So....I have been getting out a little for some riding. Thank heavens for plated bikes. My favorite OHV areas are still off limits. I made a plan to hit the mountains early in the week with my friend Mike, who had recently bought a new Beta 390. We met up at a local supermarket parking lot, where I was introduced to his buddy, Dave, and then we drove up to Heart Bar in the San Bernardino mountains to stage our ride.
The weather was a bit on the nippy side, with gusty winds at times. All in all, good riding weather. I am still out of shape from all this inactivity over the past few months, so hopping out of the car at 7500 ft. elevation and immediately hitting the trails on a FE501 was a bit of a struggling point for me. After an hour though, it seemed like I was starting to get acclimated. We had a good loop, about 76 miles...maybe a tiny bit shorter than usual, but we were ALL a bit out of shape. Lunch was the big thing. There were not a lot of options, since most of the eating establishments were closed. But luckily, one of my favorites was open for take out. So we ended up parking out behind the LA Paws Inn, and ate our Mexican food, standing up, next to our bikes. Turns out that I am not very good at this, and ended up decorating my bike and my riding clothes with streaks of salsa. The food tasted great though, and this arrangement just added to the adventure.
After our lunch break, we headed further into town so that Dave could put some gas in his Honda, and then headed over the mountain. On the top, the clouds were moving in, adding an extra element of chilliness to our ride. I decided to go check out a route to the east, that would take us a little longer than going down the south side, but when we got over there, the gate was locked, indicating that there was probably a washout or something....so we headed back to the southern exposure route. At the bottom, I wanted to check the river route out, because the last year's storms had washed out quite a few portions of the road, and that route had been closed. I was delighted to see that most of the route had been restored except near the east end where we had to double back and take a slightly higher path just above it. All in all, it was a very good ride with a couple of cool riding buddies. Mike had the Relive app loaded on his phone, so it recorded the route. Neat stuff. I installed the app on my phone for our next adventure.
https://www.relive.cc/view/vMv85EnoKPO
The weather was a bit on the nippy side, with gusty winds at times. All in all, good riding weather. I am still out of shape from all this inactivity over the past few months, so hopping out of the car at 7500 ft. elevation and immediately hitting the trails on a FE501 was a bit of a struggling point for me. After an hour though, it seemed like I was starting to get acclimated. We had a good loop, about 76 miles...maybe a tiny bit shorter than usual, but we were ALL a bit out of shape. Lunch was the big thing. There were not a lot of options, since most of the eating establishments were closed. But luckily, one of my favorites was open for take out. So we ended up parking out behind the LA Paws Inn, and ate our Mexican food, standing up, next to our bikes. Turns out that I am not very good at this, and ended up decorating my bike and my riding clothes with streaks of salsa. The food tasted great though, and this arrangement just added to the adventure.
After our lunch break, we headed further into town so that Dave could put some gas in his Honda, and then headed over the mountain. On the top, the clouds were moving in, adding an extra element of chilliness to our ride. I decided to go check out a route to the east, that would take us a little longer than going down the south side, but when we got over there, the gate was locked, indicating that there was probably a washout or something....so we headed back to the southern exposure route. At the bottom, I wanted to check the river route out, because the last year's storms had washed out quite a few portions of the road, and that route had been closed. I was delighted to see that most of the route had been restored except near the east end where we had to double back and take a slightly higher path just above it. All in all, it was a very good ride with a couple of cool riding buddies. Mike had the Relive app loaded on his phone, so it recorded the route. Neat stuff. I installed the app on my phone for our next adventure.
https://www.relive.cc/view/vMv85EnoKPO
