21 May 2011 - Knoxville

21 May 2011 - Berryessa-Knoxville Road
Lake Berryessa, CA

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Here is a link to Cranky's Blog about today's Ride

We had to change the beginning of the Ride Route today to avoid Pleasants Valley Road, since the road was closed to traffic for a Half Marathon.

I only had one U-Turn on roads that I had only seen on a map in getting to Winters from due south.
The old guys bikes are the first to arrive

Stan's Bonne America, my F650GS, Phil's Nomad, Reese's (a first-timer) tricked out Thruxton and Jim and Christy's Trophy. Martin has not yet arrived. {What happened to Jess - the route was changed to have lunch at Buster's}

We arrive at the Corners a couple of minutes early despite a KSU of 0936 (six minutes late).
Sonoma Joe and Cranky are waiting for us as they live closer to the Corners than they do to Dixon

The Restaurant and General Store are OPEN. As is my wont I asked a couple having breakfast how the food was. They found it excellent. The one down side is the menu prices are Napa Valley prices and not Central Valley prices.


Sonoma Joe, Phil and Cranky



Photo by Jim G


We had to avoid a bicycle event on the road until we passed Pope Valley Road. So it was pretty slow going.

Then after we pass Pope Canyon Road a couple of miles I decided to shot some photos from my bike. Unfortunately I took off my right glove with my teeth. So I stopped the Ride to put the camera around my neck and have a bare LEFT hand. {hard to use the right hand for the camera and the throttle at the same time}

The following photos are taken "blind" over my left shoulder while riding. {of course they are cropped - no way I am that good a "shot" :-) }









Instead of "staging" the water crossing today. I had Stan ride second and hold up the Group until I cleared the water and was set up to take the following seven photos.
Stan

Jim and Christy

Reese

Sonoma Joe

Phil can't miss his lights

Martin

Cranky who rides a very good Sweep

After the water crossing it is still a few miles before we get to Morgan Valley Road. So these are more photos of Berryessa-Knoxville Road.
Looking ahead versus behind

Another forward photo



We finally reach the closed Home Stake Gold Mine entrance.




It is between here and just 4 or 5 miles from Lower Lake that we have an incident. Sonoma Joe had just changed his chain and the "clip" on the master link probably fell off.


Photo by Cranky


Here is what Sonoma Joe emailed at 5:40 PM:

thanks again for the use of your cell phone. truck arrived at 3:15
i'm home now looking at my bent rear sprocket.
the ride was great till that point.
thanks for puttin it on

joe

Jim and Christy headed north since Christy is a vegetarian and Buster's is not for vegetarians. Here is what Jim emailed:

Thanks for the "only one U-turn" ride Don, I was great minus Joe's chain & early departure. Speaking of departures, Christi & I went up to Clearlake Oaks for a nice avocado burger & house salad. Then we ventured Hwy 20 until hitting 16 South, man oh man did we encounter bikes after bikes! All the way into Brooks. That's a lot of ground to cover with pedals!
Any how, my first fill up yielded 37.9 MPG, which is a record riding two up! Must have a lot to do with our average speed of travel for the 139 miles I had put on my tank by fill up in Lower Clearlake. I'm thinking I may have even bettered that coming home as we again had slower than normal travel speeds from all those bikers, I clocked another 137 miles home and still have more than a 1/4 tank left, unbelievable!

A first - NO FOOD photos....
Back of the parking lot at Busters

Buster's

We ride Silverado Trail then through Napa to Hwy 12. Cranky leaves us as we reach the I-680 exit. And the remaining four of us head east bound on Hwy 12 to the Popeye's Chicken in Suisun City for a needed pit stop. Then head on home along Hwy 12 to various destinations.

Phil phoned me when he got home around 6:30 PM. He took our route had lunch at Busters around 3:30 and then home.

~end
.