I live in Santa Cruz and had a conference in San Diego, so decided to ride my R1250GS Adventure down the coastline through Big Sur and down Highway 1. I left mid-afternoon on day 1, stayed at a cool hotel about halfway, and did the second leg in the afternoon of Day 2. On the return leg I did it in a single day.The ride down was really pretty awesome. I've driven through Big Sur in cars plenty of times, but this was my first time on a bike and it's magical. I got to my stopping point just after sunset and so I came though Big Sur at the golden hours and it was beautiful. Less magical were the couple vista points where hordes of tourists were making wild-ass U-turns to pull over to take sunset shots, but was able to scoot past those.I picked a random hotel in San Simeon on a hotel app from a rest area once it got dark, turned out to be really pretty nice - http://www.cavalierresort.com/ - they were super helpful with the bike. They have great fireplaces next to the beach where I met some fellow travelers, and relaxed while listening to the crashing waves. Would recommend.Day 2 was interesting, as there was fog for most of the early afternoon as I tracked the coastline. My windscreen tended to fog up which I need to figure out a solution for - it might be a side effect of my cleaning spray. Stayed on the 1 all the way to Ventura and then crossed LA on the 405 in the evening. LA freeways are intense, but since you can use the separated HOV lane on a bike you can stay over there. I didn't dare split at night with panniers on for the first time. Took the 73 tollway to the 5 and tested out the aerodynamic resistance of the luggage at high speeds.... I'll admit I got a bit free with the cruise control/throttle on the wide open freeway, but 15 miles from my destination, in the dark, some fool in a box truck cut across three lanes and stopped perpendicular to traffic in the HOV lane directly in front of me. I can confirm that BMW's brakes do the job from high-highway speeds and managed to have the presence of mind to not fully stop on the freeway in the dark and swerved around and GTFO (at a much reduced cruising speed) rather than get smeared by someone else doing 90mph behind me...On the way back, I wanted to get home and so opted for a more direct route - back up the 5/405/5. I made pretty good time until I got a Google Maps notification there was a 48 minute delay in front of me due to a crash... I split regularly in the Bay Area and with the extended width of the HOV in LA, I got over my fear and split for 40 with the panniers on... CHP bikes kept coming up behind me racing to the crash ahead to manage traffic so I'd pop over and then follow them for as long as I dared... they move FAST.By 3pm it was 104 degrees climbing out of LA and it was pretty much that hot until it got dark. Usually I flip my visor up to cool down but it was like using a hairdryer... once I got down the mountain to Bakersfield I was really regretting my route choice and decided that fuck it, I was heading to the coast, even if I got home at 3am. Fuck spending 300 miles pounding pavement and semi trucks in that heat. Cut over to the 101 on the 46 and by the time I was in Monterrey I was thankful for heated grips again!Bike was pretty much flawless. The sidecases/luggage definitely added drag but after a couple of initial pucker moments at low speed I got the feel for it and it wasn't really an issue. Averaged around 45mpg at 65mph, which is about the right average speed for non-interstate roads... that dropped to more like 25mpg when I was cruising at 85+. It kept reasonably cool even doing that constantly in 104 degree temps for hours. Next time I'll swap out the pretty rallye seat for the comfort seat in my garage and pick up a luggage plate for the pillion seat.In retrospect I probably took too much stuff, but in fairness I'd just bought my fancy new side cases and was looking for an excuse to use them... I picked up a couple of Bilt drybags on clearance ($15!) at CycleGear and put all my clothes in those and strapped them to the top of the sidecases w/ Rok Straps (awesome, highly recommend these).Shout out to the Marine who I met at a gas station, he gave me some pedialyte to mix in my water and that probably kept me from dying for the next couple of hours as I made a beeline to the coast. He'd come in from Arizona on a harley. Respect.Wanted to shoot some cool video going into Big Sur but that went slightly wrong, I noticed it at the fuel stop and flipped it to timelapse instead, that turned out pretty cool.obligatory bike/sunset selfie https://imgur.com/a/cURqVleGoPro failTimelapse through Big Surroute via /r/motorcycles https://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/comments/crk9er/did_my_first_multiday_mototrip_1000_miles_down/?utm_source=ifttt
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