My first real ride adventure!

[IronChefCJP]

So I finally took an riding adventure with a friend of mine...to make a long story short out of my circle of friends, I was the only one that knew how to ride. My friend took lessons, and now he's running on a 14 year old ninja 500, but that thing rides really well actually for its age!

Anyways, we went up the Berkeley hills, in the East Bay of CA. I felt bad for my friend because he lives in SF, but there aren't too many open roads there. For those of you familiar with Berkeley, we first went up Euclid, then onto grizzly peak. it was quite scary early in the morning. No cars really, however, there was a lot of fog. A LOT. Then, we went up again, and took a couple of more roads. So many curvers, hairpins...it was a lot of fun. My friend went wide a couple of times...he's still learning, but pretty good for a new rider. I think I did pretty well...I was pretty far ahead of him...I kept looking back and I couldn't see him. I didn't scrape pegs, but I was definitely leaning the farthest I have ever done.

Bad thing that happened: I dropped my bike AGAIN! It wasn't even while riding. I was making a uturn into a driveway. I had a hardtime backing out because of the grade in the street. I lost balance, and down she went. I FRIGGIN CRACKED MY FAIRING. UGH. I was soooo mad. I didnt notice until we took pics. I already ordered replacement fairings...they should be here the middle of the week. I had to get the big black fairing that incoporates the headlights, as well as the right hand silver visor fairing. Totaly of 160 dollars...which isn't actually too bad. I was expecting something along the lines of 300 bucks or something.

[IronChefCJP]

Here are some pics

[Hams51]

Glad it wasn't anything serious. I like the backdrop in the pics.

[IronChefCJP]

yeah, it definitely could have been worse, considering the intensity of the turns (to me) and my beginning skill level, so I guess you could say i was lucky that the fall was at 0mph.

[Dexter_643]

I had some fun this weekend as well.

Last week I passed the 1k mile mark and was looking for a good ride to see what the FZ'll do. A friend finishing school in Fremont came up here on a borrowed 1977 Honda 550 (pushed to [beyond?] it's limits, the old bike could almost hang).

We went along the coast and up through a few twisty highways over the hills inland. About 400 miles in total for the weekend, all our rides combined. Our only sketchy adventure was being pulled over by one of Sebastopol's finest and my friend's bike nearly impounded because his drivers license is invalid (expired on July 30, waiting on new one, didn't have paper license). If we had both been riding newer model full sportbikes the officer likely would have enforced the issue, but he let us off with a warning. Don't lane split between a straight only lane and a right turn only lane. Good thing he wasn't around when we were playing out of town, we might've both ended up with our bikes impounded for reasons other than licences .

All in all a good weekend and a lot of fun. Glad to hear I'm not the only nor-cal bay area person out having fun on an FZ6. Too bad about your fairing, but plastic is cheaper than blood, eh? .
Keep ridin', have fun.

[IronChefCJP]

Originally Posted by Dexter_643

I had some fun this weekend as well.

Last week I passed the 1k mile mark and was looking for a good ride to see what the FZ'll do. A friend finishing school in Fremont came up here on a borrowed 1977 Honda 550 (pushed to [beyond?] it's limits, the old bike could almost hang).

We went along the coast and up through a few twisty highways over the hills inland. About 400 miles in total for the weekend, all our rides combined. Our only sketchy adventure was being pulled over by one of Sebastopol's finest and my friend's bike nearly impounded because his drivers license is invalid (expired on July 30, waiting on new one, didn't have paper license). If we had both been riding newer model full sportbikes the officer likely would have enforced the issue, but he let us off with a warning. Don't lane split between a straight only lane and a right turn only lane. Good thing he wasn't around when we were playing out of town, we might've both ended up with our bikes impounded for reasons other than licences .

All in all a good weekend and a lot of fun. Glad to hear I'm not the only nor-cal bay area person out having fun on an FZ6. Too bad about your fairing, but plastic is cheaper than blood, eh? .
Keep ridin', have fun.

Oh most definitely! and the fairing, it wasn't as much as I thought it would be....which is a good thing. I read on the boards that yamaha oem parts are pretty cheap...which is a good, possibly bad thing.

I remember that you're in nor cal. Your friend was in fremont? Is he going to ohlone? Thats real close by to where I work.

Could you talk about the road you were on a little more? Like where exactly did you go...

btw have you heard of this website? www.pashnit.com

has some great roads posted for those in cali.

Damn though, 1000 miles! my friend and I only did 60 miles total in 4 hours. We were really hittin those twisties. It felt like a lot more just because of all the hairpin turns and whatnot.

[Dexter_643]

Originally Posted by IronChefCJP

I remember that you're in nor cal. Your friend was in fremont? Is he going to ohlone? Thats real close by to where I work.

Could you talk about the road you were on a little more? Like where exactly did you go...

Damn though, 1000 miles! my friend and I only did 60 miles total in 4 hours. We were really hittin those twisties. It felt like a lot more just because of all the hairpin turns and whatnot.

He finished tech school in Wyoming, now he's going to BMW's own school there in Fremont to be a tech for them.

From Santa Rosa we went out HWY 116 through pocket canyon, it's only 8 or 10 miles, but has some pretty nice turns through redwoods, it kind of follows the Russian River. Through some smallish towns out to HWY 1 along the coast at Bodega Bay, back through Sebastopol on Bohemian HWY.
Saturday we went up old redwood highway, out to HWY 128 to Calistoga then up HWY 29 into lake county.
Stayed at his parent's house, came back down HWY 175 to 29 back to Calistoga, he went off to the Napa side to catch 37 back to east bay, I came back to Santa Rosa over mark west springs road.

I was mostly between 2nd and 3rd gear using RPM's from 5000-redline for most of the roads, so they're fast-ish, but also have plenty of great sections of twisties.

I've been driving all these roads in my pickup for years, hundreds of times over them. It's a different (more fun and faster) experience on a bike, easier to make passes (legal and semi-legal).

1000 miles is just my odo, now at 1380something. I've had the bike almost a month now, it's high time I see what she can do . Our trips totalled 360something miles in all.