Morning
I woke up in the morning and ran out to the garage to make sure yesterday wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t! My gorgeous carbon black metallic R1250 RT was still there! I sometimes feel like a kid at Christmas, but why should they be the only ones to experience such joy? I ran into the house and asked my BFB and BFG if they wanted to go for a ride. These loving people said of course, and we all got ready.
Gear
I am what motorcyclists describe as an ATGATT, all the gear all the time, or at least pretty much all the time. This means pants, padded, abrasion-resistant motorcycle pants over those, an armored motorcycle jacket, boots, and gloves. My BFG and BFB follow the same rules, so we geared up, pulled the bikes out of the garage, hopped on, and took off.
Two-up passenger
This bike was new to me and taking a passenger, especially one I love as much as I love my BFB, was a little nerve-wracking. We live on a dirt road and that can also be a challenge on a big street bike. The R1250RT handled it wonderfully. The bike has a Next-Gen dynamic ESA suspension with auto leveling. This is a fancy way of saying the bike automatically adjusted to the extra weight of a passenger without sinking lower to the ground. This keeps the bike handling largely the way it does when it’s just me. A super nice feature.
Sutter Buttes
We decided it would be nice to ride around the Sutter Buttes. The Sutter Buttes are a tiny mountain range that look completely out of place in all the flatness surrounding them. They are lava domes that have been eroded, leaving behind these bizarre mountains. For us, the ride is only about 80 miles, which makes it easily doable, and it’s just a nice ride. The route we take is a loop taking us through Marysville and Yuba City and out to Sutter then around the Buttes, through Gridley and home. We prefer taking this ride clockwise, through the cities first and then cruising at the end. We swept through Marysville and Yuba City and hit the road. This ride goes through some gorgeous rolling hills just outside of Sutter. There isn’t much here except the hills and rocks but the golden grasses are beautiful with so many shades of yellow and gold. There are a lot of curves through this section and they’re the good kind of curves that you can kind of ignore the speed limit signs!
The Sutter Buttes are beautiful. And somewhere up there are ringtails! (Glenn’s favorite animal)
Panic
We usually take a right, along the scenic route to travel around the Buttes, however, in spite of my earlier apprehension of riding two-up riding with my BFB, I was so thrilled with the riding, I missed the turn! Although I hate to admit it, I suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks. Sometimes there’s a reason and sometimes there isn’t and sometimes it’s something small that SHOULD be no cause for panic, but it is anyway. Missing that turn was one of those moments. I was now on an unfamiliar road, on an unfamiliar bike, and I was responsible for her safety. Cue panic. My family is so wonderful. All of our helmets are wired with an intercom system, so I was able to tell them I was freaking out. They were comforting even though they didn’t know where we were headed either. My BFG took the lead and I followed while I worked on calming down.
Oops! I wanted to turn there!
Lost
Sometimes getting lost makes for the best trip! My BFG took us down a road that went along the top of one of the many levees near here.
The ride along the river was really nice.
The ride was beautiful and new to all of us. We kept the Buttes on our right and followed the river through all the twists and turns, seeing a whole new part of our world. We even passed the craziest campground.
Would you stay here?
Probably only for RVs, it was a giant parking lot with picnic tables and barbeque stands. Weird and certainly not a place I would camp.
There is a lot of agriculture on the land side of the levee.
Eventually, as we wound our way down the levee road, we ran into the road we were looking for, though much further west than usual, and took a right to continue around the Buttes. We didn’t follow them as closely as we planned, in fact they were so far away we were no longer really riding around them, but we enjoyed our ride more than usual because of the new scenery along the river. We eventually rode into Gridley and then over to Highway 70.
Headed into Gridley
This gas station has been abandoned forever, but we usually stop in the shade of it and go to the grocery next door for a drink.
Home
The gas tank on my bike is huge, 6.6 gallons, compared to the 4.2 gallons Glenn had. While we both started with full tanks, I had plenty of gas, but he was nearly out so he drove into Marysville to gas up while Becky and I headed home. By the time we rolled up to the house, it was starting to get hot and we were ready to go in for some cool drinks. Becky had a great time and thought the bike was really comfortable and smooth riding. At least that’s what she said, and, come on, she can’t be wrong. If she liked it, that was a bonus. There will be more two-up rides in our future and I am looking forward to that!
Getting lost is the best. Are we ever really lost if we are exploring? Yep, sometimes we are actually lost. But if you got home safe you get a new story to add to the collection
Sometimes we are lost but it usually doesn’t involve a vehicle.
Sounded like a fun ride, despite the “lost part.” Jimmy and I occasionally get lost, too, and end up appreciating the newness of a route, a neighborhood or forest or mountaintop. Relax and enjoy!
It’s harder when you have the responsibility for someone else, but I do try! We actually had a pretty good ride, particularly when the panic went away.