt, took a photo of the Bay Bridge and posted it on Facebook. I was very much intriuged by the photo and wanted to try my own to see if I could capture the same sort of sentiment. I had another “get up at the crack of dawn” to capture the…
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No Poppies
I was headed out to Arastradero park to see if I could find some poppies. I’ve seen them by the freeway a number of times this spring in good color. The park usually has some good flowers to photograph this time of year. I had the afternoon free, so I figured it was a good…
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East Bay Fun
Inertia is a very powerful thing. Because I am used to the Santa Cruz Mountains and love the ocean, I very rarely ride out in the East Bay. On top of that, I’ve never really been particularly fond of Mount Hamilton nor Sierra Road. Mount Hamilton is a slow technical ride. The road quality isn’t…
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Easter Sunrise: A Bay Area Motorcycle Tradition
Easter morning brings about an interesting tradition amongst Bay Area motorcyclists. Depending on the weather anywhere from a few to a few hundred motorcycles gather at the top of Mount Tamalpias to see the sunrise. My first time at the event was in 2008 when the weather was good. Last year there was a big…
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Seabright Beach: A few rays of sun in the clouds
It really has been a dry winter. Most of December, January, and February were sunny days in the mid 60s. Not a bad way to get through this thing called winter. However, to our benefit and dismay it is been raining most days in March. The whole week it has been raining. Most places rain…
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Santa Cruz Scrub
This was pretty much the perfect weekend to ride. It’s been a fairly mild winter overall, but even so when a day pops up with clear skies and temperatures near the 70s it’s time to ride! John came down from Sacramento and was interested in running some of the local roads up in the redwood…
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Happy Halloween from Mountain View
A number of years ago a roommate of mine stumbled up on a homeowner in the area that liked Halloween to a completely new level! Brent Ross, a local in Mountain View, stages a Halloween display that is pretty awesome. The display is fully mechanized and scripted. It fully covers his front yard and while…
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Backroads Boggie in the Bay
A good friend of mine was in town and was looking to do a little riding around the bay as he’s often here on business and has never been riding out here. I didn’t know much in the way of bike rental in this area other than Dubbelju and EagleRider. Rob however found something a…
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Day 4: A New Way Home (285 Miles)
The rain and snow never really materialized over the Kings Canyon area so I was in luck. The weather was good and the loud as all get out stream was still rolling in the morning! Normally I just take 180 out to 99 to 152 to 101. CA-180 is a nice ride down to Sanger…
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There’s Gold in that Thar Bridge! – 120 Miles
So it’s been a long time since I’ve done posting of riding adventures. The weather here has been a bit of boondoggle being so cold and wet this late into the year. We were supposed to get some sun on Thursday so I was looking forward to getting out and riding! I’ve wanted to catch…
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Waterfall Loop at Big Basin – 11 miles (by foot)
I’ve been traveling a lot these days and was looking forward to having the long weekend at home. I’ve not enjoyed a lot of the close to home treasures so it was fun to hang out into my virtual backyard and see Big Basin. The last time I was there was about 5 years ago.…
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Dawn Patrol (44 miles)
I’ve sort of fallen into doing a number of rides based on solar events. Most of the summer it is moon rides. Now that it’s winter and the sunrise is late in the morning I’m starting to do sunrise rides. Personally the sunrise is one of those things I never tire of. Getting up early…
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The 20 year ride
Day 1: 191 miles I got an invite to go on a ride with some of my co workers. It turns out that this ride has been going on for about the last 20 years as the Memorial Day lap around northern California. This year they decided to move it out a week. I am…
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The Oh Dark Thirty Ride – Easter Sunday
Part of me (well a lot of me) felt odd telling Anel that I was going to bed at 9pm on a Saturday night, but the morning was quickly coming. I wanted to tell myself it was so early, but too many things made this year the year: A full moon, dry roads, no rain..…
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Pigeon Point and Linux
I had one of those “I’ve got a few hours to play with” on Sat and decided to take the bike out for a short ride along the coast… Like most folks have said, it was a great weekend to be out. Unlike the newbie ride of a week ago, the weather was perfect. Clear…