Sequoia Road Riders of Tulare County

Friends For Fun Safety & Knowledge

Danny & Sherry Rhoten's Home at Camp Nielsen - August 2

Gold Rush Country Ride - June 7

What a fantastic ride this turned out to be.  The weather couldn't have been better - not too hot and not too cold.  Like the baby bear, it was just right.  There were only seven of us (five bikes) which was rather low after a gathering of 19 for breakfast at Nielson's.  It was 10:15 when we left Nielson's and headed north on 99 to Highway 59 in Merced. After a short break just outside Merced, we started traveling more or less east, up through the gold rush town of Snelling.  Took another interesting break right in front of a "ghost town" jail in Hornitos and then on to Bear Valley. Once on 49 we took a slight detour north to the Little Dragon.  That by itself was worth the ride.  We went down it, crossed the bridge turned around and came back up.  We ran into another rider when we took our photo shot who planned on spending the day going up and down that stretch of road.  We then ventured  south to Mariposa where we took at lunch break.  Thank goodness for GPS's.  Gene brought up all the type of foods, we picked Mexican and knew then exactly where to eat.  From Mariposa we took a back road which finally ended us up at Coarsegold where we turned south on 41 and headed home.

Pine Mountain - May 17

This was a do-over after being “fogged” out on our last trip. We left Caldwell (Avenue 280) and Highway 99 at 9:00 a.m. and road 99 to Pond Road and into Wasco. From Wasco we followed Highway 43 on down to 119 and 33 to Maricopa. In Maricopa we took Highway 166 a few miles to Cerro Noroeste road. Cerro Noroeste took us all the way to Pine Mountain. Once there we discovered it was the day of their Lilac Festival and it was impossible to get in to the Screaming Squirrel Restaurant. But that was alright. We ate outside at a stand and then spent some time walking around. Our return trip, continued us eastward into Frazier Park, where we caught Interstate 5 north to the junction with Highway 99 and headed home.

Quail Valley - April 18-20

For those of you who may have missed this camp out, you will have another chance.  We definitely will be doing it again next year.  Everyone had a really good time.  Don't like camping?  That's okay.  We had three people come up just for the ride and another two came up just to have the potluck with us on Saturday night.

The ride was fantastic.  Just ask our fearless Ride Coordinator, Gene.  Lots of curves, not too many straight places (in fact, were there any?), and beautiful countryside.  It never ceases to amaze me how beautiful California is.

And, as usual, we ate well.  Our potluck was delicious.  Lots of meat, beans and choices of salads and desserts.  Who could ask for more?

The only downfall would be the weather at night.  It got down right cold before the sun rose again.  Saturday night it reached a low of 28 degrees.  Not too bad for the RVers, but pretty cold for those in tents.  We had a fire on Saturday night which kept us all warm until bed time.

Our Camp Ground

Friday, April 17

Saturday, April 19

The Ride

Ride to Humphrey Station - April 5, 2008

Our destination was the restaurant at historic Humphrey Station stage coach stop for lunch. We took Highway 63 north out of Visalia through Cutler-Orosi to Highway 180. From it was uphill to Squaw Valley where we turned left onto Elwood Road into the twisty roads.  Our infamous leader, Gene,  had to leave us at this point and our other ST1300, Greg, took over. Then Elwood to Trimmer Springs to Maxon to Tollhouse. We actually made it there without any wrong turns.  After a sumptuous repast at Humphrey Station, we took Sample Road to Tollhouse Rd (168) to Academy back home.  There were quite a number of us and, as the pictures below show, we had a great time, ate well (as usual), and saw some beautiful scenery.

  NOTE:  The first picture in this row is of Harleys that were at Humphrey Station.  Really noisy.  James had a suggestion of what we could do about the noise, but he was just kidding (wasn't he?).

Ride to Tres Pinos (Los Gatos Creek Road) - March 29, 2008

Last year on March 17th we "attempted" this ride.  I say "attempted" because we only got about 25 miles onto Los Gatos Creek Road when Gene's front tire went out on him.  Lucky for him he was able to pull off the road before anything happened to him.  The end result was that he, Phil and his tire drove back to Coalinga together on Phil's bike to get a new valve stem put on the tire.  The rest of us waited on this desolate road (not one car went by) for at least two hours.

This year Gene got sick and wasn't able to go with us.  Hmmmm.  We left from the Shell station at 99 and Caldwell around 8:00.   We traveled  to Coalinga and north toward Hollister via Los Gatos Creek Road ending up at Tres Pinos for lunch.  The roads were twisty and fun but Fresno County roads are definitely in better condition than  San Benitos County roads.  Our return home was via Panoche Road to Highway 5.  At one time there were 9 bikes with us.  Another very good turn out.  It was a gorgeous trip.  The foot hills were so green and there were wildflowers all over the place.

Ride to Frazier Park - March 1, 2008

Another cold trip but we had a very good turn out.  The weather wasn't too bad at the beginning of the ride.  As we hit the really twisty road and we climbed in altitude, the fog began to set in till it got to the point where it wasn't safe to drive any further.  So we turned around knowing that this would be a trip for another day.    We went to Cuyama Buckhorn for lunch and then returned home.

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