The good parts start after a short fifteen minute ride. Taking the Echo Valley Canyon exit from 101 it takes you to San Juan Rd towards San Juan Bautista. It’s a fun winding road for the most part but the surface gets increasingly worse as you near San Juan Bautista. Parts seem less asphalt and more broken concrete with large treacherous potholes. That and you have to watch for fast cars in the middle of blind turns so you stay on the right as much as possible. It would be a lot nicer if people hadn’t dumped trash off several of the turns. At the point you near 156 at San Juan Bautista you can take the road back to Fremont Peak State Park.

This road is in much nicer condition and an absolute treasure to ride. The lower part is beautiful with full canopy of trees and both winding roads with fun elevation changes. Halfway you start a much tighter portion. You emerge into some fun ridge top roads with beautiful views. If you can do the ride during the week you rarely have to pass a car on the way up. That’s good because there aren’t many places to pass.

Coming down is much more scenic for the wonderful views but my GoPro battery crapped out so will add that here next!

There is a new solution for renting motorcycles called Riders Share which enables owners to rent out their motorcycles. There is a fee along with chosen insurance coverage.

What a great idea. I had dreamed about some subscription-type service that would just let you try different bikes. So far I have rented a couple of Harley Davidson cruisers. First was a Street Bob which I was not that crazy about. Looks cool but the bars and steering dynamic didn’t instill a lot of confidence.

My second rental was the Fat Bob which has a more sportbike style front end, twin discs, and even better, an exposed knob to up the rear mono-shock pre-load. I bottomed out the Street Bob quite a few times on some of the more challenging back roads like Stage.

The experience of renting the two bikes was great. The site manages the scheduling, payment, and you check in with comprehensive photos to document the bike’s condition. Both renters let me leave my Suzuki DR350 with them so it could not have been more convenient.

It’s funny that getting to the rental and going home just makes me appreciate my ’97 DR even more. It still amazes me how fun this bike is. It can go as fast as most bikes on the roads I ride with that long travel DP suspension that just smooths out any road. I’ll keep trying lots of different bikes but will always have the DR!

I saw an Instagram post that featured a cool little video of someone’s dual-purpose ride. I decided to check it out. The other night I did a fun loop I like to do when I don’t have time for a long ride. I go east on 84 from my house in La Honda, take Old La Honda up to Skyline, then north on Skyline until I hit Alpine. West on Alpine which is fun as all hell and winds up on Pescadero Road a short stretch back to 84 just west of La Honda. They have some canned music choices you can select. I am hoping to figure out a way to add my own music.