Today was a beautiful day here in Northern California; the morning started cool with a hint of a breeze. Highs promised to hit the mid 70's.

I've had my 919 since the middle of March, when I purchased her with 4700 miles on the clock. The original BT56's had loads of life in them.
Hemming and hawing whether I should immediately replace the tires or wear them down a bit has ended up with me just wearing them.

One of the local tight/bumpy/gravely/steep roads is a loop comprised of Mt. Hamilton thru Mines Road. This road is really fantastic ... for a motard.

When I bought the 919, my criteria was "sport streetbike that's comfortable that I can pretend is a motard." So the 919 might not be exactly that, but for my purposes it fits.

Something I notice is that I seem to use a lot more revs on the 919 than past bikes; I don't know if that's a function of the power delivery or just that I'm having more fun --- but I spend a lot of time in that 6500->8500 RPM range; sometimes I'm caught between 1st and 2nd -- 2nd won't pull out of a corner as hard as I'd like, and 1st will seem a bit "twitchy". Regardless, it's rare on Hamilton to get out of 2nd gear, and on Mines it's rare to get out of 3rd / sometimes 4th.

The BT56's... in their 9 year old glory, stuck well (God bless 'em.)
I was purposefully hard on the gas exiting a few corners and could just get a little slide out of the rear.
I wasn't hammering the throttle at full lean.

Anyhow, I'm really digging the bike. I had visions of fork springs and Ohlins rear shocks... but I'm honestly having a lot of fun with it as-is.


9 year old tires can stick


On top of Mt. Hamilton / Lick Observatory

Let's see a map of your route. We flatlanders have a hard time visualizing the splendor....

The tires tell the story! This guy knows how to ride!

you did that on the street?

WOW!

I'm impressed. Damn sham you're all the way across the country. I'd like to ride with a guy like you. Don't know if I could keep up, but I'd try.

The road is very very twisty and rough, so it eats tires; on smoother roads there's no way I get my tires looking like that.

An overview of my route (it is 20 miles exactly from my doorstep to the start of this):


A closeup of a section of Mt. Hamilton


Here's a link to the route if you wanted to zoom in and follow it ( change to satellite view for a pretty good idea of terrain )
Mt Hamilton Rd to Mines Rd - Google Maps

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

That makes me want to ride down there to check it out! It's a 2 1/2 hour ride to "A" though, so it's not going to happen soon. Thanks for the ride report!

Where are you at, Adam?

Riding "down there" suggests... Sacramento?

Adam -- IMO, do the Berryessa ---> Skaggs loop if you're looking for a great ride.

This is the A+ NorCal route.

That is one fine looking bike you've got there. I'd wear the tires out as well. I never had a problem with those tires sticking. They just wear out soooo fast.

Came to think of what a new pair of Bridgestone BT016 or even BT003RS will make to them kneesliders of yours
Look's like twistie heaven on the map....

I might give that second one a chance, I'm in the true north, I'm an hour north of Sacramento, in Yuba City. I'm sure the Redding folks would say they're in the north, but by all accounts, Fresno is not in northern California, no matter how often they claim it.

Yuba City -- you should be "close" to foothills roads ... if you haven't, check out California Motorcycle Roads - Pashnit Motorcycle Tours Maps, Passionate Scenic Rides Photos and see what roads are around you.

You're still about 1.5 hours from Winters (another way to get into Lake Berryessa)

But you're about 45 minutes from Williams -- where you can hit Hwy 20 (which is mild) but get to Clear Lake from there and connect up with Hwy 175 etc.

OOOh... you're less than an hour from Auburn and Mosquito Ridge!
Motorcycle Mosquito Ridge Road-* Foresthill, CA to French Meadows Reservoir

I've ridden up to clearlake a couple times on 20 - it's mostly boring until you get to the foothills then on up, but there's also a TON of traffic on it... I'll def. look into mosquito ridge, that looks pretty cool! Plus HWY 20 east from here is a lot more fun than west, still a lot of traffic though... past grass valley it dies down though. Thanks for the heads up!

It's hard to tell from the pic if the tires are blistered or dry-rotted. Either way, it's time for some new rubber ya cheap bastard.

I am not worthy!