Here's a nice northwest Contra Costa loop. It says an hour on google maps but for some reason it never takes me that long. In addition, if you're looking for an odd side trip, you can either stop in Port Costa @ The Warehouse Cafe on weekends or take Carquinez Scenic to the end of the road and walk down the abandoned road for a bit (it fell off the hill in 1983). As a trivia bit, that was defined as one of the original state highways from 1909, and was briefly - before the Carquinez Bridge was built - US Hwy 40. It's weird to be on what was once the major highway, and it's 15' wide.
I wish I had the iron butt, neck and wrists to do a full loop of the bay like that.
Thanks for the route. I'm going to have to run through that one now. Combined with the more western route that I took there are enough interesting roads to make a good half-day ride.
By the way, riding eight hours on my ST2 was not all that hard on the butt, neck, or wrists. That's why I prefer it over the Monster for the type of riding that I enjoy. Anything beyond about 150 miles on the Monster was no longer enjoyable.