This all started when Luca at SoSo Cycles in Concord had these stickers on his desk and mentioned that it was a newer group and getting pretty good traction lately. I looked them up and they were a Private Group on Facebook. If you know, I haven’t been on FB proper since 2016! But I put my big boy pants back on, skipped the news feed of all those people I really don’t call “friends” and joined the group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/bayareaadv
<start rant/> As a former FB Developer, and someone who created literally thousands of FB Pages, as someone who has worked with big brands like Stella Artois, Swaravsky Crystal – I totally understand the FB Group thing. It makes it so freaking easy to assemble around a central topic and FB has got that part nailed down and honestly they’ve done it right too. That’s why each of the Backcountry Discovery Routes uses it for route updates, current conditions and chat around specific routes. But here’s my beef, and I know I am not alone. In order to join or use any of these groups you have to maintain a FB Profile. I walked away from FB after the 2016 election and I know many others did too. For me, I still needed to keep my profile though as it’s the login for so many FB Products (Meta, Ads, and Dev apps to name a few), but for the average person it’s pretty easy to delete your FB account and by doing so you DO NOT have any access to the wealth of information that is in these groups. That is a huge barrier to entry for some people. At the premier of the Northern CA BDR I posed this to the Board of Directors and suggested they instead create an App themselves. Their response was simply that they are not in the App business and it would be too cost prohibitive and too hard to manage. It was a B.S. answer from someone who doesn’t understand and wanted to take the easy route. So I dropped it at the time. But imagine if instead of FB, you needed your MySpace account or worse yet your FriendFeed?
</end rant>
Ok, so back to the good stuff. I joined the FB group and then found out they also have a website https://www.bayadv.co/. Tomm happened to show me something on FB the other day and mentioned this Rally event that was getting shared in some of the groups he’s in. I did some digging and found out that this is all driven by a really cool guy named, Wayne Sutton. He likes biking and likes building community around riding bikes – or at least that is what I assume.
Wayne had set up 10 different waypoints scattered around the bay area. You had just about a month to visit at least 4 of the points, take a picture at each and then share that on Instagram or in the FB Group. I was a little late to the party but thought this was such a great idea. I started a text thread with my normal riding buds and got three of us to commit. We decided that an overnight was the best way to have fun and so I looked to create a gpx that hit two points a day and had a good place to camp somewhere in the middle. I identified 4 points.
Next, since Mike T. is down in Pleasanton I figured we would start from there. I mapped out a route that took us up the backside of Mt. Diablo on Morgan Territory, then up into the Delta to get the Rio Vista Waypoint. From there we would head up past Lake Berressa to Knoxville OHV where we would spend the night.
In the morning we would head up the road to Lower Lake, then down to Middletown that had two waypoints pretty close together. One was just outside of town and the other while geographically close was down Hwy 29 (the really curvy part we all love) and then up a small little road for quite some time.
After collecting our 4th waypoint it was back down the Napa Valley and home and I really didn’t feel like mapping that all out.
I mapped out to Waypoint 4, sent Mike T the .gpx – which he liked, and then I created a TrickTracks for both days. I have been learning so much about Garmin, GPS, Routes, Waypoints and Tracks and I wanted to try this fix called TrickTracks. That’s going to be it’s own post, later.
Kyle came up from Monterey the day before and slept in the spare bedroom. We had a few beers at this cool place called Calicraft. 😉
DAY 1
In the morning we packed and got out early and headed first to Tomms. He wanted to weigh us and the bikes. The wife took the traditional start pic and off we went.
At Tomm’s, he had 2 bathroom scales in his garage and we carefully loaded the bikes on them (one at a time) and then balanced them. Next we weighed ourselves with everything still on. This is good because I packed the bike as usual for a 3 to 4 day trip. I need this number to order the proper springs for the front and rear when I go through the suspension this year.
My bike, all my gear, all my clothing, a full tank of gas, and all of me weighed in at 708 pounds! Kyle was carrying far less but still managed to come in pretty close to me.
After Tomms we headed just a few miles down the road to meet Mike T. He had loaded the routes and tracks and seems to like to lead. Kyle had no navigation so we put him in the middle and I rode sweep with both tracks loaded as TrickTracks on my Zumo XT. Amazingly we all had our Senas working so we were chatting along the whole way.
Our first Waypoint was at the Staging area at the top of Morgan Territory Road. I’ve ridden this road quite a few times on moto and bicycle. It was really quiet and I didn’t want to cause too much of a ruckus with the Ranger’s house right there so instead of popping a wheelie, I did a very slow track stand while Kyle took the picture(s). We had a hiker show up while we were there so he took a pic of all of us too. Kyle managed to grab a really subdued wheelie of mine so technically I did wheelie at all four locations.
Back on the bikes we head north towards Clayton then turned south a bit to catch Deer Valley Rd up to Antioch and crossed into the Delta.
I took them on the curvy side roads as much as I could and I think they all enjoyed that a lot. We caught back up with Hwy 12 and started crossing the bridge into Rio Vista. As we were crossing the bridge started to rise for a ship and so we sat there for a good 15 minutes until it opened up again.
Once the bridge opened up, we continued across into Rio Vista and then just outside to the 2nd Waypoint. It was a gravel road amongst the wind turbines. There happened to be someone sitting in their car at the waypoint but I told him we were there to take a picture and then we would be gone. He didn’t offer to take our pic and that was ok. We took a few pics, did a few wheelies all while Kyle got the shot.
After Rio Vista, we zigged up through Travis Air Force Base where we stopped for lunch at a Fat Burger. It was the first time I had been to one and it was just ok.
