Shasta
"Lonely as God, and white as a winter moon"
- Joaquin Miller
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This year we picked Mt. Shasta. We couldn't have chosen a better place.
Two of us had new bikes this year. Myself and Phil. If there is one way to find out how a bike will perform and handle, there's nothing better than taking it on an 800 mile trek. That's a fair amount of mileage in three days.
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Now, I love my bike as Phil does his, but let's put it this way, no matter how well-engineered a motorcycle is, the seat is seemingly always the last thing on the manufacturer's mind. Going for 100 mile stretches without stopping made my ass feel like something born of the devil. Ah well.
The riding was great of course. Sometimes you gotta go to where no one else is. Having Mt. Shasta in the background during the entire time we were up there was the centerpiece.
We did find ourselves on these desolate forest roads on half of our trip around the mountain. While the roads themselves were paved, twisty, and seemed perfect for bikes, the deer that occasionally jumped out in front of us tempered any speeds to be sure.