For the last year I'd been itching for a good road trip, and to me 'good' means riding really far (and slow) on my scooter. It's a 2011 Yamaha Zuma with 125cc's of pure power that tops out at 55mph on a good day, downhill, and with a tailwind. I bought this scooter for $800 5 years ago from a guy on Craigslist in Orlando, FL sight unseen... then I rode it home. There's a movie about that ride called "Slow Ride Home", watch it when you have a couple hours to kill. There's not a movie about this ride though, just this blog post.
Usually, I over-engineer everything... this time I didn't. I chose a destination (Santa Cruz, CA), a couple cities I wanted to stop in (Reno, SF), then asked everyone I know if they wanted to come along. At first there were 4 of us going, that turned into just 2 of us. Perfect. With no real route planned and no hotels booked, we loaded up the truck and drove to Klamath Falls, OR. We started in Klamath Falls because we've ridden all over Northern Oregon and wanted to skip familiar roads and get right into the unfamiliar.
DAY 1 - Klamath Falls > Reno, NV - 257mi
The first day was hot af. We rarely had service so we couldn't check the weather apps but I'm guessing the majority of the day was spent in the 90's. There wasn't much to see along the route, just a bunch of straight roads. We did happen upon the greatest dive bar on Earth, it's called the Buck Inn in Doyle, CA. Built in the 30's, and saved 5 years ago by Steve Heck an ex-piano mover from the Bay Area. It's hard to do this place justice in writing, I'm not a writer afterall, so I'll post a photo.
We spent 3 hours at the Buck Inn... we left with an hour of daylight left and 40 miles till Reno. We stayed at a friends house, playing foosball till 3am, drinking finely crafted Banquets, and sleeping on couches that were most likely found on the side of the road.
DAY 2 - Reno > Auburn, CA - 248mi
We got on our scoots at 10am, rode around Reno for an hour looking for a breakfast spot that didn't have a 2 hour wait... Starbucks it is. Today's journey would take us up a mountain where we chugged along at 25mph, around Lake Tahoe and back north past Truckee to HWY 49. This hwy winds down the mountains to just northeast of Sacramento. It's an amazing stretch of road if you're on two wheels. We managed to find a restaurant with a fishing pond, where the kitchen would prepare what you caught. We managed to find a couple middle of nowhere dive bars and landed in Auburn, CA. The only freeway we rode the whole trip, was 1 mile in Auburn. We found a hotel in town next to a Taco Bell and across from a Starbucks. Dinner and breakfast, how convenient. Auburn, CA is basically a freeway offramp, so not much going on for nightlife.
DAY 3 - Auburn > Santa Cruz - 237mi
The road from Auburn to Patterson is one straight shot. No turns. Just flat shitty roads full of farm dust and easterly winds that sand blasted you with said farm dust. From Patterson to San Jose it's 60 miles of curves and hills, it took us 3 1/2 hours to go this 60 miles. We rode HWY 17 out of San Jose to make it to Santa Cruz before dark. We landed at the Jury Room, which is a fantastic dive bar, we met a 32 year old, arrogant anti-vaxxer who was in town to tryout for a minor league baseball team. We left the bar at 2:30, he had to be on the field by 7am. Wonder if he made it... actually, I don't care, he was an asshole. We found a one star hotel by the beach, but never actually saw the beach. I did hear the ocean though. Someone stole some charge cables and sunscreen from our scooters that night, sucks, but oh well.
DAY 4 - Santa Cruz > SF - 87mi
This day was cold. The previous days had all been in the 90's, this day was in the 60's as we rode along the hills overlooking HWY 1 and the coast. We landed in SF, found a one star hotel in the Marina and hit up Nick's Crispy Tacos. We met up with some friends and did a little dive bar tour of SF. I forgot how cold it is at night in SF.
DAY 5 - SF > Fort Bragg - 191mi
We spent the entirety of this day riding HWY 1 along the coast. Stunning views, lots of curves, and some pretty strong winds. We stopped in Mendocino to check out a dive bar called Dick's, it's pretty rad. There's a very detailed diorama of the bar in the bar. We headed to Fort Bragg because we couldn't find a hotel in Mendocino, but we scored the last room in a one star hotel in Fort Bragg so off we went. On a suggestion from a friend in SF, we hit up a dive bar that had some pretty interesting characters. A bartender who had seemingly never been in a bar before, another bartender that just wanted to fight something, and the smelliest couple that couldn't stop making out at the bar.
DAY 6 - Fort Bragg > Weaverville - 202mi
Best day by far. The roads were great, we rode through a tree, I only got stuck on the neck once, and we met some pretty great characters. We stopped in Hayfork at a spot called Ropin' Rhonda's, where we were met by a guy with face tattoos and a plate of watermelon. Of course we ate some. Once the plate was 1/2 gone, he asked us if we wanted LSD, we declined, he said nothing and just walked away. Wait. Was there LSD in the watermelon? Shit, we need to go before it kicks in. Then the bartender steps up, eats a piece, and walks away. Of course there wasn't LSD in the watermelon. Weaverville is a wild place, we scored the last room in town in a one star motel. Nothing was open past 8pm except the 2 town dive bars that are across the street from each other. We dined on pizza rolls and hot pockets, drank our weight in banquets, and headed to the motel. At about 2:30am there was a fight in the parking lot. No one was seriously hurt, they were both up at 7am crushing PBR tall boys together.
DAY 7 - Weaverville > Klamath Falls, OR - 158mi
The early part of this day was spent on a forest service road that was in the middle of nowhere Humboldt County. If you've seen Murder Mountain, you know how we felt scooting through this place. Insanely beautiful, but you felt like someone was watching you the whole time. We stopped for lunch in Weed, best ribs I've ever had! The last 50 or so miles of the day was on HWY 97, and the only time on the ride that we encountered rain. It poured. We had to use plastic grocery bags on our shoes to keep our feet dry, helmet visors were fogged up, and if you've ever ridden anything in rain gear you know that your crotch is going to get soaked. You'd think that rain gear companies would have solved the wet crotch debacle by now, but nope.
1380 miles of riding at 40mph. My butt and my back are sore, but it was exactly what I needed. Wonder where the next trip will be.