July’s shop ride marked the beginning of a new era for
BMWoVC shop rides; instead of actively attempting to annihilate as many motorcyclists and motorcycle parts as possible, we went for what was certainly the most civilized dual sport ride in the history of the Ventura County Adventure Ride Series.
To no avail.
Three falls – one in a stream crossing riders were warned about at the pre-ride meeting. Not that it is a particularly intimidating crossing: We’re talking less than an inch of water here, spread two feet wide, tops, over the concrete paving. It just goes to show that no matter how easy it looks, …. Well, it isn’t.
Oddly enough, it’s the shallow water and the flat, supposedly easy-to-ride-on concrete that create the problem: Algae grows really well, given a steady supply of sunlight and water. So a nice sunny, shallow, paved crossing is about the worst thing imaginable. The algae coat the concrete, which then, being so smooth, provides precisely NO traction. So you enter the crossing at perpendicular to the flow of water, clutch in, no brake, no turning, and you shouldn’t have a problem.
Steve Edgecombe had a problem; he did everything right & fell over anyway. It turns out that this particular crossing is sloped to one side; it drops at least, oh, an
inch or two every
yard, in a couple of
foot-long sections… So if you cross at the wrong spot, you may be sitting bolt upright and your bike might be perfectly perpendicular relative to the pull of gravity, the planets may be in line, the entrails may be favourable, your tea leaves impeccably in order; but like it as not you are
going down, boy. Because, you see, since there is that
tiny little tilt, that is allowing the water to flow in a certain direction, you may be perpendicular to the force of gravity, but you are leaning,
ever so slightly, relative to the road surface. And so you end up on your butt in 5/8” of water.
This is not a safe sport, we are engaged in, here.
Like lightning, knowing about the issue doesn’t help – as I said, we talked about it at the pre-ride. In fact, teaching a student the next week in the same area, I nearly fell in myself. It just happens… Like weddings, or tidal waves.
What
can help – and this is the primary (and admittedly indirect) way that riding skill applies in this case – is speed. Going over such a crossing at, say, 18-20 miles an hour, your bike simply doesn’t have the time to slide anywhere. So, as general riding skill improves – and as a result, average riding speed increases – tiny, seemingly insignificant crossings like this one actually tend to become, tiny, and insignificant.
But until then… One down in the crossing.
Next was the silt beds. If you’ve watched Dust To Glory, you really know what silt can be like. What the movie glosses over is that a silt bed doesn’t have to be three feet deep to be a serious problem. We hit a few patches that were all less than 3 inches deep. Two riders went down.
Silt is like a big, hairy, hungry bear: Never terribly safe to tangle with but as long as you’re faster than the person you’re with, you should get on all right. This is because if the first rider makes it through the silt without succumbing to the tendency of the front tire to get lost and go looking for the rear tire in vain hopes of reorienting itself before carrying on by passing both the rear tire and itself, the second rider won’t even see the silt coming, because most of it will be in the air by the time that rider gets there. He may well end up in the bushes on the side of the road simply because he suddenly found he could no longer see.
Anything.
On the whole, however, it was a lovely ride. Of note, we had our youngest rider yet, and he’s likely to hold the title for quite a while. At seventeen, Justin Genter just about cut the record in half. He & his father Dan both ride like they’ve done it a while. Street riding classes & dirt bike experience both help.
Steve Edgecombe & Daniel Ackermann lent an international flair to the day. A Brit & a – is there a short pithy term for some one from South Africa? – together they make up (so I’m told) a highly competitive pounding team, although I am pretty sure they mainly compete against each other. Daniel has survived through more than one VCARS ride, not to mention the thrice-dreaded EarthRider Tire Lofting Skilzdrill class, and served as a competent & much-appreciated ride sweeper for the majority of the ride. Steve was often just in front of Dan; if you turned your engine off and coasted, you could hear them, a switchback below, passing jokes in engaging accents. Personally, I suspect that Steve fell over because of something funny Daniel said, and not because of the algae at all. Perhaps it was an off joke about David Attenborough’s son, which would satisfy both criteria.
