Saturday, August 1, found me taking a lone wolf ride with my wife and buddy Scott. We set out on White Rock Rd (from Sunrise Blvd, Rancho Cordova) and proceeded to Scott's Road, hung a right.
If you have not experienced Scott's Road, this is always a fun roller coaster type ride, lots of hills, constant up and downs with little traffic. You can take these hills at a higher brisk pace to experience the up and down motions we used to loved as kids. My buddy mentioned getting a little equilibrium light headiness from the motions, but loved it none the less. Gotta try this road a few times as you become more familiar with it, your speed gets greater with increased confidence (not much traffic)resulting in a greater motion sensation. Roller coaster anyone?
From there we proceeded to Ione via CA 16 and Ione/Michigan Bar Road which took us onto Hwy 104. We eventually made it to Jackson and Hwy 49. From there, it was south bound through the towns of the Gold Rush days, e.g. Mokelumne Hill, Melones, Carson Hill, Jamestown, etc. Hwy 49 was a road I used to really enjoy when I first started riding, but, on this day found quite a bit of traffic which slowed the ride speed. It was still a great motorcycle ride, albeit, there was heavy smoke from a fire in the canyon yonder Murphys. We did pass Melones Lake which is always a fantastic view.
Murphys was our lunch destination via Murphys Grade road. Once we returned to Hwy 49 we proceeded to Jamestown via a nice winding road called Rawhide Road. Nothing awesomely spectacular, but, a nice break from the congested Hwy 49.
It was our intent to loop this ride to the River Road to Isleton and eventually to the Moon River Inn in Riverside. To get there we proceeded down Hwy 108 from Jamestown which we got slammed into crawl speed traffic. We crawled our way to finally hanging a right on Obyrnes Ferry Road which winds around and rims Tullock Lake. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the ride as the road was well paved, winding, and the lake views awesome.
From there we crossed Hwy 4 onto this little obscurred road called Rock Creek Road. The road started out pretty cool especially as we approached Salt Spring Valley Reservoir. Its one of those roads that make you think of the Old Wild West as the road winds through open land with an occassional house or ranch dotting the landscape. Not much out here. Once we got to the Salt Spring Valley Reservoir we wound up on some very rough road. Not pot holes but really rough with lots of road patches and tar snakes. The road itself, if better paved would have been a really fun twisty ride through hills, flat land, etc. My wife and Scott thought this would be an awesome road to ride if better paved.....and I agree. It was about 15 miles of rough road which seem to stretch longer and longer as we had to keep the speeds low (2nd and 3rd gear).
We eventually made it to Milton Road which took us into Valley Springs. From there, we hooked left onto Hwy 12. Hwy 12 was to take us to the River Road and Rio Vista. But, on this day, we decided that was for another day for various reasons, so we took the freeway home.
On a scale of 10, I would rate this ride a 5. The smoke, traffic and rough roads contributed to the lower rating.
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