Had an interesting day today. I met up with a number of folks, first Nick and Will from the Atom forums at Neptune’s Net (they took a lot of pictures which may eventually find their way to this site), and then a bunch of friends from another car forum here in Huntington Beach. I’ll be taking a gap day here, then heading to Crystal Cove on Saturday morning (I’m told I should park across from the Starbucks, but we’ll see).

Friday I’ll be taking in the local beach sights as well as having some adjustments made to the car.

Oh, and for those who were asking for mileage numbers, tonight ended up at around 1400 (I don’t have the exact number as I didn’t make a note of it when I parked the car for the night, but the last time I remember looking it was at 139x). Leave off 100 miles or so for various tests and adjustments at Brammo (they asked to make sure I was Ok with this – we all felt it was a really good idea given the long trip I was taking).

I now know the answer to “can I do a 360 mile day in the Atom?”. I can, but I sort of look like a lobster, I’m sore, and I’m in a low-grade motel in Carpenteria. Apparently some school sports function has all the rooms booked for 50 miles up and down the coast from Santa Barbara.

Only one picture from today’s journey, at Carmel-by-the-sea (I think).

See you all in Huntington Beach / Newport Beach tomorrow!

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m staying another night at Half Moon Bay. My current thinking is that I’ll do the run to San Simeon (or perhaps a little further south) tomorrow, and then try to combine the San Simeon / Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara / Newport Beach days into one day to make up time. That’ll give me the gap day at Newport Beach back, and will let the people who wanted to see the car on the 10th still see it.

I’m having a great time here in Half Moon Bay – the scenery is great, I have a great room / view, and there’s a microbrewery that delivers – what more could one need?

I’m in Half Moon Bay (south of San Francisco). I’ll be staying here for another day. Stay tuned for an update tomorrow.

Update: Half Moon Bay is so beautiful, I decided to stay here another day. At this point I don’t know if I’ll do a double drive one day or use up my August 11th gap day – stay tuned for updates as things develop.

I continued down the 1 from Fort Bragg. Remember that “dangerous curves next 22 miles” sign I mentioned in a previous post? Well, I was greeted with one that said “next 110 miles” upon leaving Fort Bragg. There are loads of switchbacks and hairpin turns, including a great quintuple hairpin in one spot. I think people are stealing the road signs, though, because many of these aren’t marked at all – either that or the locals use this as a way to dispose of tourists…

At one point I was greeted with a sign that said “Pavement Ends 1 Mile”. Apparently part of the road fell into the ocean, so there’s a gravel-and-oil pathway that you’re supposed to take, onto a temporary truss-and-plate bridge. This is a one-lane road with a stop sign and a sign that says “proceed when clear” (but you can’t see to the other end of the one-way zone). No workers in sight. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic at this time (for some reason, a lot of rental RV’s take this route). Today’s pictures are from just past this point.

Then it was onto the 101 to come into San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge. Then onto Lombard St. and Divisadero St. (that’s the very steep street you see in commercials all the time, with a stop sign at each intersection – cool!).

I was pulled over just before getting on 280 by the SFPD. I think mostly they wanted to know what the car was, and the temporary Oregon plate confused them. Once I showed them my license and insurance info, they had a lot of questions about the car and seemed interested. I told them that at the price an Atom commands, they probably won’t have a problem with kids racing them in the streets. While I was pulled over, several other cars pulled over to see what sort of race car the SFPD had captured. As we wound up blocking the street that led to the on-ramp, we disbanded the party and I headed south.

On out of San Francisco via 280 and the 101, then back onto the 1 (which was recently re-opened after some major landslides). I had decided I would try to stay in Half Moon Bay as it looked nice on the map, and I didn’t want to park the car on the street or in a garage at a SF hotel.

I pulled into the Beach House at Half Moon Bay and got their last room, which was the penthouse suite. Upon seeing the room and the view, I decided to spend an extra day here. Look for another update tomorrow evening.

Today was an interesting day – it was chilly and damp enough that I had to stop and put on my jacket – there were very low clouds and lots of fog along the route (as you’ll see in today’s pictures). I followed the 101 from Crescent City to Leggett. There was a huge festival at Garberville which had what appeared to be thousands of people camped out on the banks of the Eel River. At Leggett I turned onto the 1 to Fort Bragg. This road is posted at 55, but has long stretches (the longest being 22 miles) of continuous twists and curves, where they don’t bother posting caution signs for turns faster than 25 MPH. Some of the turns are posted at 10 MPH. Lots of fun.

Coming out of the redwoods on 1, we’re back in view of the Pacific Ocean. Here’s some pictures from this part of today’s trip:

The car now has about 450 miles on it (it is nice to have a working odometer). Today I drove from Ashland to Crescent City (California). The route (see the trip post for details) had me along some nice twisty roads (mostly on 199). The car continues to attract a lot of attention. The modifications to the seat and pedals that Brammo did yesterday were perfect – no discomfort at all during the drive today. Here are a few pictures:

In the redwood forest on route 199. Note the twisty sign in the background:

A tall redwood:

The Pacific Ocean at Crescent City’s South Beach:

I spent the day in Ashland getting things together for the main part of my trip. All of the people at Brammo were absolutely wonderful, taking time to get things “just right” for me (which mostly meant adjusting the seat and pedals for my oversize frame). We figured out how to get the odometer to display on the Microdash, since as delivered it displays lap times instead of mileage. There are still a bunch of things I need to figure out on the dash, but at least now I know how far I’ve gone.

I also had an Autocom intercom fitted to my helmet, so I can hear the directions generated by my GPS (I have a PC with me, running GPS mapping software – the same software that generates the trip maps on this site).

I have to say again how wonderful everyone at Brammo has been – I think I’ve talked to most of the people in the company this trip (a number which has grown quite a bit from last time I visted) and everyone is excited to be a part of the Atom. This is far more than “just a job” for everybody – people are happy and looking forward to new challenges. Tom and Dan were especially involved in getting my car just the way I wanted it.

Also, if you’re coming to Ashland for a test drive or to pick up your car, I recommend the Windmill Inn – it is just a few blocks from each of the Brammo locations. 

I’m back in Ashland after a night at the Crater Lake Lodge with the Atom. I’ll be here until Saturday as Brammo makes some tweaks to the car to better accomodate my oversize frame. I’ll post some pictures on Friday – I left my adapter with the rest of my trip supplies at Brammo.

First impression – this car is very easy to drive. The transmission / clutch feel is incredible, particularly as this is a new car, which tends to be tempermental. The car feels like it is glued to the road – I was hearing tire squeal from the cars that were following me as they tried to keep up in the curves.

I’ve made a few suggestions to the folks at Brammo for new options, which may or may not appear in time.

I’ll be getting a helmet intercom fitted here in Ashland so I can follow my GPS directions (from the PC I have with me). I got lost on the way to Crater Lake, but it was the most fun I’ve ever had getting lost.

The car gets lots of attention wherever it goes. People are surprised to hear it is made right here in Oregon.

By the way, DMV was a breeze – with my out-of-state driver’s license, an insurance card, and the Certificate of Origin from Brammo, I was on my way with 2 temporary trip plates (21 days each) for $40 total in less than 20 minutes, a lot of which was taken up by talking about the car.

The car, facing the Crater Lake Lodge:

Wizard Island in Crater Lake:

An ancient evergreen clinging to the crater rim:

As I was waiting at the airport for my flight to Oregon to board, Brian sent me these two pictures of my completed Atom:

This is the first US Atom built with the Microdash.

I’ll post more once I pick up the car in the morning…