Ride Report
True to my word, our kickstands were up at Palan's at 9:00 on Friday. This was Pete, Kurt, Bill, and Mike. Alan was in his Jeep because his carburetor on his bike is acting up. This was actually super cool to have a vehicle like this on the track. First, he brought a bbq and big ice chest. The bbq was awesome for Friday night. We had skewers, steaks, chops, and scallops. Man, we ate like royalty. But the Jeep also carried Mike's broken bike, so that was great to have as well. We headed toward Matt's place because that was on our way and Forrest lives over there too. Forrest has some flooding issues as well, but not to the degree of Alan. So Fo had a tough time getting his bike going, but it worked out fine. Off we went to meet Andy at the gas station near Butte.
We wasted a bunch of time visiting and took off from there at 10. The back country roads behind Oroville are always great. It's a fun and mellow track and perfect for the dual sports. Matt's chain broke in Bangor, and he was the last bike, so he and Alan jumped in the Jeep and drove to Marysville to get a new chain. Andy stayed with the bike. I guess Andy wasn't super close to the bike though, because Merced and Dave K road through and stopped to look at the bike for a sec. Didn't see anyone and thought maybe it was some other dude. Off they went. They met us in Angels Camp shortly after we arrived. Matt, Andy, and Alan got back on the road about an hour and half later. We all connected in Angels Camp. Rob was running a little behind schedule so he just continued to the camp. Before we arrive to camp, Forrest, me, Kurt, Mike and Bill stopped for a snack break along the 49. There was banter about "irregardless". Evidently, Fo tells us, it was used by royalty to stop a conversation. It got well used this weekend.
We leave the grocery store about 5 pm and head up the 108. That road was more freeway style than I expected...at least until you got high into the mountains. I was happy to see gas stations along the way to camp. I had a hunch we'd need them. We got tot camp and Rob had been there for a few minutes. Paid for one site, 8 bucks, and then we got another site too. 8 bucks a spot, no extra vehicle fees, and you can collect firewood from the woods. Nice. Great spot, great host. Only trouble was the deer hunters getting up and going at 4 in the morning....and they weren't quiet about it. Had a fun game of poker...I broke even...whew! Birthday Boy Mike won some.....that fits. Everyone who was drinking seemed to drink too much. Andy doesn't drink. Forgets his sleeping pad in the car and sleeps on bumpy ground. He should have been drunk.
In the morning we have a leisurely start. The kind of departure that makes Wade crazy. Merced and Andy decide to stick together and use the SAR (Special Andy Route), sadly this meant it was the last we saw of them. We take off and hit the track, and low and behold it has a gate on it. Funny though, Matt was out front, blew by the track/gate and stayed on the road to Beardsley Reservoir...I have to take a little blame on that because the track did go around it...only to the East...so he asked me if it goes around the lake and I said yes...he took off and wasn't really watching his gps. Anyway, we figure we must stay on the road to the lake and then Matt was coming back anyway. We follow this paved road around the west end of the lake and right when it turns to dirt I pull off for a break. We gather and are trying to see if this will take us back to our track, and it appears it will. We meet a guy on a brand new ktm 500 and we meet a forestry gal...nice folks out there. We continue and connect to the track and things are working quite well. I should have been nervous at this point, because rarely do tracks work this nicely and rarely do reconnects go this well. We stop and have snack time. Alan has a cooler! You know what's in that cooler! Nice.
I knew the track was suspect in one section so I made a fix-it track. Only a few of us had it so I told guys to slinky this part. It started with a pretty rocky uphill gnarly section and kind of continued to stay rocky. The doc and I gathered for a bit quite a ways ahead, and I started to get worried. I figured it would be easy for guys to fall down. Quite a long time goes by and we tell Kurt and Bill that we are going to head back. We knew Matt was out front, so we had a few behind us. We get to Rob, who is waiting at an intersection and he said he'd been there about 20 minutes. I got more worried. We told him to head on down to Kurt and Bill. We reverse the track up and over the gnarly rocky stuff and get to the other side and lo and behold noone is there. Sheesh. These are those times out there that are tough. You start guessing what other guys are thinking and doing, and it's a challenge. Fo and I kick around some scenarios, and in the end are happy noone is broken and we decide to head on back. We pull up and the missing links are waiting? How did they get in front of us? Turns out, it seems, that Alan misread the gps track/fix-it and sent Dave on a wild goose chase and this ate the time up. That's why Rob had to sit there so long. F-ing Alan. So glad you had the cooler full of beer.
