Ride and Camp - Morro Bay

Following our routine to camp a few times every summer, I went ahead and booked a couple of campsites in the Morro Bay State Park early in may for a August 18th camp for 2 nights.
Also, included in this trip was a bike ride by some of us, whilst the rest drove.

The softball league we joined has friday night games, so the plan was to start on Aug 19th saturday morning, instead of Aug 18th early afternoon.

After a month of extensive planning from AAA maps, pashnit.com and other motorcycling roads, I planned 2 different routes. The first one was through highway 25, listed as one of the top 5 motorcycling roads in California to ride. The way back was on the famous, but crowded highway 1.

Riders:

Venu Javarappa aka Stiffmeister on his 1996 Honda CBR F3
Sheshu Shenoy aka mad-bomber on his 2003(4)? Suzuki SV 650s
Karthik Vugane aka old-man-on-big-bike on "Anna - the lady in red" aka 2001 Honda VFR 800FI


Departed 8am, Aug 19th from my place in campbell. After a brisk pace on US 101 for 45 mins, we were at Hollister, ready for a cup of coffee and fill up our bikes. 10 mins later, we were off on highway 25. Sheshu led the way, while I ran second, with Venu closely behind.

25 miles on nice long runs, with some sweeps, and we were at the Pinnacles National Monument Park. A quick 5 mile detour into the park, a pee break and some photos, we were ready to take on the twisties.

The next 30+ miles till highway 198 was supposed to be twisty heaven. I switched my mounting to a camcorder and tucked the GPS back in the tank bag. I was now ready to record both Sheshu and Venu doing their 'thang'.

30 miles of hip shaking and i going "wheeee" at every turn, we arrived at 198 in less than 45 mins.

Rt 198 was a quick pace for about 15-20 miles. We passed under US 101 to catch Jolon Road, another pashnit.com favourite. 10 miles on san lucas road was rough and bumpy, but we made it across.

Jolon Road was nicely paved and had nice long sweeps. I decided to lead. I kept a constant 80-85+ mph pace, with Venu and Sheshu right behind me. We stopped for a refreshment around noon at bee rock cafe for some water and nuts.

We jumped back on Nacimiento Road for the last leg. Nacimiento road was fun with very surprising decreasing radius turns, but we all handled it well. Hopped back again on US 101 for about 10 miles to reach Hwy 41.

Hwy 41 was an icing on the cake of our inbound ride. Perfectly paved and banked road, with some of the best sweeps ever. Sheshu led us on a pretty high pace on this one. I think I scraped my peg twice on this one! We were at the campsite on one piece at around 1:30pm after about 5+ hours on the saddle.

12:30pm, Aug 20th.

After a nice 24 hours of eating, drinking, napping, kayaking, cycling and what not, we had to unfortunately get out of the campsite.

Datta, Shef headed south to home and we along with Sam/Rish/Amar, VenuG/Nimmi headed north on hwy 1 back home. No ride on Rt 1 is complete without a shake or a burger at Ragged Point. stopped there for a nice meal and we were back again.

Another 100 miles of bliss on Route 1 albeit there was some expected traffic - trailers and RVs.
We managed to pass atleast 50-75 "cages" and got some fun out of it. 5pm stop at monterey for a coffee/fill up. Another hour later, we arrived in campbell around 6:30pm.

10 gallons of gas to the bike - $37
2 nights in the campsite - $115
beer, meat and munchies - $75
526 miles on the Bike Odometer in 48 hours - PRICELESS!!