I rode my first motorcycle at the age of 14 and immediately fell in love with the wonderful feeling of freedom. It's been a lifelong love affair ever since. I've owned both street bike and dirt bikes, but riding offroad on dirt trails is what I've enjoyed most!

The type of dirt riding I liked to do for many years is called Dual Sport. Your bike is a capable mid-sized dirt bike that is also street legal. (It has a headlight, taillight, turn signals, a horn, review mirrors, and a license plate.) This allows you to ride on many trails off-road, but then you can hop on a paved road and legally ride into town where you can get gas, a meal or a hotel room for the night. Many people organize Dual Sport rides, where they lay out the route typically for a one-, two-, or three-day ride. They often have a truck to carry your change-of-clothes bag to your overnight stop so that don't have to carry your bag on your bike. One such organization I joined was the Association of California Trailriders (ACT.)

For about 20 years, starting in 1998 and through 2018, I would typically go on 6-8 Dual Sport rides per year. In addition to ACT rides, there were other favorites that I'd go on every year, including the Colorado 500, the Cal Poly Penguins Hi-Mountain ride, the Oakland Motorcycle Club SheetIron ride, Dust Devils Reno 200 ride, and the Rio Nido Roadhouse Redwood Rendezvous and Melee rides. A commemorative tee shirt was usually included as part of the entry fee for these rides, and I amassed a significant collection of these shirts over the years.

A typical ACT ride would have 20-35 riders. The other rides I mentioned typically have 200-350 riders. I would go on these rides by myself, but along the way I kept bumping into another guy that was also solo, and we began riding together. His name is Christian and we became good friends. Here are some pictures of one of the many rides I did with Christian.

The guy that ran ACT is Don Ivan. Here are some pictures of Don and me riding together.

Over the last 10 years my interest in off-road riding has migrated slightly from Dual Sport riding to Adventure riding. The bikes are still off-road capable street-legal bikes, but they are set-up to carry your own luggage so that you don't need an organized ride's truck to carry your gear. My Ducati Elefant, my KTM 690, and my Yamaha Ténéré were all Adventure bikes.

However, upon turning 70 recently, I've decided that my riding days are over. Apparently, I have arthritis in my back and it has been making my motorcycle rides increasingly uncomfortable these past ten or so years. I guess I've been living in denial of this, and despite that pain, I actually purchased a 2025 Yamaha Ténéré 700 as my new adventure bike. I was hoping that a more powerful and smoother bike would go easier on my body. But, after buying the bike and doing a handful of rides, during all of which I was in constant back pain, I decided that it's time to hang up my riding boots.

So, I had a good run of it. I got to enjoy for most of my life the tremendous feeling of freedom that comes with riding. I made some great friends and saw and experienced some awesome country. And, amazingly, never got seriously injured! So, I figure I'm calling it quits at a very good time. To commemorate the end of my riding career, my wife took 30 or my favorite motorcycle tee shirts and had them turned into a quilt. Here it is:

The Assoc. of Calif. Trailriders

Riding on ACT rides was really great. Don Ivan knew the gold country of Northern California very well and laid out these routes that were phenomenal. The ACT members' riding capability ranged from intermediate to expert, so, Don had to include some very difficult route options to keep everyone happy. Over time I was able to improve my riding skills and start taking some of these optional difficult sections.

Don offered both Dual Sport Rides and Trail Rides. A Trail Ride differed from a Dual Sport Ride in that there was no pavement, and so a street legal licensed motorcycle wasn't required. You could still use your Dual Sport bike on these rides, of course, but these rides were typically harder, and the additional weight of your Dual Sport bike would be a detriment. Participation in a Trail Ride was by invitation only, since Don wanted to be sure that the rider was capable of getting through the difficult sections. Don began extending invitations to me, and I went on one trail ride. With my heavy ATK 605 Dual Sport Bike, I was completely exhausted afterward. I declined further invitations and just stuck to Dual Sport rides.

The Association of California Trailriders doesn't exist anymore. So, I created a page dedicated to it:

Images of bikes I've ridden over the years (click on for enlarged picture.)

Bikes I've owned include:

  • 1960 Cushman Eagle Scooter

  • 1970 Honda CL450 Scrambler

  • 1972 Yamaha DT1E 250 Enduro

  • 1972 Ossa 250 Mick Andrews Replica Trials

  • 1979 Suzuki RM400

  • 1988 Honda GL1500 Goldwing

  • 1992 Yamaha WR200 Enduro

  • 1995 Ducati E900 Elefant

  • 1996 ATK 605 DSES Dualsport

  • 2000 Honda XR650R Dualsport

  • 2004 KTM 525 EXC Dualsport

  • 2006 Honda GL1800 Goldwing

  • 2009 KTM 690 Enduro R

  • 2025 Yamaha Ténéré 700

As you can see, it includes

  • 7 Cal Poly Penguins rides

  • 6 ACT rides

  • 4 Reno 200 rides

  • 4 Rio Nido Roadhouse rides

  • and other various rides.

Here's some pictures of my final bike, a 2025 Yamaha Ténéré 700: