Saturday, June 13, 2009
Oh the Laziness of Me
So I have been back from my road trip for a couple weeks and playing catch up in the rest of my life. I cant figure out why I am so lazy. I should have posted my ride already. Work has been insane so it has taken much of my time. Today though, I have all the pictures of my trip so after my ride tomorrow I will attempt to put my ride report together. Here are some teasers.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Rookies Road Trip
So its official now. I am getting ready to leave early Wednesday for a ride west then north along the coast. I will of course do a small ride report but just thought I would warm up on this first. Today I changed the oil and laid all the gear out excluding the extra clothing and it is here that I have to decide what stays and what goes.
I am really getting excited now. So far it appears that this will be a three day trip but a good first trip. Wednesday we leave Bako and head to San Louis Obispo. We will be camping in Morro Bay. I will keep you posted. My friend said she wanted me to post along the way on twitter but I will have to see. Tomorrow I get the rack for the bike from a friend. I will throw up a picture of that.
I am really getting excited now. So far it appears that this will be a three day trip but a good first trip. Wednesday we leave Bako and head to San Louis Obispo. We will be camping in Morro Bay. I will keep you posted. My friend said she wanted me to post along the way on twitter but I will have to see. Tomorrow I get the rack for the bike from a friend. I will throw up a picture of that.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Is It Time To Ride?
Oh it's getting warmer and it is about time to start hitting the trails again. My Tires are hurting though. I need to invest in some 606's. Well any day now I will get a good ride in. What do you say Kevin? no helicopter rescues in my future though, I will stay below the snow line.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Oak Flat Lookout and the Road to the Sequoias
So it was a Monday morning. We all met in Bakersfield. It was shaping up to be a fairly warm day. Scheduled to meet for the ride was me, the BakoKid, GPSbilly, McNut and Trailtrick. It was cool because we all met on ADVrider and nobody knew anybody. I was running late so I let everybody know that I may Have to meet them up on the trail. They were kind enough to wait at the meeting spot so we could ride together. Absent from the crowd was TrailTrick, who was to be our guide for the day. Apparently he had a flat tire early in the day so he couldn't make it. Not to worry though, I was riding with two guys that had GPS and I was confident in the crew.
It really was getting warm fast so we were in a hurry to make our way to the mountains. McNut said that he would like to hit Oak Flat Lookout. I was unfamiliar with this particular stop on Rancheria Rd. As we rode up the hill we jockeyed for position here and there but we were quickly slowed buy a road hogging rancher. This guy did not even move to the side a bit to let us by. We rolled by anyways and fought the urge to roost his hood. It wasn't long until we hit the turnoff we were looking for. McNut was always quick with the camera. At times too quick as I will discuss later. Here I am with GPSbilly in the yellow.
The trail leading to The Oak Flat Lookout was a sweet single track with rolling hills, a little boulder crawling and some steep drops. This trail was great.
You can get an idea here of our first destination and where we are headed. Just above Billy and myself you can catch a view of the lookout.
Billy coming out of the first section of the singletrack.
We wound around the mountain with lots of switchbacks and what not's to finally make our way to 4920 feet.
This place had an amazing view from all directions. This place was used by the forest service to spot fires in the surrounding mountains.
I hear that you can rent this place for the night.
Here is Billy and McNut (Bruce) rappin about bikes.
This would be a great spot to camp for the night. Not tonight though. I have to be at work by 3PM.
It really was getting warm fast so we were in a hurry to make our way to the mountains. McNut said that he would like to hit Oak Flat Lookout. I was unfamiliar with this particular stop on Rancheria Rd. As we rode up the hill we jockeyed for position here and there but we were quickly slowed buy a road hogging rancher. This guy did not even move to the side a bit to let us by. We rolled by anyways and fought the urge to roost his hood. It wasn't long until we hit the turnoff we were looking for. McNut was always quick with the camera. At times too quick as I will discuss later. Here I am with GPSbilly in the yellow.
The trail leading to The Oak Flat Lookout was a sweet single track with rolling hills, a little boulder crawling and some steep drops. This trail was great.
You can get an idea here of our first destination and where we are headed. Just above Billy and myself you can catch a view of the lookout.
Billy coming out of the first section of the singletrack.
We wound around the mountain with lots of switchbacks and what not's to finally make our way to 4920 feet.
This place had an amazing view from all directions. This place was used by the forest service to spot fires in the surrounding mountains.
I hear that you can rent this place for the night.
Here is Billy and McNut (Bruce) rappin about bikes.
This would be a great spot to camp for the night. Not tonight though. I have to be at work by 3PM. |
Well it was time for us to move on. We had a lot of exploring to do. Once we arrived in the Sequoia Nat'l Forest, we decided to take a break at a camp ground under the massive trees and the cool shade.
|
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
A Story of Sex, Drugs and a Stolen Suzuki.
Okay maybe I should come clean, there is no sex that I know of in this story. I am sure drugs are involved somehow. Sunday, my friends sister calls me and leaves a message on my recently recovered Blackberry. On the message she says "Derry this is Jonathans sister and his bike has been stolen. Call me as soon as you can. I have called the police and they need some details". You see, Jonathan was out of town on a deaf retreat at a camp in Kings Canyon for the weekend. His mom, who was watching the kids, noticed the bike at his house on Friday night and everything was cool. She returned Sunday and the brand new DRZ400s with 200 miles on it, had vanished. She noticed that they took the bike through the front gate because a piece from the handlebars was laying on the ground by the walk through gate. After I had received the message, I jumped into action. I was going to patrol his neighborhood in hopes that the criminals had given up and ditched the bike somewhere close. I found nothing so home I went.
Talk about defeat. I haven't had much stolen from me in my life except a stereo in my truck back in 94 and a back pack from my vehicle years later. That one hurt the most because it had some really important things in there. You feel violated and angry and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Sunday night rolls around and I can finally talk to Jon about the theft and he is of course bummed to say the least. Monday, at FedEx where Jonathan and I work, they get the word out to the couriers that the bike has been stolen. FedEx drivers often see things out of the norm. When I was a courier I would constantly see suspicious things. Jonathan also anounced that he would give a $1000 reward for the arrest of the theif. The FedEx crew was on the case. One of our drivers, Matt Friesen, had a package for an apartment complex and this package wasn't due until the following day. He had the choice to deliver this the next day but decided he would just deliver it a day early. He pulled into the complex and the first thing he notices was a bike matching Jonathan's, sitting in a car port. He called me and said "Dude, I think I found his bike!". I said nah there are alotta bikes out there just like Jonathan's. I asked him about a few scratches that I knew were on the bike. He confirmed that this was indeed the bike. Sweet Victory! We notify Jonathan and the Sheriff department and they promptly meet us out there. The perps had wiped down the bike with WD40 to conceal fingerprints. That didn't matter much now because Jon had his bike back. While it would have been fun to put the smackdown 2008 on them, the perps were long gone. Turns out the only real damage was a broken steering lock, ignition gone, cracked case cover, punched fuel cap, lever damage and some minor scratches.
The punched fuel cap.
The ignition is missing.
The cracked case with some JB Weld.
Minor stuff, the the missing bar end and broken lever.
We trailered the wounded DRZ to the dealer to get a once over and some repairs. The good thing is that Jon's deductable was only $50 on the $1000 worth of damages. Needless to say Jon is excited to have the bike back even if it now had 72 more miles on it. I think he should have told his insurance that it had a Clarke 3.9 on it and those theives replaced it with a stock tank. Nah, honesty is always the best policy. Otherwise we become theives too.
This was a rare but happy ending. On a side note, Matt, the driver who found the bike, told Jonathan that he wouldnt take any money for finding the bike. At FedEx, we like rewarding employees for going above and beyond.This is an award that comes with a little cash for the employee.
