Nevada County Woods Riders
By Dorothy Talan-Quaid
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12:01 a.m. PT Jan 26, 2007
Off-roading has received a bad rap over the past few years, with private and public property owners complaining about two-and-four wheelers invading their environments and altering the landscape. While some of those complaints are legitimate, members of the Nevada County Woods Riders are out to change that perception with the establishment of legal trails and partnerships with the community.
"(NCWR) is an off-highway motorcycle club, organized and founded since the early '80s," said club president Joseph Cochran, "and primarily we're a family-oriented, trail-riding group, although we still have quite a few members that race (motorcycles) regularly."
The club's roots date back to the 1970s, when a 'bunch of guys', called "The Happy 76", met after church at the 76 Union gas station in the Brunswick area, according to longtime member Dennis Edie. The club organized a few years later, Cochran said, when a couple of motorcycle racers decided to meet on a regular basis as a racers-only club. In 1986, they expanded the membership to include motorcyclists in general, calling themselves the Western Nevada County Dirt Riders.
By the early 1990s, club members wanted to hold organized racing events, which required incorporation for liability reasons, according to Cochran. The club became a non-profit organization in 1991 and changed its name officially to the Nevada County Woods Riders. It is a charter member of the American Motorcyclists Association (AMA), District 36, and has been since the mid-1980s, allowing members to participate in racing events sponsored by the AMA.
Club members began holding racing events, as well as family-type events, such as weekend trail rides after that incorporation. As word spread, people from outside Nevada County joined NCWR, some coming from as far away as Nevada and the Bay Area to join friends and family as members, Cochran said. "There are other dirt-oriented clubs in Northern California," Cochran said. "Certainly for this area, Nevada County and the Sierra foothills, we're the primary club that's up here," he added, explaining why some members are willing to travel the distance to Nevada County to participate in club activities.
While club members frequently get together on their own, NCWR tries to organize at least one club ride each month, according to Cochran. Those events can be day rides or even weekend-long trips, depending upon what club members would like to do. "Coming up early next month is probably our first organized trail ride (this year); the club is going to Death Valley for three days," Cochran said. "We're going to ride street-legal, dual-sport motorcycles, basically dirt bikes with license plates and turn signals, and there's probably 15-20 people that are going to go down for that." NCWR will join several other clubs in Death Valley for this the desert for this event.
In addition to organized monthly rides, NCWR also hosts an annual dual-sport motorcycle ride, a self-guided tour through the back roads and trails of the Sierra foothills. "We typically visit old mining sites and some of the beautiful bridges and river crossings," Cochran said. The dual-sport event is 12 years old and all proceeds, after expenses, are donated to local charities. Those beneficiaries have included Hospice of the Foothills, Sierra Services for the Blind, the Kare Crisis Nursery and specific people, such as Kyle Bryant, a cyclist with Friedreich's Ataxia disease, who just started a 2,800-mile recumbent bicycle ride from San Diego, California to Memphis, Tennessee.
These off-roaders also donate more than 500 hours of community service to the foothills area each year, maintaining and rebuilding the public trail system for mountain bikers, horseback riders and dirt bike riders. "Our club doesn't mind working on community trails because it makes it fun for the rest of us," Cochran said. "Unfortunately, the Forest Service does have limited funds, so if we want to keep the trails in good working order, we're the ones that have to do it, and we're okay with that." Most of that work occurs in the South Yuba Ranger District on the designated trail system, including the club's pride and joy, Burlington Ridge.
"Our club has adopted a trail system up Highway 20, in what's called the Burlington Ridge OHV area," Cochran said. "It's part of the Yuba Ranger District and we've adopted the trails up there to make sure that the trails are maintained and kept in good condition." Improvements to Burlington Ridge include a permanent porta-potty system, a wall system to allow safe unloading of motorcycles, picnic tables, and an old helicopter landing area that has been turned into a graveled Forest Service destination area, all financed with a $50,000 government grant, according to Cochran.
Having a maintained riding area solves some of the location challenges faced by local off-roaders, Cochran said. "We promote safe, off-road riding, we promote quiet dirt bikes, we promote riding in legal areas, and the Burlington Ridge area, only being a short ways out of town, really facilitates that," he said. That's the club's primary riding area, although rides routinely extend throughout northern California, including Georgetown, Downieville, Truckee, and Foresthill, and into Nevada, including Middlegate and Blackrock.
NCWR meet the first and third Monday each month at Larry and Lena's Pizza, in Alta Sierra. Membership requires filling out a membership form and liability waver and paying annual dues of $30. After performing eight hours of club service, such as working on trail maintenance, members can receive $10 back from their paid dues. More information is available at www.woodsriders.org or by calling Joseph Cochran at 530-272-3963.
