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A Ride on the Todd Eagan Expressway

jamileh

jamileh

Cruisin' Guzzisti
GT Contributor
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
232
Location
Visalia, CA
I had a little adventure in Central Cali yesterday, involving rain, wild pigs, rainbows, mud, the usual gorgeous scenery, and the always thrilling RC. took a back road - Los Gatos Creek Rd - out of Coalinga, looking for the lost city of San Benito. Ended up on Hwy 25, which is a great moto road, gassed up in Tres Pinos where the station owner said "do NOT take Old Hernandez Rd", which was exactly the road I was looking for. Unfortunately, I heard "full speed ahead", and this was the result - I've renamed it the Todd Eagan Expressway:

mudderguzzi075.jpg


I chickened out a 1/4 mile into the mud, managed to turn the bike around without dropping it, and made a hasty retreat for the pavement. Todd, you would absolutely have loved it - I could have met you somehow at the other end......

Old Hernandez started out benignly enough:

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After I got the RC turned around and onto harder mud, I had to run back and get my helmet, which I had taken off to see better while extricating the bike:

mudderguzzi076.jpg


Some shots from Los Gatos Rd earlier:

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this might have been on Cienaga road west of 25:

mudderguzzi045.jpg


Final gas stop in Coalinga on the way home:

mudderguzzi085.jpg


Oh, the wild pigs: coming home on 25, I saw a veritable herd (at least 10, I swear) of wild pigs in a field to my right. Of course, they decided to run across the road right then - and single file. I had to brake hard not to clip the last one. I have never seen anything like that in my life. They were all different colors: some black, some tan, even a spotted one, I swear. My hands were shaking too badly to get a picture, especially since i had just gotten out of the mud about 20 mins earlier.....
Man, what a day!!!
 
Spotted ? Kinda like looking up at the bottom of a JD bottle :laugh: Nice pics, looks like a fun adventure. Spots:woohoo: :silly: :lol: :p
 
Young wild pigs indeed have a kind of pattern that can appear dotted, at least they do here...

marcassin-3.jpg


Nice roads, Jam! Not really for them high-heeled shoes, though ;)
 
Jam, I'm going to give you your own column here on GT. Spectacular ride and photos, really. Nice.

"Old Hernandez" looks like my kind of road, but perhaps even a little too muddy for my Jackal... but I can imagine it on a Stelvio TT. :woohoo:

Great post. More. Soon. ;)

Edit: Come to think of it, I have done Hernandez on the Jackal, sans mud.
 
Hey J, nice adventure, nice photos. You sure are riding a lot more than I am these days, though I'm finally pretty much at the end of playing with jetting on T3/1000S, about ready to get them the work they need (minor but annoying oil pan leak, + new trick floating brake rotor for right front on T3; probably head work on S-both running actually real well anyway); Norge needs nothing but to be ridden. Looks like we even have a break in the rain for a day or two to make it possible. Yeah Todd, J get's her own column, starts a new career as a moto-adventure travel-journalist...

About J's disco boots-they ARE necessary, given her lack of inseam, on any roads-or, more corrrectly, anytime she stops. I think my similarly elevated boots were her inspiration, & for the same reasons. They help a lot for us short folk.
 
Heh ... there was a time when short-legged people were preferred for ... the cavalry ... as they looked more elegant on horse back than people like me who're all legs. Of course, that was back in Napoleon's days B)
 
First let me admit that I'm kind of a neat freak when it comes to keeping my motorcycles fresh & clean. That being said, in my personal opinion, that RC is MUCH too pretty a bike to ride on mud :eek:hmy: . But it does look like a great ride otherwise.
 
stmike wrote:
First let me admit that I'm kind of a neat freak when it comes to keeping my motorcycles fresh & clean. That being said, in my personal opinion, that RC is MUCH too pretty a bike to ride on mud :eek:hmy: . But it does look like a great ride otherwise.
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+1 on that. I get pissed when I have to go thru a intersection with running or standing water from the gutters. Guess I spend to much time cleaning, but I refuse to ride it if its dirty. Now my truck on the other hand..................cant remember the last time I washed it. :laugh:

Great photos J, thanks for sharing!
 
guzzibob wrote:
I think my similarly elevated boots were her inspiration, & for the same reasons. They help a lot for us short folk.
Click to expand...

......and here I thought they were like that so when you have us all lined up, standing at attention, getting chewed out for doing dumb, dangerous stuff, you could yell right in our faces.....
 
Great pics, lovely country, reminds me a bit of round here.

One of the things that this proves is that Charlie and Ewan have a lot to answer for. A lot of the tossers on 'ADV Bike' or whatever that site is where they discuss coffee shops and dildo holders wouldn't DREAM in a million years of tackling a bit of wet clay on their "adventure' bikes but here's a perfectly normal nutter taking his LeMans for a bit of a walk in the woods.

