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Riders: Gopakumar(GK) and Praveen
Bikes: BMW R1200GS '08, BMW R1150R rented bikes from www.dubbelju.com (pronounced "W")
Date: October 30, 31, Nov 01
Route:
Day 1 5pm to 12.30am ~400mi 7hrs San Jose - Pacheco Pass - Los Angeles
Day 2 9am to 01am ~570mi Los Angeles - Mojave - Death Valley - Olancha - BakersField
Day 3 7.30am to 10.40am ~290mi BakersField - San Jose
Riding Gear: Frank Thomas Predator Jacket http://www.cyclegear.com/spgm.cfm?L1=&L2=&L3=&L4=&item=FTL_FTW314-BZ-S_G
Alpinestar Gore-tex gloves http://www.cyclegear.com/spgm.cfm?L1=&L2=&L3=&L4=&item=PAR_33100103_G
Renting the bikes from dubbelju was straightforward. We booked online for 50$, GK called them up on the phone and confirmed the booking. Saturday morning, we went to San Francisco. They checked our Motorcycle licenses ( I have a Michigan License with Motorcycle "CY" Endorsement & GK has a California license), signed a lot of papers and our credit card until they where happy.
It took nearly one and half hours to get the everything done, including setting up the bags, All weather Garmin Zumo GPS on on one of the bikes.
I extremely recommend renting at least one GPS (~20$). It keeps your trip data and more importantly finds your way to the next fuel pump or hotel.
We headed to San Jose and on the way replaced my fancy looking winter gloves http://www.cyclegear.com/spgm.cfm?L1=&L2=&L3=&L4=&item=HYC_HS-6052-SM_G for a more comfortable and less padded Gore-tex gloves. The thicker glove was straining my arm and was a pain to hold the clutch or accelerate, especially in traffic.
We left for Los Angeles at 5pm through the Pacheco pass. The Pacheco Pass highway is a very twisty and fun road, though some parts it narrows down to a single lane traffic. You will not want to miss this road for sure. We took a side road to to our first stop at Pacheco State Park on top of the mountains watching down on the lake.
We didnt go the whole way, since our low fuel lights were on and we didnt know when the next fuel station would be in. We could explore the place a little more and maybe go up to the water if we had more fuel.
We joined back to the highway and went onto Los Angeles The highway is very scenic, lots of pastures and winding roads. The roads are narrow and there where very few places where we could stop on the side.
We arrived at Los Angeles pretty late called up a hotel near the airport for our first nights rest.
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