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Well, it’s wintertime. Work is really slow. Brianna and I spent 3 weeks at Kevin’s house in Elk Grove for the holidays and before his HOA could get too mad that we’d been parked for 3 weeks, we decided to push off for a few days into the wilderness until we were scheduled to go down to Arizona.

Those plans changed as well…as with my line of work, you never quite know exactly what to expect until it’s happening because at any moment, things can change.  Arizona has been pushed back a couple weeks…so we filled our time in one of my favorite places of all time: Mosquito Ridge Road. :)

oxbow rubicon mosquito ridge road
The view from up high on the Rubicon River
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So, a couple of us went up onto Mosquito Ridge Road the other day and decided to roach up some perfectly good Diablo Supercorsa Pros…and get it all on film. Toe, Mike J, Kev, and myself wanted to shoot some street footage with the new Sony HD cam along with some more GoPro HD footage. We still want to get more footage before actually editing up any videos right now, but I figured I may as well tease you guys with a few still frames from the video. :D

Be on the lookout for some fun road footage soon!

joe mosquito ridge road wheelie

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Well, I saw that the forcast called for rain. When I had a bike, and the forcast says rain, those of you that know me well know what that means: It’s time to go for a ride! Well, I had a bike. A 2007 GSX600R.

I sent out a few text messages, and before I knew it, Matt and I turned into Matt, Rob, Han, Kev, Mike, and myself, all about to embark on a little fun.

We took the fastest route to the mountains possible from Elk Grove, slabbing up 99 to 50 before exiting off the freeway and jumping on Salmon Falls Road. I hate the slab. Freeway is not, nor has it ever been my friend. Anyways, the trip up Salmon Falls was fairly uneventful, as we the trip up hwy 49 (The Gold Country Highway) to Old Auburn Foresthill Rd. However, things changed ever so slightly when we made our way up Foresthill Road to Get to Mosquito Ridge Road…it started to POUR. We could see blue skies to the north whilst we road towards the darkest, nastiest looking clouds we could find to the North-west. Hehe.

…Lets take a quick step back first… A couple of the riders in our small group had never ridden in the rain before. At least, not intentionally. They’d been caught-out in the rain while riding in town before, but never had they experienced the True Grit kinda’ ride that I’ve been HIGHLY accustomed to over the years… Morale was not high amongst some of our group once we reached the gas station at the MRR turnoff, to say the least. In fact, as the ride organizer, I was nearly overthrown and our merry little band of wet rats almost disbanded before the ride had even started!

After a bit of pep-talking, and a crapload of peer pressure, everyone was in. Reluctant, but in.

I’m not gonna go through a mile-by-mile play-by-play, but there was something worth mentioning: as the clouds above pummelled us with cold, stinging rain, we got to witness one of the coolest things I’ve EVER seen in nature… a rainbow. But not any ordinary rainbow…this one was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was AMAZING! The topmost portion of it sprayed out of the hillside roughly 100ft up, only about 500 feet in front of us. It was VERY thick… and bold… and vivid. It arced over the road and down the hillside before planting itself back into the rocks about 500 feet below. I could see both ends of this rainbow touching the ground. I half expected to need to swerve and dodge leprechauns and unicorns and rivers of Skittles as I passed beneath it. I know, it sounds like I’m making a big deal out of nothing, but really, you had to be there to see what I mean. Unfortunately, it was DUMPING rain and I didn’t want to stop to take a picture. I really wish I would have though. I’m still kicking myself for not.

I’m really tired of typing, and think I’ll simply let the pics do the talking. There’s only a few as I only pulled out my camera twice. It was a good day. Lots of fun and ZERO mishaps…unless you consider someone making a u-turn, losing their footing in the wet, and simply falling over a mishap. *giggle*

Our group of wet rats
group of bike gsxr yzf r6 thundercat

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So, we’re taking 4theriders to another level. We’ve decided to offer up VIDEO as well as photos for 2010. Though, it’s not going to be the typical bike-chasing-bike kinda of video that we’ve all seen done in the past. We are offering up GoPro Hero HD cameras for rental to customers.

