Lefty's Birthday Bash

Verharen

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This past weekend, several SoCal Hoons and a few NorCal FZ friends gathered at Casa de Lefty to celebrate his coming of age. What age? It's not my place to say :rolleyes:. Lefty guided us for 3 days filled with his favorite twisties, while Mrs. Lefty made certain we were all WELL fed. OhMyGosh I haven't eaten so much in ages, and Mrs. Lefty is an EXCELLENT cook. :bow: Yum! Thanks!!

My final numbers: 1500 miles in 5 days, 550 miles on the last day to make it all the way home. But I think Goop did more on his way up at the start of the party.

Here are just a few pics of the celebration. Thanks again to Mr. & Mrs. Lefty. Happy birthday my brother.
 

Verharen

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I officially kicked things off late Thursday when I rode up and around LA. Just didn't want to tack those 200 miles on to day one.

Friday morning Goop left SD very early in order to meet Cali Rider, Mark, and Evan. They actually showed up at my hotel early!! Lucky for me I was ready to go and we hit the road to pick up Jerry before heading north to meet Lefty at the halfway point in Coalinga for lunch.

Now we were on a roll! After hours of Interstate slab it was fun to get to some twisties. We took the back roads to Lefty's. And ended the evening with a trip to the local brewery before dinner. Friday night was IPA & Tequila night.

Saturday dawned early with the arrival of Tailgate. Pecan waffles, fruit salad, and ham for us all. Then a bit of freeway, picking up Chemaker along the way, to get to the Laguna Seca neighborhood. Just a few miles later we had our first and really only hiccup of the trip. Jerry had a problem requiring a trip to the local dealer who was only 10mi away! Cali Rider and Jerry ended up creating their own ride for the day, and the rest of us took a bit shorter than planned route. We made it home in time for dinner and Saturday night was IPA & Scotch night.

By Sunday we had the rhythm of things down. We had an absolutely wonderful ride through the forest moon of Endor. No Ewok sightings, but great riding. I'm getting tired of writing, so I'll just skip to the birthday party! Sunday night was IPA & Whiskey night!!

Here are some of my favorite pics of the crew. I'm hoping they will post pics/vid from their helmet cams so you can see how beautiful it all was. Good times!
 
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Jblk9695

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This was one of those rides you will remember for ever!! TOO MUCH FUN even with the Tiger breaking the shift spring. Just took a little practice to shift and you had to be ready for slow speed corners which the enchanted forest had a lot of, good thing the Tiger has low rpm torque.
And a lot of thanks to Carrie for putting up with all us Hooligans, man can she put out the food. Just Fantastic.
I managed 475 miles for the ride home, longest I've done in quite a few years, put on just shy of 1300 for the trip. Lefty took us on some of the neatest roads and the scenery was awesome.
Few photos, some were taken with the Drift HD set on time lapse for still photo's.
 

Motogiro

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Great great report! I am so bummed I missed this trip with my friends. See you all on the next one!
 

VEGASRIDER

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Kind of strange seeing these pictures and I'm not in it.

Well if Jerry said it was the best ride ever to remember, then I kind of regret not making the push down there Saturday night from Portland. I rode my bike there from Idaho so I had my bike with me. I put my mom on a plane to Chicago to stay with my sister that morning and technically could have been in the Bay area by midnight.

Thanks for posting, who's birthday is next? Looks like Lefty got a new lid. Nice.
 

motojoe122

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Awesome Bday write up and pics! I was stationed up that way early in my career, I really miss the mountains.
 

Goop

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Great friends, great food & drink, awesome roads! I am glad I was able to make it up for the birthday bash! Thanks and hugs to John & Carrie :rockon: I had 1494 miles on my trip odometer when I pulled into home. I also had a sore butt! :D :D

Jerry's shifter spring didn't stop him from riding; He used rubber bands to compensate for the broken spring! :thumbup:

Some of those tight forest roads were maybe a car and a half wide. It made for some challenging riding, especially when the trees were so dense that sunlight barely came through.
 
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Cloggy

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Looks like you all had a blast, great pics, thanks for sharing. It's great that you guys did this for Lefty, and had some great rides and a great time to boot :thumbup:. always love to read about the Cali groups get togethers :rockon:
 
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Lefty

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Thanks to all the hoons for taking the time and travelling all the miles to help me celebrate my big "six oh!". And the birthday presents..oh my! You really did make the weekend epic and having the chance to sit around for a few nights getting to know each other better over drinks and food was great. @ Jen and Jerry, thanks for taking all the pics to document the occasion, I didn't take a single pic all weekend so you saved the day. :spank: @ John, thanks for putting together the routes to and from so you could all travel together for as long as possible, it was like adding two more group rides to the weekend. :thumbup:

I am fortunate to have met so many people and made so many friends through this forum. :rockon:

P.S. Jerry, nice new avatar.
 
