Inspiration for the coming travel season
As much as I love to talk endlessly about the virtues of working bikes in the city, my true love is the mountains. Today I’m going to show you some shots of the Tour de Plumas ride that I organized in the summer of 2006. And lest you think we’re just going to rest on our laurels of years past, we’re going to organize a similar trip to the hills this summer with whoever we can dig up. This means you. Even if you’re not in the Greater San Francisco Urban Bleed-Out, I want to invite you to organize similar trips with your friends, or regionally through the Roots Radical yahoo group. These are the facts. We drove about 300 miles in a biodiesel powered van to Quincy, CA and proceeded to ride a loop of as much off-road dirt as we could. Ended up being two nights and three days of riding with seven guys. You can imagine the smell. We circumnavigated the valley floor, gaining and losing about 10,000 feet of elevation in a rolling madhouse of rock, Ponderosa Pine, and rattlesnakes. Great views, hardly any water. Much fun. With the exception of one, we all rode xtracycles of some vintage or another. 
I’d be terrified of taking a trailer on some of this stuff. 
This used to be a narrow rock trail over a raging torrent (out of the frame, below Nate and Adam). Now it isn’t. Now it’s a borderline 5.1 rock traverse. 
Paul demonstrates proper use of a snap deck as cutting board.
Your bike is long, but not long enough. This was definitely less in the category of “Jeep Trail” and more in the category of “ravine.”
the top. 
You’re looking up one of the steepest parts of the ride. We all got flats, spun out, or encountered some nasty mechanical problem in the course of this quarter-mile. We did find a novel way to set up the Xtracycle for maintenance when loaded.
Home again. Send us any exciting pics you might have of your own tours. And if you’re going to be in the Bay Area this summer (there should be a couple million of y’all) and you want to be a part of this year’s trip, let us know. It’s a big, chaotic organizing process, and the more people the better. Peter
February 20th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I’m starting a 3 week tour from Nelson New Zealand up to East Cape in the North Island, and back again from march 17 to april 4. Not many other xtra riders round here tough.
Who’s in?
February 21st, 2008 at 9:09 am
Regarding the photo of Calvin’s bike resting across the serious gully - http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2011/2252846397_882a1b31c6.jpg - he actually used this opportunity to do a little bike service, as his chain had gotten stuck, or something like that. So many of these photos demonstrate little known benefits of Xtracycle as a touring vehicle. Xtracycle will be releasing some new products later in the year that speak just to this need - Xtracycle long distance riding whether on or off road. More to come on that.
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 am
Cool pictures! I grew up in Quincy and spent alot of time in the surrounding mountains. I would love to go back and do this ride. send me some details please.