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I've been working on rejetting my XJ after putting on individual filters, and wanted a road with a steep grade where I could get on the throttle a lot without going supersonic. Lucky for me, there are some big mountains around here - Mt. Baker being the closest.
It was raining when I got up, I almost bagged the trip, but by 8am there was considerable blue sky showing, and the doppler radar looked promising. I grabbed my spark plug wrench and my camera, suited up and took off heading north on I-5.
Traffic was light, it was hard to stay under 80
No matter, one hour of slab got me to a turnoff to some very nice twisty rural roads - Hwy 9 North out of Sedro-Woolley, then Hwy 524 East to the end of the line on Mt. Baker.
It was cold and foggy up there -
but beautiful -
plenty steep, plenty twisty -
On the way up, on twisty Hwy 524 along the Nooksack River, I noticed something that I wanted to check out more closely on the way back.
This is looking west. This corner was posted as 35mph, and as I was on my way out (eastbound) I took this corner at 55...
Hmm, what is that in the grass there - a tire track and some bike parts? I turn myself 180 and shoot this:
A rather severely crunched CBR600F4i, 2002 model with B.C. plates. I was scratching my head - how could this be? That bike should be able to take that corner at 70 or better. You can see the pilot barely started to turn before making that tire track, what, fell asleep? Dodging a deer? If that bike had been at speed, it would have launched considerably further off into the trees. Coming at the corner too fast, scrubbing off lots of speed but by then panicked and not realizing could have made the turn? 2002 bike, maybe a 2002 rider. Guess I'll never know.
I saw lots of sport bikes, probably more than 50, peppered over the 65 mile run of twisties. I thought, I should be here on my Bandit.
On the way home on Hwy 9, I caught a red light next to a Harley rider, little black brain bucket and all, and he turned and gave me a big smile and said 'great day, ain't it'.
Yes! 258 miles, more than half of them on really fun roads (I took a route that left me only 25 miles of slab on the way home). Averaged 36mpg on my still too-lean XJ, slab at 75, grabbing full throttle at every opportunity on the way up the mountain. There were plenty of opportunities, what with switchbacks, lots of corners posted 15mph and 20mph.
It was raining when I got up, I almost bagged the trip, but by 8am there was considerable blue sky showing, and the doppler radar looked promising. I grabbed my spark plug wrench and my camera, suited up and took off heading north on I-5.
Traffic was light, it was hard to stay under 80
No matter, one hour of slab got me to a turnoff to some very nice twisty rural roads - Hwy 9 North out of Sedro-Woolley, then Hwy 524 East to the end of the line on Mt. Baker.but beautiful -
plenty steep, plenty twisty -
On the way up, on twisty Hwy 524 along the Nooksack River, I noticed something that I wanted to check out more closely on the way back.
This is looking west. This corner was posted as 35mph, and as I was on my way out (eastbound) I took this corner at 55...
Hmm, what is that in the grass there - a tire track and some bike parts? I turn myself 180 and shoot this:
A rather severely crunched CBR600F4i, 2002 model with B.C. plates. I was scratching my head - how could this be? That bike should be able to take that corner at 70 or better. You can see the pilot barely started to turn before making that tire track, what, fell asleep? Dodging a deer? If that bike had been at speed, it would have launched considerably further off into the trees. Coming at the corner too fast, scrubbing off lots of speed but by then panicked and not realizing could have made the turn? 2002 bike, maybe a 2002 rider. Guess I'll never know.
I saw lots of sport bikes, probably more than 50, peppered over the 65 mile run of twisties. I thought, I should be here on my Bandit.
On the way home on Hwy 9, I caught a red light next to a Harley rider, little black brain bucket and all, and he turned and gave me a big smile and said 'great day, ain't it'.
Yes! 258 miles, more than half of them on really fun roads (I took a route that left me only 25 miles of slab on the way home). Averaged 36mpg on my still too-lean XJ, slab at 75, grabbing full throttle at every opportunity on the way up the mountain. There were plenty of opportunities, what with switchbacks, lots of corners posted 15mph and 20mph.
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