East Bay Hills Ride

May 18, 2003

Write up by Peter aka BlackThundercat

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY:
Blue skies, dry roads and a nice cool breeze!

RIDERS:
Peter – YZF600R
Rich – R1
Jimil – YZF600R
Mark – SV650
Jimmy – '90 CBR600F
Les – VFR
Chuck – ZXR
Jerry – Kantana

This was a NorCalYZF600Rs / CanyonSrafer ride with a little ZXR group
thrown in for flavor.

The meet was Safeway at the corner of Redwood Rd & Castro Valley Blvd
in Castro Valley at 10 am. Rich, Jimil and I (Peter) met up in
Pleasanton at about 9:40 am and blazed 580 to Castro Valley together.
When we got to the intersection of Redwood Rd & Castro Valley Blvd we
saw Jerry in the Safeway parking lot and signaled to him we were going
to hit the gas station across the street to fill up the tanks.
After gassing up when we arrived at the Safeway parking lot, Chuck was
also there. We said our hello's and a couple of minutes later my
friend Jimmy showed up on his brand new looking '90 CBR600F. Talk
about babying a bike. It was a little after 10:00 at that point and we
were discussing who else had confirmed they would be making the ride.
The only other "confirmed" riders were East Bay Dave from the
CanyonStrafers and Mark from NorCalYZF600Rs. About 10:15, Les pulls
up. Leave it to the guy who lives 5 minutes away to show up 15 minutes
late. We said our hello's to Les and kept waiting for Dave and Mark.
10:20 then 10:25, still no show, no call, time to rename "East Bay
Dave" "NO SHOW Dave" and hit the road. Just as I'm about to put my
2nd ear plug in I heard my cell phone ring. It's Mark asking, "Where
are you guys?" My answer was of coarse, "At the meet spot, where the
hell are you". It turns out he took the wrong exit off the freeway and
was about a mile up the road, so much for posting directions to the
meet spot (sorry Mark, had to say it). Finally about 10:35 am we see
Mark pulling in and he barely pulls in and we have our helmets on and
are ready to leave.

With all the talk about LEOs out we took it nice and easy heading up
Redwood Road until we passed the golf coarse. My friend Jimmy ended up
in the lead followed by Jimil, Rich, me and then the rest of the
group. Now Jimmy is a good rider and faster than me, but I doubt he
could come close to keeping up with Rich or Jimil when riding their
normal brisk pace. I was therefore very surprised that neither Rich
or Jimil made any attempt to pass him and take the lead. It ended up
being a new experience for me, actually being able to follow Rich ride
threw the twisties for more than 90 seconds.

Being the nice day that it was, we encountered a fair share of cages
and bicycles along the way. I do have to say though more than on any
other ride, after the first couple of us passed cars over the yellow,
they made an effort to move over to the let the rest of us pass. Jimmy
made an unplanned stop to regroup at Pinehurst and then we headed up
towards Skyline. The peaking order changed and when we hit Skyline and
Redwood (our planned regroup spot) the first 4 kept on going. I was in
the number 5 slot with Chuck right behind me, then Les and
then………………………………….Mark. When I started to turn off from Redwood to
Skyline Mark was no where in sight, so I pulled over with Chuck. Les
stopped farther back still on Redwood and waited for Mark. Mark had
never been on these roads before, so there was no way we were going to
assume he knew where to go once he hit Skyline and Redwood. After a
couple of minutes we saw Mark so we head off up Skyline. At this point
I have no idea how far the first 4 had gone, but no problem, I know
the route (remember, I planned it). We didn't have to go far to find
Jimil, Rich, Jimmy and Jerry. They were waiting about a quarter mile
up the road.

Just as we headed up Skyline (from the Skyline / Juaquin Miller
intersection) through the first set of very tight 180s below "The
Point" we see a sweet Dodge Viper drive pass us coming down the hill,
then another, then another, then another……….VIPER RALLEY, sweet. Best
guess was between 10-15 Vipers, all different paint, some hard tops
some topless. Later we were all talking about how we would be more
than willing to participate in an afternoon sport bike for Viper swap
ride / drive.

Again with the nice weather we came across a lot of cages and bicycles
on Skyline. I have to stop here and vent. WHY IN THE FUCK DO BICYCLIST
RIDE SIDE BY SIDE on well traveled tight single lane roads like
Skyline. They are idiots! Then to top it off, when you come up behind
them, does one of them drop back behind the other so you or a car can
easily go around them, NO they stay side by side and make you cross
over the double yellow to pass them. FUCKING ASSHOLES!!!

Back to the ride report…..We road up Skyline to Grizzly Peak (oopps,
the front four forgot to stop and regroup again) and then rode up to
the "Wall" (see group pic). I thought for sure this being the first
Sunday with nice weather that there would be tons of motorcyclists
hanging out when we got there, but that wasn't the case. When we all
ended up there, there were two other "vintage" motorcycles that left
within a couple minutes of our arrival. Shortly after we arrived a
black "Thundercat" rode by and I recognized it as Tobby and we waved
at him and he turned around and joined us. He was "taking the long
way" to work. So he kicked back and shot the shit with us.