Well the story didnt have sex and the bike was probably stolen by a druggie, but this was a story about a stolen Suzuki, that is coming back home. I think this time it will wear a couple locks.
Talk about defeat. I haven't had much stolen from me in my life except a stereo in my truck back in 94 and a back pack from my vehicle years later. That one hurt the most because it had some really important things in there. You feel violated and angry and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Sunday night rolls around and I can finally talk to Jon about the theft and he is of course bummed to say the least. Monday, at FedEx where Jonathan and I work, they get the word out to the couriers that the bike has been stolen. FedEx drivers often see things out of the norm. When I was a courier I would constantly see suspicious things. Jonathan also anounced that he would give a $1000 reward for the arrest of the theif. The FedEx crew was on the case. One of our drivers, Matt Friesen, had a package for an apartment complex and this package wasn't due until the following day. He had the choice to deliver this the next day but decided he would just deliver it a day early. He pulled into the complex and the first thing he notices was a bike matching Jonathan's, sitting in a car port. He called me and said "Dude, I think I found his bike!". I said nah there are alotta bikes out there just like Jonathan's. I asked him about a few scratches that I knew were on the bike. He confirmed that this was indeed the bike. Sweet Victory! We notify Jonathan and the Sheriff department and they promptly meet us out there. The perps had wiped down the bike with WD40 to conceal fingerprints. That didn't matter much now because Jon had his bike back. While it would have been fun to put the smackdown 2008 on them, the perps were long gone. Turns out the only real damage was a broken steering lock, ignition gone, cracked case cover, punched fuel cap, lever damage and some minor scratches.
The punched fuel cap.
The ignition is missing.
The cracked case with some JB Weld.
Minor stuff, the the missing bar end and broken lever.
We trailered the wounded DRZ to the dealer to get a once over and some repairs. The good thing is that Jon's deductable was only $50 on the $1000 worth of damages. Needless to say Jon is excited to have the bike back even if it now had 72 more miles on it. I think he should have told his insurance that it had a Clarke 3.9 on it and those theives replaced it with a stock tank. Nah, honesty is always the best policy. Otherwise we become theives too.
This was a rare but happy ending. On a side note, Matt, the driver who found the bike, told Jonathan that he wouldnt take any money for finding the bike. At FedEx, we like rewarding employees for going above and beyond.This is an award that comes with a little cash for the employee.
Well the story didnt have sex and the bike was probably stolen by a druggie, but this was a story about a stolen Suzuki, that is coming back home. I think this time it will wear a couple locks.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Operation Blackberry Recon
This sounds crazy but it amounted to a full scale green beret operation rescue. Okay not full scale but it impacted my only day to sleep in. It all started on Sunday.
We decided we would all pry ourselves out of bed and meet at River Walk Park promptly at 07:00. I of course waited to get out of bed until 06:40. I began my ritual of preparing for a day long ride. This includes some old mountain bike shorts with a handful of Gold Bond powder in the crotch to prevent monkey butt and a handful in both socks to keep that fresh feel in my boots that have seen many hot sweaty days. Then comes the race jersey and some camo pants. I know, style is not what I think about in the dirt. Although it is funny, guys most of the time could care less what they wear on a daily basis but when it comes to riding apparel they have to match their bike. I go to the freezer and get my camelback of water that I froze over night. I put on my helmet and fire up the DRZ. Should I have gotten my goggles out? Nah, sunglasses will do just fine. Put on my shades and then gloves, close the garage door and off I go. Its 06:55.
I am scheduled to meet two other riders at the park. Wayne, a guy I met after posting on a riders forum but have not met face to face yet, and Kevin, another guy from the forum but we have done a few other rides together before. I get to the stop light just before the park and Wayne was on time. Its 06:58. I know it’s a long ride from my house. We finally meet and of course do as all bike owner do and look over each others bike to see what sort of changes they have added and talk about where you have ridden and that sort of thing. I know right away that this guy will be cool to ride with. I look at my watch and it says 07:03 and I hear Kevin from a mile away. His bike isn't exactly quiet. There he is right on time. Hey for anybody I know there is at least a 15 to 20 minute grace period for a ride because we all have our pre-ride riruals.
