This is my WIFE, here are my BIKES, and these are my STORIES

My wife thought buying a motorcycle was the worst idea I've ever had until I told her I wanted to buy a second one. That became my new worst idea I've ever had...

I have always dreamed of exploration. Sitting in school and learning about history near and far, I would imagine taking those steps, seeing those sights, experiencing something beyond myself, and taking it all in. I grew up in Northern California, and live here today.

I started riding last year as a means to "get away". It was something I never thought I would learn to do and now am full blown hooked. I gave up drinking 6 years ago and have been working 2 full time jobs to fill my time and pay back the wreckage I caused in my years of drunken stooper. Along that path of my past, I found an incredible woman that changed the way I viewed everything. She picked me up, dusted me off and put me back down better than new. She opened my mind to the possibilities of exploration and supports my dreams...With a catch..


Now, you may be asking yourself why the prologue? Well after close to a year of reading, writing, and riding I needed to find myself a place to hold my collective adventures from now moving forward for family and friends, new and old. I have met many great people on this forum, and hope to meet many more. I really enjoy reading others RR's, and especially like the real life bits tossed in as I can relate. Hats off to av_mech, Flyingdutchman177, and DockingPilot. You guys get me through the tough times...

and now to get dirty...


This is my WIFE,



Here are my BIKES,




And THESE are my Stories....

USAL Rd hit a note with me from the first time I heard about it. Looking it up I was enthralled with the views. From the vast open ocean to the secluded road squeezed in by ferns and capped with a canopy of limbs it had to be visited. I had made a number of routes on Google maps to it, through it, overnighter, day trip. No matter how, it was on THE LIST. A friend of mine and fellow inmate, Foot dragger, decided to take off for the day to head to the coast. A little dirt, a little county road, a little Highway and A LOT of scenery.

We live in Northern California and going to "the Coast" as we always called it when I was a kid meant twice a year and somewhere between Fort Bragg and McKinleyville, near Eureka. We have some family and friends in Fort Bragg and my great grandmother lived in McKinleyville until she passed when I was about 12. I have a lot of fond memories of the Coast and should spend more time there than I do.

Our trip was planned over the phone in under a minute. Dirt to here...I know a road...then eat near here somewhere...come back tired and smiling. Sounds great. I have been trying to get the most out of my Garmin Montana lately on trips so I hopped on Basecamp to set 2 routes. 1 to USAL rd from Chico, and 1 from Fort Bragg to 101 via Sherwood Rd. I should note here that I had the whole day off for this ride which is a very rare occurrence. I work 2 full time jobs and try to fit my day trip rides into the morning before I go to the restaurant. Anyways this is the basic route we had visualized:

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We met up at 6am and rolled out. It takes 1 hour to cross the valley and get to the base of 162. Its a forest Highway and is pretty well grated this time of year. This is one of the last views of the valley looking east at Black Butte Lake from about 3500ft elev.



Foot dragger coming in on his Dr650 at the pass at Black Butte Mtn. 6600ft elev.




There was some crazy fog hanging out and it was at this time we both realized we had definitely under-dressed for the trip. Bike readout showed it was 40f...Hey we're from the valley, this was pretty friggin chilly to be weraring a short sleeve shirt under the moto jackets. This is also when I remembered I had heated grips on the new bike...



We blasted down the other side of the hill into Covelo where we topped off and headed to Laytonville. We had already decided we needed to find a thrift store to get a warmer shirt before we hit the coast and found a nice little shop with 3 mens long sleeve shirts for sale. We bought 2 at 4 bucks a piece and headed to the Drive through tree in Legget.

These Redwoods are just massive




We waited in line just like any good tourists with our cameras out and our heads tilted upwards




I can't even imagine what it was like back in these days



Our turn



We skipped the touristy gift shop, and crossed "driving through the drive through tree every 20 years" off our lists and snapped a few more parting shots





We skated down Hwy 1 to USAL rd loving that it was a tuesday just before noon and had very little traffic to deal with. The cars we did see graciously eased to the edge to let us get our fill of the twisties!

We turned off Hwy 1 out of dense forest cover onto a dirty road designated by chalk lettering with the word USAL scralled on the black asphalt to find this within 100 yards



Then this



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This is gonna be good!

Nice prologue

Cant wait

I have been looking forward to doing this ride from Eureka, looks good so far.

Ok......

Now I know what you've been up to. Looks familiar.
Ride on Bud.

Killer ride Jeramie!

I appreciate the speed you're riding on Usal Rd. It's refreshing to see someone on a road like that not tearing-ass through it.
On a side note, can you post your route in detail? I live in the 916 and that looks like a perfect overnighter on my XR650. Did you guys camp?

great pics and vid

Hey guys, thanks for joining the party... Boondox, your sidecar is frickin' Bad Ass! .. I have to work this afternoon so I tossed the second part of the Video clip on the uploader to youtube-land this morning and set off on a semi familiar loop of about 200 miles, more of that later..

Here's part 2.. This road was in amazing shape I should note. Foot dragger was saying it was a lot dustier the year before in July, which makes sense seeing that it basically just opened up for the season. I've seen some photos and video clips of just a shitstorm of get offs, and mud flinging. So we were lucky to have just a nice peaceful cruise down the coast.

<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VXLLflqnJeg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sometime around the stopping point in this video is when our hunger started to make our decision making a little shaky. We continued down the road not really paying to much attention that it was in the wrong direction of our original route and we were 5 hours from home minimum with no plans of being home later than dark. A 25 mile road takes a while when there is this much scenery to take in.

Here's some GoPro stills from the drivers seat

Were practically neighbors. On the Google Map link above you can zoom in and out and pan around. It will show elevation, road names etc. I will post up the route we ACTUALLY took towards the end of the ride. Was very similar, just a small "detour" so we could take in more "Scenery". I also have the tracks I could send you but you will most likely want to come in the hills from a more southernly point. We did not camp this trip just a 15 hour "There and back". Would be an amzing place to camp and explore though for sure

Here's a shot of Highway 1 from Legget to USAL. Not much to say other than ride it, its beautiful.

Your name make me hungry
Looking good, some of those pictures at red wood reminded me of the trip my boys and I took few years ago. Thanks for sharing I will head up that way in couple weeks. Ride safe

Banh Xeo is delicious! Thanks for joining. Send me a PM if you ever are in my area up here. The riding is fantastic and my wife cooks good too!

Awesome-

yeah, i'm IN both riding and eating....


nice vids...

NSFW. I forgot to give a shout out to you too in my prologue. I thoroughly enjoy reading your dirt reports and general shenanigans. I see you are still enjoying the little KTM, the bike rips!