Not only are we going to be renting them out, but we’re also going to be providing a video editing service, where customers can unload all of the footage taken from the cameras to us, and we will edit them up into a 3-5 minute long video of the best parts of their riding from the day, edited up to their choice of song/genre or whatever they want. Even an option to surprise them with whatever we feel suits the video best. Customers will be able to keep all the raw footage as well.

I received the first of several cameras a few days ago and have done a little bit of testing with it. I want to make sure to learn all the do’s and don’ts of using this camera before renting em out and getting less than perfect results with it. On Thursday, I took the camera up to Mosquito Ridge Road (my favorite road in all the land) and did some various mounting while shooting on the cameras LOWEST setting (720p, 30FPS) and here are the results!

That was just a quick throw-together from some of the footage I shot on a chill ride. I learned that mounting the camera to your helmet does NOT yeild the best audio results with the waterproof backing. I’ll have to try it with the opened backed one, which is supposedly better with noise at less than 100 mph.

Still more testing to be done before February 8th, but progress is being made!

4theriders has been fortunate enough to receive help from Pashnit.com, a motorcycle website created by a local rider over many years of riding and documenting the best riding roads all over California. Tim Meyhew, the owner, also offers motorcycle tours (which I’ve been fortunate enough to ride on several of them, and they are a BLAST! Even having sportbikes mixed with touring bikes and even cruisers, the comradery is top notch, and the experiences last a lifetime). The Pashnit forum is also a great place to meet like-minded riders from your area and beyond where you can share your experiences or live vicariously through the experiences of others as they travel through California, the US, and the globe!

Help support local moto business owners! If you plan on getting a GoPro Hero HD camera, buy it here: Pashnit’s GoPro Hero HD site.

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i needed to. so i did! as some of you know, i crashed hard on mosquito ridge road (MRR) in may of 2008. i broke my back and ribs and all kindsa other fun stuff, and completely wadded up my bike, kitty. i then decided to give up riding on the street, as i was too irresponsible, ham-fisted, and retarded (especially after bumping my head).

anyhow, since then, i did a slow loop out to posers in berryessa on an fjr1300 once (taking nearly all freeway), and then once on a drz400 (which i loaded in the back of a truck to get it there) on FR23 in the pouring rain which turned to blizzard snow. so technically, i have been back on the street twice since 2008, but NOT a proper ride.

a buddy of mine went outta town and was brave enough to leave me his R6 to play with. :eek

anyhow, i woke up bright and early yesterday morning and headed out. it was cold. damned cold. it was in the 40s, and the entire sacramento valley was under dense fog. i headed up hwy 99 to hwy 50 for a few miles until i was so cold that i had to turn off onto surface streets. slower speeds meant less chance of my balls freezing and falling off.

i meandered my way through carmichael and folsom until i reached the last stop before salmon falls road where i sat at startbucks for the better part of an hour, not only simply to thaw out and let some of the fog burn off, but to think about what i was doing, where i was going, and how to stay responsible.

at around 9am, i left thebux and headed towards salmon falls. the fog only got worse. in fact, it was so bad, i was having to wipe my visor clear of condensation every minute or so, and visibility was down to about 50ft. halfway up salmon falls, doing at or less than the speed limit (mostly less due to frozen joints, no visibility, and dew on the road), i started rethinking what the hell i was doing. i nearly turned around. i was getting sad.

i arrived in pilot hill. the temps seemed to have gotten just a little better. i stopped for a minute to thaw and have a cig. “to hell with it. i’ve come this far, i may as well mush on,” i thought to myself. i still wasn’t really enthused about it though. but i did. i mushed on. hwy 49 north, through cool, and dropping down into the confluence…when suddenly, the blanket of fog was 100ft overhead! i could see again!

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