The only business left to discuss is whether we should ride from Bako to Ventura on the 33, mostly a slab ride with some teasers of a little dirt. Or, Rancheria to the Sequoia Nat'l Forest which is a dirt road practically in our back yard that goes about 45 miles. The latter ride offers alot of single track riding through thick dense forest but a greater chance of getting lost. Good ol' Wayne busts out his GPS so the decision is made. It was single track heaven for us today. Off we went. 07:15.
We make our first stop at the Cheveron just before Rancheria road. I need to top off so there is no risk of having to call AAA out the wilderness to bring me a gallon of fuel. We make our way through the Harley riders to the pump fuel up and then sit and talk about our route plan.
Now its time to hit the canyon. Starts out paved for a couple of miles and its a little barren out there. No trees or shade anywhere. Dry and dustier then I could have imagined. What Bako is dusty? Uhhhh yeah. So we are screaming up this road and the first sign of life is a coyote. I hope this is a sign of things we will be seeing today. So back to screaming up the road. We are coming around the corner and we see something I havent seen before, at least not in real life. A cattle drive.
This was pretty cool to watch. These dogs are trained for work and thats what they love to do. We kinda watched this for a few minutes. I thought that we would be stuck behind the traffic for a while. They shifted off the road and we were back at it.
Before long we were getting up in to some trees. These were mostly Oaks and a few Pines. There was a nice little vista off to the side where we could sit and relax for a few minutes and take a much needed water break.
This vista was cool. We could look down on Hwy 178. It was really peaceful up there, until we fired up the bikes again.
Not to much further up the road we decide to take a much more scenic route. At this point instead of climbing we seem to be heading down hill. On the other hand it seems to be getting thicker with trees. Ummm its time to check the GPS.
See all that dirt on my face? I should have worn the goggles.
Okay, so this particular ride offers alot of the single track rides. Unfortunately we only grazed the surface. They were extremely tight and had lots of growth over the trail. In some cases the trails had manzanita growing in a perfect A frame over the trail. Here are a couple shots that show the trails.
We made our way to many vistas. The cool thing is that Wayne knew the area really well and gave us a quick geography lesson of the area. Unfortunately keeping my camera in my pocket, the settings changed to manual and not trying to be artsy fartsy here but everything went black and white.
Oh yeah Kevin burned his pants trying to turn the bike around on a steep dead end trail.
This is Wayne, Better than a park ranger explaining all the local history.
So we stopped off at a couple camp grounds just to check the place out. I was surprised that there weren't more campers since it was labor day weekend. It was really cool. I know where I want to camp next.
So I am sure you have asked yourself "what does the title have to do with anything in this story?". Well while we were heading back home, We took a trail that was incredibly deep silt/sand. Well at this point, yours truly went over the handle bars. I didn't take many pictures. All was good. I could still walk around and for those that know me well, NO my shoulder did not dislocate this time. I was pretty stoked that my shoulder was still attached. This is a small victory in my book. After a quick once over on the bike I noticed that my left rear blinker took the brunt of the damage and it was, unfortunately a fatality for the blinker. Still, I was celebrating my small victory of my shoulder. For those of you that don't know, it doesn't take much for me to dislocate it. Its a beast to get back in. So we decide to take the Pozo side down the mountain. Well after we reach the bottom, where the pavement starts, I realize that for some lame reason I attached my Blackberry to my belt. Most people would know that there is a chance you may bail on your bike and so common sense says put the phone in your back pack. SCREW COMMON SENSE!!!! Well I must have thought that. When we hit the bottom of the mountain with only enough fuel to get me to the closest fuel station, I realize I now have an empty cell phone clip on my belt. IKES!!!!!!! Son of a @#*&%. Well I am low on fuel and daylight will soon leave us. I develop a plan.
