Went On The World Famous Sunday Morning Ride(Smr) On My 4Th Gen.

[trjerm]

Last sunday, I hit the road @ 0630 to try to get down to Mill Valley for the start of the SMR @ 0730. I headed south on Hwy 1 from Valley Ford and went along Tomales Bay thru Pt Reyes Station and onto Stension Beach. I cont. so towards Muir Beach where I stopped for a pit stop than cont so. and was just about to the top of the hill when I met the ride heading the other way(about 2 miles out from the start), so I turned around , thinking I'd catch up, HA HA, most of these riders have been riding this route every sunday for years. I knew that they were going to pull over @ the overlook above Stension and thats were I caught up. There were numerous super moto bikes , a ktm super duke , cbr 1000rr , R1, Bmw 1000r , a suzuki sv, Gsxr 1000 etc etc and my old VFR. Most of the riders were from the bay area and probably 50% were ex AFM racers. When we headed out I waited till most of the group (approx 20 bikes) headed out and I followed the SV and the CBR 1000, thru stension and onto the Lagoon section where we going @ a pretty fast pace, But still got passed by by the 4 stragglers (who had got to the overlook 1st) and we cont thru dogtown and onto pt reyes station where we had breakfast @ the station house cafe. nice breakfast . Then I headed north on 1 towards Marshall and came up on 3 slow cars w/ the back one probably 20 car lenghts from the second, Well came around a corner and there was a nice little straight, so I passed the 1st car and it looked like I could get the other 2 safely, so I went for it and passed the 2nd 1 and was just starting to pass the lead car and he decided to try to run me off the road buy pulling entirely into the opposing lane. I had to lock up the brakes and skidded a little and was all the way to the limit line on the left when I went by. I had a good shot of adrenalin and my have flipped the **!hole off after the pass. I've been riding for 44yrs and never had a cage driver do anything so blatant before,, but all ended up on 2 wheels and I con't no. thru tomales and turned on Tomales -petaluma rd to Chelano Valley rd and worked my way back to Valley Ford. Overall a great ride.

[JZH]

Wow. Glad you survived, but the "wow" is that the SMR is still going on. When I was still in SF in the early '90s it was getting so much CHP attention I stopped going. Used to read about it in CityBike, though. I should dig out my copy (VHS, naturally) of "The Dawn Riders", Finley FIlms (1986), but I doin't know if my last VHS player still works! Google has no record of the film at all.

Ciao,

[The Phantom]

Glad to hear you got away with that one. What bike were you on, still riding the VFR850RR?

[trjerm]

Sorry haven't looked @ this post for a while' but no I was on my red 94 VFR, I leave it down @ Valley Ford on hwy 1, so it's my coast bike. I won a track day, so I've been working on the VFR RR to get it ready to play hard (new unpainted 93 RVF fairing, brake pads, tires PP 3's and new chain and sprockets) I was planning on riding it on the VFRD ride on the 31st, but I had to send my rear sprocket to sprocket specialties so they can reverse eng. one for me(Busylittleshop only made 1 when he did the non-cush drive & rc45 axle assy for the bike) and I'm hoping it'll be back before the ride. I did ride the VFR RR on my last scouting trip on Icehouse- Wentworth

[The Phantom]

Thanks for the follow-up. I still look at the old pic I have of your bike from time to time, it's a remarkable looking VFR. I'd love to see more pics when you have the opportunity to take and post them

[BCmcrider]

A news article about the SMR from 1971.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1241&dat=19711112&id=W3BTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OYYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5687,2667201