In the Fall of 2004 Sparky and I had the opportunity to rent bikes from Dubbelju Motorcycle Rentals in San Francisco for an all-too-brief ride up to Napa-Sonoma, including traversing the spectacular Trinity Road between the two valleys.We picked up the bikes—an F650 for me and a Sportster for Sparky—as early as we could, and headed out through the obligatory fog across the Bay Bridge.
The fall weather was spectacular, but we barely had time for a quick lunch in St. Helena before we had to return across Trinity Road and south to San Francisco.
We did take the time to stop at the Marin County highlands for the obligatory Golden Gate photo op, then wound our way through evening rush-hour traffic in an unfamiliar city (dead reckoning all the way) in order to drop the bikes back at Dubbelju by closing time, grab the gear we had stashed there, and grab the BART to the airport for the red-eye back to D.C. We had hoped to snag a pair of big-bore Beemers for the day, but it was first-come, first served, or a Hobson's choice, or something like that. In any case, Sparky was tickled with the Harley, and I was pretty happy with the 650.
I had ridden the 650 (as service loaners) before, but this was a longer ride on a wide mix of roads—unfamiliar urban congestion, interstates, divided highways and narrow, uber-twisty two lanes. I spent many miles standing on the footpegs, simply because the bike inspires that kind of "irrational exuberance" and in hindsight, I think it probably was the perfect choice for the kind of one-up, lightly-loaded riding we were there for.
We were both pretty exhausted by the time we settled in for the flight home, and disappointed our ride had been so truncated. I'm failry certain that if either of us ever get back out to the left coast, we'll try and make a better go of it.
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