Crossing Bridges on New Years Eve!

New Years eve and the day before in the Sacramento valley provided a much needed relief from the incessant rain that has been lashing California this winter. I hear we are already at 200% snow pack, but I digress - New years eve was a beautiful day to go for a ride and I had the day off from work - perfect!

I was meeting a friend for lunch at 12:30PM, but I got a ~9:00AM start so I only had 3-1/2 hours to goof around on my way to Davis, so I almost never got off the bike when taking these pictures..


I soon found myself west of Lodi heading towards the delta on Hwy 12. Pretty farm country and I happened upon this helicopter dusting the crops! I have never seen a heli dusting crops before...very cool!
Can you spot it? 

Wandering in Southern California, Utah and Colorado.

Chapter 1:

I had been planning this trip all year. Almost 3 weeks off in August to go play in the southwest U.S. and a perfect tool for the job - my FJR to tour on! 


The first leg of my journey was a solo trip to SoCal to see some of my friends. I wanted to make good time so I headed down Hwy 25 to Hwy 101. Hwy 25 is always a ton of fun, Hwy 101 not so much. I was tired of Hwy 101 soon and at Paso Robles, got off at Hwy 46 to head to Hwy 1 and the ocean. As it would turn out, albeit boring, it was smart to stay on Hwy 101, as the Pacific coast was fogged in pretty dense, and Hwy 1 packed with tourists in cages (cars)...

Eureka and the Redwoods.

It was time for the WFO (Western FJR Owners) meet, Version 9 in 2010. This was going to be my first FJR Owners meet since I bought my new to me FJR in December 2009. I had been looking forward to this event all year and we were going to party it up in Eureka from Thursday July 22nd to Saturday July 24th.

With the good times to be had in mind, I headed up to Eureka on Thursday morning. I decided to take the Coastal route to enjoy the cooler temperatures and nature's air conditioning, while it burned hot on the roads inland.

It was a foggy and cold ride up Hwy 1 to Eureka on Thursday!

Great Basin National Park.

I took the opportunity of being staff for the Wild Wild West rally to go visit the Great Basin National Park in Nevada. This is a small but beautiful park, which is vastly under-rated and doesn't get much visitors. I hope to visit here again soon, because there is a lot that I missed at the park. The story of this journey narrates below.


I went to Ely to assist with the Wild Wild West Rally. Brian thought I would be a good pair of eyes for bonus picture approval and possibly scoring, since I had already seen much of the bonus locations and because he had drilled the rally and scoring format into me over the past few times I visited him.

I started on Friday morning, the eve of the Rally. I wanted to get there before the Nevada heat turned unbearable, so I got a half hour before sunrise start.

Enjoying the Freedom of the Open Road - 4th of July weekend Ride.

I decided to take the long way up to see my friends who live in a beautiful golf community in Lake Shastina. It was a fun ride with some drama on Bucks Lake Road discussed here.


Also, Doug (Bugnatr) posted a Bucks Lake ride report here - so I will start my ride report after the Bucks Lake portion.

Hwy 89 through Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park is still closed with a projected opening date of July 9th, so I rode around Lake Almanor on Hwy 147 to Westwood and took the Mooney Road short cut to Hwy 44.


After my tank slapper drama, I had some "psychological difficulties" taking my hands off the handlebars, so it took me a little while before I started taking pictures, it wasn't until I was on Hwy 44 nearing Hwy 89 junction when I started taking pictures again...


Mt. Lassen

Bonus Scouting in Nevada for the Wild Wild West Rally.

The Wild Wild West rally was a 32 hour endurance motorcycle rally organized by my friends Brian "Kirill" R. and Dale "Warchild" Wilson.


The rally was almost an year in the making. I remember sitting with Brian R. and Dale as we were brainstorming ways to make the rally a truly unique format, something which had not been done before in the endurance rally world. Suddenly I blurted out - "Why not make them pretend they are cowboys in the wild west and make them live out a lifetime in the west in 32 hours or less". I had no idea at the time of speaking what the evil rally genius in Brian's mind was going to do with this idea and the puzzle he would create to torment the riders with..

