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Anyone in the Bay area interested in rallying?

5&dime720

By 5&dime720
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69FJWagon Newbie

69FJWagon

Posted
Posted
hmmm

not sure

Datto speedo stops at 120 and it's not calibrated

:D

 

not calibrated :confused: huh I was under the impression they never worked :lol:

 

none of my 510s have ever had a working speedo...after doing some mods :D

 

just tend to use my tach as a speedo I know that certain RPMs are good for a certain speed.

 

Fig, okay I give up what is the century club?

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Figbuck Apprentice

Figbuck

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When I was a freshman in high school, I had a friend that was way into racing bicycles. I worked all summer to buy a Schwinn Paramount. My friend and I would ride up Crystal Springs Road from San Mateo, (there was no 280 or 92) down Canada Road and cut through Olive Hill Road in Woodside to get to the Bottom of Kings Mountain Road.

 

We would take a rest and drink water, then try to see how fast we could climb Kings Mountain. If we could do it under 30 minutes, that was fast for us. Back in those years, there was a rustic bar/cafe on the ocean side of Skyline at the intersection of Skyline, Kings Mountain Road and Tunitas Creek Road. It burned down in the late '60s and you can still see the foundation from the big dirt turn out there.

 

We used to go in for hamburgers and sit at the bar. This place was so far out in the boonies that even though it was against the law for minors to be in there, the owner still served us. It was cool, there were big picture windows looking out over the Tunitas canyon redwoods, Bald Knob Mountian and the Pacific Ocean.

 

We had almost got run down on our bikes coming up the mountian by a guy in a Porche 956 Speedster. The bartender tells us to be very careful because there is an area group of sports car guys that started this thing called the Century Club. To be in it, you had to drive from Highway 92 south on Highway 35 (Skyline), down to the insection of Highway 9 in the Los Gatos Hills, turn around and come back in a certian amount of elapsed time. I can't remember what it was, but the magic number put the driver at a hundred miles per hour average, hence the Century mark.

 

I know that it is possible, dangerous as hell, but doable on a modern sport bike. All through the years, I would hear of car guys and bikers that would try to do it. I never did, but having made some banzai runs of my own through different sections, I have a pretty good idea how hard it would be and how easy it would be to turn into road pizza.

 

One summer evening about six years ago, I went for one of my "laps". It was a beautiful warm evening and the reason I went up there was to go to this place called Russian Ridge and watch the sunset. On the ocean side by the intersection of Alpine Road and Skyline is a place I could sit and look out over the Pacific Ocean for miles and back to the east, all of the Bay and the East Bay hills from Mount Hamilton to Mount Diablo. This spot is so cool, because you can't see any houses, buildings or roads, just rolling hills, Redwood forest, sky and the Ocean.

 

This view hasn't changed in hundreds of years, yet just a few minutes from 15 million people. When it is a full moon, the sun sets just as the moon rises. I spent many hours up there watching birds ride the thermals off the ridge.

 

Speaking of flying, I rode up Woodside Road to Kings Mountian, south on Skyline through Four Corners and down past Windy Hill where it starts to open up. There were no other vehicles and it was pretty deserted. Ripe for a run.

 

I start to increase my speed through the short straights so I can be on the gas through the corner leading out onto the three big straights down by the Langley Hill Quarry/Fogarty Vinyards. I crested this little hill at about 75 in third gear ready to wick it up. There is a Sheriff right in the middle of the road waving a lit flare in his hand. Bam, bam, I bang down shifts and haul on the front brake so I do a stoppie right in front of the guy.

 

He is so excited, jumping up and down. I pop my visor up so I can hear what he is saying. I look down the road and there is a SUV that rolled over on its top and two two truck trying to flip it over. The cop says, "I knew it! I knew one of you superbike crazies was going to come flying over this hill at warp speed." I said, "Oh man, gimme a break I wasn't even going that fast. I could have easily been doing a buck twenty! Just then a local lady driving a pick-up comes flying over the hill and sends us scrambling to get out of the way. He goes over to yell at her.

 

Some Touristas from back east driving along, looking at the scenery, managed to flip their SUV out in the middle of a big straightaway! It took a while for them to clear the road, so the cop, local lady and I start talking about all the crazy hairball stuff we have seen over the years up there.

 

The cop says that there were 54 motorcycle fatalities on Skyline in the last 12 months and some crazy number of car fatalities too. More than one a week. That sobering thought cooled my jets for quite a while.

 

One spectacular summer weekday, one of my riding buddies and I blew off work and went off to run down Skyline, down 9, through Big Basin State Park and down China Grade, so that we could run this road called Jaimison Creek. It is a nasty set of tight, back to back to back corners that climbs maybe fifteen hundred feet in less than two miles with no driveways or intersections. Our secret coastal testing facility. We would go up and back as a sighting lap to see the road condition and then proceed to properly shred it end to end.

 

After a couple of those, while our tires were hot, we would rip down the back of Eureka Grade, Pine Flat or Ice Cream Grade and carve the canyons out to the beach at Bonny Dune. Blast back up Hwy 1 on the Coast, turn back east at Gazos Creek Road and rip Cloverdale Road at 130. Back up Pescadero Road, even tighter Alpine Road and back down the other side on Page Mill. The next time we would lap it in the opposite direction.

 

We get to the top of Alpine and get off to catch our breath before we head down Page Mill. There is a tow truck with a brand new Dodge Viper on the hook. It is so wadded up, that what's left of it is about three feet long. Still had the paper plates on it. Hard to imagine how anybody survived that little git off. Needless to say, we weren't so hell bent on having fun for awhile.

 

Ride Fast and Take Chances...

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69FJWagon Newbie

69FJWagon

Posted
Posted

Man sounds like good times (minus the bad parts)...Fig if your ever in town I would love to get together and have a beer and have you tell more of these great storys

 

Clayton

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sr71sss Newbie

sr71sss

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well I would be in but I had invited the peeps to my place on the 23rd this month, I was thinking most of you guys would have read the other thread about getting together in norcal?

 

I'm somewhat flexible and always partial to just driving, I'm one of those crazy mofo that will get in a car and drive all night to san diego to pickup and shortblock and then drive back that morning !!!! Not sure if its being crazy or stupid.

 

If the other guys don't speak up from the sacto area about getting together at my place on the 23rd then I'm game for the run, I miss running with the guys in norcal ufo but you know life gets in the way.

 

FJ- was wondering who had bought mark lowe's fj4play car, must be fun to own one the few 510s that had a big impression on me-too bad he got bored?

 

fig- century club, man you must be an old timer then because I had a teacher by the name of Phil Green at De Anza Auto Tech Dept that use to ramble on about that when I was going to school there, Its cool hearing about all those stories you have as it seems like we can ramble on or as the wise old man Dennis Hale would say Bench Race till the wee hours of the morning.

 

question: anyone going to the monterey historics aug 16th this year-BRE fame Peter Brock will be there and wanted to get some more stuff signed by him and get a retake on pics since my wife erased it "accidentally" no pic of peter and my kids so I have to go, hope he has "datzilla" up and running!!!

 

If I get a chance to I will be bringing my newly aquired nissan pulsar gti-r to the run and see what it can do on some of those classic off camber sweepers.

 

I'd say lets do it if there is a unanimous vote for either, btw east bay has some nice backroads too if anyone is interested but lets just make a decision

 

Conrad"freewheel burnin'"Abastillas

Antioch,ca

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