Category: Motorcycles

Sam Hill’s Legacy

We missed going to Sportbike Northwest this year, but having spied the crown jewel of motorcycle roads a few weeks ago on our gorge bike ride, this event will definitely be on our radar next summer.

“What is the crown jewel of motorcycle roads?” you ask. The Maryhill Loops Road, of course! Built in 1913 by Sam Hill, founder of Maryhill Museum of Art, the historic Loops Road was the first paved road in Pacific Northwest. It winds through the Klickitat Hills just north of the Stonehenge Monument near the junction of Washington Scenic Route 14 and U.S. Highway 97, offering a dozen hairpin turns in a mere 3.5 miles.

It was deemed unfit for travel by the DOT in the 60s and closed. In the late 1990’s the DOT reground the entire surface and paved it anew. Today it’s only open to walkers, bicyclists and few select motor vehicle events a year (including Sportbike Northwest).

According to Sound Rider’s Web site, motorcyclists wanting to ride this amazing piece of asphalt are let loose every 30 to 60 seconds. After 3.5 miles of twisties, you have to turn around and ride back down (the road deadends). 24 hairpins in seven miles - yipee!

Cirque du St. Helens - Stage 3

The long bridge leading to the Johnston Ridge Observatory | Copyright 2006 Charles H. Porter, all rights reserved

Editor’s note: While I was climbing Bonanza Peak in early July, Nick and my dad took a three day motorcycle trip. This is their story, as told by Nick.

Sunday, 2 July.
Stage 3: Cougar, Johnston Ridge, Kirkland.
Distance: 200-something miles.
Conditions: Morning –mid 50s. Afternoon – mid-80s.

The drag out to Woodland from Cougar is uninteresting, but Woodland could make a good pick-up point if you were going to do this on bicycle. You could drop a car in Randle and ride to Woodland over two days. It would be a fabulous ride.

Arriving in Woodland, we had our first taste of I-5 for the trip, and I was glad to spit it out again when we exited at Castle Rock for the run up to the Johnston Ridge Observatory. 

The road to Johnston Ridge, after two days of exercising restraint due to uncertain road conditions, finally offered the opportunity to turn the wick up. “I followed at a reasonable pace while Nick proceeded to hone the edges of his tires,” Chuck later claimed.  One spirited half hour later, we arrived at the Observatory much faster than I had the previous weekend on my bicycle. We were just in time to hear another ranger talk. This one was much more polished than the first. We learned that the 1980 eruption came in four stages: The initial collapse of the mountainside, which in turn allowed an outlet for the second stage – the explosion. The explosion overran the damage caused by the landslide, picking up boulders and trees and carrying them through the air for miles. The bulk of the damage to the surrounding landscape was caused by this blast, which ripped out trees at close range, knocked them over in the medium range, and scorching them at long range. The heat from the explosion melted the glacier and triggered the mud flow we remember from the television footage. The mud scoured the valley to the north of the mountain and adopted the path of the North Fork Toutle River. It washed away cars, destroyed bridges and covered homes. After all this destructive output, the mountain still had the energy to send up the ash plume. As I mentioned earlier, 600 dump trucks of ash per second for twelve hours. No wonder this stuff circled the globe and turned up on Washington’s coast carried by a westerly wind.

The mountain is still erupting, and has been since late 2004. But it’s a gas-poor mountain now, having expended all its gas in the 1980 eruption and never really sealing up enough to allow tremendous pressure to build.

We snapped some photos and hit the road again, this time with a plan to take a few new roads on our way back to Highway 7. We missed a few turns, scratched our heads, and ultimately found our way back to Morton, where we stopped for ice cream bars. Assuring Chuck that I was fine on gas (he carries an extra gallon or so in his tank and gets better mileage to boot, so he was always leery of me not gassing up at every opportunity) we set off for home. The road got hotter and hotter as we approached Puyallup, finally reaching its zenith just before we turned north on 167. Stopping at IKEA sounded good, but with home nearly in sight I put my head down and charged for the barn. I made it all the way home without running out of gas, much to my surprise. The next day, Chuck called me and gave me the official trip mileage – 570 miles. I kept resetting my trip odometer in order to monitor fuel consumption, so I was guessing a lot.

This could be a great bicycle trip, but you need to do a lot of transit to get to the good roads. The trip down 25 from Randle is spectacular. I could see the ride from Randle to Cougar making a very good two-day trip. A detailed Forest Service map would yield a network of dirt roads that connect most major roads in that part of the state. The question is how willing you are to spend part of your tour off-road in order to make it a loop. Put the fat tires on and see how it goes.