So we all take off and catch Matt sitting in the dirt on a hill, because just as the track turned to paved again, there was a locked gate. Road closed. Matt has a plan to get the Jeep around it and is insistent that the forest service people are just lazy and don't want to maintain the road. They go. They come back. Sheer drop off of 20 feet or something. None Shall Pass the doc says. We meet good hunters who think they know the dirt road to get us out...6n08. We follow him to his camp and look over his map. He gives away some gas to Rob. Matt gets a chew off of him. We use the 6n08 and it actually gets us back on track and out. Right before we connect back to our paved closed road, on the other side of course, Mike's bike stops starting. Weird. Electrical snafu. Funny thing is, Matt was playing moto cattle dog all day checking in with people, and he rode right on by Mike. Maybe he waved, I don't know. I stopped to check on him. Alan was last and the three of us loaded it on the Jeep. Mike had a shotgun beer. Once the Jeep was loaded, I took off to get to the group so they wouldn't worry. Matt was headed back, I told him about Mike's bike, and we ripped on down to the group on a super twisty paved road. Matt and I were flying...that's about as fast as I want to ride nowadays...good stuff though. Got to the group on the corner. And then it got interesting.
Teri, the real estate agent, comes over from her office across the street. Here on the map. Hears me say we have a broken down bike, so she comes over and offers her pickup to us for help. Nice. I tell her it's ok, we have it on the back of the Jeep. She states she is "in the know" about the town of Dorrington. So we ask about groceries and supplies and gas, but most importantly, campgrounds. She tells about campgrounds, and none of them are fitting the bill for us, so Matt states, "Let's just go to a forest road and camp in the woods." So Teri says, "Well, don't do that, just stay on my property behind my office, there's lots of space." Really? That seems awesome and odd all in the same moment. Dave looks over at me and is nodding his head and says, "Say yes Pete." So I did. Turns out Mike was all worried about it because we couldn't have a fire and we wouldn't have a bathroom. But Teri opened the office to us and told us to make a fire in the patio fire pit. Holy smokes man, it was awesome! Mike was soon happy. So happy in fact he slept on the floor in the office!
So we burn down to the store to get gas before setting up our tents. We needed beer too. So we supply up and while doing so, have a pint of beer that they sold on tap. I had the local IPA. I love having local IPA. I get my six pack, and my pint and I'm standing in the store by the bar. Kurt walks up, "Why are you having a pint? Aren't we taking our beer to camp?" Well yes, I say, but we will be here for a few so I'm having a pint. Kurt gets a pint. Alan walks over, "Geez Kurt, Pete is rubbing off on you." Then we all stood outside and talked and enjoyed the moment and music and pints. These are the moments in these rides that I find the most magical. It's just some thing that happened without planning. It's a super cool short time where it seems the universe is on pause. It's like the time we had beers while laying on the lawn after the Devil's Anus. This was nowhere near the exhaustion of course. But it was a good time. After we set up at Teri's, we sat around for a few and enjoyed a beer and chat. Then we made our way across the street to "The Lube" for dinner. Weird name. Good frier. Cool spot. Reminded me of a small Madison Bear Gardens. I had veggies and chili and devilled eggs. All mediocre at best. Some guys had burgers, some had fried foods. I sampled the chips and onion rings and they were quite good. Having a meal out on these rides is a luxury. The bbq was better though. Had we made it to camp that I planned, we would have bbq'd again. In fact, I was looking forward to it. And in hindsight, I'm sort of wishing I had thought to suggest to just buy supplies and bbq again at Teri's. It was fine though.
I'm glad I had cell service and could talk with Ced. It's a bummer they couldn't connect. I realized they were quite far away. Evidently they got to camp way too early, and sort of backtracked. I wished I had suggested for them to meet us where the track crossed the 4 from the get go. In other words, I wished I had made Special Andy Route come up the 4 to meet us, and then it could head around and meet us again. I should know by now that tracks rarely go end to end without snags. Too bad on this one. But that's the problem with separating. I think Andy should get a Jeep. I also think Merced should ride a small nimble dual sport so he can stay with us no matter his old aches and pains.
