Saturday, July 5, 2014

Day Sixteen

I tell you what - heat notwithstanding - The roads here in California are some of the finest riding anywhere in the USA.

We decided again to go for the early start. We were awake at 5:30 AM, but didn't get up until 6:15 AM. We got the bikes packed and grabbed a quick bowl of cereal and a coffee before they were actually open for breakfast. We then got gas across the street at a Costco and we were off at 7:15 AM

Our first stop would be the post office for Bakersfield, which was located a couple of exits up the freeway at the airport. We found the post office and to our amazement it actually had the city and state name out front!

I've Been Everywhere Man - Bakersfield, CA
Next up and still in town - the Sam Lynn Ballpark - Home of the Blaze baseball team.

Sam Lynn Ballpark - Bakersfield. CA
With these two waypoints out of the way we would head towards the Sequoia National Forest - and up and out of the desert heat. It was cool enough at this early hour but we knew that would not last. What I wasn't prepared for was the incredible riding that we were about to encounter. We were on CA-178 which is also named Kern Canyon Rd. We were only about 15 miles out of town when this vista of an oasis in the desert opened up before us. Turns out it was a huge tree farming operation, made possible by the irrigation from the Kern River. Right after this farm operation the road drastically narrows and threads its way through Kern Canyon , with the river alongside for most of the way, for about 25 miles of awesome motorcycle riding. I stopped half way through to mount my helmet cam, but the file is too big to load over Wi-Fi. I did shoot a shorter video of the road just after Kern Canyon as we passed by Lake Isabella (a reservoir which is formed formed by the Isabella Dam.



We are now running on a series of roads - Kern River Hwy, M107, and then CA-190 all inside the Sequoia National Forest. We didn't stop for photos of the giant sequoias because we were too busy having a blast riding this set of fantastic roads. The scenery was nice, but it was the ride that had our attention.

M107 - AKA Great Western Divide Hwy through Sequoia National Forest
We were stymied for a while with some cagers who were going way slower than the speed limit and ignored or refused any opportunities to use a turnout to let the faster traffic pass, but we eventually worked our way around them. Several other times vehicles saw they were holding us up and graciously pulled off to let us by. We always give them a thank you wave for that. I simply cannot come up with the words to describe how great these roads were from a motorcyclists perspective. Here's a closer up view of the gps track.

CA-190 through Sequoia National Forest
What you see above in the green highlighted area was 68 miles and it took us just under two hours to ride. We did have one break stop in there that lasted for about 5 minutes.

After we came out of the forest we were ready for lunch so we went off our route into a little town to find a cafe. They were busy so the service was a bit slow, but the food was good and we were in no hurry. We blew off an hour but we really needed it.

Lunch Stop at Cowpuncher's Cafe in Springville, CA
After lunch we head north again on some Yokohl Road which despite the road surface being  bit rough in spots is still fun riding. This takes us up to CA-198 which will take us by Kaweah Lake and up into the section of Sequoia National Park where you have to pay to see. We came up on a line of traffic and figured out that it was the line to pay to get into the park. We aren't certain, it may have just been an accident, but after sitting in line in 100+ temps for 15 minutes and only moving .2 miles we were getting antsy. Larry's air-cooled bike was heating up and we decided to turn around an go a different way.


This did mean we'd have to back track some 15 miles back to Kaweah Lake where we would stop and wet our shirts before taking Dry Creek Road to CA-245 and ultimately to CA-180 which is where we would have come out of the forest had we not turned around. All of these roads were pretty awesome riding. There were some rough spots, some very narrow roads, but we were rewarded with a section of so freshly paved it didn't have lines yet road that was the cat's meow to ride. All of this and little to no other traffic to contend with which definitely wouldn't have been the case had we waited in line...

Now on CA-180 we were headed west and dropping back down out of the mountains and so the temperature was climbing again. By the time we got near Clovis CA it was 104 degrees. We finally pulled into the hotel at 3:30 PM.

Today's Stats: 283 miles in 8:22 elapsed time, 6:52 saddle time.

Day Sixteen Track