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We met in Fremont, 9 riders total for the second Triumph RAT ride. We had a mix of six Daytonas (a cute twin couple with identical bikes and gear), one Speed Triple , one Sprint RS and one TT 600.
At shortly after 10 we started off working our way through Fremont onto Hwy 84 east. We turned off at Palomares Road - a 10 mile long twisty road that was very clean for the most part.
The ride leader - yours truly- put into practice Nick Ienatchs Pace concept and it worked very well ( After Palomares we had to use Hwy 580 for 20 miles to reach Livermore. From there we turned off at North Livermore Avenue, and went north. After a short couple of miles we turned of on Morgan Territory Road. This road goes through the Morgan Territory Regional Preserve and hugs the back of Mt Diablo. The road starts out innocently enough, where it is quite smooth but fairly narrow, with only one lane. After 5 miles the road becomes fairly bumpy, and very technical. On top of that vision is a challenge since one moves in and out of forested areas.
After a couple of miles we came up on some slow moving obstacles, two Harley V-Rods. The first one moved over to let us pass, the second did not but I passed him fairly quickly. This was probably my mistake. I kept going thinking that the rest of the group did pass them as well. However Maya and Drew got stuck behind them. This caused the group to get split up. Mike became concerned and turned out to find the missing two. However he apparently did not see them coming the other way behind the Harleys and kept going.
If this sounds confusing then it probably was. Anyway, we ended up waiting for the lonely knight searching for… - heck what he was searching for we will never know. After waiting some time we proceeded to Clayton where we had lunch. We decided to skip the last loop around San Pablo Reservoir since it was getting late and took Ignacio Valley Road to Hwy 680. From there the group split up but most people took 680 down south.
We learned a couple of lessons:
a) We probably rode the worst road ever, so it can only get better from here. The fact that nobody dropped the bike attests to the riding skills of the group.
b) We need some better communication and communicate the ride protocol and procedures more clearly.
As a defense of the planners it should be noted that the original plan did not include Morgan Territory Road, but Redwood Road has just been chipsealed and tarred and hence we needed to use an alternate route.
Next up Big Sur and Carmel,
Hans
I would like to add to the report that since we lost our knight (Mike) on the
ride due to his galant search for Drew and me, the group has decided that there
should be phones or 2 way radios for the ride leader and sweeper for the furture
rides to eliminate this occurring again. And to think poor Mike went BACK on
that road again. I shudder to think of it.
Maya
August 9, 2003 Ride
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