I’ve been letting this li’l blog languish for some time: too busy doing, not much time for documenting. Anyway, excuses aside…
I’d been wanting to head up to ride the legendary Highway 36 and a few months back my pops happened to mention that he’d heard of a mythical road up in Northern California that was “over 100 miles, curves all the way to the coast.” Highway 36. Surprisingly, he said he wanted to ride it with me, surprising because he rides a big cruiser and likes to well, just cruise. So I hatched a plan to get my brother Justin to ride down from Oregon and meet us at one end of 36 so the three of us could ride it together over Labor Day weekend.
Long story short: Justin was on his way to meet us in Eureka when his bike died in Crescent City. My dad and I rode up to see if we could help him out, but the bike refused to return to life, so the next morning my dad and I rode back down to Fortuna and headed over 36 while Justin waited for his tolerant and understanding wife Ruth to come get him.
36 is a truly amazing road: 140 miles of up-and-down twisties between Fortuna and Red Bluff. There are many awesome roads in CA but the cool thing about 36 is that you’re basically out in the middle of nowhere for 140 miles—you don’t really see too many cars. And the terrain changes a lot. Make sure you fill your tank and bring water – it was cold when we started out in Fortuna but got up to 100 degrees for the last third of the ride as we closed in on Red Bluff.
All in, we did about about 940 miles in just under 38 hours. Not exactly Iron Butt mileage, but not too shabby. Next up: can I do this run in one day? Up the coast from SF to Skaggs and then Fortuna, across 36 to Red Bluff and back down 5 to home?
Way cool that you got to do this epic ride with your pops. Sorry your brother couldn’t make it – a reason to do it again. Thanks for sharing.