• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

The Further 2-Up Adventures Of The Broken WoodsChick

So gas was pouring out of the 610's tank. Eric and Zak took the tank off and found the problem...a 3/4" crack in the tank. Gee, on an IMS? I don't believe it! :rolleyes:

Eric whipped out his handy-dandy fanny pack and fixed the tank with a wad of Quik-Steel...
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We had to dump some of the fuel to keep it off the part that was broken...
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It didn't drip any more after the fix. It seeped a little, but that was it. Quik-Steel should be in the kit of every dirt rider and dual sporter. We've used it to fix holes in cases of several bikes, too.

We continued up past the High Mountain Lookout and took the road til it ended...
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3 days, 900 miles, 4 riders...and this is the only photo I have of us on the bike, and it was taken with my camera at my request. Buncha slackers...
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The High Mountain Road was pretty cool. Nice and remote. I remember seeing one mountain biker and one equestrian on her horse, but no other cars or bikes til we came to a total red-neck wheeling' fest almost at the end of the road. We made it to the end and backtracked all the way back to the Pozo Saloon...
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Zak waiting for his garden burger...
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Eric and I waiting for our mushroom cheeseburgers...
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We left right at dusk, and raced back to the ranch on Park Hill Road, one fun ribbon of primitive pavement. Zak continued on a recon mission up Hwy 229, while Eric dropped me and the bag of stuff off and went rippin' into town for the night's provisions (i.e. wine.) The 3 of us sat and talked and drank beer, wine and Ardberg scotch (liquid smoke) long into the night. It was a very pleasant evening and I slept like a baby:thumbsup:
 
Another leisurely morning in the land of sunshine, we had coffee with Lou who left us for Doggy Heaven not too long ago...
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Time to ride...
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Ooh! Maybe we can score some blow for the ride?
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The plan was to ride 229 north to 41 to Cholame Valley Rd to Parkfield Grade to Coalinga to Los Gatos Creek to Clear Creek through Idria to Panoche Valley to 25 and home through Hollister and 101. I'm pretty sure 229 has supplanted the section of 101 between Legget and the Coast as my favorite stretch of pavement in California. The only downside is it's too damned short, but the stretch between 58 and Creston is not to be missed if you're ever in the area:teeth I was too busy holding on to take any photos.

Parkfield was neat, if deserted...
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These guys were everywhere!
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The Parkfield Grade did not disappoint...
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We stopped at the top of the Parkfield Summit and when I got back on the bike the inevitable happened...we finally hit the ground! I have a hard time getting on the bike since my left arm is basically useless so it is a somewhat less than graceful maneuver for me. Add in the fact that I have to get my short little leg over the bag in the back and, well...Eric is a stud and he totally impressed me all weekend (as he's been doing for +20 years) but he couldn't overcome my clumsiness this time. We went down in a heap. Zak saw it happen and he had an amused look on his face as Eric and I scrambled to our feet and picked up the bike as fast as we could, adhering to the 5-second rule :teeth There were no photos of said event so basically it didn't really happen.

The paved road down the backside had me yearning for a healthy shoulder and my own 610. I pretty much decided before we got to the bottom of the valley that I would be doing this ride for my birthday come spring...
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We gassed up in Coalinga (got its name from shortening Coaling Station A) and headed out amongst the oil fields towards Clear Creek. We saw this crazy thing from miles away and now it was getting closer...
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What the hell?
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Seems as though the field below the tower had zillions of giant mirrors trained on the face of the tower, and it was some sort of experimental solar plant thing of Chevron's. All I know is it totally looked Close Encountersish to me.

We bombed joyfully down the funky pavement all the way to Clear Creek.

More tomorrow...
 
3 days, 900 miles, 4 riders...and this is the only photo I have of us on the bike, and it was taken with my camera at my request. Buncha slackers...

I know how you feel. Note that my avatar here is from the day after I bought this bike, 11 months ago. I do not have a single picture of me ON the bike. I don't expect a fashion shoot or anything, but a pic now and then, maybe a cool one with a little roost or a foot of air would be nice, ya know?

229 is lots of fun, especially on a supermoto. It's also one of my favorites.
 
Hurry up and get your shoulder working****************************************! More carrot juice, less booze......LOL....... March is coming fast****************************************! Right after Febuary....
 