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Jblk9695

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Just a few notes from the ride.
Don't ride in the back (the area behind the back seat) of an SUV when Cali rider is driving, slalom course and speed bumps are his favorite things to do, weeeeeeeeeeeee.
We had a bit of entertainment riding up the 5 on Friday, really boring stretch of hwy so anything to stay awake is welcome, we watched Mark's luggage trying its best to lean over far enough to fall off, never did but was fun to watch, or Jen beboping on her bike listening to tunes.
We passed some huge piles of cow dung that I guess were going to be used as fertilizer, man the smell almost knocked you off your bike.
Finding a great motorcycle dealer, Monterey Peninsula Power Sports in Seaside, to check out my Tiger, didn't charge a thing and recommended a great place across the street for lunch, if your in the area try Luckies, great food. And a big thanks to Cali rider for all his help.
Cali rider tucked in on Carries Yamaha 250 dual sport just to get it to 70mph.
Found out that two glasses of 9.5 beer and a Grumpy Monk will make for a wobbly evening, I'm a cheep date ha ha, yes we had a designated river.
Hotel San Carlos is a very nice place to stay when your in the area, two thumbs up.

I will add more tidbits as I remember them and all those that were on this adventure please add your thoughts and stories.

Jerry

:thumbup::D:thumbup::D
 

Lefty

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My tidbit..
When Jerry's Tiger blew the spring about 90 miles in on our 360 mile ride on our way to Carmel Valley we had Jen call the local dealer and in her sexiest, we need help voice said that she was on a group ride and one of her friends was having trouble the the shifter thingy. I'm not sure that it was on purpose that she didn't mention that Jerry was a guy but the dealer told her "sure, no problem. Come on in, we'll be waiting for you". Imagine their surprise when it was a couple of old goats like Jerry and John. :eek: :confused:
 
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marke14

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What a great weekend, thanks to all for contributing to a memorable, fantastic weekend!

I will try to get some pics up after work one of these days. It turns out my GoPro still shots did have a few keepers among them. Thank God Jerry ended up getting some good ones going through that section of redwoods - that was an amazing experience! And: I learned that I can brake quite strongly, while going downhill, turning, on that road. Who knew?

Those Bridgestone T30s lived up to the hype, thanks for the recommendation!

:Sport:
 

Tailgate

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I don't know how, but Lefty hit the weather jackpot! It's no easy task to predict middle-of-summer and near-perfect/sunny and fog-free weather for the Bay Area/SF peninsula months in advance (equally unseasonal was the San Francisco rain/drizzle during my return to Sacramento) Big thanks :cheer::cheer: to the generous Mr.& Mrs. Lefty for graciously hosting this fun-filled event What a great Hoon get-together...this time in NorCal. Some more pics...
 

Verharen

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My tidbit..
When Jerry's Tiger blew the spring about 90 miles in on our 360 mile ride on our way to Carmel Valley we had Jen call the local dealer and in her sexiest, we need help voice said that she was on a group ride and one of her friends was having trouble the the shifter thingy. I'm not sure that it was on purpose that she didn't mention that Jerry was a guy but the dealer told her "sure, no problem. Come on in, we'll be waiting for you". Imagine their surprise when it was a couple of old goats like Jerry and John. :eek: :confused:

First, let me just say that was not my sexiest voice :innocent:

Second, no one from the group was watching as I fell over after getting gas in Frazier Park. :spank: Why do gas stations always have the worst entry/exits? Up hill, with a drainage ditch at the top, and a 90 degree turn with a truck swinging wide from his turn across the street into my lane, and a bike that suddenly weighed differently than it did 10 min earlier. :shakehead: Add tired legs and I was doomed to lay her down gently on her saddle bag. Yes, the one with my iPad in it. But all was well. Bryan and Evan came back and helped me up and we headed home on the last leg of the trip. Nothing worse than a slightly bruised ankle and ego.
 

Humperdinkel

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What a brilliant thread !!! Rep for everybody the second I get home :) Was fantastic to so many people that have come together because of this forum , celebrate with friends & share it with those of us who would dearly have loved to have been there :thumbup:

Well done to all involved, take a bow. This place rocks !! :rockon: :rockon:

And people often wonder why we become attached to people that hang around in here, even though we may never meet.... This is what it's all about :D
 
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