It was chilly this morning as we gathered at McGuire's in Walnut Creek. Not sure what the temp was, but it was 55 deg. in Antioch when I left. Brrrrrr .... What a change from last weekend. Any way, we greeted the others as they arrived and chatted till it was time to go.
We had 13 bikes make their way across Parkside and onto Jones Rd. to stage. As you've probably heard, the parking lot under the BART tracks where we used to stage has been closed, so we've been forced to find an alternative staging location. Staging on Jones Rd. worked, but even with our small group of 13 bikes it was tough finding a large enough space to stage the entire group. But we managed. We collected tolls and then were off on our journey.
We made a right onto Parkside and then again onto Buena Vista. We turned left onto Geary then merged onto Taylor headed toward Lafayette. Then it was a right turn onto Reliez Valley Rd, which skirts along the Briones Regional Park, all the way to Martinez where we turned onto Alhambra. From there we took Franklin Canyon Rd where we started seeing some bicyclists. The farther we went on Franklin Canyon, the more bicyclists we saw. Turns out they were having some sort of event and Franklin Canyon was part of their route. We rode past their checkpoint up to the intersection of Cummings Skyway, where we turned right and most of them turned left. We had one bicycle turn right with us and merge into the group. Guess they really wanted to be on a Harley instead of a bicycle. The group eventually got past the bicycle and we continued on our way. As we rode down Cummings Skyway we could feel the wind starting to pick up. Nothing really strong, but a definite change. We merged onto I-80 and rode across the Carquinez Bridge and up to the toll plaza. The traffic was pretty heavy for a Saturday, which was reinforced by the long lines at the toll plaza. We patiently waited to pay our tolls, then were off again. This toll collector evidently has dealt with groups of motorcycles in the past as he had a 'cheat sheet' to assist with his calculations. I advised him that we had 13 bikes and he looked this up on his cheat sheet and said "$52.00". No muss, no fuss, and off we went. Traffic was heavy, but moving, as we rode past 780. That changed as we approached the Marine World exit. Traffic slowed to a stop, then crept along till we got past the off ramp and we were back up to speed. We took the American Canyon Rd exit and followed that over to Hwy 29 which took us the rest of the way to the Red Hen Cantina.
As we rode up to the restaurant I noted that the parking lot was nearly empty and thought "Oh no. They're closed!", but it was just early and there were only a couple of customers.
We parked and then went in search of food, which we found plenty of. We ate, talked, and then it was time to go. Some split off and took various alternate routes home while 9 of us took 29, to 37, to 80, to 780, to 680, to 4. The wind had really picked up now and we had to work to keep from making undesired lane changes in some areas. Our ride home was uneventful, but we did get a reminder of what can happen if we let our concentration lapse. As we rode over the hill on Hwy 4 past Willow Pass Rd the traffic in front of us came to an abrupt halt. We were just a few car lengths back from what turned out to be a motorcycle accident. As we rode past we saw the rider sitting on the shoulder of the freeway holding his ankle and his motorcycle, a Harley Bagger, was about 150 feet farther down. The motorcycle had apparently flipped several times as it was badly mangled and debris, along with the contents of his saddle bags, was strewn along the roadway. There was another motorcycle (maybe his riding partner) pulled over and he was running back to see how his friend was doing. There were also a couple of cages pulled over, presumably to lend assistance. It was good to see that the rider didn't appear to be hurt too bad. The rest of our ride home was a little slower and a little more cautious. When I arrived at the house I checked on the status of the accident. All they had on it was that "A rider 'fell off' his motorcycle." Pretty descriptive eh?I'll see you tomorrow.
Ride safe ...
