Off-Roading for Motorcycle Recovery

A little adventure on Sunday...

On Saturday 6/27 we saw a post from Alex Savvidis on our San Diego Adventure Riders FB Group, that he was in trouble due to heat exhaustion in the backcountry of Corral Canyon OHV Area. He had already called 911, but figured he'd post to our group as backup. He never expected so many responses and people calling in to check on him and make sure he was getting help. Thank you to everyone who got involved. The Sheriff's Department SAR Chopper ended up picking him up (on SDAR FB Group, see his post) and he left his bike in the backcountry.
Saturday evening I saw his post, sent him a message and said if he needed help getting his bike out of there I would drive him out on Sunday in my 4x4.
We set a time and I picked him up to drive about 40 minutes out there, then over an hour off-road to get to his bike on Espinosa Trail.
I hadn't been on Espinosa in years and didn't remember how rough it can be in spots. The further we went, the rougher the trail got. We finally reached his bike parked in the bushes but continued on to see of we should continue east after he got to his bike. Well the trail got rockier and more challenging and it was best for him not to ride out that way, so I put the Tacoma in reverse until I could find a place to turn around. Found a little spot to turn around because I didn't want to go up a rocky uphill in reverse. I had to do about a 10 point u-turn with the front and rear of the truck going into the bushes. Due to the bushes, I tore off one corner of the crappy plastic bumper covers on the rear bumper (I think I'll be doing a heavy duty steel bumper upgrade in the future).
We got back to his bike and Alex put on his riding gear to ride it out. I drove up the hill to the top and waited for him to ride up. I took video of him coming up...he almost made it but tipped over and the bike was laying on its side facing a downhill rut which would make it even harder to pick up.
As we tried to pick it up, we almost had it straight up but then Alex's knee popped out and we laid the bike down again. He was in pain (he's had 2 knee surgeries already) and said he couldn't help pick it up. So I found some big branches to try to leverage the bike to a position where I could pick it up myself. It wasn't working, so after awhile I gave it one more try, don't remember if Alex was helping too, but I was able to lift it up and get the kickstand down finally.
Since he said he now could not ride it out due to his knee, I thought about riding it out a ways until the trail smoothed out, but all I had was shorts, t-shirt, light hiking boots and no helmet on so it was best not to ride it out.
I rode it up the hill to a spot where we could load it into the truck. We did that and drove it out of there. The entire retrieval took 8 hours total. On the way home we stopped at Mike Hess Brewery in Alpine and Alex brought me dinner and beer. He offered me money, but I said please join and just donate to our SDAR website forums to help keep the website going...he happily agreed. I look forward to showing Alex around San Diego County on rides in the future.

 

That was an impressive save! I've been out in similar situations where things get more complicated than expected, and it’s great that you were there to help Alex. I’ve had some rough trails myself, especially when you’re trying to turn around in tight spots or when the trail gets unexpectedly tough. The whole bike recovery process sounds exhausting, but it's always satisfying to pull through, even when things go sideways, like with the knee injury. I’ve had my fair share of off-road adventures, and it's nice to see people willing to step up when things go wrong. Good call on the bumper upgrade too—those plastic ones never survive those tight spots! Glad it all worked out in the end.

 

Great writeup, hopefully his knee is feeling better and he can get back out there soon. I agree with you on the bumper, that kind of damage is the truck letting you know it's time for an upgrade.

 

Who are you and how are you posting using my account?

 

Was someone else really using your account to post?