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TonyEX
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We just came back from our summer road trip... up to Seattle on the I5, on the way back we hit Splitville with Interstates at Grants Pass and we took US 199 (Redwood Highway) to Crescent City and then US 101 all the way South to SoCal (OK, we hit US1 and I280 from the Golden Gate to South of San Jose)...
The TSX proved itself to be an incredible tourer... handling long Interstate miles, long mountain passes on Shasta, Shiskayou and Southern Oregon and of course the incredible runs on US199 and the 101.
Trust me, you ain't lived until you've driven those roads. That 'Tail of the Dragon' really ain't nothin' but a short run when compared with what the West Coast has to offer... hundreds and hundreds of miles of roads.
The 101 in NorCal is interesting... freeway runs in the middle of nowhere suddenly turning into 25 mph through town or over ridges on twisty roads where the state did not feel like cutting a hill or building a bridge... then back down to a full blown 65 mph freeway in the middle of nowhere... for like 200 miles from Crescent City to just north of Santa Rosa
And the redwoods.. ahh.. smaller than the Sequoias but just as tall.
California... fucked up politically but always gifted with geography, geology, roads and freeways.... ;-)
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JeffX
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TonyE wrote:
We just came back from our summer road trip... up to Seattle on the I5, on the way back we hit Splitville with Interstates at Grants Pass and we took US 199 (Redwood Highway) to Crescent City and then US 101 all the way South to SoCal (OK, we hit US1 and I280 from the Golden Gate to South of San Jose)...
The TSX proved itself to be an incredible tourer... handling long Interstate miles, long mountain passes on Shasta, Shiskayou and Southern Oregon and of course the incredible runs on US199 and the 101.
Trust me, you ain't lived until you've driven those roads. That 'Tail of the Dragon' really ain't nothin' but a short run when compared with what the West Coast has to offer... hundreds and hundreds of miles of roads.
The 101 in NorCal is interesting... freeway runs in the middle of nowhere suddenly turning into 25 mph through town or over ridges on twisty roads where the state did not feel like cutting a hill or building a bridge... then back down to a full blown 65 mph freeway in the middle of nowhere... for like 200 miles from Crescent City to just north of Santa Rosa
And the redwoods.. ahh.. smaller than the Sequoias but just as tall.
California... fucked up politically but always gifted with geography, geology, roads and freeways.... ;-)
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Those are indeed very nice roads (I have driven many of them through Northern California, Oregon and Washington State) but it's apples to oranges compared to the Dragon. I have driven a few roads on the west coast that are like small snippets of the Dragon, but none of them string together an 11 mile sequence that matches the dragon's relentless tempo.
The current-gen TSX isn't all that exciting on the Dragon to be honest. Not enough grip, too soft, and not nearly enough power to overcome its lack of grip. Even the TSX V6, with its abundance of power, pretty much sucks on the dragon because it's so floaty and nose heavy. It's definitely more of a medium-high speed cruiser, great for stretching its legs and gobbling up long stretches of sweeping roads.
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P54
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TonyE wrote:
We just came back from our summer road trip... up to Seattle on the I5, on the way back we hit Splitville with Interstates at Grants Pass and we took US 199 (Redwood Highway) to Crescent City and then US 101 all the way South to SoCal (OK, we hit US1 and I280 from the Golden Gate to South of San Jose)...
The TSX proved itself to be an incredible tourer... handling long Interstate miles, long mountain passes on Shasta, Shiskayou and Southern Oregon and of course the incredible runs on US199 and the 101.
Trust me, you ain't lived until you've driven those roads. That 'Tail of the Dragon' really ain't nothin' but a short run when compared with what the West Coast has to offer... hundreds and hundreds of miles of roads.
The 101 in NorCal is interesting... freeway runs in the middle of nowhere suddenly turning into 25 mph through town or over ridges on twisty roads where the state did not feel like cutting a hill or building a bridge... then back down to a full blown 65 mph freeway in the middle of nowhere... for like 200 miles from Crescent City to just north of Santa Rosa
And the redwoods.. ahh.. smaller than the Sequoias but just as tall.
