Tag: Fog Escape

Here's a nice story about an often overlooked area of far-Northern California. In Part 1 of Friction Zone's travel story on Redding, Amy Holland reports, "In the 1850s during the heyday of the California gold rush, the settlement of Poverty Flats on the Sacramento River was nothing more than a shantytown inhabited by those not pale-skinned enough to pass muster in the whites-only town of Shasta. Back then, Shasta, located six miles to the west, was known as the 'Queen City' of California's north and this town of 3,500 residents served as the commercial hub of area mining operations. Every day, its broad streets bustled with activity as mule teams and trains, sometimes up to a hundred a day, loaded up with men and supplies headed for the gold fields in the nearby Trinity and Siskiyou mountains, as well as in the Cascades further to the north…"

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If you’re up for an assortment of backroads riding for the day, I highly recommend Highway One to Cazadero, a lazy little town, well hidden amongst the dusty depths of the coastal redwood trees, that lies just between Duncan Mills and Jenner.

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The Kawasaki folks came up from sunny Orange County to show off their Vulcan 1700 family to journalists in the San Francisco Bay Area, and were stunned by the quality of rides in our part of the state. It's always nice to have out-of-towners around to remind us not to get complacent! Sure, they get 300 days of warm weather and sunshine even at the coast, where we get summer fog, but we've got a seemingly endless variety of country and coast roads, with not too much freeway angst. I find myself on these roads again and again, and share them with you here.

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When I was a kid, I just thought of Cazadero as another podunk town in Sonoma. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I began to appreciate the spectacular motorcycle roads it has been keeping secret for many years. The locals are friendly, and enjoy sharing the local lore. It's the kind of place where, like at Cheers, everybody knows your name.

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If you love the twisties then ride Skaggs Springs Road which extends from Lake Sonoma not far from Geyserville (get gas there) in Sonoma County to Stewarts Point on Highway 1 at the coast. It is a curvaceous, newly-paved road through rolling hills with oaks, madrones, manzanita to the east and pines, firs, redwoods to the west, almost all natural landscapes along the way.

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