California Love: Mount Hamilton and Lick Observatory

What better way to give your new livery a test than with a winding road? As the sun rose higher in the sky, we made our way from the cool air of San Francisco to the golden hills of Route 130 to visit the Lick Observatory atop Mt. Hamilton.

Lick Observatory

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Route 130 is said to have 365 curves – one for each day of the year. Now, I don’t know if that is true but I can tell you that the road is indeed very twisty. It took twice as many minutes to travel the 20 or so miles from the west to the observatory.

In addition to its plethora of turns, the road is also quite bumpy in some spots. Major lumps and ripples crossed large sections of the road similar to frost heaves that we get in the Northeast.

A few of the dips in the road sent the Tiger’s too soft rear suspension a-bouncing. Hitting one of those on a firmly suspended sportbike would indeed give your naughty bits quite an unwelcome surprise or possibly dislodge your spleen.

The view of route 130 from Lick Observatory

The higher and higher we climbed, the closer to the sun we got. It was 409° when we finally made it to the summit. But the view once we got there was worth the sweat. The rolling toasty hills spread out before us whispering “…come closer… we’ve got secrets to share with you…”

More Posts From This Trip:

Fuzzygalore

Rachael is the whimsical writer behind the 20+ year old Girlie Motorcycle Blog. As a freelance blogger, she is on a mission to inspire laughter, self-examination, curiosity, and human connection. Girlie Motorcycle Blog can be found on several Best Motorcycle Blog lists.

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10 Responses

  1. George F says:

    Never made it there. Interesting name and nice views.

  2. Richard says:

    409 degrees! Thats pretty toasty. Hope your OK.

  3. Trobairitz says:

    Very nice.

    It is awesome that you guys rented the Tigers and were able to see some sights out of the city. That road looks sweet.

  4. What wonderful scenery – I would love the chance to ride that road – 365 curves…wondrous!

  5. Bonnie says:

    This is so awesome! I would love to visit these places. The pictures are gorgeous!!

    I love that you ride a motorcycle. Such a bad-ass. 🙂

    http://www.glamkittenslitterbox.com/
    Twitter: @GlamKitten88

  6. GLantern says:

    Everytime I read the description of one of those roads in CA my jaw drops! And there is cool stuff at the end of every one too! Did you go in the observatory at all?

    • Fuzzygalore says:

      We did go onside the building but not near the ‘scopes. They do have public programs that run there, though. It must be pretty neat. I can’t imagine driving down that road in the dark though.

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