The Roads of My Father

The General had a rare and unique “step back in time” experience this weekend while riding the Lost Coast Dual Sport Ride in NW California. As some of my followers know, I was born and raised in Cutten, a small community on the outskirts of Eureka.

*Click on photo for larger view

After WW2, my dad worked in the logging industry from 1950-1961 and then was hired as a foreman for Burman Construction Company. As a kid (aka The Cuttenkid), I remember driving on many of Humboldt County’s roads with my dad. Back in those days, the timber industry was going strong and many small communities had vibrant populations, grocery stores, and gas stations. Today they are mostly ghost towns.

In the early 1970s, The General worked at a lumber mill in Blue Lake that was eventually put out of business by the establishment of Redwood National Park. The sorter crew that I worked on actually set a mill record of pulling/sorting 220,000 board feet of lumber in an eight hour shift.

Seeing this small “logging museum” along one of the back roads in the Fort Seward area brought back some fond memories of driving on those same roads with my dad or handing him up a sandwich when he was running the dozer.

Thanks North Bay Motorcycle Club for the great ride and for allowing me to once again experience the backcountry roads of Humboldt County.

NBMC
http://www.northbaymc.org/content.aspx?page_id=9&club_id=709509

PS - My dad passed away in 1998

Dual-Sport Riders Win Big Victory in CA

I just wanted to congratulate the dual-sport community and their lobbyists, AMA, ABATE of California, and the California Motorcycle Dealers Assn. for their hard work in fighting the Pavley motorcycle smog bill. Earlier, SB435 (Pavley’s smog bill) was thankfully recognized by state senators with common sense as a proposal that punished the motorcycle recreation community and created another “tax.”

Here is quote from Capitol Weekly
Pavley was also forced to significantly weaken her motorcycle smog check bill, SB 435, because of objections from Wright and other moderate Democrats.
Full news article about SB435 at
http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_c=y12dhpvks3hi6i&xid=y11gl3bydgla74&done=.y12dhpvks42i6i

I know many dual-sport riders were concerned that SB 435 would require smog checks on legal dual sport conversions (dual sport kits added to 2000-2003 green-sticker dirt-bikes such as XR650Rs, open class KTM 4-strokes, DRZ400s, WR426/450s, etc.) As it stands now, the bill’s focus was reduced to address catalytic converters.

The General feels that dual-sport recreation and related events are an important factor to rural communities in the current economy. Having ridden in, or helped tech at, a number of dual-sport rides in Northern California, I can attest to the fact that businesses (local hotels and restaurants) thrive when several hundred riders utilize their establishments.

There are a number of exciting and fun dual-sport rides coming up this summer and fall.

Check in Nor Cal Dual Sport for a list of rides
http://www.norcaldualsport.com/home.html

Also, ck. in with North Bay Motorcycle Club for their Lost Coast Dual Sport Ride in Oct.
http://northbaymc.org/

I hope to see many of you at these events.

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