My plan was simple. Get up early, okay simple besides that. Get up early the next day and bomb through the canyon at record speed and get the phone from where I crashed. Seemed simple enough. I would find the one trail out of 60 where I crashed and pick up my phone, dust it off and get home and therefore go about my day unimpacted by this little curve ball.
The morning came early. Talk about conflict in my head. Should I stay or should I go.
Dang it I am going. No I will just replace it. You weak loser. Nope I am going to get that damn phone. I put on my cycle shorts and my boot socks. What is that smell. Never mind you are doing this. Pants, boots and a soccer jersey this time. Fire up the bike and I am gone. A man on a solo mission. Yes, I am a slave to my Blackberry but that is unimportant now.
I do the ritual stop at the Chevron station for fuel. The attendant asks as I am buying a Full Throttle wearing my helmet and gloves still,"So you are going riding?"
I tell her very business like "Ummm no I am driving a fast RV through the canyon". She laughed but I didn't have time for all that. My Blackberry was laying on a mountainside all by itself, HOW COULD SHE BE SO HEARTLESS?!.
I am back on my way. Its pretty peaceful early in the morning. I stop at about 2000 Ft elevation just to get some water from the Camelback and reflect.
I ask myself one more time, "What in the heck are you doin?". I am committed now but the realization that it was a holiday weekend, and somebody found the phone, was setting in. I had put on the front screen, "$40 reward if found", so I knew I would have to pay some guy $40 when I went through the camp one by one to see if anybody found the phone.
Well I officially hit the Sequoias. Maybe about 5000 ft.
I did get some rare views of two mountain lions which was a first for me. I still have work to do. Though I am talking myself into the fact that the phone is gone, I carry on. I get to maybe 7200 ft of thick dense forest. There is a trail is that it? Hmmmm I dont remember a fence here. Maybe its that other trail. No I think its this one. Thats a dead end. Wait this is it. Wow this is a longer trail than I remember. Hey there are two adults on XR50's uhhh okay. "hey guys does this trail go to the Y in the Rancheria road?" "Yeah it does". I think this is it. I ate it here.
Kicked my side stand down and started the walk to the scene of the famous bail. HOLY CRAP there it is. I felt like the Goonies after they found the pirate ship. The guys on the other bikes had taken off and I was forced to celebrate this huge victory alone. Happiness doesn't happen til its shared and I was on this one spot on the mountain where I had limited service. I sent 9 text messages. This was a big victory.
We decided we would all pry ourselves out of bed and meet at River Walk Park promptly at 07:00. I of course waited to get out of bed until 06:40. I began my ritual of preparing for a day long ride. This includes some old mountain bike shorts with a handful of Gold Bond powder in the crotch to prevent monkey butt and a handful in both socks to keep that fresh feel in my boots that have seen many hot sweaty days. Then comes the race jersey and some camo pants. I know, style is not what I think about in the dirt. Although it is funny, guys most of the time could care less what they wear on a daily basis but when it comes to riding apparel they have to match their bike. I go to the freezer and get my camelback of water that I froze over night. I put on my helmet and fire up the DRZ. Should I have gotten my goggles out? Nah, sunglasses will do just fine. Put on my shades and then gloves, close the garage door and off I go. Its 06:55.
I am scheduled to meet two other riders at the park. Wayne, a guy I met after posting on a riders forum but have not met face to face yet, and Kevin, another guy from the forum but we have done a few other rides together before. I get to the stop light just before the park and Wayne was on time. Its 06:58. I know it’s a long ride from my house. We finally meet and of course do as all bike owner do and look over each others bike to see what sort of changes they have added and talk about where you have ridden and that sort of thing. I know right away that this guy will be cool to ride with. I look at my watch and it says 07:03 and I hear Kevin from a mile away. His bike isn't exactly quiet. There he is right on time. Hey for anybody I know there is at least a 15 to 20 minute grace period for a ride because we all have our pre-ride riruals.
