May Club Ride - Hawthorne to Smith Valley

By Mike Bretz

It was a very nice Sunday morning in the Sacramento area. It was also about 4AM, ironic as it seems Dave's wife made a comment on how we can get up at 4AM to go on a ride but we can't get up before 9AM to go to work, go figure.  

There were 5 of us out front of Tony's house loading bikes & supplies finally we get set for our first part of or long & exhausting ride, a 20-30 minute jaunt up to El Dorado Hills to do a truck swap. Well finally after the swap we begin our 3.5 - 4 hour ride. The conversations stemmed anywhere from little league to how Tony hates firefighters. Well we finally end up in Hawthorne NV where there was already 3 Dawgs there fast asleep in the motorhome. Shortly thereafter Andrew (goldenboy we will call him GB), and Tim show up. Then came Tony's brother real nice guy with a real nice bike, by the way from what ogre seed was Tony spawned? Well that makes 11 for the days ride thru the dessert. After breakfast and a, oh I don't know maybe 6.5 - 7 hour innertube change by GB & Tim. We get to hop in the truck for another 2 hour trip to the meeting spot. FINNALLY we get to unload the bikes get geared up and ride, that damn innertube change took to long.

So we are off, the weather is perfect. It is a little dusty OK a lot dusty but still good fun. There was this guy riding this DRZ400 that still had the stock trail wing tires on. We were going down this BIG hill with a lot of gravel and slate rock, it was real slippery & unpredictable. Dave rides by and says be careful on this hill, gee thanks. well what seemed to be a 30 minute slippin’ & slidin’ venture down this hill I finally made it, yes that guy was me. By the way thanks Tony for saying that my tires I had on there should be OK, you are the best!!!!!!! Well from there we decide to go back to the meeting spot to have lunch. Since I was slow man I decided I would pack up my gear & bike & drive the chase truck for the rest of the day. We all met at the 1st gas stop. A couple of flats rolled in then there was Shane Maes our wonderful leader, from what I understand he doesn't know how to properly install fork caps so he had to borrow this clapped out RMX 250. When he rolled up he also had a flat & he broke the bolt that holds the lower linkage together. Dave says thanks. Rowdy pulls up loads up his bike gets undressed, mind you there is nothing wrong with his bike he just wants a beer, well maybe a 12 pack. OH I forgot to mention how those KTM's don't like to keep their parts on there bikes especially the kickstand and skid plate. For more details on that talk to GB.  

Well the day went very well & incident free we packed up our stuff and headed home. The drive home was a little long but still OK. Tony was getting a little cranky on the way back because he wasn't home yet to have his wife rub his feet or something.  

All in all it was a great day with a great bunch of guys! See you soon.....

Check out the pictures...   May Ride - Photos