45 Days on a Gen3 Hayabusa - 2023 Pashnit Touring
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This single lane twisty ride pops back out onto the main road at a place called Childs Meadow. Another high mountain meadow.
There used to be a 1940s style motor motel here, the kind where you park right in front of your room and walk in. We based a lot of motorcycle tours here back 15 years ago, but the place got real run-down after awhile. Our groups were so big, I booked the entire building.
The view from this place of Mount Lassen.
There used to be a 1940s style motor motel here, the kind where you park right in front of your room and walk in. We based a lot of motorcycle tours here back 15 years ago, but the place got real run-down after awhile. Our groups were so big, I booked the entire building.
The view from this place of Mount Lassen.
It was time to boogie south.
Lake Almanor & the aftermath of the 2021 Dixie Fire
Highway 89 through the 2021 Dixie Fire.
Sometimes they replant this stuff, other times they just leave it. No idea how the forest service makes these decisions. My opinion is salvage log all of it and replant it. But I've been told after about three years after the wildfire, they can't salvage log as the wood is no good anymore.
Lake Almanor & the aftermath of the 2021 Dixie Fire
Highway 89 through the 2021 Dixie Fire.
Sometimes they replant this stuff, other times they just leave it. No idea how the forest service makes these decisions. My opinion is salvage log all of it and replant it. But I've been told after about three years after the wildfire, they can't salvage log as the wood is no good anymore.
Gold Lakes Dr
This High Sierra area is known as the "Lakes Basin," a collection of some fifty lakes to the northeast of the towering Sierra Buttes. The largest of them, was named in 1850 when a miner, Thomas Stoddard, claimed he had found a mountain lake whose shores were studded with gold nuggets. The usual rush ensued; more than a thousand hopeful prospectors would set out on an expedition for this lake of gold, and repeated expeditions followed swelled by rumor and hope. Entire towns emptied as Argonauts rushed into the mountains above Downieville. No gold was ever found on those shores. The name however, Gold Lakes, remains to this day.
Sutter Buttes - can't barely make it out, but there's a fire lookout atop the right hand peak.
Highway 49 - Yuba Pass is down in that valley.
We have another tour coming to this region in a month, it will be focused on this mountain region, and it's called The Mystery Tour, all the riders signed up for the tour have no idea where they are going - it's a mystery.
This High Sierra area is known as the "Lakes Basin," a collection of some fifty lakes to the northeast of the towering Sierra Buttes. The largest of them, was named in 1850 when a miner, Thomas Stoddard, claimed he had found a mountain lake whose shores were studded with gold nuggets. The usual rush ensued; more than a thousand hopeful prospectors would set out on an expedition for this lake of gold, and repeated expeditions followed swelled by rumor and hope. Entire towns emptied as Argonauts rushed into the mountains above Downieville. No gold was ever found on those shores. The name however, Gold Lakes, remains to this day.
Sutter Buttes - can't barely make it out, but there's a fire lookout atop the right hand peak.
Highway 49 - Yuba Pass is down in that valley.
We have another tour coming to this region in a month, it will be focused on this mountain region, and it's called The Mystery Tour, all the riders signed up for the tour have no idea where they are going - it's a mystery.
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Highway 49 - Yuba Pass
Mountain canyon riding at its best!
We're headed back here in a month for the Mystery Tour - just don't tell anybody, it's a mystery!
Mountain canyon riding at its best!
We're headed back here in a month for the Mystery Tour - just don't tell anybody, it's a mystery!
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Southern Sierra Nevada Pashnit Tour
Only two weeks between tours, they come rapid fire as we get into the fall ride season. During the busiest time of my tour season, there are only 11 days between tours. Means 1000 mile rides every 11 days. Quick service to the bike & get set up for the next ride, don't even unpack, swap out clothes, top off the fuel tank, plus swap tires if I need to (I always order a spare set months in advance) a set lasts 3-4 months, so I can swap them if need be.
The start point for this next tour is halfway across the state & I'm riding a couple of hours to meet the guys the night before vs up at 3am and on the bike at 4am to ride 3 hours to the meet spot before the sun comes up. Not this time.
