went to Palomar Mt. today well almost...

S

sportrider

Today, unfortunately work was so slow that I didn't even get to work.(bad for the paycheck)(good for the FZ6!!!) so since I was home with the wife and the kids were in school we decided to go hit up Polly. on the weekends Palomar can be very crowded and dangerous, especially for a new rider. I've wanted to take Janette up there but the weekends not a good time for her to cut her teeth on decreasing radius hairpins. needless to say we geared up and off we went. the 1st leg of our trip went pretty good there was a moderate head wind but it wasn't too over powering. after fueling in Borrego Springs we started up Montezuma.(let the fun begin!!!) its funny how places you ride on a weekend are virtually abandoned on a Monday morning. we passed one cage on the way up.(only one that's all the cars we saw all the way to the top, unbeileivable!!!) as we crested the peak a strong cold wind picked up. we proceeded down San Felipe road (the S-2) till we got to the 79.
at the 79 the wind was so strong it literally was filling the wind screen on my FZ with sand. I asked Janette if she wanted to go on or turn back she said lets go to Palomar!!! as we rode down the 79 the wind was getting quite intense, now I have a lot of experience riding in less then perfect environments and the FZ6 is a pretty stable bike in the wind, on the other hand Janette is a new rider and the Lil Ninja was getting tossed like a rag doll in the wind. we turned off on the 76 and stopped off at the Hideout for a smoke break and to evaluate or current situation. as hard as the wind was blowing in the valley where we were at we figured it would probably be best if we turned back and headed for home. its a good thing we did because the wind had increased in its intensity and 50 out of the 70 miles back home was WINDY!!!
on a side note if your ever in Borrego Springs, los Jilbertos on Palm cyn dr. has an excellent California burrito!!!:D
 

bd43

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Great that you both made it out for a ride together, kids and all. I'm sure I speak for the rest of the bunch, but wouldn't having tea been better than hitting the wind?
:justkidding:
 
J

jsteinb95

well....we heard today that the winds yesterday (during our ride) were 55mph with gusts of wind at 100mph. Sure felt like it too. Crazy ride. I was pretty scared. Needless to say, I do not like riding in the wind.
 

Botch

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I work a 5/4/9 schedule and finally started taking the canyons on my off-Friday, sure does make a difference when there's few people on the road. Glad you had fun! :thumbup:
 

craig007

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I was out this weekend too. 80 miles on the FZ, then 2 days 120 miles on a bicycle (Northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin), then 80 miles back on the FZ. Riding there was great ... 70-85 mph on the highway. The wind started up on Sunday. Half of the ride back was directly into the wind. That wasn't bad. Then I had to go east and the wind was coming from the south. On the highway the wind was gusting 20-40 mph from the perpendicular to the highway from the slow lane to the fast lane.

I tried to just lean into the wind. Every time I went over a bridge I gut sucked to the right, then blown back to the left. It also seemed like the whenever I was up to 8 seconds behind a truck, I was still getting a lot of wind turbulance. Nearer the trucks it felt like someone was trying to push me over. Passing trucks was another adventure.

I finally decided to slow down (65 mph) and stayed in the far right lane. It was still pretty fun.
 
S

sportrider

too bad I couldn't have gotten the 100MPH tail wind!!! CAn we say new top speed record!!!
 
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