Los Angeles to San Francisco round trip: 950 miles on 2 days [Archive]

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BusyWeb

11-29-2008, 06:37 AM

Hi, everybody....
I just got to San Francisco...
468 miles riding and over 12 hours...hew...
When I get back to home, let me make final report then.
Hopefully, tomorrow night or Sunday morning..

I need some sleep for tomorrow's riding... (2:30 AM)

*** UPDATED: 11/30/2008 ***

A. Bike Trip Summary: Pacific Coast Highway, aka Hyw. 1
a. Total Distance: 950 Miles
b. Total Hours: 2 Days (11/28/2008 12:00 PM to 11/29/2008 11:00 PM)
c. Max. Speed: 84.5 mph
d. Moving Avg. 43.4 mph

B. Route Summary
a. Freeway 101 N. >> Los Angeles >> Santa Barbara >> Santa Maria >> San Luis Obispo
b. Hwy. 1 N. >> San Luis Obispo >> Santa Cruz >> San Francisco
c. Hwy. 1 S. >> San Francisco >> Santa Cruz >> San Luis Obispo
d. Freeway 101 S.>> San Luis Obispo >> Santa Maria >> Santa Barbara >> Los Angeles

C. Preparation for the trip
a. NONE, I thought that this route is pretty well known and many tourists are visiting and none would be O.K. ....
b. but I packed some basic extra clothing and Rain Gears which were good preparation for this trip even though there were no rains.

Here are some lessens that I had in this trip.
First of all, this route is the one that needs long time to enjoy.
Because of its a long distance trip, to enjoy all the beauties on the relexed mind, it needs some time.
My guess is that it needs at least 3-7 days, why....do not ride at night at the coast lines.

LESSON 1, Do not ride at night on the roads with coast lines. (if you can avoid)
There are FOG and very thick ones are on the roads at night.
I got fog situations at day time on this trip too. (less scary as many cars are in front of me and could follow them)
When I got this fog situation, honestly, I got scared A LOT.
I couldn't see just a foot ahead, and couldn't see the road lines.
No vehicles at all, my goggle gets foggy too, and high beam does not work.
And I could dump into the sea or other sides of roads.
That was the scary moments that I had on this trip.

LESSON 2, Prepare Rain Gears when you are on the coast lines.
Even though there were no rains, the air contains enough moisture to soak your clothing.
Fortunately, I got this preparation...

LESSON 3, Be pareared that no lodgin is available on your way.
If you want to stay at night on the roads, book your rooms before your trip.
I thought that there are enough rooms available on this winter season.
But it was wrong assumption, many of them are no vacancy signs.
And the rooms aside on the route are expensive.........
So, I made mind that I'll get one at the San Francisco, and results were pain to me.
I tried to find a motel which is on the my GPS, motel name was "Sunset Motel".
I got to ask location to couple of gas stations, and found >>> they are UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
Spend almost 2 hours to find this motel, but couldn't get in, time was 1:30 PM.
Um,,, one of the gas station suggested a motel, found less than 30 min.
HOWEVER, the price wasn't on the satisfactory, but I gave up and got to on ...

LESSON 4, If you want to visit famous places for sight seeing, prepare beforehand with maps.
This was not funny for me. ( I should have some print out map... )
I got GPS and parepared web map at night, but useless for me.
If you have a good memory, that would help it.
But I'm very poor with long time memory especially with MAP.
I forgot every details about the map how to get to destination.
I had to spend precious 3-4 hours on the roads to find destination.
But, it was O.K. to me as I could enjoy some San Francisco down town environments.

LESSONS, ..... Safety concerns....everybody would know

Trip report to share with you............

Google Earth GPS Track with Photos
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... &output=nl (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113200691904411669472.00045cf288501485be8f2&output=nl)

Google Map GPS Track with Photos
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... .03125&z=7 (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113200691904411669472.00045cf288501485be8f2&start=2&num=200&ll=36.084621,-120.300293&spn=4.394143,7.03125&z=7)

Picasa Web Album Link
http://picasaweb.google.com/busyweb/Pac ... yHighway1# (http://picasaweb.google.com/busyweb/PacificCoastHighwayHighway1#)

[picasa=busyweb:1goslfyp]5274623629223845537[/picasa:1goslfyp]

Moedad

11-29-2008, 02:59 PM

Hi, everybody....
I just got to San Francisco...
468 miles riding and over 12 hours...hew...
When I get back to home, let me make final report then.
Hopefully, tomorrow night or Sunday morning..

I need some sleep for tomorrow's riding... (2:30 AM)

Awesome! What route did you take, Busy? Hwy 101 or Hwy 1, or a combination? Careful on those hills in the City.

