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On Saturday, August 23, we are headed to Mammoth Lakes, CA, (for our 5 pm club meeting), with Rick Webb as our Tour Captain de jour!
The ride wills start at Lyons Restaurant in Manteca, (1730 East Yosemite Avenue, 209-823-2124). Please join us there for breakfast around 7:30. We will depart promptly at 8:30, and head east on #120. We’ll be jogging north and east to hit #4 near Eugene, and we’ll follow #4 east over the Sierras. This is where you can determine how much compression braking your engine provides going downhill! Also, there are two or three hairpin turns.
For lunch, we’ll take a 5-mile detour north on #89 to Markleeville. We have reservations at the Wolf Creek Restaurant (14830 Hwy 89, 530-694-2158) for noon. It would be helpful to indicate our expected numbers for the restaurant, so please drop me an email if you plan to come on this ride (r.webb@cee.com ). From the Wolf Creek Restaurant, we’ll drop back down to #89 and over Monitor Pass to Hwy 395.
We’ll stop and regroup somewhat on the dirt patch where #89 hits #395. It’s tradition! Then it will be a nice blast south on #395 to Sideroad 203 (west), towards Devil’s Postpile and Mammoth Lakes. Then left (west) on Postpile Road for 2.6 miles, then right (north) onto Agnew Meadows Road to the campground. We hope to be at our destination before 4 PM, give or take an hour. If you’re not into tent camping, feel free to check for local motels.
Our route takes us through some spectacular mountain scenery, and the high country around Ebbetts Pass and Monitor Pass. Highway 4 meanders around numerous lakes, with lots of river crossings (don’t worry, there are bridges), and just plain amazing scenery. Roads are steep, and temperatures can be chilly up over 8,000 feet, so bring clothing to suit a variety of weather conditions. Also, don’t forget your insect repellant, just in case they haven’t fed the little devils at the campsite. The campsite is “semi-rustic”, which means it has no showers, but it does have running water and toilets. If you’re not into tent camping, feel free to check for local motels in Mammoth Lakes.
In Mammoth Lakes, there are a few restaurants that can handle us for dinner. We will update the club web site with that information as soon as it’s finalized. For the return trip, why not head back along #108: then you will have the dilemma of trying to decide which spectacular scenery is the best!
New riders and
new to the club riders are always welcome to
our tours
and
meetings! Please
contact me with
any questions. The normal way things
go is we meet for
breakfast an hour before the
tour departure
(if you are one of the first ones to arrive,
please
try to sit where
~10 of us can be
together) and then we start each ride with a
meeting
to go over some
essential rules of the road and distribute
maps. We review
how to ride on highways, single lane roads
and keeping
an
eye on the person
behind you. While
we might get spread out after
a while, it is
important to wait for the person behind
you when we are
at a stop sign or light. Please be ready
with a
full tank
of gas
and an empty bladder.
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