June 11th-12th, 2006

It's time for a new seat so we scheduled a ride-in appointment with Bill Mayer Saddles for Monday morning, June 12th. Coincidentally, this appointment was on the end of the Ojai Music Festival. No, it wasn't accidental. We had tickets in hand for the Sunday evening concert.

The ride up on Saturday was pretty nice once we got out of town. There was a lot of construction traffic on the L.A. Freeways, but we managed our way through. We stopped at Starbuck's on PCH at Trancas Canyon where Nancy noticed a large number of strange and disturbed patrons. I guess the surfing life is hard on one's sanity. Shortly after leaving Starbuck's, we turned right on Decker Canyon Road (23 North) and had a nice sedate ride through the hills. We picked up Hwy 101 North for a short section before we once again exited to Hwy 23 North. We turned west on Hwy 118 towards Moorpark and then once again found 23 North towards Fillmore. At Fillmore, we went West on 126 to Santa Paula were we found Hwy 150 to Ojai. The section of 23 between Moorpark and Fillmore as well as Hwy 150 from Santa Paula to Ojai was well worth the extra hour it took us to get to our destination. I highly recommend this route for anyone looking for a nice bit of back roads.

Saturday's Route

We arrived in Ojai mid-afternoon and were able to check in early. This allowed us to change and put on our walking shoes. It was about a mile and a half from our motel to the center of Ojai where we spent a couple of hours playing tourist and checking out the arts fair in the park. We had plenty of time before the 5:30 concert to relax.

The concert, featuring the Atlanta Chamber Orchestra, was a lot of fun, although the first half was a little too contemporary (Shoenberg) for either of us. The session after the intermission improved with some well known Bach. After the concert, we had dinner in town and walked back to the room.

Monday, we were up early for our 8 am appointment. Finding Bill Mayer's Saddles wasn't that difficult. As we arrived, they were working on some adjustments for a seat on a K12R, but were able to go right to work on my seat. After a short while we tested the molds and, with a very short ride, couldn't find any hot spots or ridges. I knew it would take me a day (or more) to find out if this was the right shape or not, but that's one of the good things about getting a Bill Mayer seat. If it's not "right", Rocky will make it so. The first thing both Nancy and I noticed is that the new foam is much more firm that the original.

Nice shop

Inside, the crew is hard at work.

We were on our way by 11:30 am. We go into town to check out the museum (something we didn't have time to do before the concert) only to find it's only open Thursday through Sunday. I guess we have an excuse to return to Ojai.

We take a more direct route home and arrive in the driveway in about three hours. Nancy thinks the new seat is wonderful. For me, the jury is still out. I think there is a ridge that needs to be worked out, but maybe I just need to break it in. I'll give it a thou or two but I know if I need to have it adjusted, Rocky will do it. Stay tuned.