FUN IN THE NEVADA OUTBACK

     Some motorcycle rides are challenging, such as in Costa Rica, where some of the clay soil hills are so slick that even with just a layer of dew, you can't even walk up the hill, let alone ride it. Other rides, such as Baja, are mainly 2-track trail either through endless valleys of whopped sand or through mountains where you can meet a dune buggy around a corner sliding in your direction at 60 mph.

Nevada Motorcycle Adventure's ride through the pristine state of Nevada is just fun - pure, unadulterated, laugh yourself silly fun.  This includes both riding and the friendships formed.

     It starts in Reno at the Nevada Motorcycle Adventures office where they take you out to ride. The bikes are new Suzuki DR400Z bikes, fully set up, well maintained, and having the magic button (electric start that is). It's a funny thing that once you use the button you never want to change. I also have to say that the new bikes are very impressive - I had owned an old DR350 and these new ones are leagues better. It's the perfect bike in Nevada - handles very well, doesn't feel heavy, suspension handles anything, and the motor will attack any obstacle. As a matter of fact, a lot of people go home and buy one after the ride.

     Matt, the owner, can arrange for you to ride for 3 to 6 days, if you wish, and the more the better. Each day offers different kinds of riding and Matt has 15 different routes he can use with different trails on each. One day you might ride high mountains where you will ride on trails up the spine of each mountain, all open with no trees, higher and higher until you get to a 12,000 foot vista, that, for as far as the eye can see, there are endless mountain ranges and valleys hundreds of miles in the distance. Yet you will see nobody else except your group all day. Another day you might ride a dried up river canyon bed of scrub oak, pine, and mesquite, twisting and turning through them like you’re on a Slalom course on skis - pure thrill! Perhaps another day you would ride onto a very flat dried up lakebed 10 miles across (just like the Bonneville salt flats in Utah). You could then play for as long as you want out there, perhaps playing cat and mouse among some islands of mesquite bushes. You can catch a ride on one of the sailboats on wheels out there.

     You will probably see a herd or two of wild mustangs living on their own out in the wilderness and they are eye to behold when galloping with their magnificent stride across the open terrain. One day we rode out to a mountain range that had a single track going straight up to the top and jaded me even said, "we're riding that?” It seemed impossible. We all made it though and we determined it just looked tough, but we still felt like heroes.

     You stop in tiny towns for the night usually with just one bar in it and you get the feeling of the old west - remote areas and sense of community. Matt sets everything up ahead of time. He takes care of breakfast and lunch with lunch sometimes being served in the middle of nowhere where his support crew has it all ready. All maintenance is theirs and they even clean the air filters for you. You start to feel like your sponsored!

     Beyond the great riding & weather (never hot, even in July), the hot springs you can soak in, or the old pony express stations you might see, it is the social bonding that comes out most on the ride. Perhaps it is the isolation, remoteness, survival mode feeling of the place, or just the lack of seeing another human being or traces of life all day long, but the group you are with will bond like your the last people on earth. You will laugh till you cry with jokes, funny happenings on the trail, and Matt's stories. It is beyond a mere motor-