How did it go? Perfectly fine by the look of it! My 1200 Griso and it's 1100 predecesor frequently plod about on roads like that and, surprisingly enough, neither I or they are dead yet! MIRACLE!!!! (Not!).

Obviously these aren't the roads it was specifically designed for but a V11, or any other Guzzi, will handle just about any sort of road that is one up from a fire trail. Good lord, I took my 'Vert over some rather hairy passes in Colorado, it was 25 years old and had skinny little road tyres. The biggest fear I had ws that I'd get mud jammed under the front mudguard and slither off in an embarassing mess, but it didn't happen, (And it was VERY muddy!).

Yeah, I'm sure that a Stelvio will get to the pub at the end of 100Km of dirt road before I arrive on the Griso, but I'll also bet you that if you want to prove how much quicker you were you'll have to tip the second beer in the slops tray and bribe the barmaid:p

Pete
 
You guys are hilarious - except Pete, of course. What a dud that guy is.... (I'm still laughing at your post, Mr. Roper.....)
Hey, if I only rode when my bike was clean, I'd have perhaps 50 miles on the odo. And yes, the RC is gorgeous, but she's no Princess and the Pea: as some of you know and I'm finding out - she seems to love going anywhere and everywhere, and with nary a complaint!! What a great all-around moto....
I especially liked the "elegant" comment - that's exactly the word I've been searching for to describe the figures Safety Bob and I cut on our motos - I'm sure you Outlaws would agree.
I swear, Todd, I felt your presence on Old Hernandez - somehow knew you had been there and ridden its length on something named Moto Guzzi....
LET'S RIDE!!!!

(Wikipedia also confirms the existence of spotted wild pigs - thank you RJVB - which I checked after Lupo not surprisingly called me out like that....)
 
I find the Ballabio with those nice high dirt bike bars is perfect for tearing up dirt roads. :p

Almost as much fun as on pavement.
 
jamileh wrote:
I especially liked the "elegant" comment - that's exactly the word I've been searching for to describe the figures Safety Bob and I cut on our motos - I'm sure you Outlaws would agree.
Click to expand...

Yeah, elegant, that's the ticket. But just to make things clear, J is way, way braver than me when it comes to riding off road. For me, 20-30 feet max from the road in to a dirt parking lot is all the off road adventure I want. So tell me J, if you took a dump on that deserted muddy road, how exactly were you gonna get that thing upright? I'm thinkin', barring somebody coming down that road to bail you out, the answer would be: "no how, no way, ever." You'd still be there, unless some coyotes or the like came along & decided you'd make a tasty snack...
 
Ok, first of all, Pete, you know I was totally kidding, right? i love reading your posts - I laugh out loud every time, no matter what the subject is....
Now, Bob, I was in fact mulling over that very question as I started working on getting the bike turned around, which was no small feat. Once I got the RC perpendicular to the road, by pushing it fron off the bike, and letting it drift back, I got on the bike, rode it forward a bit, then left it drift back to the sloped "shoulder", rode it forward again but slightly more to the left, drifted it back, etc... a VERY ugly 7-point turn, if you will. My plan, should things have gone awry, was to walk to the nearest farmhouse, ask to use the phone, call my insurance co, and utilize my very handy-dandy roadside assistance. I could have given them very specific directions. I know the plan would not have gotten me any Guzzi-style points, but I believe it would have worked, and I would have avoided being wild-pig bait. So what say you? Come on, lay it on me.
 
jamileh wrote:
Ok, first of all, Pete, you know I was totally kidding, right? i love reading your posts - I laugh out loud every time, no matter what the subject is....
Click to expand...

No, I realized that, but I made an assumption. While not wanting to go all 'Politically Correct' whiney and fucktardian that fact remains I made an assumption which was wrong and therefore an apology was in order. Having said that female Guzzi riders are as rare as hen's teeth or, probably more appropriately, tits on a bull. Problem is when your only frame of refference is a pair of muddy boots at the end of a pair of riding pants doing the 'Rider Sexing' thing is probably on a par with what chicken sexers have to do when sorting out which ones might lay eggs and which ones go in the mincer.

For all I know you may have extremely comely legs which even a blind, deaf, ill-tempered old fart like me would be able to recognise as female but encased in the anodyne androgeny of motorbike clothing I think you'll admit is is a tough call :laugh: .

Lupo ought to be carefull though otherwise I'll start posting pics of me in fishnet tights and then would you be....?????:p

Pete
 
Are those the pix that were taken late one night at the Nat'l Rally in Malibu last June?
 
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