I am just totally cooked.
I took my buddy Matt on a Sheetiron route. From Stonyford to Fort Bragg and back. Planned for 300 mi of dirt.
He’s green to adv riding /off road. He’d ridden a couple of enduros 20 years ago, and has kept up on off road, single day rides, but never loaded up for a self supported multi-day ride on dirt.
He’s also never ridden an adventure bike in the dirt. His previous bikes were single cylinder machines, light weight and shitty on highways… and adv bikes generally, being heavy and cunbersome, he’d never pulled the trigger. And honestly there hasn’t been a bike I could point to as a good one for him to get until recently.
Matt ended up buying a super cool little bike. A CFMoto 450MT “Ibex”. After riding it and going over it I want one now. It’s super. I was confident he’d learn how to ride his bike in the 1st five hours of our ride or so…
We drove up and spent the night in the worlds flea-baggiest flea-bag motel I’ve ever encountered. Note: steer clear of the Travelers Inn in Williams. I probably got no more than 2-1/2 hrs of sleep…
Granzella’s for breakfast bright and early though was Fantastic! Huge portions and Super delicious.
Over-fed and happy we set off for Stonyford on schedule. The weather seemed to be cooperating.
in Fouts Springs. Bikes were well prepped and we were rolling before 10am. And planned on an easy route of mostly dirt roads with a small amount of single track.
we headed up the pavement to bypass Potato Hill. And then on to the dirt.
This valley was so beautiful, I forgot to watch what I was doing. Crossed a rut and layed her down. … got my obligatory crash out of the way early.
Less that 2 hours in to what should be an 8 hr day Matt found a rut large enough to eat a 21” tire.
We got rolling again without too much drama.
I had to keep us moving at a good pace from this point until about 3:00 when I had a phone appt with Kaiser… so I didnt stop to take photos. The roads were easy for the next 2 hours.
Lunch in Redwood Valley was a half- way point for mileage. And usually about 2/3 of the way with respect to time.
It had been raining lightly off and on most of the morning. Redwood valley was nice. The rain had stopped and it appeared that the weather would be dry for the rest of the trip.
The route from here would take us over to the coast via Sherwood Road. And it’s as green as you might imagine. Redwood trees and duff and loam, usually…
Here’s a little clip from my last ride there.
https://gopro.com/v/0b1d43d4-6b23-40c7-a820-939983318a50
Video from my buddy Jeff on his T7, folowing a group rider named Steve on a 990, i’m behind Jeff here.
This time, with Matt, it was darker earlier… and apparently this ridge got a lot of rain on Wednesday (the previous day) low pressure center off the coast of Northern CA something something.
We were still in day-light when Matt hit the deck in this, the start of what I’m calling peanut butter poop. It was so slippery I had to use my boots like I was ice climbing in order to get traction when lifting his bike off the ground.
Matt was unsxathed physically and was all smiles mounted up. Unfortunately he admittedly lost his confidence in that slippery mud. Our average speed dropped from what was respectable to downtight dangerous. At this point I was riding conservatevely, keeping 15 mph, kinda hoping to be an example of technique…stopping to wait as needes every few minutes. I think the average dropped to about 5mph…
It started to get a little dark..
The Adam Fernandez school of riding techniques opened for business a few minutes later..
“Gotta stand and here’s why…
“Gotta ride through every water puddle you see”
Matt was a real quick study for the physical techniques. He started standing and putting weight to the rear as necessary. Learned to let the bike dance around. And we rode a Lot of slimy hills up and down. I was encouraged by this.
However… I would come to find out he did not take my advice about the puddles and was, for more than that reason, working a Lot harder than me.
It got dark. And Matt’s fancy water proof phone died.
And he had no other flashlight. My ancient iphone11 kept on chugging. Even through all the rain.
For the next 10 miles maybe, for about 3 hours, we stopped a lot.
I rode his bike Up the worst spots. Leaving him to walk up with my flashlight.
I think it was about 9:00 pm when, while stopped at the top of a decently difficult muddy uphill and waiting for Matt, I heard his bike start, rev up for a few seconds, and then shut off.
I could see his headlight shine in the woods. The last time this happened he had dropped it into the mud. I heard the crunch of his bike’s plastics . This time I didnt hear the crunch, and his headlight was still shining in the right direction, so I knew it was something else. He had figured out how to get up the worst spots but was getting tired… maybe he just needed more rest?
I yelled out for some news but got no response.
Do do do do
Heads up. There arent any good photos for the “funnest” part. It was pitch black. We had one flashlight between us. The road was basically sliding away beneath our feet…
And Matt’s clutch had just given up the ghost.
We stood there, on the sloping mudslide of a road, in the dark. Our boots stuck in place in the muck, wondering, thinking, puzzling… what’s the move?
