Jon and Walt's excelent Cali trip

It runs great and will pull anything on the bottom/mid. It still rips on top but is limited to about 10,500 rpm. It will rev a little farther but that is where the hard pull stops and you need to shift. The secret to the motor is to gear it up to take advantage of a power band that pulls hard and smoothly from 3k to 10.5K. I run 14x49 gearing and it will walk up anything. Some of the stuff we are riding is fairly steep.

On Thursday we drove to Hollister and met up with JSleeper and his brother. Just another perfect day and we had fun chasing JS around all day. For a comparatively small area, Hollister has a nice variety of trails. The only drawback to Hollister is the adobe clay base. It is either like pavement or I imagine slick as snot when wet. All in all we had a ball.

Here are a series of vids from the trails:







And here is one that illustrates what happens when a slow, old, fat guy gets whiny



Thank you so much to JS and Ricky for putting up with a couple of old farts from MT.

That was a good day of riding. Riding those brake bumps for a couple of days will make your arms and shoulders the size of the Hulk's! Ricky and I may be younger, but we were both sucking air. Ricky had to take a rest after his hill climb fail. In all fairness, I am probably one of the younger Husky guys. We will have to take a trip to your area for some technical riding. Your 165 sounded mean! If more people were there that day, they would have been frightened by the sound of all the little Husky 2 strokes.

JS

For the last installment of the Cali trip, we went back to Foresthill on Friday to ride the #6 loop. It was another gorgeous day and how could you have more fun than riding #6. After 6 straight days of riding we were a bit physically beat for #7 but can't think of a better way to get loose than riding some seriously fun single track. Really cool terain and country.

First segment heading out:



Trail down to a cool gorge and what a nice bridge in the middle of nowhere. In Montana if you can't ride through it the trail just goes away.



Jon lugging his 165 up a fun section coming away fromt he bridge:



A final little section to a cool view:



I have many hours of vid but I am completely frustrated by an internet connection that off's me 3 or 4 times while trying to upload every little clip. But this at least gives you a little flavor of the goodness of Foresthill.

You might could try uploading at non-peak times such as early mornings or late in the evenings as a workaround for the uploading issue...

Christ Walt!... that last section scared me... don't like the heights didn't look like you had too much room there.

Ray_Ray,

I have to do all the uploading from 10pm until 6:00 am or it doesn't happen. I did get one more segment to upload of the climb out of the Gorge:



Lots of fun even though we are both a little tentative and protecting sore body parts.(I had a ton of fluid building up in my right knee-no acl in there)

Kevin,

I like that kind of stuff and it is really cool. Lots of sidehill trail with steep drop offs but the trail is well defined and easy to follow. One of the issues in MT is the lack of riding on so many trails and little maintenance so side hill trails tend to be 6" wide or less in places with shear drops below. Quite a bit more pucker factor.

Very cool report and vids. G-town and Foresthill are my regular stomping grounds. Love Stony too but it's quite
a bit farther drive than the Sierras. Did you have a chance to check out the upper east trails at Georgetown, east of
Rock Creek Rd. to Bald Mtn. ? Elkins Flat is another place with trail systems similar to Foresthill and G-Town. Did anyone
suggest Carnegie to you ? Carnegie is one place that, imo, every rider should check out at least once. It doesn't have the
cool woods s/t trails like the other areas although there are some pretty fun trails but that's not why most people go there.
It's pretty much all about the hill climb because that's all it is. Crazy, steep ass hills galore.
Again, nice report and vids, would love to see more footage if you get a chance. Sounds like you had a great time.

It sure looks like great fun. How are the riding comditions down there now? I suppose the higher areas are pretty snowy?
We have been thinking of making a trip South, in hopes of curing some of the jonesing.

I have the same problem, only worse. No ACL, no PCL, re-routed ligaments, etc. My doc put me on Meloxicam 15mg, an anti-inflamant, and I have not had any fluid build up since. I do wear a brace on the bad knee. Notice: I am not a doctor! One pill a day works great for me, and I used to have problems just walking around the house.

I didn't know anything about the videos until I went riding today back at Georgetown with Dan today! Cool stuff! Thanks to Walt again for fixing my bike and making it run like it should.

Being that it's 27 degree in Pa today...I have lost numerous hours watching these videos! Great Stuff...

To the point...I think 'Jon and Walt's Excellent Adventure' should be nominated for the Golden Globe and Oscar Awards.