| Old Business - continued... John Munger is rumored to be returning to the bay area in the near future after the folks in Utah left a bad taste in his mouth. Ride Reports Earl's Surprise Ride for May was discussed, with Catfish, Mulvihill + guest, Moriarty, Moreshead, Anderson, & Gretchen Hoffman in tow. Started in Pleasanton, took the back way to Livermore, Mines Rd. to Mt. Hamilton, & down to San Jose with a serious infestation of bicycle riders the whole way! Met a guy out at the junction with a really clean Kawi H1. Sierra, Felder, & Calaveras roads were next, & then Hwy-84 back to Livermore. Out Tesla/Corral Hollow Rd. past Carnegie & on to lunch in Tracy at Wally's Drive-In. The special of the house is the Big Wally(tm), a hamburger about the size of a large dinner plate with a large amount of fixins on it. This $8.75 burger is free, if eaten in 15 minutes or less. What was really amazing though was the list of record times on the wall that had the fastest being eaten in 4 minutes.
John Mulvihill's guest, Roozbeh Chubak, is shown above with his Big Wally & fries. Due to his ...er- ahh... robust nature, the burger doesn't look near as big in the picture as it did in person. Probably should have had Earl pose with it. |
After lunch, we took Patterson Pass Rd. west & turned
south on Cross Rd. to fly over the top of Zero-Gravity hill, Wheeeeeeeeeeee... Next
was Tesla Rd., Greenville Rd., Altamont Pass Rd. passed Club Moto, and then Mountain House
& Kelso roads to Bethany Reservoir. We found a nice picnic table, ants included,
under an awning for shade. Earl declared it a "smoke 'em if ya got 'em"
break, so out came the cigars, etc, & Roozbeh's cool pocket blowtorch!
Much discussion on various contemporary topics, and a sizable cloud of smoke, filled the
air & was carried away by the cool breeze. We took J4 up to Byron next, Marsh Creek Rd. towards Clayton, and then turned back towards Livermore one final time on Morgan Territory Rd. So, was the surprise the Big Wally, or guessing how many times (4) we found Livermore on the route. Great ride, Earl! Hans told us about a day trip that he, Joel Buck, & Kevin (one of his mechanics) took up to Stonyford for a little dirt action. Kevin just got himself a YZ400F and the boys wanted to check it out. Sounds like a hell of a dirtbike. Joel didn't break anything; again! Hans also talked about his annual shop ride & their trip to Song Dog. Typical broken Harley saga. Catfish & Hans then told the group about their 7-day, 2600-mile vacation trip to meet up with the MSMC in Death Valley. Earl Minkler, Megan Hall, & Steve Hursh were the other participants. Basically took all the best back roads south, to within a couple miles of the mexican border, & then back up to Death Valley. The "S" roads of San Diego county were particularly memorable, including a run to the top of Mt. Palomar & back. It was a great trip that a detailed report, with a few pictures, will be finished later this month on a Web page near you.
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