Paul and I work at the same company, Paul in England and me in Sunnyvale, California. On July 4th, Paul was over here attending a conference and had the idea that hiring a Harley and riding around the California coast for a day would be a good idea.
| So, we did just that !! We hired the bikes from ---> They got us the bikes at pretty short notice. (Click on their logo to see their page). I would definitely recommend this company for anyone thinking of hiring a Harley. They are a small, friendly and extremely welcoming company. |
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We ended up with two beautiful bikes for the day ... the one on the left is a Dyna Wide Glide, and the one on the right is a Softail Springer.
Both Paul and I were used to street, sport type bikes, and when we were first presented with these two huge, heavy, low Harley's, a mild panic made itself apparent over both of our faces! My credit card had paid out a deposit of 2000 dollars which would go towards the insurance, should we do any damage to the bikes, and at this initial moment, I started to wonder whether I would see that 2000 bucks back in my account! Paul initially took the Softail Springer, as the Dyna Wide Glide seemed lighter and with Paul being both bigger and stronger than I, this seemed the right way to go.
After a quick, but comprehensive demonstration of the controls by Sam from the rental company, it was that time when we had to mount the bikes and go have some fun!
Starting at San Rafael, 10 miles north of San Fransisco, we heading towards route 1, and rode all the way down the coast until we hit the 84. It was pretty overcast by the coast, and 84 took us up into the mountains towards Skyline and the famous biker hangout 'Alice's Cafe'. We pulled in amongst about 40 other bikes. Having been so cold riding down route 1, that we had to stop to put on an extra shirt, on Skyline (route 35) it was now so hot that it was almost impossible to stand around in the sun with a leather jacket on!
So, from Alice's, we rode along route 35 to route 9 and headed for Santa Cruz! And then took 17 back into the Bay area. To our dismay there was a huge traffic jam on route 17 which meant we could either stay in line, or filter through the cars! We both couldn't bear to wait in line, and filtered for a couple of miles where we joined seven other Harley's at the front of the line, where there were police cars blocking the road! It was tricky work manoevoring those two Harleys between the lines of cars!
We swapped bikes for a while so we could each get a feel for both of them, and we each found that we preferred the bike we started out with! I found the Softail Springer extremely heavy around the corners, and Paul, although finding the Dyna Wide Glide a fair bit quicker, preferred the riding position of the Softail Springer.
Shame to give the bikes back the next day, but they had been easy to ride, just took a few minutes to get used to them, and we were happy to return them with not a scratch on them, and received our 2000 bucks back! It was an experience I certainly hadn't thought I would enjoy quite so much, being, at heart, a race bike lass!
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Here's a picture of me on the Dyna Wide Glide. I'm hoping Paul has a picture of him on the Springer, so I can add it to this page too! |
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