Next we made our way up to Berryessa via Wooden Valley to Hwy 121, Hwy 128. Mike had said something about the Glory Hole and I said it’s just a little off our course but we could certainly detour – so we did. My recollection was that it was just a few miles past the junction of 121 and 128 (Moskowite Corner). It turned out to be further. Much further. Someone coined the phrase “Just 2 to 20 miles” and I now own that.
We then traveled up past Lake Berryessa to where it turns into Knoxville Rd. At the top of the lake there was a triathlon or something going on where we saw plenty of runners who looked close to death.
Knoxville Rd has a few water crossings but they were all pretty dry. We entered into Knoxville OHV from the south entrance and found our way to the campsites. We picked a good one, set up camp, and then since we were still a little early we went to go see the babbling creek we could hear from the campsite.
Kyle liked the water so much he decided to get in. It wasn’t deep and it was really just a small creek but this was big enough for a float.
Once it got dark we made dinner and had a pretty good campfire. We were scavenging wood from a downed tree that was right next to our camp. It wasn’t dry and while we trying to get the fire to catch I finally found a good use for a mattress infiltrator. Actually it was Mike T who found it. He had a Flextail Mattress thingy. It was small and easily blew up his and Kyle’s mattresses. I blew my own up using the one lung I still have.
Mike took out his new Flextail and pointed the stream at the glowing little embers we were trying to coax into flames. That did the trick and soon we had enough heat generating that we had a legit campfire! Cool, but I’m still not buying one.
I don’t like embedding from IG as it’s usually wonky so hopefully this works. Here’s my entry to the Rally for Day 1. I did it as a Reel and a Post.
DAY 2
It was a calm night, no rain and very little wind. It was surprisingly quiet along our babbling brook. The frogs would croak for a while and then suddenly all stop.
Mike T and I woke up early as usual. I did some stretching and started my morning coffee/breakfast routine.
That leaves Breakfast. Or if you are a LOTR fan, First Breakfast. I am one of those people who needs something hot to get them going first thing in the morning. I like coffee but need a little more. I am also not a coffee snob. So here’s my Brekkie routine as soon as I pop out of the tent (usually pre dawn).
I fill the JetBoil with fresh water and boil a full pot (4 cups). In my Silicone cup I put in two bags of instant oatmeal. When the water boils, I pour about 2 cups worth of water into the oats. With the remaining water left in the JetBoil, I toss in a couple of Starbuck Via and one packet of hot chocolate. Stir with my spoon, and drink it right there out of the JetBoil. By the time the coffee is cool enough to drink, the oatmeal is ready too and it’s just all perfect as the sun starts coming up. That right there, is my perfect moment of zen!
https://aufroad.com/what-to-pack-on-a-bdr-trip/
Mike T came over and joined me. His aftermarket jetboil is sooo much more powerful than mine. I think mine is lacking on the performance level anyway, but his just blasts the heat. Kyle woke up and made some coffee for himself too.
We packed up camp, trying to get as much of the dew off the tents. Despite no rain, the outside of our tents were soaked. Once on the bikes we headed up and out via the North Entry to the OHV. It was a little longer way to get out and we found there was mud in a few places. Along the way we saw what I hoped was an abandoned rental car. It looked like it was trying to navigate mud ruts that the 4 wheelers had left and slipped into a ditch. It had a Florida plate on it and as we passed it it had been ransacked and it’s windshield smashed (which is why I hope it was a rental and not stolen).
Once back on the road I had told Mike T (in the lead) to look out for Reiff Rd as it was really soon. He had not ridden there yet and I think that would be a great ride for a later date.
We rode up to Lower Lake, then down to Middletown. On the road, Mike T mentioned that he used to go to this great breakfast place in Middltown called Buehlahs – so we agreed we would look for it and if it was still there we would stop for 2nd breakfast. It was, we stopped and had breakfast but it wasn’t what it used to be.
After BK, it was a quick stop for gas and then out to our Waypoint #3. It was just outside of downtown Middletown where the paved road ended and a gravel road started. We found the spot, set the bikes up for a picture and then did the wheelie video too. Kyle caught a good looking one of me. I look like Jabba the Hutt but the bike and colors look good.
From there we could have found the end of Ida Canyon Road just south of Middletown but my mapping didn’t show it going through at the time so we took the most excellent portion of Hwy 29 down into Calistoga. We crossed the valley to Hwy 128 and then headed north to Ida Canyon Road and came up that way to get to our Waypoint #4.
Ida Canyon Road started as a newly paved road and then once it got past a high end looking winery (who probably paid for the road paving) it degraded to gravel. The Waypoint was at the crest of a hill with a turn just after the crest. This made the wheelie “interesting” as I had to make sure I shut it down enough to make the turn.
There was a mileage marker that had been knocked down so we also took a picture with that too. Sorry for whacking you with it Kyle!
With 4 waypoints bagged and tagged we headed back down the Silverado Trail and ultimately to home. I put together my entry for Day 2 and submitted that one. I’ll see if it embeds here.
There was a prize drawing for some prizes to be given away at SoSo Cyles the following week but a big storm was forecast so it was cancelled / postponed. I was bummed as I was really looking forward to meeting like minded people, talking bikes, and maybe finding some new people to go ride with. It was kind of the whole reason I wanted to get together and do this thing. Oh well, maybe next one.
But wait! There’s just one more thing. Wayne decided to draw the contest winners anyway and…
To be totally honest, TwinPegs wasn’t on my ADV radar. I didn’t know what they were. I also use and love my PivotPegz so I was a little skeptical but after a couple of conversations with the founder – I am really looking forward to trying them out. Here’s a short video from a Husky 701 guy.
They are on the way – and you can bet I’ll be making a post on them!
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, had a big cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and is currently building a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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