The rally format would essentially make the rally participants (riders), virtually endure a life in the Wild West. They would earn money by visiting certain bonus locations (such as mines, casinos and historic bank and train robbery sites). They would spend money by visiting other bonus locations (such as whorehouses, historic battle grounds etc). At the end of the rally - their virtual life in the Wild West would come to an end and the tax man would tally up their earnings and their expenditure - the idea being to crown the rider who earnt the most and also ended his virtual Wild West life spending the last penny he ever earnt - or as close to that ideal as possible..


Not all bonus locations are cataloged in this ride report. There were over 86 bonus locations for this rally, so I picked and chose the ones that I found interesting. It is left as an exercise to the reader to determine which bonus locations fell into which category.. :)


DAY 1:

We pulled the bikes out for an "early" start. What is it light out already? Blame it on the alarm clock!
We decided to get riding first and have breakfast somewhere along the way (we were already thinking about "where").. :)

The Beauty of Hwy 4 in the Sierra Mountains.

Mike and Old Michael were doing a Hwy 4 ride on Saturday, they invited me to the ride but I had a date Friday night and didn't come home till very late at night.
I checked my messages in the morning and they had just left the Eldorado Hills meetup location at 8:50AM - I figured I would try and intercept them at lunch in Markleeville.


I left at 10AM after a quick pre-ride check and fueling up. I took Hwy 50 to Meyers and then got on Hwy 89 over Luther Pass towards Hwy 88.

Lost and Found while riding to Tahoe.

Went for a ride with some friends from FJRForum. We were to take the Old US 40 route to Lake Tahoe. Only Rich knew the complete route, along the way I made a wrong turn...that story below.

Lost sight of my FJR brethren. Found a great solo adventure.


At the meetup in Auburn. That Red FJR needed some company so along came a Red Beemer...

California's Pacific Coast and San Diego.

It was finally time for the first long adventure ride on my new to me FJR. With that in mind I set off on Wednesday April 28th, right after the big storm which rolled through Nor Cal on Tuesday, there were still trailing weather systems from the storm moving through the area, but the idea was to leave "rain or shine" and try to make the best of the conditions and push through those weather systems to drier conditions on the Central and South Coast of California.


Day 1: 

Just as I was preparing to leave, the moment I pulled the FJR out on the driveway, it started to sprinkle…

Wandering in California Gold Country.

Pictures from my weekend ride. The route is outlined in the links below.
It was such a glorious weekend, absolutely phenomenal riding weather both Saturday and Sunday.

I did about 200 miles on Saturday. Rode over Pardee Dam to Murphys from Folsom to have lunch and to pick up my friend who wanted to ride 2-up on the FJR. We did a small ride loop and I stayed the night in Murphys. My friend is camera shy and requested no pictures of her be posted on the internet.
We spotted a Black FJR this day in the afternoon, it was being tailed by 2 other bikes one of them looked like a Ninja 250, not sure if they were riding together, and I can't remember the name of the road either.


Saturday ride route to Murphys and beyond...


I did a fun 100 miles on Sunday. Rode to Volcano and Daffodil Hill along the way back home to Folsom. It was a good time to visit Daffodil Hill, as a week long storm is expected starting tomorrow and they fear there might get frost bitten as Winter weather is supposed to return to this region for about a  week starting tomorrow. This was the Feej's first time on Rams Horn Grade - she performed spectacularly!


I spotted a Blue '05 FJR on Latrobe Road this afternoon. Looked like Patrick (RsvlFeej) but we waved and passed each other in a flash - so not sure!


Sunday ride route from Murphys to Folsom.


On to the pictures....


Saturday Ride to Murphys
View slideshow here...


Sunday in Volcano
View slideshow here...


Sunday in Daffodil Hill
View slideshow here...


Sunday ride from Daffodil Hill through Fiddletown and home to Folsom
View slideshow here...