Let’s start off with I had no intentions of riding in this weather. If you’re a commuter and ride a motorcycle every work day of the year you will at times get caught in weather and road conditions that are not ideal.
If it weren’t for the cage tire trails I’d be stuck. Riding on the center mush is very hard to do. Pick you line and stick with it.
I have never seen a sun and cloud formation like this before. I could see something falling from the sky but couldn’t tell if it was rain, snow or hail. In hndsight I should have known it wasn’t rain, there were remanence of ice on the road and top of the hill.
At this point I should also have decided if I wanted to ride that direction home or figure out an alternative route. At my current location it would mean possible an additional 30 mile detour.
If I were to be in this situation again my thought process would be to avoid the snow, hail and slush road conditions at all cost. Find another route home or wait it out somewhere nice and warm.
The ride to work in the morning is fairly chilly. It has been dipping down below the 30’s. Add the windchill factor and you’re going to feel it. The photo below was taken in the city of Ione. This is approximately 20 or so miles from home. I’m parked on the side of the road right near the Preston Castle.
As an example: the temperature this morning was 26F, riding along at an average speed of 50 MPH that’s a windchill factor calculation of 6F. Tell me that’s not cold.
Alright, full disclosure. I’m riding with heated gloves and jacket liner. I’ve been riding too long and no better. LOL!!
We’ve had crazy back to back storms. There was a couple days where the winds topped 60 miles per hour. Yeah, I rode to work. There were a few times I second guessed my decision to ride. Mostly in areas where it was too flooded to ride the sled through, trees that had fallen in the middle of the road and winds that were catching me from the side (crosswinds).
This is one of my go to spots on my way home from work. Not so much on my way to work as it is still normally dark. I don’t even know the name of this “look out” point It is near the Pardee Dam single lane road.
The mountain scape behind me is part of Mt. Diablo. Between us lays the San Joaquin Valley, Stockton CA. And Lodi.
Gassing up after a long Christmas and New Years holiday time off. Storms are coming in so riding in the mountains is not as spirited. Still heck of fun!
Rode the sled from work to Manteca for gear pickup. I took the freeways from Rancho Cordova and having a lane splitter makes the difference between a long night or not.
The temp this morning was around 41 degrees. It’s a little chilly but not too bad. I didn’t even turn in the heater grips or seat.
I had a spirited cat and mouse chase game on the country side twisted roads. A VW Golf GTI wanted to see if I could keep up and the fun began.
Let’s in the end the V-Dub pulled over to the side of the road and rolled down his windows and gave me the sweeping arm gesture to allow me to pass on by.
I’ll be 60 next year and I still can’t resist a friendly competition on the roadways.
I’ve been writing blogs on various topics for a really long time. It had started off when I used to travel all over the world for my employer at the time. That being said, I am consistent in posting to a blog regularly. I find the key is to make updates while your thoughts are fresh in memory. This may also mean depending on when you visit my site you may see a bulleted item I had uploaded to be further expanded once I was at a location to do so.
We met the seller in Stockton California. Both he and his wife drove into town the night before to avoid all the traffic highway work being down between meet point and Visalia California.
Even though the motorcycle purchase included a couple of helmets (one being large) I still brought my lucky Nolan N3 modular helmet. I haven’t used it much since it was fairly beat up after years of use and has gone through every weather condition imaginable. It was good thing I brought my helmet because the Shoei Neotec helmet did not fit my head when I tried it on. I could probably get away riding for a few miles and eventually one of my eyeballs would have popped out. It was freakin’ too tight.
My first ride on the Wing lasted 2 minutes. We decided to have breakfast at the local lumberjacks restaurant about 100 yards away.
The ride home was excellent! The bike handled better than I expected. I’ll look more into it but I believe the Centramatic Wheel Balancers (3 each) is making a huge difference in handling. The tapered All Balls Racing steering bearings and seal kit may also play a part in the ride difference. I tried testing for the 30-40 mile per hour no hands wobble and it was non-existent. The previous two Wings I owned both had this issue.
I’m very happy with this Goldwing, all we need to do is come up with a cool bike name.
