Spectacular road, a nice variety of corners all with good camber. Traffic was light the last time I was there. *A section of the road has collapsed and is closed a few miles west of Buck's Lake. A detour has been constructed on a parallel fire road, surface is hard pack with some light gravel in places. Easily passable on a sport tourer when taken with caution.
It's hard to add anything to what Notarian has already posted. This is a gem of a road! There are places where you can see two and three corners ahead, with great road surfaces and perfect camber. It really is big, big fun! This road easily makes my top ten list of roads in California, and I prefer it the better known Hwy 70 Feather River Canyon route to the north, but it doesn't have quite the scenic grandeur of the canyon. Part of the road washed out during the winter of 2010-2011, and there was a lengthy detour, but I've heard that it's been repaired and that the detour is gone, so go enjoy!
The 162 from Oroville to Quincy was not only the highlight of the day, this road is the finest sweeper road I've ever ridden. The Oberalp pass out of Andermatt has always been my favourite fast sweeper but the Oroville to Quincy nails what sweepers is all about. 70 miles of it and its smoooooth tarmac with no traffic. Google maps projects the 70 miles to take 2 hours but they don;t reckon on motorbikes and it take less than an hour. There are many 25 mile/hour corner signs and after the first 3 taken at 45 mph I realised that the suggested corner speed can easily be doubled and taken comfortably at 60 mph. Numerous 35 and 40 mph signs are all taken at 70 and 80. No cars, no trucks, no LEO on the day and after 10 minutes I was thinking 1098, 1098, 1098 but even on a supermoto it's a fabulous, quick travel. What an absolute superb road with the only 2 hazards one being a well sign posted truck pull out where the road is dirty for a half mile and second, your right hand. One of the problems with California riding is that the mountains don't lend themselves to photos. It's too forested for vistas and with a sweeper type road with turns being long and distant, the camera only captures the beginning of the turn rather a series. Too bad because all I can do is tell you about it. Besides, I was having too much fun to stop.
This website needs to use cookies to offer you the best user experience and show relevant ads. This project is offered freely to you but there are costs involved to keep it running and continually improve it. For that, we rely on showing adverts and personal contributions from sponsors To find out more, please read the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy or if you really like my project please Become A Sponsor Thanks David Robertson