Ride to Eagle Lake
Robb McElroy
September's tour started off with a minor glitch. Ned's Restaurant in Fairfield, the meeting
point, turned out to be closed. For ever. Luckily, there was a Denny's next door, which provided
nourishment and even some amusement as we watched various other riders try to figure out where
everybody was. (there were bikes in the parking lot, yet no riders to be found in the closed restaurant)
Anyway, the tour finally got on its way, doing several nice back roads in the Central Valley,
including River Road, which some of you might remember from the '96 Range of Light. We finally
ended up in Chico, where tour leader Russ Drake lead us on a three lane left hand swerve across
traffic into our lunch destination. (and he's the Safety Director!) Luckily, everyone made it, even if I
did have to drive over the curb after cutting off a pickup truck. (thanks to the great BMW telelever, it
was easy) We made a grand entrance after the swerve into the parking lot as we lined up eight fully
loaded bikes next to the patio, the servers and customers oohing and
aahing.
Happy Campers Fred Pravda, Stan Huddleston, and Jan Nijssen (L to R) watch
chef Bill Thomas rustle grub. He who laughed loudest got to do the
dishes!
After lunch we headed north on 32, which, even though we were going a bit slow, was
pleasant. It gets nice for the last ten miles or so when you enter the woods and it starts to get tight and
twisty. We then turned east on 36 almost all the way to Susanville, but turned off toward Eagle Lake
just shy of town. A1, the road to the lake, was quite fun, a nice smooth twisty road through hills and
forests. Unfortunately, it was only about 15 miles until we found the campsite.
All in all, an excellent relaxed tour of some of Northern California's different climates and
geography, with not one problem, that is, until Greg Hutchinson dumped his GS in the gravel campsite
parking lot after a run to the store. Apparently, he forgot his ABC's about braking and turning when in
gravel.
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