The only business left to discuss is whether we should ride from Bako to Ventura on the 33, mostly a slab ride with some teasers of a little dirt. Or, Rancheria to the Sequoia Nat'l Forest which is a dirt road practically in our back yard that goes about 45 miles. The latter ride offers alot of single track riding through thick dense forest but a greater chance of getting lost. Good ol' Wayne busts out his GPS so the decision is made. It was single track heaven for us today. Off we went. 07:15.
We make our first stop at the Cheveron just before Rancheria road. I need to top off so there is no risk of having to call AAA out the wilderness to bring me a gallon of fuel. We make our way through the Harley riders to the pump fuel up and then sit and talk about our route plan.
Now its time to hit the canyon. Starts out paved for a couple of miles and its a little barren out there. No trees or shade anywhere. Dry and dustier then I could have imagined. What Bako is dusty? Uhhhh yeah. So we are screaming up this road and the first sign of life is a coyote. I hope this is a sign of things we will be seeing today. So back to screaming up the road. We are coming around the corner and we see something I havent seen before, at least not in real life. A cattle drive.
This was pretty cool to watch. These dogs are trained for work and thats what they love to do. We kinda watched this for a few minutes. I thought that we would be stuck behind the traffic for a while. They shifted off the road and we were back at it.
Before long we were getting up in to some trees. These were mostly Oaks and a few Pines. There was a nice little vista off to the side where we could sit and relax for a few minutes and take a much needed water break.
This vista was cool. We could look down on Hwy 178. It was really peaceful up there, until we fired up the bikes again.
Not to much further up the road we decide to take a much more scenic route. At this point instead of climbing we seem to be heading down hill. On the other hand it seems to be getting thicker with trees. Ummm its time to check the GPS.
See all that dirt on my face? I should have worn the goggles.
Okay, so this particular ride offers alot of the single track rides. Unfortunately we only grazed the surface. They were extremely tight and had lots of growth over the trail. In some cases the trails had manzanita growing in a perfect A frame over the trail. Here are a couple shots that show the trails.
We made our way to many vistas. The cool thing is that Wayne knew the area really well and gave us a quick geography lesson of the area. Unfortunately keeping my camera in my pocket, the settings changed to manual and not trying to be artsy fartsy here but everything went black and white.
Oh yeah Kevin burned his pants trying to turn the bike around on a steep dead end trail.
This is Wayne, Better than a park ranger explaining all the local history.
So we stopped off at a couple camp grounds just to check the place out. I was surprised that there weren't more campers since it was labor day weekend. It was really cool. I know where I want to camp next.
So I am sure you have asked yourself "what does the title have to do with anything in this story?". Well while we were heading back home, We took a trail that was incredibly deep silt/sand. Well at this point, yours truly went over the handle bars. I didn't take many pictures. All was good. I could still walk around and for those that know me well, NO my shoulder did not dislocate this time. I was pretty stoked that my shoulder was still attached. This is a small victory in my book. After a quick once over on the bike I noticed that my left rear blinker took the brunt of the damage and it was, unfortunately a fatality for the blinker. Still, I was celebrating my small victory of my shoulder. For those of you that don't know, it doesn't take much for me to dislocate it. Its a beast to get back in. So we decide to take the Pozo side down the mountain. Well after we reach the bottom, where the pavement starts, I realize that for some lame reason I attached my Blackberry to my belt. Most people would know that there is a chance you may bail on your bike and so common sense says put the phone in your back pack. SCREW COMMON SENSE!!!! Well I must have thought that. When we hit the bottom of the mountain with only enough fuel to get me to the closest fuel station, I realize I now have an empty cell phone clip on my belt. IKES!!!!!!! Son of a @#*&%. Well I am low on fuel and daylight will soon leave us. I develop a plan.
My plan was simple. Get up early, okay simple besides that. Get up early the next day and bomb through the canyon at record speed and get the phone from where I crashed. Seemed simple enough. I would find the one trail out of 60 where I crashed and pick up my phone, dust it off and get home and therefore go about my day unimpacted by this little curve ball.