Eric and I had come across a trail on this road the last time we were out here, but for some reason we didn't take it, saying we'd catch it the next time around. That "next time" was now... Fun Video. you guys do pretty good on those trails riding double.
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It was a little rockier than I'd have preferred since I had my camera in my good hand and wasn't really able to hold on that well with my other hand...
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It eventually turned into a really nice little ribbon of single track...
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We were holding up the supermotos so we had to let them by...
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Uh-oh...ice. Good thing it's not on the trail...
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Crap...
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That wasn't bad at all...
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What's weird is it was a really nice day yet there was no moisture on the edges of the ice. No mud or anything...it was frozen solid...
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Here's a nice little slice of comedy :D Please forgive my language. Also, be kind: I was using my hand-held camera, mostly using both hands to keep it steady while trying my best to maintain some semblance of contact with the bike and Eric...

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The trail just kind of spilled out into a wash that went on for miles and miles...
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More in a minute...
 
Great ride report!

You are braver than me. I would never trust my husband to two up through rocks on a bike that big! :lol:
 
Hey Woodsie just heard about your shoulder. I hope you are mending well.
Great to have such a good ride report for the start of the year, Looking forward to more of your quality output over 2012.
best regards;
GHTE
 
Thanks, rt3856! Eric is a stud, plain and simple. He did a great job. I told him he could do whatever he wanted, go as fast as he wanted, take any trail, whatever. ...all he had to do was keep me off the ground, and that's exactly what he did. We had a blast :)

Great ride report!

You are braver than me. I would never trust my husband to two up through rocks on a bike that big! :lol:

:lol: See comments above :)

Hey Woodsie just heard about your shoulder. I hope you are mending well.
Great to have such a good ride report for the start of the year, Looking forward to more of your quality output over 2012.
best regards;
GHTE

Thanks, GHTE! I'm on the mend, for sure. I rode my 610 this weekend, did a street/dirt road ride yesterday by myself, then did some trails out at Stonyford today. I wasn't planning on it, I had only intended to ride dirt roads with my friend Glen. He had his 6-year-old daughter with him on his Husaberg FE450 so I thought I'd be safe. Hah! No dice...we ended up doing stuff like this...
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It would have been Ok if I wasn't on an SM610 with a toasted rear tire :busted: I think I'm ready for my dirt bike :applause:
 
The gate is back open now and I'm sure it felt good twisting that throttle!

Thanks, GHTE! I'm on the mend, for sure. I rode my 610 this weekend, did a street/dirt road ride yesterday by myself, then did some trails out at Stonyford today. I wasn't planning on it, I had only intended to ride dirt roads with my friend Glen. He had his 6-year-old daughter with him on his Husaberg FE450 so I thought I'd be safe. Hah! No dice...we ended up doing stuff like this...
 
I'm so happy to hear your shoulder is healing well! I'm sure most of us know what it's like being on the injured reserve (aka the no-ride) list and share your frustration.
 
Alrighty, then...let's wrap this up, shall we?

We strafed the deserted Lost Gatos Creek Road all the way to the cut-off for Clear Creek. We saw a ranger at the ridiculous decontamination station, but that was pretty much it...no other human beings in the Creek that I remember.
It was just as lovely as ever, and it was glaringly obvious that the Creek is being ridden on a regular basis. All the snow fencing across the trails is down and there are tracks everywhere. We didn't see any staged trucks or bikes, but they are definitely out there...
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The joy I felt at being in Clear Creek again was tinged with sadness at all that was lost. Clear Creek featured prominently on my very small list of favorite places to ride in California. I'm still pretty angry about it and I hope someday I can ride there again without having to look over my shoulder to avoid a federal trespassing charge...
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We headed down the backside towards Idria...
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Hmm...high road or low?
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Conditions were good...
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I took no more pictures on this ride. I know, not even one photo of the sad remains of Idria. I hadn't seen it since the fire went through there awhile back and it was bleak. So much history lost...

We pretty much bombed non-stop through Panoche, out to 25 and into Hollister for gas. We suited up for the slab run up 101 and got home exactly 8 hours after leaving Santa Margarita. The route Zak chose for us was outstanding and I'm really looking forward to doing it in reverse in a few months when everything is green and sparkly. I wish I had mileage for the day, but all I had was a total for the weekend, and it was 3 miles shy of 900 :applause:

We had a great time riding with Mark and Zak, 2 quality riders with cool heads and mellow demeanors...just great riding partners all the way around :thumbsup:
We're both looking forward to more rides together in the future.
A huge thanks to Zak for letting us ride his wonderful KTM 950. I'm really thankful he didn't take it away from us in San Jose and turn around and go home on it :busted: If you enjoyed the 610 half as much as we enjoyed the 950 then you probably had a good time, too, Zak :cheers:

Thanks for coming along, everyone!
 
Well... I just watched the video and stopped laughing enough to type now...... I have to ask "respectfully", What the hell are you guys smokin' up in them hills?????? LOL...LOL...... Awesome trip and report********************************************************************************
 
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