BusyWeb

11-30-2008, 04:12 AM

Awesome! What route did you take, Busy? Hwy 101 or Hwy 1, or a combination? Careful on those hills in the City.
Hi, Mr. Moedad..
I finished trip safely, and I am home now. (11:00 PM Saturday)
Yes, I took mainly Hwy. 1, and 101 for LA areas.
A lot of stories and some photos..
Let me report it tomorrow, I need some rest now.

GZ250 is really a greaty bike.
It did not complain any thing during the 2 days 1000 miles trip, amaizing bike.
And want to thank to GZ for good job.

Water Warrior 2

11-30-2008, 04:31 AM

Looking forward to your report and pics.

BusyWeb

11-30-2008, 11:49 PM

Looking forward to your report and pics.

Hi, Mr. Water Warrior.
I updated main report with some details about trip.
The top post of the thread.

Chris

12-01-2008, 04:03 PM

Let me get this straight:
On one weekend you did 584 miles to Death Valley and back. The next weekend you did 950 miles in two days to SF and back? So about 1550 miles in two weekends? Where did the 84.5mph come from?

Chris in Atlanta

Easy Rider

12-01-2008, 04:19 PM

LESSONS, ..... Safety concerns....everybody would know

Trip report to share with you............

Wow. Cool. :tup:

I do have a couple of important safety concerns, though.
We'd like to keep getting ride reports from you for a LONG time to come, therefore:
Your days are getting TOO long. Whatever or however you can arrange it, your continuous seat time needs to get a little shorter. Noticed your comments about being tired. :cry:
AND
Noticed from your pictures that you need to re-think where you attach your bunge cords. Having them attached to something down near the AXLE is NOT a safe thing to do. Too close to the spinning wheel, should they come loose. :skull:

trykemike

12-01-2008, 06:26 PM

Hey Busy

great report !

Your trips give me a lot of inspiration.

You are proving that these bikes are good cruising machines.

Be safe . Don't ride tired.

My longest bike ride was 450 miles when I was 19 on a honda 350 scrambler. It was not as comfortable as the gz by the way.

I live in toronto canada the snow has ended our season 1 month ago.

Water Warrior 2

12-01-2008, 08:44 PM

BusyWeb

12-02-2008, 01:11 AM

Hi, everybody.
Thanks for the comments..

As your comments, I may need more preparation for the trips.
0. Research more, more, and more for the trip >> try to stop(or avoid) compulsive riding trip
1. Shorter or safe riding plans
2. Manage better riding time: more Daylight riding >> start earlier and end earlier for the long trip.
3. Put bunge cords safely... :blush: >> thanks Mr. Easy Rider. (I may need some extra support for that.)
4. Better picture taking skills, ha ha ha
>> when I tired, I don't feel take pictures and just want to go home and take hot shower.
>> as others may felt >> "What am I doing here at this dark and cold place????" :cry:
5.....

P.S.: To Mr. Chris
Most of high speed on my trip were from Freeway 101, close to my home LA. (and very short time, less than 10 seconds)
Basically, all of the cars are speeding there, so I tried to keep traffic with GZ.. :roll:
The road has slight degree of downward and no winds at all, so I enjoy that part of freeway for speed test.
As I remember, once I got a 87 and a 97 >> both are from my GPS log file.
One of the records was 100.1 mph >> but I think that GPS got wrong calculations.
(however, I did manual calculation, but couldn't verify it's wrong)
But record of 87 mph >> this is positive record and reliable.
You may find record image >> the GPS profile pictures that I posted at another ride reports.

alanmcorcoran

12-02-2008, 03:36 AM

Yeah, taking pictures kind of ruins the ride somewhat. Although I've noticed some pretty good ones on here, especially from Mr. Dupo.

CMS

12-02-2008, 08:53 AM

Mr. Busyweb, Great ride , and report. I think we all gain some knowledge by reading the trip reports [my favorite section]. Ride safe ,get some rest, and I'm looking foward to your next report. It snowing this morning here in Southern Ohio, so my riding is delayed for a while. I do enjoy your reports and all the others, I envy the riding time you get out West. :2tup:

Water Warrior 2

12-02-2008, 11:24 AM

Looking forward to your report and pics.

Hi, Mr. Water Warrior.
I updated main report with some details about trip.
The top post of the thread.

Oh wow. Love the bridge pics and sunsets. Very nicely done. Ahhhh just call me WW. The Mr. part is confusing. I keep looking over my shoulder to see who is there.

Moedad

12-02-2008, 01:31 PM

Oh wow. Love the bridge pics and sunsets.

Hey, WW, are you old enough to remember the TV show "Then Came Bronson"? This bridge (and that stretch of Hwy 1) was prominently featured in the opening of the show every week and in several episodes as well.

NoMates

12-28-2008, 07:39 PM

Wow that was some journey, the bridge pics are awesome alrite.. Nice bike by the way same colour as mine.. :2tup: