Tag: featured
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Coming Back to the Lake
One Sunday afternoon in February — cloudy, drizzling, maybe 45 degrees at best — a few friends and I came back from a weekend camping in the mountains and decided, in our seventeen-year-old brains, that… Read more
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Showing Up: Finding the Motorcycle Community in Savannah
I’ve been riding long enough to know that assumptions fill in when actual information doesn’t. For example, which state has the most registered Republicans? California. Which state is home to one of the country’s leading… Read more
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Stranded in Ryde
I don’t know what it is about the first weekend in May, but every year it seems overly packed. This year, the Hot Rodeo down in Palm Springs, the One Motorcycle Show in Portland, a… Read more
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Riding Shotgun on 4×4 Day: BARC at Tumey Hills
BARC, the Bay Area Rivian Club, held its Tumey Hills run on the calendar for April 4th: 4/4, known as 4×4 Day in the offroad community. When I first signed up, I didn’t really think… Read more
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Chigee AIO-5 Review (1 Year Later): CarPlay on the BMW GS
Summary: The Chigee AIO-5 delivers on its core promise: bringing Apple CarPlay to the BMW GS in a way that actually works while riding. It’s not a replacement for a standalone GPS, but the usability,… Read more
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Above the Fog
The relentless tule fog had been sitting on the valley for weeks. Not just a few days with sun here and there, but literal weeks. Low 40s every morning, mid 40s throughout the day, my… Read more
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Reality Check: The XR650L That Wasn’t
I squeezed the front brake lever and it went straight to the bar. I was maybe a quarter mile from the seller’s driveway. The temperature was 40 degrees and damp. My fingers were already getting… Read more
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Where the Wild Things Are
I grew up on the East Coast. Summer days were spent on the lake, jet skis cutting through still, warm water, humidity that settled on everything the moment you stepped outside. Those were good days… Read more
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Crisscrossing the Shasta Cascades
Back in the day, M and I used to run motorcycle tours for motorcycle riders who hadn’t done an overnight ride before. Over the years, we picked up more and more riders and developed quite… Read more
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The Moto Social SF: Baby Blues BBQ
R introduced me to The Moto Social about five years ago. At first, I was a casual attendee, but over the years I’ve tried to make it a priority, as it gets me out of… Read more
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Driving the Aorta of the West: Interstate 5
Six weeks have gone by fast. It seems like yesterday I was hopping in my truck, driving to Vancouver with a motorcycle strapped in the bed, awaiting the adventure ahead. All I had planned (if… Read more
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Chasing Mount Tantalus
R and I decided to take the Rivian up to Squamish to explore the Sea to Sky Highway, take some photos of the Tantalus range, and head up to Backcountry Brewing for some lunch. Whether… Read more
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The Moto Social – A Canadian Original
In the past few years, I’ve come to know and enjoy The Moto Social. The San Francisco chapter of The Moto Social enjoys a solid following from it’s season opener in April to our season… Read more
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BC Road Trip: Day 6 – Rogers Pass
What a difference 24 hours makes. The weather today is absolutely fantastic, with partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the 50s stretching across the landscape. I’m really starting to love Kicking Horse Road. With bluebird skies,… Read more
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BC Road Trip: Day 4 – Banff and Kooteany National Parks
Of all the days on the road, I think today was the day that brought me the most excitement. I was in Invermere, right in the heart of the Kootenays, and headed through Kootenay National… Read more
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The East Bay’s Best Moto Camping
It’s no secret that I love riding my motorcycle up and down Mount Diablo. It’s technical, tends to have very little traffic on weekday afternoons, and has kick ass views across Northern California. While riding… Read more
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The Moto Social SF May 2025: Jane
Sometimes I do a post from the Wayback Machine…. I never got around to posting this one after the April edition… to that effect, May will be black and white to highlight the vintage nature… Read more
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Chasing Sunlight on Easter Morning
Easter Sunday – it’s become one of my favorite motorcycle traditions here in the Bay Area. Easter has come late this year, April 20th to be exact. That means the sun gets up extra early,… Read more
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Chasin’ that Northern Rainbow
A few years ago, I met an awesome new buddy up in Truckee when I was living out there. We connected over the summer and I was bummed to find out that he was moving… Read more
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Day 3: The Long Road to Milford Sound
This was the day to hit Milford Sound. No, this is the day for effing Milford effing Sound. It was one of the first landmarks I fell in love with, thinking, “Oh, the places I’ll… Read more
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Garmin inReach: Venturing further away from home
I recently went on a ride, and one of the participants went down. It was the end of a very long day (500 miles) for him, and he forgot to change out of his sunglasses… Read more
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Starting Moto New Zealand: Mount Cook
I can’t believe it’s finally here. This moment has arrived after weeks of anticipation, excitement, nervousness, and wonder. Michael, the owner of the touring company Paradise Motorcycle Tours, lives on the North Island in Auckland… Read more
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Rivian Tech Day
After publishing Join a Motorcycle Tech Day: Build Skills, Friends, Confidence, and Savings, my dad sent me a similar article from the Wall Street Journal, which was published the next day. The article details how… Read more
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Diablo – Adventure in Black and White
A good motorcyclist is a good meteorologist. Weather affects a ride in so many different ways: temperature, precipitation, wind speed, wind direction, fog, and the list meanders on. It’s December and it’s sunny with a… Read more
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Chapter 4: I fought the DMV – and I won!
They say you can’t choose with whom you fall in love. That adage has hit me more than once in my life. On a group ride down the California coast, all of us swapped bikes.… Read more
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Quaternary Roads with Pashnit
I started riding motorcycles in California shortly after the turn of the millennium. I’ve wanted to ride bikes since well, what seemed like forever. Year after year, my parents always said, “When you’re off the… Read more
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La Costa Perdida
A good buddy of mine reached out in early July and said “hey Dan, want to come on a ride I’m putting on?” I really enjoyed the run I did up to Fort Bragg earlier… Read more
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Lane Control & Countersteering
A few weeks ago, I put new tires on the motorcycle. A new set of tires changes the skill and agility of the motorcycle – in some ways, it rides new again. It is perfectly… Read more
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Fort Bragg: Easy Overnight or Tough Lunch Run
We are fortunate to ride twelve months of the year in Northern California. Sure, it’s chilly and wet in the winter, but conditions are never bad enough for a motorcyclist to not be able to… Read more
