<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Riding with Pashnit:
Exploring the California Central Coast</span>
<span style='font-size:13pt;line-height:100%'>A Motorcycle Ride through the Land of Oz</span>
I love to ride. And if you're reading this, you probably do also. And each Spring, a season of riding starts anew. Lately here in California, we've had an intense amount of rain. The most in 10 years they say. All the reservoirs are full, the ground is saturated, and last month, it rained for 25 days out of 31. There's so much water, they're giving it away. I'm told they set a record up at Mammoth- over 700 inches of snow. And 100 miles to the east of our ride, a state of disaster was declared in the Central Valley with its extensive levee system (nearly 1000 miles of) pushed to the limit, and just days after the tour, even the President of the United States came to visit.
So as our ride date approached, myself and all the riders held our breath and checked the weather like rabid sports fans desperate for the latest scores. As it turned out, the predictions changed every day, twice a day, and in the end, didn't match up with reality anyway. Oh well, so much for predicting the weather.
A little sidenote: One of the things I was working on with this trip in terms of the photography was shooting a lot of photography in portrait mode, in other words, tall pics vs. wider landscape shots. Each trip I work on something new, and build off the previous ride. I was asked to share some more photo tips awhile back, and continue the previous text on my photography in the previous trip so I'll do a bit of that along the way. Maybe some of you will get something out of it (ntm, the previous thread is approaching 20,000 views so somebody must be reading this stuff).
Meeting along the edge of San Francisco, at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Tim says Hi, Joseph looks on
Meeting the new riders for the first time, Breck, Dianne, Kevin & Rick
As was usual on a Pashnit Ride, there was quite the variety of bikes. The hallmark of a Pashnit Ride is variety and this one was no different. I had been in contact with Andy and Malie for months prior trying to coincide our schedules. Malie is a Rep for a Publishing Company in London, England. She was lucky enough to coincide a business trip with our tour.
Malie & Andy (pronounced Mah-lee)
She was accompanied by her husband Andy, who's a sales rep for Wrigglys Chewing Gum. Which he happened to mention is a 5 billion dollar a year business. Just chewing gum. Just Wriggleys. Lot of money sitting on the undersides of tables. Andy rides a SV650 and they live on the north side of London.
Andy
There was another couple on the ride, Joseph and Dianne (above) flew in from Houston, Texas picking up a Honda Goldwing from Moturis in San Leandro. Joseph has been in Venture Capital for over 30 years, is a Vietnam Veteran and shared a few war stories with us, as he was an officer during the war, and had seen his share of combat. With a wink, he made it clear that he could get away with more than the average person. After all, he was from Texas.
Joseph & Dianne's Goldwing
Rick also joined our ride and in chatting with him, we quickly got engrossed in talking all about his classic cars- he owns 4. His daily driver is a 1970 Chevelle station wagon. He had recently gotten back into riding and was aboard the ultimate sport-touring machine of its time. A '94 Honda VFR in red. Wouldn't have it any other way. One of the things Rick was going to do when he got back from the ride was go climb Mt. Rainer. All in a days work.
Rick
Rick's VFR
<!--EDIT|pashnit
Reason for Edit: None given...|1145824063 -->
Exploring the California Central Coast</span>
<span style='font-size:13pt;line-height:100%'>A Motorcycle Ride through the Land of Oz</span>
I love to ride. And if you're reading this, you probably do also. And each Spring, a season of riding starts anew. Lately here in California, we've had an intense amount of rain. The most in 10 years they say. All the reservoirs are full, the ground is saturated, and last month, it rained for 25 days out of 31. There's so much water, they're giving it away. I'm told they set a record up at Mammoth- over 700 inches of snow. And 100 miles to the east of our ride, a state of disaster was declared in the Central Valley with its extensive levee system (nearly 1000 miles of) pushed to the limit, and just days after the tour, even the President of the United States came to visit.
So as our ride date approached, myself and all the riders held our breath and checked the weather like rabid sports fans desperate for the latest scores. As it turned out, the predictions changed every day, twice a day, and in the end, didn't match up with reality anyway. Oh well, so much for predicting the weather.
A little sidenote: One of the things I was working on with this trip in terms of the photography was shooting a lot of photography in portrait mode, in other words, tall pics vs. wider landscape shots. Each trip I work on something new, and build off the previous ride. I was asked to share some more photo tips awhile back, and continue the previous text on my photography in the previous trip so I'll do a bit of that along the way. Maybe some of you will get something out of it (ntm, the previous thread is approaching 20,000 views so somebody must be reading this stuff).
Meeting along the edge of San Francisco, at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Tim says Hi, Joseph looks on
Meeting the new riders for the first time, Breck, Dianne, Kevin & Rick
As was usual on a Pashnit Ride, there was quite the variety of bikes. The hallmark of a Pashnit Ride is variety and this one was no different. I had been in contact with Andy and Malie for months prior trying to coincide our schedules. Malie is a Rep for a Publishing Company in London, England. She was lucky enough to coincide a business trip with our tour.
Malie & Andy (pronounced Mah-lee)
She was accompanied by her husband Andy, who's a sales rep for Wrigglys Chewing Gum. Which he happened to mention is a 5 billion dollar a year business. Just chewing gum. Just Wriggleys. Lot of money sitting on the undersides of tables. Andy rides a SV650 and they live on the north side of London.
Andy
There was another couple on the ride, Joseph and Dianne (above) flew in from Houston, Texas picking up a Honda Goldwing from Moturis in San Leandro. Joseph has been in Venture Capital for over 30 years, is a Vietnam Veteran and shared a few war stories with us, as he was an officer during the war, and had seen his share of combat. With a wink, he made it clear that he could get away with more than the average person. After all, he was from Texas.
Joseph & Dianne's Goldwing
Rick also joined our ride and in chatting with him, we quickly got engrossed in talking all about his classic cars- he owns 4. His daily driver is a 1970 Chevelle station wagon. He had recently gotten back into riding and was aboard the ultimate sport-touring machine of its time. A '94 Honda VFR in red. Wouldn't have it any other way. One of the things Rick was going to do when he got back from the ride was go climb Mt. Rainer. All in a days work.
Rick
Rick's VFR
<!--EDIT|pashnit
Reason for Edit: None given...|1145824063 -->