Get off work, pull on the leathers, hop on the already packed bike and ride south through the Sierra Nevada Foothills. I could take the freeway, it's much faster, but this route is more twisties. Ride until the sun goes down and then make a beeline for the highway, don't want to be out in the foothills after dark, too many critters.
Irish Hill Rd in the Sierra Foothills
Pardee Lake Overlook -still full!
The sun is low in the sky, got to take advantage of daylight while it lasts.
Only two weeks between tours, they come rapid fire as we get into the fall ride season. During the busiest time of my tour season, there are only 11 days between tours. Means 1000 mile rides every 11 days. Quick service to the bike & get set up for the next ride, don't even unpack, swap out clothes, top off the fuel tank, plus swap tires if I need to (I always order a spare set months in advance) a set lasts 3-4 months, so I can swap them if need be.
The start point for this next tour is halfway across the state & I'm riding a couple of hours to meet the guys the night before vs up at 3am and on the bike at 4am to ride 3 hours to the meet spot before the sun comes up. Not this time.
Get off work, pull on the leathers, hop on the already packed bike and ride south through the Sierra Nevada Foothills. I could take the freeway, it's much faster, but this route is more twisties. Ride until the sun goes down and then make a beeline for the highway, don't want to be out in the foothills after dark, too many critters.
Irish Hill Rd in the Sierra Foothills
Pardee Lake Overlook -still full!
The sun is low in the sky, got to take advantage of daylight while it lasts.
My wife tells me this story of dropping our 14 yr old daughter off at middle school for another day of 8th grade. As she got out of the car, all her friends ran up to her greeting her and she was quickly pulled into a sea of friends & disappeared from view. That was my thought when I pulled up to the waiting group Friday morning. Everyone is so excited to see one another, so excited to be on the bikes. A sea of handshakes, hugs and smiling faces.
We have not ridden the Southern Sierra Nevada in several years but I’ve re-worked the tour and created a brand new route- i'm calling it the spider concept.
This is a really big tour group - 18 bikes!
All veteran tour alumni that have done many tours with me, just one new guy, Ich who's on a KTM 690. It looks like a dirt bike on steroids.
And two ladies! Hana rode down from Vancouver, Canada, and Cathy who's one of my most senior alumni, she's been signing up for these motorcycle tours for 17 years. She first rode with me in 2006 on a Honda CB599. Today, she's on a MT-07. But, she's not the only one, I've got Wes on this ride also, and he also first rode with me in 2006. 17 years together. Back then, he was on an SV650, today he's on a MultiStrada.
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What a pleasure to come together and ride once more altogether. And our first ever H2. I've never seen seen an H2 before - it's super sexy. A supercharged motorcycle set up for street riding, I have to borrow this thing from Mike. Think he’ll notice?
My buddy Mike is another one of these guys that's got 5 or 6 bikes in the garage & just rotates riding them.
Bandit, GSXR1000, Tiger, H2, Busa, Tracer, Ninja, MT-07, Multistrada, KTM 690. What a gaggle of bikes!
My buddy Mike is another one of these guys that's got 5 or 6 bikes in the garage & just rotates riding them.
Bandit, GSXR1000, Tiger, H2, Busa, Tracer, Ninja, MT-07, Multistrada, KTM 690. What a gaggle of bikes!
Lindsay is the olive capital of California, groves of olive orchards everywhere. But first we have to get out of The Central Valley & into the foothills.
Ahead, I see mountains! Sierra Range in the distance.
Rolling hills first. And headlights, a group this big is a long train of bikes a mile long.
Ahead, I see mountains! Sierra Range in the distance.
Rolling hills first. And headlights, a group this big is a long train of bikes a mile long.
Headed for a place I called Apocalypse Valley
Every apocalypse movie I've ever watched as a kid had one thing in common. The retreat into the hidden valley. The apocalypse arrives and the townspeople all head back into the hills where the baddies won't find them. They live a peaceful existence singing kumbaya and holding hands, living off the land with one another in perfect harmony.
My moment was Red Dawn, when this film came out in 1984, as a 13-year-old Gen X kid, Red Dawn was so scary of a movie, I had to cover my eyes and peer through my fingers. While other kids were traumatized by Jaws (my wife refused to swim in pools), mine was Red Dawn. The movie by itself isn’t scary, rather, it was the idea of the United States invaded by the Soviet Union that made it scary at the height of the 80s Cold War.