Cirque du St. Helens - Stage 2

Eruption devestation | Copyright 2006 Charles H. Porter, all rights reserved

Editor’s note: While I was climbing Bonanza Peak in early July, Nick and my dad took a three day motorcycle trip. This is their story, as told by Nick.

Saturday, 1 July
Stage 2: Chillin’. Randle to Cougar, WA.
Distance: 65 miles.
Conditions: Morning: Mid-50s to low 60s. Afternoon: 70s to high 80s. Sunny. 

We weren’t the only motorcyclists at the Adams and St. Helens Family Restaurant. As we walked in, the rider of the purple Harley outside was paying his bill. Shortly before we left, the pilot of a black KTM 950 walked in.

We got our second helping of Highway 25. Ignoring the turnoff to Windy Ridge we continued south, enjoying the twisty roads and stopping to take in the views. Stopped at a viewpoint, we got to talking with a man on an older Harley Davidson coming from the other direction. “Nice day for it,” “Where’d ye start from?” “Where’r ye going?” “Nice tassels.” This man had left Vancouver, WA, that morning and was meeting his daughter in Randle. He and Chuck got to talking about the magnitude of various volcanic explosions including the one that formed Crater Lake.  We parted ways and twenty minutes later found ourselves at the turn off for the Ape Cave. We had no option but to investigate.

The Ape Cave is a lava tube, discovered by a logger and named after his son’s Boy Scout troupe, nicknamed the St. Helens Apes. We took a guided tour led by a park ranger, though you can also walk around the caves on your own. Equipped with a hefty Coleman lantern, we descended the steps into the dark, damp, and very cold cave for some serious chillin’. It’s about 40 degrees in the Ape Cave, and while I loved the mesh jacket for riding in the scorching summer temperatures of the surface, it did precious little to keep me warm down here. To the ranger’s knowledge, nobody had ever lived in the Ape Cave, though Chuck thought it might make a good winter hideout, when the ground is warmer than the air outside.

10 miles down the road is Cougar. When I was an active yacht racer, I used to sail a regatta on Yale Lake, just a few minutes out of Cougar. I thought I remembered the town having a gas station, a few small grocery stores, some bars, and a smattering of other small businesses. You could stock up for the post-race barbecue by going into town. Now, Cougar has a combination gas station/general store, a diner with a bar in the back, and the Lone Fir Resort and RV Park, where we had a room. Following lunch on the deck at the Lone Fir’s modest restaurant, we weighed our options. Chuck wanted to hop back on the bikes to explore the road past the Ape Cave. I was melting. I wanted to sit in the shade by the lake and take a nap. In the end, neither of us won. We sat on the front porch of our motel and watched the campground world go by until dinner time when we got up to play a few games of choose-your-own-adventure darts (neither of us know how to play) and wander down the street for dinner. Funny thing about these little towns. All the food on offer is fried. I opted for the taco salad.

To be continued...

Cirque du St. Helens - Stage 1

Mt. St. Helens | Copyright 2006 Charles H. Porter, all rights reserved

Editor’s note: While I was climbing Bonanza Peak in early July, Nick and my dad took a three day motorcycle trip. This is their story, as told by Nick.

The Mission: Ride motorcycles around Mount St. Helens. Avoid the lava.

Personnel:
Chuck Porter, Nick Brown

Equipment:
Chuck: 2006 Ducati ST3. Quiet, Computerized, Liquid-cooled. Factory hard bags. 
Nick: 1995 Ducati 900SS. Noisy, Temperamental. Soft bag.

Dates: 30 June – 2 July.

Friday, 30 June.
Stage 1: Congestion and Clutches: Kirkland to Randal, WA.
Distance: 160 miles.
Conditions: High 80s, sunny. 

The previous Friday I went for a ride with Derek Shiers and on returning home I noticed I was low on clutch juice. “Hm. I wonder where the shift-enablement fluid went?” The seals on the original clutch slave cylinder had finally failed. New parts needed. My father-in-law and I started our road trip at the Ducati dealer, where my bike got its urgent slave cylinder transplant.

I was in for another treat: As I reached for my leathers, Carry chimed in with “Oh Honey, you are going to roast. Why don’t you take my summer-weight, fully-vented mesh riding jacket? You’ll be much more comfortable and less vulnerable to heat stroke.” With the tailbag strapped on and Carry’s summer weight mesh jacket tentatively zipped around my torso (my inner Mike Hailwood doesn’t like to ride in clothes that didn’t at some point say “moo”) I saddled up, twiddled the choke, said three Hail Marys, and coaxed my bike to life. Chuck just pushed his start button.

