RUTS North DS Ride

So this is a couple weeks late, but been pretty busy. So about a few months back, Rack sends me this e-mail about a DS ride going from Sopiago Springs Resort which is about 30 miles north of Jackson, Ca to Minden, NV and back. 2 days, roughly 150 miles a day. According to Rack, Gary at Wilson's motorsports was told it will be some awesome riding and outstanding views and scenery. At the time, I was unsure of what was going on with me as I was buried deep into work and selling the house. I put it out of my mind and forgot about it.

Well about a couple weeks before the event, Rack pings me and says, that one of the guys riding with them can't make it and if I wanted his entry. I took a look at the schedule, discussed it with the manager and made it happen.

Here is #5 Jr. loaded up sitting at the office waiting for Rack to call saying he is heading out....
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So Rack calls and off I go to follow him out to Chowchilla to meet up with Gary and head to Jackson. I gas up, grab a RedBull 40 and some beef jerky and hit the fwy to only be parked as there was a big rig accident.

This guy, thinks he will be smart and take a short cut off the fwy..:picard:
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I get pass the accident to only get stuck behind these ladies....
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Can you say, move over....
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I find an opening and get around them and make up time catching up to Rack and Gary.
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I meet up with them and after a short fire hydrant break, we are off to Jackson, Ca.

Stay tuned....
 
We get to Jackson around 10pm Friday night and check into the hotel room. After getting all our gear figured out, loaded and have some small talk, we find pillows around 1am only to be up at 5am to make our way to check in which is like I said 30 miles up the road. Rack and Gary spend about 15 mins driving around Jackson looking for a Starbucks as I pre-ran at the store and had a fresh Redbull in the fridge for my morning "go juice"

We get dialed in and head to check-in....
Me chasing Gary and Rack.
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Can you say Trees.....:drool:
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We get signed in, unload and someone brought a fresh new scooter that needed some extra horsepower....:devil:

Also when we unloaded the new scooter, it already had a front flat..:rant: The bike has not even seen dirt yet...lucky for us(or should I say Gary) the valve cap was pushing the stem in when you tighten it letting out the air...
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Rack and Gary dialing in the roll chart...
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When you sign up, they give you a number for when you check in they can scratch you off the list that you made it to the lunch stop and finish each day.
CDA is the Godfather...
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Rack is Baxter
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And Gary was Spiderman...
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Let's ride....
 
So after a brief riders meeting telling us the rules of the trail and a nice Prayer (RUTS = Racers Under the Son), we jump on the bikes and head out about 8am.

Here we are warming up the scooters.
Rack getting the GPS online and set for the start...
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Gary on his new 500..:thumb:
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A little CDA Selfie with Rack in the back ground trying to see the GPS screen...:smirk:
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We head out and here are some one stop along the way with a nice view....
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Rack is still having a good time....
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Rack grabbed the camera from me a took a seflie of us.... Look at those trees...:drool:
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We hooked up with a couple of locals to the area and rode with them most of the morning as we were figuring out the GPS/Roll chart directions. Here is one guy chillin as Gary went off to water a tree...
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Stay tuned....
 
Here is another cool view....We came from over those mountains in the background. We are probably about 50 miles in at this point.
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I am following the roll chart and at one section it says, "Entering Sasquatch Territory" and then is says "take single track to right and it is hard to follow". I get about 50 feet on the trail and loose the trail already. I do a doughnut and find it again and it is a pure single track winding through the trees and down the side of the mountain...:hyper: I try and make some time on the others so I can stop and get a few shots of them coming down through the trees...
Here comes Rack...
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Gary up next...
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This trail was way sweet and dropped off the side of the mountain. We all agreed that it would be awesome to turn around and go back up. It would be a tough climb in the dry conditions, but if the ground was moist, it would be awesome.....

Stay Tuned....
 
With the ride covering a lot of miles each day, it was hard to get a bunch of pictures as you needed to keep moving. I put the camera away and we made up some time....
We dropped into this little town south of Lake Tahoe for our lunch stop. I had roughly 90 miles clocked in at this point.

A much needed fuel stop for the belly since we were up and out early without really eating....
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We are having a great time still and I think Rack really missed me since our last ride in Feb...
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After lunch we fuel up the bikes, water up the camelbaks and head out for more adventure. We still have 70 miles to go..
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Some of the views of where we came from. We came from way over those mountains in the background...
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Some views of the Helicopters flying by.
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with 70 miles to go and it was after 2, we made time. Just outside of town, we rode up into this mountain bike park and hit some mountain bike trails. One was called the Sidewinder and it lived up to its name. It was smooth and wound through the trees super tight. Rack carried a little too much momentum and one the trees bit him. He was running sweep so I did not see or get the dirt nap shot.

We rode some awesome stuff and even popped out on hwy 88 that ran us right through downtown South Lake Tahoe. It was pretty cool riding down main street pass all the casinos as the people were walking down the sidewalks checking out us dirtsickle riders. I completely was caught in the moment and did not break out the camera and take any pics.

Stay Tuned...
 
Beautiful country up there. We just rode through Jackson and the area on the street bike a couple months ago. Going up again beginning of October on our way to Oregon. :banana:
 
So we head up into the mountains again for some more mountain bike trails, single track, two track and fire roads. We pop out and ride through this neighborhood and end up on the hwy. We stop and check out GPS/Roll Charts and we need to hit the pavement for a few miles to get us off the mountain and down into Miden. Not a big fan of the hwy riding, but I make the most of it and grab the camera and take a few pics along the way....

Here are a few views of the valley we are dropping into...
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We actually rode across this valley via streets and farm dirt roads to get into those mountains on the other side.
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Look who is riding in front......It's Gary...
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Cross roads....Roll Chart says turn left...
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We head out across the valley and do another handful of miles in the desert before making our way into the check point at Minden, NV. Camera was put away as daylight was burning.

Stay Tuned...
 
We finished off our loop (logged 170 miles), checked into the finish at about 6:30pm, grabbed our overnight bags from the chase truck and headed to the hotel....
Completely did not get a picture of the bikes parked all over the sidewalks outside the hotel room, but we did stop and get some refreshments for the room...
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Rack tried to get another room for some reason so we had 3 beds, but the place was full. We could not even get a roll a way in the room, but I was fine sleeping on the floor as I was the freebie addition so It's all cool.

We showered up and reloaded the roll chart for the next day and grabbed some dinner at the Carson Casino. We found our pillows about 11pm that night and decided we would get up and eat a breakfast and be on the trails by 7:30am.

Walking back to the hotel, we figured out why the room were all sold out...
Tractor pull was in town....
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Also I completely forgot the Vegas to Reno race was Sat and we saw all the race trucks rolling through town on Sunday morning on their trailers.
Well that ends Saturday's ride. Up next is Sunday....Need to get some work done before I head to the airport, so may not update until later...So enjoy these for now and leave some comments....

Stay Tuned....
 
How do you like riding the dirt bikes on the highways? I always feel a bit squirrely when I hit the highways on the KTM.
Anything would be squirrelly on the road compared to that beast you tour on.

#5 Jr handles well. Cruise up to 100mph with no issues. The only thing was a small vib in the front wheel as it is not balanced for street use.
 
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