Hollister Hills, CA –
The Rally
For Steph and I the Motorcycles and Misfits Rally Vol. 2 began with arriving early to Hollister Hills State Vehicle Recreation Area in Hollister, CA on Monday April 15th.
Only $10 a night! No reservations and was no issue finding a spot in Walnut Campground. This is so great after spending so much time route planning prior sections of California and agonizing over where I could stay for cheap (or that even had availability, regardless of price).
No cell service. Definitely a con for Steph but maybe more of a feature than a bug for the rally portion.
Didn’t really spend any time in the park with the Talaria until the rally started on Friday April 19th.
The Motorcycles and Misfits rally officially “began” on Thursday with Moose and Dima (among many others) arriving on Thursday. Moose arrived in a rental Mustang GT, which was definitely out of place among this OHV oriented dirt campground. Dima tested out his latest Honda Pilot iteration with new suspension, solar, and fridge setup. He seemed pretty pleased with the result after camping all weekend in it.
We had a great time bonding Thursday night over beers, cigars, wine, and mixed drinks from Steph’s Van Bar. Moose is good people.
Group Rides
Friday Steph let me ride passenger on their BMW G 650 X-Country for the Street Group Ride. Halfway through the ride Liza, the creator of Motorcycles & Misfits, took pity on Steph’s overloaded BMW and had me ride on her KTM 690 Enduro. As she says, it has every “yee-hee” feature. I don’t know how it is normally but that KTM seemed to eat up potholes like it didn’t have a 160 lbs passenger on the back. I think I passed the vibe check when Liza goosed it to unmentionable speeds and all she got from me was cackling. Not sure that Liza realized she was verbalizing all of her intrusive thoughts while I was riding on the back, but between that and the aggressive riding I had a constant grin on my face.
Troll Trail
Did a “Troll Trail” double black diamond trail attempt with Misfit Charley (YZ250F) on Saturday going up the creek with Bill (CRF300L Rally) and Eric (KX250F). We quickly turned around but Sunday we had a great and successful ride doing some blues, blacks, and then a different portion of the double black diamond troll trail. This time without Bill but with Byron (Husqvarna 501 FE). It wasn’t without issues but was a great time. I definitely remember us all taking a water break after recovering Eric’s bike from a ravine and just enviously watching a Volunteer Patrol member putt down the trail easy as pie on some kind of 125cc 2-stroke bike.
All Around Great Rides with Great People
Another notable event was doing some laps on the greens with Charla (Ducati Scrambler 1100!!), Melony (TW400), Bill (CRF300L Rally), an Henry (WR250R). I remember looking back after some sections to make sure folks were keeping up and Charla on that heavy ass Ducati being right there.
I think one of the best rides in the park was when Bill, Henry, and I split off from the greens to do High Peaks and Orchard which ended up being some blues that went around he circumference of the entire western and southern portion of the park. Great trails, great views, and we seemed to be a good group with fairly close speeds.
So many other things. Chatting with Ellie and Aaron. The TT tack. “Riding” Emma’s Moto Guzzi onto the back of her Izuzu. I hope I end up finding a picture of that! The Motorcycles and Misfits Rally is definitely a rally I’ll be trying to make in the future. So thankful for Liza and Matt (of Breaking Away Adventures) for putting this on, as well as Re-cycle Garage in Santa Cruz.
