Clear Lake Ride Report (230 Miles Logged)

Click Here to see an active Google map of my route.

Hey everyone!  I went for a ride up north to Clear Lake today and unlike last weekends ride this one was about perfect.

You may notice that the route I wrote up on paper the night before the ride varies from the link I shared at the top of the post.  We'll get to that in a bit.

I woke up at 0615 threw some coffee on, did the normal morning routine stuff and made some breakfast.  I wanted to be on the road by 0700.  I'm not sure if I had mentioned this before but wearing the textile pants without a pair of jeans underneath did not go so well on my first ride.  The inside material gets clingy if you start to sweat and it's just not comfortable; so this time around I decided that I was going to wear jeans underneath and should I get too hot I would take the textile riding pants off and just wear the jeans.  It turns out that I made the right decision, while I was anticipating a hot day it actually stayed cool and I was able to ride with the textile jacked (sans liner) and the textile pants (with the jeans underneath) all day long with no issue.  Actually, there were points on the ride where I had wished that I had the jacket liner!

36.2 miles in on Berryessa Knoxville Rd after turning off of CA 128: I had pulled off the to take a picture and as soon as the tires hit the gravel I remembered that I most likely got the flat from a well placed rock.  I made sure from then on only to pull over where there was a paved shoulder.  I also made sure that I kept an eye out for rocks in the road as well and had a handful of times where I had to adjust my line mid-turn to avoid some rocks.  Though if I was still riding in Wisconsin I'd be dealing with loose gravel in almost every turn at this time of the year so no complaints. 

39.3 miles in on Berryessa Knoxville Rd at a turnout, The giants bird's nest on the capacitor bank caught my attention.  It turns out that it's actually set up with a pedestal for a birds nest to be built there.  The view the other way was spectacular!

50.0 miles in on Berryessa Knoxville Rd.  Access denied... The road was blocked off for the Napa Valley Triathlon   They weren't going to let anyone go through until all the bikers (who were just starting to come out of the water) cleared the 7 mile stretch of road that shared my route.  They said that the wait would be an hour and a half.  Luckily I had cell reception and was able to use my iPhone to plot another route which is the one you see at the link at the top of the post.  They had "special event ahead" signs posted and I have run into cycling events on Sundays past in Wisconsin and had to adjust my route accordingly so no big deal.  The park ranger and the policemen were accommodating so nothing to do but find another way.  I do need to invest in a good paper map that has all the smaller roads on it though.  This making a list of turns and hoping that everything goes to plan is going to bite me one of these times.

72.8 miles in on Pope Valley Rd I just though the clouds over the mountains in the distance looked cool.  Snapped a self-pic while I was at it.

123.1 miles in at Library Park in Lakeport, CA off of CA 29. A shot of the FZ, a couple of the lake and one of me with pretzels in my mouth.  At this point of the ride I was feeling pretty chilly; that's what 9 days in the 90's will do to you.  High 60s feel cold already.

168.8 miles in At Bear Creek Vista Point Overlook off of CA 20.  I just so happened to see the sign for the Scenic view and decided to pull off and take a couple of pictures.  This whole area must have had a wildfire go through the area as there were a lot of larger trees that looked scorched.  I really wish that I had a go-pro so I could have caught some footage of the CA 20/26 portion of the ride.  The roads were perfect CA 20 with long high speed sweepers that flowed together with easy transitions and CA 16 running pretty much downhill the whole way through a canyon that was cut out by the Bear Creek.  Just outstanding and the view was breathtaking,

Back at the hotel with 232.1 miles for the day roughly 6 hours of seat time (that's counting stops and a lunch break) not too bad.  I do have a couple of random thoughts that happened after the ride...

...Lucas Oil chain lube has to be the shittiest, runniest, stickiest chain lube ever made; I will never buy it again...

...This guy parked like a moron... That is all.

Hope you enjoyed the write-up should anything come up throughout the week I will make sure and share it here.  Thanks for reading!

Pre-transport Checks

I didn't do a good job with keeping the blog updated over the last 13 days.  It was all I could do to cross off the tasks on the never ending pre-departure list that my wife and I had come up with for the home and also selling as much clutter as possible on Craigslist.  I have to admit that had an effect on the motivation I had with performing some of the pre-transport maintenance that I had thought I would get done.  I would have just taken it to a shop but by the time I had realized that I was not going to be able to do it myself the all of the shops in Madison, WI had too long of a lead time before they could get to it.
I was never concerned about the bike leaving me stranded when it was my “toy” and I probably would have not even thought of doing all that stuff had I had more than the 1500 miles in the seat that I put on since I had bought it.  The guy that I had bought the bike from had an automotive shop that was very clean and had two other very well maintained bikes in it when I bought the FZ and I remember him listing all the stuff that he had done to the bike maintenance wise and hadn't written it down.  I did keep his contact info so I figured I’d give him a call and see if he remembered what he had done to the bike while he had it.

Here is the list he gave me:
- New Pilot Power 2CTs front and rear (31,000)
- Valve inspection and adjustment (31,000)
- Fresh oil change (Amsoil) (31,000)
- New Cutch (30,000)
- Flush cooling system and fresh antifreeze (30,000)
- Fresh fork seals and fork oil (30,000)
- New steering stem bearings
- Fresh brake fluid (29,000)
- New breaks all around (29,000)
- New chain and sprockets (29,000)
- New Yoshimura slip-on (29,000)

The conversation we had made me quite confident in the bike and in the previous owners skill he really knew the bike inside and out and put me at ease.

 After talking to him washed the whole bike, checked all the fluids and cleaned inspected and lubed the chain and sprockets.

I also had to go to the store and buy an new bolt for the rear mounting point for the chain guard as the original had worked it’s way loose somewhere along the road. I made sure to use some blue Loctite on the bolts when I reinstalled them.  After that I checked the break discs and pads for wear and they all far above the minimum spec.

Then I pulled the tank off the bike and checked the air filter and it was not the cleanest but still had a little life in it.  I do plan on ordering one as I get settled in California as no shops in Madison had the darn thing in stock.  Everybody was like “I can order it for you.”  And I was like, “No thanks I can order it for myself.” I know in this day and age of the internet it’s hard for shops to compete with the internet but you would think that they would at least be able to stock air filters!

At the end of the day I felt pretty confident that I had a good base to start commuting with.  I only hope that my trust in the previous owner was not misplaced.  I appreciate everyone who has been checking out the blog I am going to rip-off a few more today to get this up to date and I promise to be better about taking more pics and videos this post is pretty sparse!