Our route would take us south on 405 and 167, changing to 161, SR 7, and finally SR12. This path was carefully planned to maximize VMG while minimizing freeway boredom. The only significant town we would have to worry about would be Puyallup, which soon reared its ugly, congested head. Imagine sitting in heavy traffic on the 4th of July weekend in 80-degree weather while sitting astride a motorbike running well north of 200 degrees and mysteriously unable to engage neutral. The traffic lights in Puyallup are long.

We battled along until a break for gas and lunch. Until Friday June 30, I had not had a commercially-prepared burger in something like five years. What a way to end the streak. At least I was on my motorcycle. After 15 more minutes of hand-to-hand combat in Puyallup, we finally broke free of the stranglehold of strip mall America and cruised south to Eatonville, home of Northwest Trek, a cool wildlife park that offers early morning photography trips. Try it sometime.

Running south on curving, empty roads through partial shade (cool air!) was wonderful. We hit Eatonville, looked at the map, and were soon making a left onto Highway 7. 7 soon delivered us to Elbe, home of the Scaleburger, where we diverted south again toward Morton. Morton proudly celebrates its logging heritage, with banners announcing the Morton Loggers Festival in a few weeks. The town is remarkably vibrant. Citizens were out walking to the store, chatting with friends at the post office where we stopped to consult the map, and teenagers were taking the Friday afternoon to hang out with friends in town rather than bee-lining it to the big city of Toledo some 30 miles west.

We arrived in Randle around 3:30. We rode right past the Randle Motel. “Did you see the motel?” asked Chuck. “I’m pretty sure it was that long, low building at the start of town.” The proprietor was not to be found, but his buddy was watching the office. Chuck got renamed “Charlie” and we got the keys to our room. The furnishings were at least 30 years old, and the bathroom was missing the glass from its window, but it was clean and would prove to be quiet.

The plan was to run down Highway 25 to the Windy Ridge view point and back before dinner – a round trip of about 75 miles. This is where the ride becomes a good bicycle trip. Drive to Randal, park the car, and start riding south. The road is worth it.

Highway 25 starts as a fun, forested, and twisty road with good sight lines, a few hairpins and for the most part good pavement. There are some areas with excessive deep cracks, smooth dips and bumps in inopportune places. The road to Windy Ridge turns off this main road and becomes much more involved. Blind corners, decreasing radius turns, collapsing sections of road, and the most awe-inspiring demonstration of nature. Blazing along through dense, old-growth forest you approach a bend in the road. Half way through the curve you burst into harsh sunlight as you enter the blast zone from Mount St. Helens’ 1980 eruption. The transition from lush, dark green to a moonscape is chilling. The landscape still looks scorched. On closer inspection you find small purple flowers and low green groundcovers starting to return. But the dead trees, both those standing and those blown flat by the explosion, depending on proximity to the volcano and the contours of the land, was eerie. So was the road. The same crumbling infrastructure as the forest road, only with sweeping views, excellent sightlines, and a honking steep cliff on one side with no guardrails. There’s nothing like consequence to focus your attention.

Windy Ridge was windy and hot. I climbed off the bike, pulled off my helmet and felt like somebody was pointing a hair dryer at my face. My water bottle was in my luggage back in Randle. Disaster. Park rangers give a talk about the changes in the landscape due to the 1980 eruption. Many of us remember the ash dusting our homes when the mountain erupted last time. When St. Helens’ eruption transitioned to its ash-spewing stage (which was the last phase of the active eruption that day) it was sending ash skyward at a rate of 600 dump trucks per second. It spewed ash for something like twelve hours. It is currently erupting, and has been since late 2004, but its ash production is a modest one dump truck every minute.

We arrived back in Randle, and walked across the street to the Big Bottom Bar and Grill. “It gets a little rowdy…” the man at the motel warned. We entered to find the Big Bottom half empty. I sat down, ordered a beer and realized how tired I was. Riding a motorcycle all day is mentally and physically exhausting. My brain was tired from running at 100% situation analysis all day. My body was tired from the heat and the Ducati’s V-twin vibration. I slept really well.

To be continued...

On the open road

Riding the twisties near Neah Bay, WA
Copyright 2006 by Chuck Porter, all rights reserved

Two motorcycles, three Clif Bars, four days and 640 miles of twisty road are all you need for a weekend of fun! (At least, that’s what my dad and I thought sometime last fall.)

The weather gods looked like they were in a favorable mood last week, so on Friday, we packed our bags and planned our route, which consisted of a loop around the Olympic Peninsula, plus a day on Vancouver Island.

Saturday dawned cold, but clear - a very good sign! After a fill-up at the local Shell station, we took off for Port Angeles.

