Streetmasters Motorcycle Workshop-Part 1

No fear. Today is Friday the 13th. Something bad is supposed to happen, right? Today it was all good. Last February, I entered a raffle to benefit the Women's Motorcyclist Foundation and Breast Cancer Research. In that raffle, I was the lucky winner of a free motorcycle class, but not just any class, the Streetmasters Motorcycle Workshop in sunny California. My hosts, Walt Fulton and Nancy Foote, rolled out the red carpet. Walt picked me up yesterday at John Wayne Airport. We stopped at Kawasaki Motorcycles North American HQ in Irvine, CA, and I got a tour of the facilities. My first bike was a Kawasaki Vulcan Classic, so I have a soft spot in my heart for Kawis.

Today, Nancy and I met Phil (one of the track marshals at Streetmasters) at the Hill Street Cafe in La Cañada for breakfast . (Walt was kind enough to lend me his 1997 R1100RS!) It's located at the base of Angeles Crest Highway. Unfortunately, we couldn't take it, because of recent fires, it's closed... With Nancy, Queen of the Backroads, leading the way, we took 210 West to 5 North to 126 West in Santa Paula, and this where it starts to get interesting. 150 W goes to Ojai where we tooks pictures and got gas. Beautiful vistas. From there 33 North - my favorite part - as we came down the mountain - ahhh sweepers. And Nancy has mad skills, so she was the perfect person to follow (and emulate).

We stopped at the ranger station, Phil and I switched bikes and I rode his Goldwing for a bit. A first for me. I liked it and could see its benefits, especially on the expressway, but I felt way more comfortable on the BMW. From there, we took 166 to the Cerro Noroestre to the Mil Potrero Highway. We had a delightful lunch at La Lena at Pine Mountain. It was startin to get cold, it was in the 30s up there (and we saw snow on the mountain tops)! So I put on my winter gloves and we made our way to Lancaster. A rough guess at our route was taking Frasier Park Road to the old highway to Gorman Post to 138 to 3 Points Road through Elizabeth Lake on Lake Hughes Road to Quartz Hill through Antelope Valley into Lancaster. It was cold when we got there! In the 40s, but it seemed colder because of the wind. Happy to get inside and warm up.