Did another trip today as the weather was just too good to let the opportunity pass. This time I decided to do the trip I was looking at for quite a while.

When my mom was here in September, we went to the Joseph D. Grant County Park and the road there is just gorgeous. Highway 130 goes from San Jose up to Mount Hamilton, then continues east. I turned north on Mines Road and had really a lot of fun. Overall, it was a short trip on the normal highway / freeway here to get to 130 and from then on about 65 miles of curvy, twisty road. Pure fun and definitely one of the best motorcycle roads I've ever been on.

The way up to Mount Hamilton is quite bumpy, so if you want to go a bit faster, you need a bike with good suspension - the F800GS was a bit harsh from time to time, jumpy and sometimes not as controlled as I like it. But it was capable of handling it nevertheless. I might just be a bit too light with my 71kg sp that the bike isn't as planted as with a heavier rider.

Here is the trip as a Google Map. I left Sunnyvale at around 12:30 and was back home around 17:00. Had a late lunch at a chinese restaurant (cheap and pretty good) in Livermore, then decided to take the highway back as it really looked like it was going to rain hard. Caught a few drops but was lucky to arrive at home dry.

Some hints for this trip: the "Cattle Guards" are dangerous! Be careful as those might even come in a corner when you are leaned over quite a bit. Fortunately there are signs for them. At least I think for most of them anyways ... then, there is also cattle on the road sometimes. When I took the following picture, the two were already leaving the road, it took me a bit to get off the bike, open the top case, grab the camera and take the picture. I wasn't too fast so I had no problem stopping for them, but you should be careful in those areas. The cattle guards are there for a reason.

Oh, and guessing from our last experience with the lowered V-Strom: I probably would have shortened the center stand by half an inch or so on this road. Lean angle was very high - didn't scratch anything serious on the Beemer, but I turned the rear suspension up a bit so it wouldn't give so much in the corners when hitting a bump and that was probably a good idea, but had my shoes on the street a couple times - and no, I don't stick them out as early warning, I have them high on the pegs when riding roads like that.