But I digress; where did we go? What did we do?
We started out with a cruise through agricultural areas in Somis; orchards, rows of Eucalyptus, scenery fit to distract you from the raccoon carcass just your side of the centerline… Everybody missed that, luckily, and we popped out onto Grimes Canyon Road without mishap. Grimes is tight and steep and twisty, providing great views if you are gutsy enough to take your eyes off the road. It’s only a few minutes from there to Fillmore, where we made a brief stop before heading north out of town, paralleling the Sespe river gorge.
Just before the perfectly normal road becomes steep, narrow, pot-holed, twisty, and
extremely exposed, we made another brief halt to shed layers and for some, a few psi as well.
Speaking of international flair, that’s when the ninja attack came. Chun Lai, ostensibly Chinese, is shown here reaching for a throwing star in his tail bag. We were all dead so fast we still haven’t stopped twitching, which explains how we were all able to continue the ride and indeed, how I am able to write this. Many thanks to Chun Lai for his professionalism. Can I collect on my life insurance yet?
In actuality, of course, it was probably a power bar or a pressure gauge or something, that Chun was digging for here. I don’t recall, but I do recall thinking that this picture offers me an ideal opportunity to mention how incredibly useful a balaclava (or Buff, or, say, whatever they call that thing that ninjas wear in all the movies) is as a piece of riding clothing: They keep your neck warm on cold mornings and help keep air from blowing through your helmet. When it’s hot, they help keep the sun off your neck, or – soaked in water – they help keep you cool. Aside from that, I am sure I have avoided more than one bee sting, when the bee impacted my Buff, instead of my neck or cheek. In a pinch, they make a passable goggle / visor wipe. If you have a black one you look cool, and if you have a white one you can whip it off and wave it over your head when the Harley riders turn up and they
have to at least parlay; that’s the rules. Furthermore, if you are on a multi-day and your tent gets washed away during a deep river crossing so you are sleeping out at night and it is cold as hell and the moon is SO freakin’ bright that you feel like you’re being interrogated, you can pull it on just down over your eyes, and it will keep your head warm and block the light.
Black ones are best for this, in my experience.
The list is endless.
Where was I?
Up the road we went. The first few miles pass through an oil field, which can be confusing on account of all the dead-end spurs leading to smelly oil pumping apparati. Luck was with us, for nearly every such spur boasted a closed gate. The entire navigational issue being thus eliminated, we simply relaxed and enjoyed the ride – up through the water crossings, the silt beds, etc., and on, northward into the Los Padres mountains, and Condor Country.
We did not see condors. We did see several places where one
might see a condor, and several places where we would have liked to see a condor. But to sum it up, we eventually reached the end of the road – for this road does end, at a cul-de-sac of sorts, in the middle of small valley surrounded by high mountains – and after a few minutes to catch our breaths & chew the fat, as it were, we turned around. Scott Leighty was nice enough to bring his camera, and took several photos, including this group shot we did on the way back down to Fillmore (as well as all the rest of the photos in this recap. Thanks again, Scott!)
On the way back, in a sudden fit of sadism, I swerved into the deepest silt bed and hit the throttle. Kurt Heidolf and I had been talking about the silt beds, and I thought… Um, I thought he might like to see just how silty the air can get, when you ride through silt at speed… Yeah, that was it. Just a short ways behind me at the time, Kurt managed his F800 with aplomb, through and beyond my silt bomb. We continued to lead the pack, back down the steep, winding, semi-paved road, now affording us grand views of the Santa Clara Valley, and even the Oxnard plain. On a clear day, you can see the ocean from this road.
Back in Fillmore, we took advantage of one of several excellent Mexican food opportunities available to us. Cold horchata and
huge burritos. This was, in fact, the shortest shop dualsport ride yet, and still we worked up quite an appetite.
Thanks to all who participated and made the ride what it was. Hope to see you all soon!
