The closure of one attraction and a somewhat confused tour
leader failed to take all the fun out of the East Bay
Mountain Tour on Sunday, May 15. Cool weather helped
all the cars maintain their fluid levels, and helped
convertible drivers exchange sunburn for windburn as
they followed what one attendee described as "the mother
of all winding mountain roads" at the beginning of a full
day of touring, camaraderie, and adventure.
Ten cars showed up at the appointed location in Milpitas,
of which four were non-British. Two of them were more than
welcome on their own merits: Jeff Young's Ferrari 330 GTC
(please correct me if I've got any of those characters
wrong, Jeff) and Steve Valin's Matra Djet. (My well-
publicized unhappiness with the #4 piston in my MGB caused
me to lead the tour in my Datsun 280ZX, and I decided to
introduce Bay Area newcomer Tim Takahashi, maintainer of
the Volvo mailing list, to the Britcars crowd; we had him
bat cleanup in his '91 Volvo 240.) The British contingent
included a number of cars we've heard about on this list,
and a few you might not have. Berry Kercheval was among
the first to arrive, in Sybil, his 1972 TR6, whose carburetors
are now working happily with a proper supply of fuel. Hans
Huber made it in what may well be the shiniest Frogeye Sprite
I've ever seen, and having previously judged Sprites at a club
concours, I'm not exaggerating. The freshly-poured layer of
black obsidian, er, paint helped that effect; when the rest
of the carpet and trim pieces get installed, Hans, that's
going to be a terrific Sprite (made even nicer by the 5-speed
box).
Bob Spidell's Big Healey showed up, a red-over-black BJ8 that
I've had the pleasure of seeing at least once before; between
Bob, Jeff, Berry and me, this was the first tour I've been on
for which the spark plug:car ratio was significantly greater
than 4:1 (54 spark plugs, all of which appeared to be firing!)
The only multiple-entry sports car was the MGB, with Robert
Keller's orange-red '64 representing the early years, and
Julie Valin's late-model black one showing the marque's final
development. And Lea Hyke arrived in a friend's white Cortina
GT, a Mk I with those adorable round taillights and the lines
that Jim Clark made famous in the Lotus-tuned version in the
mid-Sixties.
Our tour really got underway when we turned onto the road
past Calaveras Reservoir, in the hills above Milpitas. It was
still cool, with high overcast holding down the colors, but
the hills and trees were still green against the grey sky
and the silver water of the lake below. The road itself is a
challenging mix of predominantly second-gear corners, with
the occasional drop to first required and a few sections where
sweeping curves permit third for a few moments before dropping
back down for the next bend. It's the way I've always pictured
the Targa Florio course: tight, challenging, and unforgiving.
But nobody put a wheel wrong, required service, or had to add
fluid; we regrouped for directions just before rejoining the
freeway just in time to follow a Park Police truck back to 680.
(Tim asked, "What kind of tour is it when you go 65 in the
mountains and 55 on the freeway?")
In Pleasanton we encountered the day's first glitch: my directions
to the Cheese Factory were sadly off by a number of blocks. It
would have been little enough problem had we all been driving, but
I elected to park us at the first area I found with ten consecutive
spaces (based on the directions I'd received, which claimed that
the place in question was "immediately after you get onto Main
Street").
After several blocks, which in turn came after a drive through
very twisty roads, which in its OWN turn came after drinking some
47 cups of coffee (in my case, at least), there was a general
consensus that it'd be a good time to stop SOMEWHERE REAL SOON NOW
EVEN IF IT'S NOT THE DAMN CHEESE FACTORY. Fortuntely, before
tragedy struck, we found the Union Jack Pub and realized we were
saved. The Union Jack is a decent place, with some good beers
on tap; we spent half an hour in there chatting with one another,
trading stories and pictures, and of course made the barkeep
deliriously happy to see his pub change from empty to full in
a few minutes on a sleepy Sunday. (And best of all, it has two
rest rooms.)
But we had people to meet and trains to catch, and since the Plan A
lunch place was closed (we were able to determine from the publican),
Plan B included a stop at a hamburger stand near the fairgrounds.
As they were putting the finishing touches on my hamburger, I saw
a red Volvo 122S motoring by in the direction of the nonexistent
Cheese Factory. I wolfed the burger and set out in search of Kim,
who was driving our two children and our oldest daughter's friend
Corwin, who feels about trains roughly the way I do about hopelessly
shot old British sports cars, only not so voluble. I caught up with
Kim in front of the Union Jack Pub, curiously enough; we parked,
it turned out she had already been to the train station and picked
up a number of tickets to ensure spaces for us on the 2 PM train.
With that we reconvened back at the hamburger stand, and Berry let
me drive Sybil. It should be mentioned that, while I've worked on
three Triumphs, and ridden in all of them, this was the first I've
driven. I can see why the TR6 has such fierce adherents; the 2.5L
six is willing and strong, and makes a wonderful sound. The steering
feels surprisingly light for an unassisted six-cylinder car, and yet
it responds quickly to small movements of the hand on the wheel. I
could easily learn to like driving a TR6.
But then I blew it. When I'd researched the trip some weeks before,
I had seen the sign for Niles Canyon Railway (NCR) down Niles Canyon
Road. Unfortunately, the *parking* area for NCR was some distance
back from their sign, and in fact was on our route. So of course I
drove spang past it, chattering over railroad tracks and wondering why
all the people were parked back there, standing in line to get on
antique trains, when the SIGN for the railway was down the road...
We regrouped at the sign and followed Kim (who not only had already
been to the station by this time, but who also by now had the most
visible car, as it's stop-sign red) back to the station. I took the
end of the row of now 11 cars at this time, originally out of shame.
Then I realized that I got to hear all the other cars accelerate
away down the road. I have to say, as breathtaking as the Ferrari's
V12 was to listen to, there is something irrational in me that gets
all up on tiptoe and covered with goosebumps when I hear an MGB in
full song. It must be that stupid central exhaust-manifold branch,
because as Daren Stone knows, Sprites affect me the same way -- but
as Kim knows, I've always been drawn more to contraltos than coloraturas.
A few of our guests departed at the railroad, but a good portion of
us waited the ten minutes or so required to get a seat on the steam
train. This was a single open car pulling something like 24 people;
we backed down the track on the outbound leg -- sorry, we went "tails-
out," which we were told is the correct term, and those of us in coupes
had a taste for what the open-car drivers had felt on the earlier
portion of the journey. Our docent -- AKA tour guide, announcer, or
generally known as clown -- had previously worked at Disneyland (a
fact I uncovered when he made a really bad joke that I thought I
recognized from the Jungle Cruise, and from then on we were sparking
one another for Disneyland trivia for the rest of the trip). We had
the chance to stop in the restoration yard of the railway, and were
all intrigued by the assembly of the old steam engines in the yard,
some of which were as much as 130 years old.
By this time, my eyes had taken all the pollen they could stand,
and it was moving on past 3 pm, so we said our goodbyes at the railway
stop and headed for home. I suppose someone has to make a wrong turn
at every tour; last September it was one of the guests, this month
it was the tour leader. But it was still a good day to blast through
the hills in 54 cylinders worth of international machinery, and a tour
that (with a few revisions) I might add to the itinerary in future years.
In the meanwhile, remember that the DBTBD tour in September is *much*
more organized, if only because I've done it several times before and
know where to stop. :-) But that's a topic for a separate posting.
In the meanwhile, thanks to everyone from the list who showed up to
make this an enjoyable event. Now if I can only get a new set of
pistons, maybe I'll have my MGB ready for September!
--Scott "Either that or learn how to say Safety Fast in Japanese" Fisher
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