The morning came early. Talk about conflict in my head. Should I stay or should I go.
Dang it I am going. No I will just replace it. You weak loser. Nope I am going to get that damn phone. I put on my cycle shorts and my boot socks. What is that smell. Never mind you are doing this. Pants, boots and a soccer jersey this time. Fire up the bike and I am gone. A man on a solo mission. Yes, I am a slave to my Blackberry but that is unimportant now.
I do the ritual stop at the Chevron station for fuel. The attendant asks as I am buying a Full Throttle wearing my helmet and gloves still,"So you are going riding?"
I tell her very business like "Ummm no I am driving a fast RV through the canyon". She laughed but I didn't have time for all that. My Blackberry was laying on a mountainside all by itself, HOW COULD SHE BE SO HEARTLESS?!.
I am back on my way. Its pretty peaceful early in the morning. I stop at about 2000 Ft elevation just to get some water from the Camelback and reflect.
I ask myself one more time, "What in the heck are you doin?". I am committed now but the realization that it was a holiday weekend, and somebody found the phone, was setting in. I had put on the front screen, "$40 reward if found", so I knew I would have to pay some guy $40 when I went through the camp one by one to see if anybody found the phone.
Well I officially hit the Sequoias. Maybe about 5000 ft.
I did get some rare views of two mountain lions which was a first for me. I still have work to do. Though I am talking myself into the fact that the phone is gone, I carry on. I get to maybe 7200 ft of thick dense forest. There is a trail is that it? Hmmmm I dont remember a fence here. Maybe its that other trail. No I think its this one. Thats a dead end. Wait this is it. Wow this is a longer trail than I remember. Hey there are two adults on XR50's uhhh okay. "hey guys does this trail go to the Y in the Rancheria road?" "Yeah it does". I think this is it. I ate it here.
Kicked my side stand down and started the walk to the scene of the famous bail. HOLY CRAP there it is. I felt like the Goonies after they found the pirate ship. The guys on the other bikes had taken off and I was forced to celebrate this huge victory alone. Happiness doesn't happen til its shared and I was on this one spot on the mountain where I had limited service. I sent 9 text messages. This was a big victory.
First Ride to Isabella
First Posted on 7/20/08 This is a repost to the new site.
Great Ride today! Started at 07:00 Sunday in Bakersfield and rode up 178 through the canyon and had breakfast in Wofford Heights. After breakfast we stopped in at the US Forest Service office and found out about the Keysville Trails. They were pretty mellow to start but when we made it down to the Kern River it looked as though we would not get across. After running into a guy in a FWD we got a few directions and found our way out. This took us through some pretty techical stuff but it was amazing and we had a blast. We will be hitting these trails again soon. Total trip was about 150 miles.
This is where we started. Chevron at Mesa Marin.
This is over looking Hwy 178 down in the botom of the canyon.
We were up on a cliff looking at the Keysville trails down below. This was a great day with some cloud cover to keep it relativily cool. Off in the distance you can see Lake Isabella.
After a long ride not sure where we were headed we came to this gate which dropped us back on to Hwy 178 for the road ride home.
Great Ride today! Started at 07:00 Sunday in Bakersfield and rode up 178 through the canyon and had breakfast in Wofford Heights. After breakfast we stopped in at the US Forest Service office and found out about the Keysville Trails. They were pretty mellow to start but when we made it down to the Kern River it looked as though we would not get across. After running into a guy in a FWD we got a few directions and found our way out. This took us through some pretty techical stuff but it was amazing and we had a blast. We will be hitting these trails again soon. Total trip was about 150 miles.
This is where we started. Chevron at Mesa Marin.
This is over looking Hwy 178 down in the botom of the canyon.
We were up on a cliff looking at the Keysville trails down below. This was a great day with some cloud cover to keep it relativily cool. Off in the distance you can see Lake Isabella.
After a long ride not sure where we were headed we came to this gate which dropped us back on to Hwy 178 for the road ride home.
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