So we don't get so drunk at Teri's. Alan was kind to me and put a Chris Cornell play list on Pandora through his speaker. We sat around the fire and told life stories. I probably shared too much about some hardships from my past. This brings the crowd's mood down. I apologize if that happened. At any rate, it was a nice evening. Except Rob just disappeared after dinner. I think he was in bed by 9. Then Matt and Dave stayed at the Lube for quite a while. When they came back, Matt knocked Kurt over in his chair. I'm not sure why he did this. I snuck off to bed not long after. Matt comes over with his headlamp shining...."Get up, what the hell? What's wrong with you?" I'm all, "That's it, I'm done, I'm going to bed!" Then I hear Matt trying to get Dave to go play frisbee in the street. WTF? Dave wouldn't play. Come on Dave!
I had a good night sleep this night actually. The previous night the deer hunters really interrupted my sleep. And I drank a bit too much. I was an "outbreather" in the morning. You know, when you are a bit hung over, trying to put on a sock or your riding pants, and you have to exhale loudly a lot to pull it off? Yeah, that was Rob. Maybe that's why he went to bed so early at Teri's place.
Sunday morning was nice. I got up early and had coffee with Kurt, Fo, and Bill. Good fellers all. Heated up my water and all. I wanted to get back to Chico around 3 for volleybeer, so my hope was to get rolling no later than 9. Last days are kind of odd. It's sort of either guys want to extend the ride and the day, like Matt did by riding toward Tahoe, or it's guys want to boogie to get home. I was sort of in the middle of this...I wanted to get home, but in no way did I want to take the shine off the trip by going some highway crappy route. I wanted to exactly reverse the track, and that's what the Doc, myself, Bill, Kurt, and Dave did. However, we separated in Coloma for a bit. Fo wanted to try to chase a ball down the twistys. This spread us out after a snack break. So I was sweep behind Bill. In fact, I was so far back I had cars and a trailer in between Bill and I. I came up on Bill on the side of the highway. He says something doesn't feel right, I say it's a flat back tire. So I suggest he nurses up the road a bit so we can change it in the shade. We go up a bit and Forrest is coming back toward us...we end up in a parking lot under a shade tree and begin working on it. Kurt and Dave were long ahead. I texted them so they wouldn't worry. We were in Cool. It's cool in Cool. We met a nice fella and gal and he had an onboard truck compressor and this made beading the tire easier. Bill did most of the work with the wheel, Fo did second, I barely did anything. Sage advice maybe now and again. And a tool or two. And my spare tube. Bill did fine on the tube change. It was a good experience for him actually. He felt the full weight of adventure. Full flavor. Luggage coming loose, ruts throwing him down, and then a flat tire. Kadoosh. Welcome aboard Bill.
Bill and Fo and I finished up the ride home from Grass Valley in exactly 90 minutes. We simply reversed the route, even toward Butte. It was a fine finish. Got home at 3:30 with the volleyball net set up. Good wife.
Random thoughts:
Irregardless. Stops that conversation.
I said to Kurt, I'm glad to have him along. It's therapeutic to do this stuff. You punch out and rage against the machine. It's cool.
Good Samaritans all around. Sheesh, they are all over. So cool. Give you hope for the world.
BBQ scallops. Yum.
Breaking even at poker and barely able to count the chips because I was shaking so bad.
Beers in the gas station parking lot while waiting for guys to show up in Angels Camp.
Beers in the forest on day two out of the cooler and the Jeep.
Cool dudes on brand new KTM 500s
Duane, the campground host.
One glove Matt.
Rob, the outbreather.
Andy, the groundsleeper.
Matt, peeing freely in front of the other campers...until he realized that's bad form.
Matt, laying in the dirt bending Rob's chain guide. And then cussing about the forest service and the gate, only to be turned back.
Dave dropping the big girl while parking in Coloma. Damn. But no harm. What the F?
Flat tires suck. Always at the worst moment.
Me, riding the stupid rock track 3 times. It's my own damn fault. I built the failed track.
Water bags with pennies above doors.
The dog that nearly knocked me down and held onto my arm, gently.
Chris Cornell.
This stuff is about life. It is a way to enjoy the world and good friends. California is amazing. We have so much to do and see, and dual sports are great way to do this. Mechanical issues aren't a big deal. We don't want physical issues. Thankfully, for the most part, we have stayed healthy and unhurt. It's serious business out there. We must be vigilant. But we must remain vigilant in doing these rides. It's important for us to keep this going. It's good stuff. I'm glad we all share it. Thanks for being my friends. Good times boys, good times.
Irregardless.
