Day 4 - May 12, 2010

With everyone settled in we enjoyed the nightlife here at the Hilton. The restaurant and bar is great. The show stopper is the view from the outside patio and terrace. They have plenty of great seating, a few gas fire pits, and propane space heaters to keep it cozy. The libations were plenty, and the evening was spent recounting today’s ride and anticipating the upcoming routes.
Today is much anticipated by Chrome on the Coast veterans and newcomers alike. Today we will ride what the website Pashnit.com describes as “the holy grail” of motorcycle roads. It even has an impressive name: Stewart’s Point Skaggs Springs Road. We will be riding it from east to west today, which is my personal favorite. We were on the bikes and headed north on the 101. We exited on Dry Creek Road and headed toward the coast. A nice, lazy ride through some of the wineries found us at the Lake Sonoma Recreation Area just below the Warm Springs Dam. It is a good place to stop as there are no restrooms available for quite a while. Stopping also allows us to break up into two smaller groups. The first is for those who enjoy a more “spirited” ride. This road offers all sorts of challenges for those who wish to test their skills. The second group will be the “sightseers”, opting for a slower pace. Every twist and turn on this road offers scenic beauty that compliments the complexity of the road very well. The temperature is cool, and the sky is an indescribable shade of blue.
Bill Beaumont led group one onto the route. I would be leading group two. The plan was to wait about 10 minutes before we took off. With this many motorcycles, and with a road as twisty as this one, not only is this approach safer, it will be more enjoyable for all of us. We watched as they made the corner and popped out of sight. Being mostly made up of Harley Davidson motorcycles, we listened for a while longer!!
This road has something for everyone. It starts as a beautifully paved highway, well marked, with big sweeping turns. It is a pretty significant climb as you make your way to the top. If you are not paying attention, you may notice that you lose a lane, and that the road surface is a little less pristine. The road continues to narrow, but the foliage becomes denser – casting shadows on the ground. This area had significant rain this year, and the plant life repays the favor by blooming in all its glory. Speed is naturally slowed here, as the road follows the contours of the hillside. A stream is flowing at the valley floor. For about 30 miles each of us is lost in our own private world.

We make a turn onto Tin Barn Road. The tall trees stand perfectly alongside both sides of the road. The lush green ferns and other low lying plants are like a beautiful quilt covering the forest floor. I chose the perfect music to have in my headset – mild piano and flute instrumentals. I keep the volume low because I want my sight and sense of smell to be the biggest sensory influences.
That brings up a great point. Motorcycle riding is an overall sensory experience. Riding in a car you are much more insulated, contained in a “safety pod”, separating you from the environment around you. Yeah, I know what you are thinking – they got pretty wet on Carmel Valley Road a couple of days ago. Well, that is part of the connection. I believe that it is pretty evident that sight and sound are easy to relate to riding like this. The smells are really the most incredible – pine, eucalyptus, flowers – and some smells like skunks and such. Touch is another sense that is magnified with this type of driving experience. Handlebars are a much different way to “feel” your machine’s interaction with the road than any steering wheel.
At the top of Tin Barn Road is a left turn that shouldn’t be missed. King Ridge Road lives up to its name – it follows the ridge for most of its length. This road has the advantage of elevation, revealing to us all the wonderful vistas on either side. Thank goodness for the helmet chin strap. If it weren’t for this simple piece of equipment, my jaw would have been in my lap the entire ride. That wouldn’t be too bad if it weren’t for the occasional bug.

King Ridge ends at Cazadero Highway. We followed that south to the town of Occidental where we had a great lunch at Howard’s Station. Group one got there first, and Bill called to ask how far behind we were. About 5 miles separated us, and the folks at Howard’s agreed to stay open. The food there was absolutely first rate. Dennis and Dale Downs led the way in ordering their chocolate malt (topped with ground up malt balls!!!) I believe that every member of our ride ended up ordering malt after watching them enjoy theirs!!!