Under Ronald Reagan, our arch nemesis was the Soviet Union, who our president called an ‘Evil Empire’ one year prior in 1983. In Red Dawn, the Soviet Union (along with Cuban and Nicaraguan allies) invades the United States by parachuting into Colorado. Our intrepid heroes, led by the late Patrick Swayze, retreat into the mountains and fight the Evil Empire in guerrilla warfare. The theme fit nicely into a popular movie genre of the time. That same time period, The Terminator was released with similar themes of nuclear annihilation (this time headlined by a killer android played by Arnold Schwarzenegger). The Day After in late-1983 also gets added to my all-time terrifying movie list. (Threads was the UK-equivalent in 1984.) What commonality did these scary films of my childhood share?
The retreat into the hidden valley. And, where would the townspeople go when this nuclear apocalypse scenario arrives? Kids, I found your valley. Put a gold star on your map and start prepping.
It's not really known as Apocalypse Valley, I made that up. It's actually called California Hot Springs.
Hot Springs Rd - Mtn 50 | Parker Pass | Pashnit.com
Best Central California Motorcycle Rides
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It's not actually Apocalypse Valley, I made that up. This area of the Southern Sierra Nevada Foothills is actually known by the much more sedate name of Quail Valley, but it's surrounded on four sides by mountain ridges.
The first time I went looking for Mountain Rd 50 in and out of this valley, I got lost, disorientated, rode into Sugarloaf instead and stumbled purely by chance onto The Road with No Name, better known as Forest Road 23S16. FR23S16 is a single lane paved mountain road you’d likely never discover on your own.
Back in the olden days of paper maps and terrible directions, once you rode off the edge of the map, you were on your own. I missed Apocalypse Valley by a country mile and rode right around it instead. Such occurrences are long gone (Back in my day...) due to whatever mapping program or GPS you're using. And, it's not likely you would have any reason to ride Parker Pass Rd, also known as Mountain Road 50.
Think of Parker Pass as a backdoor into the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. It leads up and over to the Kern River Canyon, or Highway 190 - Western Divide Highway, into Springville. This highway is carved into the spine of the southern Sierra Nevada range. However, and here comes the good part, Parker Pass Rd heads up to the top of the range where giant sequoias and expansive views of the Kern Canyon are waiting to be discovered.
The first time I went looking for Mountain Rd 50 in and out of this valley, I got lost, disorientated, rode into Sugarloaf instead and stumbled purely by chance onto The Road with No Name, better known as Forest Road 23S16. FR23S16 is a single lane paved mountain road you’d likely never discover on your own.
Back in the olden days of paper maps and terrible directions, once you rode off the edge of the map, you were on your own. I missed Apocalypse Valley by a country mile and rode right around it instead. Such occurrences are long gone (Back in my day...) due to whatever mapping program or GPS you're using. And, it's not likely you would have any reason to ride Parker Pass Rd, also known as Mountain Road 50.
Think of Parker Pass as a backdoor into the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. It leads up and over to the Kern River Canyon, or Highway 190 - Western Divide Highway, into Springville. This highway is carved into the spine of the southern Sierra Nevada range. However, and here comes the good part, Parker Pass Rd heads up to the top of the range where giant sequoias and expansive views of the Kern Canyon are waiting to be discovered.
Down in the bottom of this valley is California Hot Springs.
Town lore says the majority of California Hot Springs burned down in 1968. In present day, can’t call it a town, barely 50 people call this valley their permanent home. After the fire in 1968, almost nothing was rebuilt except the California Hot Springs Resort was purchased in the 1980s and refurbished. There's a huge public pool out front of the building that very looks alluring on a hot summer’s day. The large pool is heated with hot spring water plus there are two hot tubs with two different temperatures.
Town lore says the majority of California Hot Springs burned down in 1968. In present day, can’t call it a town, barely 50 people call this valley their permanent home. After the fire in 1968, almost nothing was rebuilt except the California Hot Springs Resort was purchased in the 1980s and refurbished. There's a huge public pool out front of the building that very looks alluring on a hot summer’s day. The large pool is heated with hot spring water plus there are two hot tubs with two different temperatures.
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