California... fucked up politically but always gifted with geography, geology, roads and freeways.... ;-)
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California... gifted with geography, geology, roads and freeways....
Plus climate,....is that not what attracts people to California?
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loveturtle
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Yes, that's a beautiful area. I am stuck in Florida but I have family in northern Cali and southern Oregon. My grandma owns a huge, gorgeous piece of property in Ft Klamath near Crater Lake. Her cabin is near the head of wood river. What a beautiful area. The redwoods are amazing.. Learned to drive stick out there when I was 16 on my mom's 1984 Civic hatch.
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TonyEX
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Jeff wrote:
Those are indeed very nice roads (I have driven many of them through Northern California, Oregon and Washington State) but it's apples to oranges compared to the Dragon. I have driven a few roads on the west coast that are like small snippets of the Dragon, but none of them string together an 11 mile sequence that matches the dragon's relentless tempo.
The current-gen TSX isn't all that exciting on the Dragon to be honest. Not enough grip, too soft, and not nearly enough power to overcome its lack of grip. Even the TSX V6, with its abundance of power, pretty much sucks on the dragon because it's so floaty and nose heavy. It's definitely more of a medium-high speed cruiser, great for stretching its legs and gobbling up long stretches of sweeping roads.
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Well, US199 from Grants Pass to Crescent City has some great combinations of medium 55 two lane straights, elevation changes, lots of very very very twisty turns and of course at its western terminus you end up driving through groves of HUGE trees.....
What I like about the 2nd gen TSX is that the addtional avoirdupois has gone into making the car very SOLID feeling. And the K24 is a fine partner when you want to put miles in the car.
True, the first gen sedan was very agile... sort of the comparison between an '00 and '04 TLs... the first was lithe and fluid, the second was solid.
Now, I have not driven the V6 TSX but I think the K24 is fine. True, it does not have the sheer power and it sort of runs out of breath above 90mph. But in the low and middle power band it's a fine engine. In the real twisties it pulls nicely and the paddle shifters can be used effectively.
Case in point... US 101 from Crescent City to Santa Rosa... the 101 shows what California can do when the money and the intent are there. There's not much that can be done when going through national and state parks.. so the road is slow and twisty... same thing when going through towns where the 101 is Main Street.... but there are stretches. really IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE where the 101 becomes a full blown freeway with some really nice turns and elevation changes. Marked at 65 you can safely, comfortably and cop hassle free negotiate it on cruise control at 75.
Then of course, every so often you end up going through some ridge where the state figured they were not gonna spend the money to blast the mountain apart so the road becomes a twisty two laner marked for 45 and there you get to play for a few miles.
The truly amazing thing about this road trip was the astounding range of the TSX's gas tank. I was easily seeing actual ranges of over 500 miles per tank... with mileage around 30mpg. On the drive up, through Oregon, doing 70 mpg on cruise control on the fast lane I got 31.5 mpg, including some mountain roads and country roads to bypass traffic jams on the I5.
At no time during this drive (including the run up) did I empty the tank... at worst I still had more than an indicated 100 miles left of range.
Speaking of traffic jams, the NAVI with traffic avoidance was a savior in Oregon and Washington St. The I5 was jammed for miles in a few spots and I had the NAVI programmed to bypass the traffic... We found state and county roads that I did not know existed and that I can not find again.. ;-)
My wife summed it very well... At one point I posited that it would be fun to be driving that one twisty stretch in the Si instead of the TSX... her point was that she'd get sick in the Si whereas in the TSX is was fun to be a passenger.
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A77
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The TSX' forte is fasty sweeping bends - its not quiet enough, high enough geared and too firm for straight highways, and too fat for really tight corners. Mileage can be amazing - i reported elsewhere getting over 750 on a tank. The last tank full still got over 700, some of which was in town and a fast mountain traverse averaging over just over 130kph (81mph) for 2 hours...
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