So what does a guy do the day after he turns 30 and has free day? Why he goes for a MOTORCYCLE RIDE of course!!!

So yesterday was my official 30th birthday. Man that’s crazy to say. Ok, let’s not even talk about that. Let’s just say it was A birthday, and leave it at that. So, being a Thursday I pretty much did my normal routine, but I decided to take Friday off (today). A perfect 74 degree morning and some free time meant one thing: a ride on my brand-spankin’-new Honda VFR800A Interceptor. I’m still breaking this bike in, so it literally craves some curvy roads to make that RPM needle go up and down.

The Route:

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They’re not kidding about those curvy roads

So a mere 8 miles from our place in Mountain View, things started to spread out. On Altamont road/Page Mill road things got really interesting. The road climbs quite a bit as you scale the Santa Cruz mountains (did I get that right?). And it gets REALLY TWISTY. I mean like hey, I’m a kid again twisty. I couldn’t go very fast, partly because I’m learning the new bike, and partly because of the sharp turns, but it was just a whole bunch of fun to slalom that bike. For a motorcycle that’s 200 pounds heavier than my old Ninja 250, it sure doesn’t feel like it. Turns are razor sharp, and the bike seems to lean without me even thinking about it. In fact, I have to do less countersteering on this motorcycle to get it to lean than on my 250. Honda sure does a good job getting the weight of that V-4 low.

Once I made it up to Skyline Blvd, the views were incredible. On one side you could see to the fog from the Pacific. On the other, the whole Santa Clara valley stretching out forever. All the while the road is lined with very tall sequoias (or redwoods? I’ve gotta learn my trees). I realized how slow I was going when a nice BMW K-bike passed me on a straightaway. I tried to keep up with him for a few miles, but he was booking it and I was more about the vistas than trying to throw myself off of a mountain top.

Yours Truly

Coming down Black road off of Skyline towards Los Gatos was AWESOME.

The road was very twisty and narrow; at some points it became a single lane. But the trees towering overhead were incredible, and aside from the occasional bicyclist I was the only one on the road. Once I reached 17 (Santa Cruz Highway) I decided to head back, and it was high speed cruising on the freeway. I will say that California drivers drive really fast. I was doing about 83 in the middle lane and got passed by a minivan doing about 90 in the left. I think you’d be run over if you were actually traveling the 65 mph speed limit. But the freeways are straight, smooth and clean, so I guess it enables that kind of speed. I think my bike is built for the Autobahn or something too, because once you shift into 6th gear, it just kind of idles along at that speed. Very smooth. But still, I much prefer the back roads than the freeways. I don’t think I’m going to have any problem finding those around here though ;-)