Sierra Adventure Ride 8/2 - 8/3

[WeeBee]

Anyone interested in doing a very short-notice Sierra Dual Sport Lake Loop ride this weekend? Saturday is my B-day and I can't think of a better way to celebrate.

The ride would start Saturday morning with a meet for a quick breakfast around 7am somewhere in Grass Valley then riding up Hwy 20 to Bowman Lake Rd and in to Bowman Lake and some of the many other beautiful lakes in the area. Camp for Saturday night would most likely be at White Rock Lake - pack your fishing pole if you want as White Rock has good trout fishing along with many of the other lakes in the area. Sunday would be re-tracing the route more or less back out to Hwy 20.

Bowman Lake Rd is mostly unpaved with many offshoot roads leading out into Tahoe N.F. and loads of great riding and scenery. The roads in the area are generally in good condition with some washboard and rocky sections so this ride would be suitable to just about any Dual Sport or Adventure bike or level of rider experience.

I'll be riding from Sonoma County and plan on starting out around 4am Saturday morning. Anyone interested or who has a good suggestion for a place to meet & eat Sat am in Grass Valley please reply back to this thread or feel free to give me a call on my AT&T cell at 7 O 7, seven 99, five 8 three 4.

 

[WeeBee]

Link to a map of the general ride area

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/tahoe/documents/rec/grousemap.pdf

 

[NoGall]

HBD, Dave! arty

Gotta work, or I would love to tag along for the pavement portion.

 

[mg4tner]

AW MAN!!! I am sorry I missed this thread!!! I would have totally done this!!!! My b-day was sunday the 3rd!!

Any chance for another ride maybe 9-10?

Mike

 

[WeeBee]

Hey Mike

I'm pretty much flat broke until I go back to work next week so can't do a ride this next weekend.

Had a great time last weekend though - met up with Doug, another rider from ADVrider.com on a Husky TE610 in Nevada City and had a great ride. The ride up Hwy 20 is real nice and the whole Bowman Lake Rd area is just amazingly beautiful with lots of small pristine lakes. Didn't get many pics as my camera was damaged on my last major ride and it's a PITA to get it to work. Click on the pics below to get a full-size image.

Faucherie Lake


Camped at White Rock lake as planned and I almost didn't get back up out of there on my heavy pig of a Transalp. The last 1/8 of a mile down to the east end of the lake has a couple of steep sections with loose rock and fine powdery dirt from all the 4x4's that go in and out of there. I dumped my bike twice on the ride out and ended up removing my panniers and other gear to lighten the load. The fact that I'm geared one tooth taller on my front sprocket and my rear Mefo Explorer is about 2/3 done didn't help at all. Got away with no damage other than some paint loss on my crash bars and a bent Driving light bracket.

Three pic panorama of White Rock Lake




After escaping from White Rock, we rode east out to Hwy 89 and then north to Sierraville where we picked up Hwy 49 and rode back down towards Nevada City alongside the North Fork of the Yuba River. Most of that stretch of 49 is very scenic and the roadway is a sportbiker's wetdream. You gotta watch it though as we found out during a lunch stop there had been three bikes go down by mid-day alone and CHP's were out in force.

All in all it was a fun ride and I'd do it again, all except for taking my TA back in to White Rock Lake.

 

[Lupin]

Awww man.... that looks awesome!! I'm on my days off so I would have been game for it if I had known. Although, I'm thinking if you dumped your bike twice, then it might have been a real interesting ride with my fat ass GS with regular ol' tourances on it.

 

[WeeBee]

Well, I'm no dirt expert for sure so some of the blame lies with me for dumping her. Doug used to ride an 1150GS and said after we got back out that he wouldn't have taken that bike in there