 |
| Back to Rogue's Home |
 |
|
| Back to Rogue's Home |
| Slabbing It Against The Wind
After a quick, fast food lunch at Paso Robles, we hopped on Highway 101 for the slab north to San Francisco. I was nominated to lead the pack down the 101. On our way to Salinas, we hit very high winds, both sideways and head on. It was so strong that keeping my head at its normal position put it right in the wind buffet zone and it was quite uncomfortable and noisy. So, I ducked my head down a bit inside the very nice air bubble that my VFR800 was creating for me, which calmed things down. Nice. Unfortunately, the wind that was being deflected off my helmet went straight into my tank bag�s see-through map insert and.......whoosh! There went my detail map. Darn it! In addition, the wind redirected a bug or two into the map pocket! |
 |
| The fierce winds didn�t die down until we reached the city of Morgan Hill, just south of San Jose. There, we stopped to discuss our game plan for riding in San Francisco, have some ice cream, and do our restroom runs. We agreed to lane split in Bay Area rush hour, which we knew we�d hit as it was already 4:30PM when we were milling around in Morgan Hill. Russ did express his reservation about lane splitting on his Triumph Sprint ST with saddle bags, and as usual, it fell on deaf ears. Just kidding. We heard him, but we�d rather split lanes than do the stop and go for hours. |
 |
| Above: Now how'd he get in there? The wind was blowing so hard along the 101 Freeway, some of the blast got deflected off my chest and into the map pocket of my tank bag. Apparently, so did this poor fella. Left:: Discussing our next plan of action in the suburb of Morgan Hill. |
| Going Down Town
As we entered San Jose at 5PM, our predictions became reality and the 101 turned into a roving parking lot! Dave on his ZZR1200 was behind me as I lead the troop in between cars. But after a mile or so, Dave disappeared into the sea of cars & SUV�s in the Bay Area�s rush hour traffic. I finally found an obstacle that Dave couldn�t follow me in! Hee-hee. Just when I thought I was The Man as I lane split with confidence on my VFR, out of the corner of my eye appeared The Master of lane splitting: Ken and his V11 Guzzi, complete with saddlebags, gaining on me in the adjacent lane! I picked up the pace just to see what Ken could do but there was only so much The Master can accomplish in such thick traffic. Or perhaps he just let me go? I�m not sure now. I�m guessing Ken just let me lead. Ken and I got separated from the other three lane splitting virgins, Dave, Roger, and Russ simply because we were that good! Hah-hah! While they were drowning in the sea of cars and SUV�s, Ken and I were slicing through it like a jet ski slices water. And pretty soon, we reached our agreed upon exit and we jumped off the 101 like it was a bad habit. Unfortunately, the rest of the group, the one who got LOST, completely missed the exit. By the way, these are the same people who told us EXACTLY where to jump off the 101 and they never made it there. So who�s your Daddy? |
 |
Right: Ken and I spent almost a couple of hours looking for the lost group in San Jose. We tried to get in touch with the other riders via cell phone messages. Not a great way to communicate but it was all we got. The process went like this: Stop riding, remove helmet from head, remove hearing protection, call and leave voicemail message or listen to voicemail message, ride, then repeat. Suffice it to say, we were unsuccessfull! |
|