For those who aren't familiar with "The Wall" it's a spot on Grizzly
Peak Road in the Berkeley hills high above Cal Berkeley. You can see
the Cal stadium perfectly from there. Having grown up in the Oakland
hills and now living in the Central Valley, today was a taste of the
awesome views I grew up with that are now an infrequent special treat
for me. Everything it takes for that "Perfect California" view was in
place, rain and windy days followed by a day of perfectly cloudless
skies. The air was so perfectly clean that it wasn't a question of
seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, but how much of the Pacific you could
see past it. Looking at the view and all the sailboats on the Bay made
all of us reflect on what unique place it is that we call home. Sorry
those two O'Doul's I drank are kicking in. Back to the ride…..

From the "Wall" we headed back up Grizzly Peak and then down through
Tilden Park to Wildcat Canyon Rd. Tons of cages, crawling through the
park at 25 mph. I was in the lead because I knew the way. With all
the people in the park that day and counting on Rangers around I
decided to just take it easy and not even attempt to pass any cars. I
saw we were coming up on a "look out point" where there was a HUGE
group of HDs leaving the point and trying to get onto Wildcat Canyon.
Ok, decision time, do I stop all traffic behind me to let these 20+
cruisers get in front of my group of sport bikes? Well ask yourself,
what would you do? I decided to screw up their ride and put 8 rice
grinder sport bikes smack dab in the middle of their ride. So the next
10 miles were spent crawling behind middle aged HD riders with not
only their wives / and or kids on the back, but their freaking dogs! I
shit you not, there were at least three riders that had their dogs
with them. Ok Cary or Jeff, do your magic and show me a picture of a
dog on a sport bike.

At the bottom of Wildcat Canyon where it meets Bear Creek, the HDs all
pulled over to regroup and let us go by. Cool, now we are free as we
come to the road of the 90+ mph sweepers. But wait, whose in the lead,
it's me. Do I want to be in the lead, NO! Why not, because this
morning "NO SHOW Dave" posts a link on the group ride showing a thread
to BARF where they are talking about how somebody crashed the weekend
before on Bear Creek and that the LEOs were out in force with
helicopters to crack down on "sport bikes racing on Bear Creek". Shit,
oh, Jimil is behind me, so I slow down and wave him by like a
courteous rider who respects that the guy behind him is a faster and
better rider…ok there goes Jimil, I stay right and slow, there goes
Rich….then Jimmy, Jerry, Les and Chuck… SUCKERS! Now I have 6 riders
running speed trap interference for me. There was only one problem
with my plan, they all blew right by the turn we were suppose to make
onto Happy Valley to get to Lafayette. So here I am AGAIN chasing
them and waving my hands, STOP, TURN BACK! So we all stop, flip a U
turn and head into Lafayette and headed to Baja Fresh for lunch.

I remember along the way seeing a number of motorcycles going the
other way, one of them being a red ZXR. I really didn't think much of
it until he pulled into where we had our bikes parked behind Baja
Fresh. It turns outs he is part of the ZXR group and had read "NO
SHOW Dave's" post about the ride but figured 10 am in Castro Valley
was too early, so he figured he would just ride the reverse ride route
until he rode past us. My apologizes for not remembering his name.
After a nice Mexican lunch and BS session out in the sun, we geared up
to head home. Chuck on the "green ZXR" had to head off from there, but
was replaced by his ZXR group buddy on the "red ZXR", so we stayed
intact with 8 riders. We decided to take Moraga Road to Pinehurst
back to Redwood Road. We said our finally good-byes at the golf
coarse on Redwood Road.

All it all it was a great ride. As I stated in the beginning, we had
blue skies, dry roads and a nice breeze. These are all things that
normally we would take for granted in No. CA in May, but this year
this was the first real "spring" riding day we have had this season.
Yeah it would have been nice if we had spent less time behind cages,
but hey what else is new. No tickets, no crashes or accidents, and fun
riders who rode their own pace. It doesn't get any better than that.

From start to finish the ride was about 45 miles and 3-1/2 hours long.
(Not much more than it took me to write this post. One of these days I
will learn to type, this hunt and peck shit just doesn't cut it these
days).

It was a great day and I'm looking forward to our next group ride.

Peter

P.S. Shit, it's midnight already, my alarm clock is going to be
ringing way too early Monday morning.
P.P.S. Shit, I just finished proof reading for the first time and my
wife is bitching at me to come to bed. Please forgive any typos I may
have missed.

The meet spot The Wall From across the street, pic by Peter

Opposite view Awesome view of the SF Bay Area. 1 of 3 pics to be combined into a panoramic view 2 of 3 pics to be combined into a panoramic view

3 of 3 pics to be combined into a panoramic view How this bumper got there we will never know The boys and their bikes.

The parking lot at Baja Fresh in Lafayette The golf course entrance at the bottom of Redwood Road.

The 3 pics combined for the panoramic view of the SF Bay Area.