My brain was cooked. I’d gotten 2 hours of sleep the night before. And my hip was screaming at me to sit still and not stand or walk or kneel or..
Fak!
Looking around… The road was basically cut here about 4’ deep. The shoulders of the road were shoulder high. I took off my helmet at set it on what was the shelf of the road, making sure bo poison oak was around it.
…thinking…
I did not have passenger pegs on my bike but we could leave the bike and Matt could walk until we got to some good dirt or pavement.
The bike would be blocking the road but noone in their right mind could make it this far.
Looked like probably 5 miles.. by foot…shit Matt might as well just stay put and sleep here in the mud. My flashlight wasn’t going to last 5 hours of Matt walking.
This is interesting.
Is he really sure the clutch is cooked? I had him prove it. He started his bike, put it in gear. Let out the clutch… the engine kept running and the wheel stayed still… Fak!
I stepped over and felt the lever, wiggling my boots before they could be lifted, … it was TIGHT. The cable had zero slack!
Fucking Hell! “WTF, Loosen that MF’er!”
Pretty sure those were my actual words.
Matt was not clear of mind. That’s a fucking rookie move. Yes tthe clutch was wearing but he should have felt that at the lever. We broke out the tools and loosened the cable.
We were back in business
Thank God!
I rode his bike up to mine and we had a chat. While riding his bike the few hundred, miserable feet, I realized Why his clutch was doing so much more work than mine. His bike was all stuck with mud. The soupy peanut buttery mud had a great affinity for his bike. Much moreso than for mine…
His front low fender, his wide tubeless rims, his chain guard, passenger pegs, all were filling up. And with the engine and exhaust heat, were drying out into something akin to concrete.
We removed the front fender and strapped it to his luggage.
From this point on we stopped alot tk clean his bike of mud.
Quit with the fucking stick and get your hands in there!
This is when I realized he had not been riding through all the puddles as instructed. I did my best impersonation of a patient individual. But I really wanted to reach cell reception and check in with the motel. We were at risk of not getting in…
From this point we had about one more hour of terrible muddy uphills. Matt continued to struggle but did ride through the puddles as I yelled at him whenever a puddle popped into view.
With about 2 miles of dirt left we encountered another group of riders…
We had been following these guys’ tracks since the start of this road. Something that probably gave us some subconscious confidence that we would be ok…
Well these guys were now in our headlights. Scanning the scene…One bike was up on the low shoulder on the right side of the road leaning against a tree.. a newer KTM890.
a second bike was facing the wrong way on the left shoulder, a KTM990, and a 3rd bike, another 890, was leaned on that 990 and was running.
The bike against the tree was abandoned. It’s rider had left on foot 30 minutes ago. The clutch was burned up… the mud was too fierce even for that 105hp firebreather.
The 990 had no battery juice and was being kept alive by the 3bike and jumper cables.
I stopped and spoke with their trail boss… they had come from Idaho and had what he proclaimed to have been a “perfect ride” until tonight.
There were 5 in their group. Three were ahead and maybe getting help…
Matt and I were cruising at this point. And having “figured out the secrets of the fire swamp”, were quite comfortable. We offfered help but they said they were covered. We’d look for their remaining 3 as we set off downhill (finally!) towards the pavement
We made pavement at about 10:45 pm. About 5 miles of asphalt was all that separated us from the comfy motel. If Matt’s clutch would hold that is…
As I sped away mud flung a mile high.
I was leading, again because Matt had no phone and therefore no nav equipment.
As I sped ahead I quickly lost sight of his headlight …
Fak
Yeah his clutch was not happy..
but! He could do about 40mph before it slipped.
We got to the motel, we got the room…And we were glad we’d eaten a big breakfast and over-eaten at lunch time. It was 11:00.
1st thing after a quick breakfast was to get to the local car wash. Then to the hardware store for supplies to make a clutch repair hack.
We filed down three washers after realizing this little bike has a fancy “slipper” clutch.
Fat washers installed under the little springs to create more friction force at the plates
Took us about 4 hours 😩
We eventually set off for our Stonyford campsite at about 1:00pm. We would ride Hwy20 until picking up a flat gravel road.. Matt’s clutch held fine.
I didn’t follow Matt past Upper Lake on Hwy 20. Instead I split off and rode a soiritwd pace on 55 miles of dirt road and singletrack from the east side of Clearlake into Stonyford trails.
Was Epic. my bike was working excellently.
Finally a chance to breathe
I made a couple wrong turns but still managed to beat Matt back to the van (although not by much).
Loaded and ready for the drive home…
FIN
Was this fun? I’m not quite sure. But it was definitely worth while!
As Much Dirt As Possible 