I don’t think my dad was fully prepared for the route I’d planned. A short ride up I-5 to Marysville and we were off on every teensy country rode I could find between there and La Conner. We stopped at the Deception Pass Bridge for a peek over the edge and then high-tailed it to the Keystone ferry dock on Whidbey Island. (We wanted to make the 12 p.m. ferry, so we could have lunch in Port Townsend.)

We made it with plenty of time to spare and traded pleasantries with the BMW riders in line ahead of us.

(A side note for Ducati enthusiasts: As we were riding off the ferry on the other side, we spotted a gorgeous Paul Smart 1000. Not only do they exist, but people are riding them too!)

Port Townsend is clearly a town that caters to motorcyclists; we spotted at least four designated motorcycle parking spots at every street corner. Lunch was at Bayview, a small restaurant with a view of the water. Food is decent and the price is right (about $8 for a good sized sandwich with a side salad). Don’t expect to get an Arnold Palmer, though. They don’t have lemonade.

On our way out of town we paid a brief visit to a friend of my dad’s. She has a collection of six amazing birds. Four of them are parrots (three green and one grey), a ginormous cockateal, and one other that I can’t remember. They talk and laugh just like humans (one of them even said “hubba hubba!” when we walked into the room). They’re a little creepy and fascinating at the same time.

We cruised along Discovery Bay to Sequim, rode out to Dungeness Spit State Park for a view of the water, and finished the day at the Red Lion in Port Angeles. Burritos and margaritas at Crazy Fish topped off the day.

We aimed for an early start on Sunday to catch the Coho Ferry to Victoria, B.C. At the ticket counter, we were presented with a stern warning that any damage to the bikes on the journey across the water was our sole responsibility. Remembering the chaotic storm waves that tossed the boat around last time I took the ferry, I reluctantly signed the waiver. Fortunately, the ferry provides ties to secure the motorcycles against tipping over. Security is entirely dependant on your ability to tie good knots, however.

Once in Victoria, we took off on Hwy 1 to Sooke and then Hwy 14 to Port Renfrew. Of all the roads we traveled on the entire trip, this one was my favorite. It paralleled the Straight of Juan de Fuca, but it was so twisty that almost 100% of your attention had to be focused on the next turn.

We made it as far as Jordan River before gas availability became an issue. (Note to self, fuel up in Sooke if you want to make it all the way to Port Renfrew and back.) We stopped for lunch at a small burger shack on the beach and chatted with a couple 749 and 999 owners briefly, before they continued on down the road. It was just as well, because within 15 minutes a pack of 30 riders, mostly on Harley Davidson’s, showed up. They were making an ice cream stop on the way to the pub in Port Renfrew. They departed only to be followed by a pack of about 20 “angry bees” (Japanese sport bikes) coming back from Port Renfrew. Clearly the ice cream must be good here, because that is all they stopped for too.

The sport bike riders departed just ahead of us, but we never saw them again. Too fast for us granny drivers!

The ride back to the ferry was just as fun as the ride out (maybe a little better actually, since we were more familiar with the turns).

Day 3 dawned clear again (boy were we lucky!), so we headed west on Hwy 112 to Neah Bay. It’s located on the Makah Indian reservation at the northwestern most corner of the Peninsula. It’s not much of a destination, but the road getting there was pretty good. The pavement could be better, but the views and the twistiness factor are excellent.

From there we headed south on Hwy 113 - the second best road on the entire trip. At 60 mph, the sweepers make you feel like a grand prix driver. Sweet!

In Forks, the road joins up with Hwy 101, which mostly parallels the coast.

Me on “Il Mostro” and dad on the “Friendly Bee”
Copyright 2006 by Charles Porter, all rights reserved

It’s a long ride to Aberdeen, and by the time we got there we were pretty much toast. 220 miles in one day is a lot for first-time tourers!

Aberdeen (home of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain) is a moderately depressed mill town that used to be the center of a booming logging and fishing trade. There’s not much of either industry left in the area, but the town has yet to die completely.

We stayed at the Red Lion again. (It was much cheaper than the one in P.A. and included breakfast.) We each took long showers, letting the hot water soothe our sore bodies. After dinner and watching The Apprentice (a show which my dad was not impressed with), we fell soundly asleep.

Tuesday morning dawned cloudy and cool. We had faith in the weather man’s prediction that the day would stay dry and headed inland to Hood Canal.

The winding road from Shelton to Hoodsport to Quilcene has a number of nicely linked ess turns, great for riding.

After a short stop in Port Gamble for lunch we took the ferry from Kingston to Edmonds (bringing our ferry trip count to four!) and headed home.