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…