It's my radio time from 4-10pm Monday through Friday. Sometimes on the weekends. If I'm not on the air I'm probably outdoors mountain biking, motorcycle riding, hiking, hunting or fishing.
"Purina One" dog Cassie the 1/2 basset hound and 1/2 black lab chillin' in the redwoods at Chabot park on a mountain bike ride. That's my Zinn Gigabike 29er in the background.
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Drop me an email here rstuart@kfog.com and have a nice day!
Play the KFOG Quiz with me between 7-8pm all week long (2/8-12) to win tickets to the SOLD OUT John Butler Trio show at the Great American Music Hall on Saturday, 2/20 AND a pair of passes to the soundcheck!
Me? I was born at S.F. General, raised in El Cerrito near Richmond Heights. I went to Richmond public schools and Salesian High School and attended the University of San Francisco. I spent way too much time at live shows during the punk years of San Francisco in the early 80's. My first "big time" job was at the Quake doing late nights. This December will (hopefully!) mark 30 years of paychecks in radio. I've never lived anywhere else (well Long Beach for a few months) so I can't give you many travel tips unless you are going camping or fishing or dirt bike riding in Baja. I live in Oakland, and spend time at Clear Lake at a little cabin on the water our family has owned since the 60's. For me life doesn't get much better than motorcycling with friends, mountain biking with my dog, or being on the bow of a bass boat at sunrise. Well OK I also love to do some manly man cooking now and then. I drive the neighbors crazy with my bbq habit.
Road trips on my bike with friends is always a favorite thing to do.
I took a trip to the Delta, had lunch at Al the Wops, went back riding around an isolated island, and took a ferry boat to Rio Vista to get home. Here's some video.
July 4th weekend I filmed the prep and cooking of a Boston Butt roast on my Big Green Egg. It started saturday and ended sunday with pulled pork sandwiches. Here's the 2 videos from the weekend.
Road Trip: LA Bikes and Guns
Wow big ride to LA. 1000 miles in 2 days. Down 5 Friday, over 105 degrees for hundreds of miles with a plastic bucket on my head. That was HOT. Friday night in Hollywood meant dinner at the Palm's Thai and a performance from the Thai Elvis. Awesome.
Saturday a ride to the Mike Raahauge Shooting Enterprises Safari Day in Norco. The event was really "kid" oriented and had fishing ponds, bow and arrow shooting, kayak, and .22's to shoot with adult supervision.
It was like a day at a great outdoors summer camp. Plus adults showed off some some things too. We saw a great shooting demo from Benelli's Tom Knapp, some cowboy competition shooting, horse riding, a cannon, and a gatling gun get fired a few times. This report says 4100 kids were there. Seems about right, kids were everywhere!
I was wearing a pretty popular t-shirt and got more than a few thumbs up. At one point a Marine Vet pulled me aside and said "check out my license plate." It took me just a second but I deciphered it and made the Caddy T-shirt connection. Can you?
The Safari Club International Orange County chapter had their Safari Van there filled with examples of wild animals. It was really cool. Kids loved it, parents read the information cards and lots of pictures were taken.
My buddy wrestled a bear!
Later the bear turned it around, threw him into an arm bar and he tapped out!
But the day had just started. We planned lots of riding for the rest of Saturday. We rode north on 15 to get on the Angeles Crest highway. That is a great ride and a must do if you are into fun roads to ride/drive. Plus at 7000 feet it gets you out of the LA heat. It has a pretty sketchy reputation, well the riders and drivers do I guess.
A motorcycle magazine writer Kent Kunitsugu says
"For the casual tourist, the Crest Highway's many grand vistas offer what most would consider a breathtaking view from seemingly high up in the clouds, with the Antelope Valley splaying out for miles on one side and the San Gabriel Valley on the other. For the sportbike enthusiast new to the road, however, it appears more like a very stern warning on the consequences of a mistake."
(snip)
"For the riders who kept their concentration up and maintained an acceptable margin for error within the scope of their riding skills, the Crest was still what I consider one of the world's best roads to experience on a sportbike."
From this web page "Beginning in June 1999, a special $100,000 state safety grant has produced intensive enforcement of all traffic laws on the Highway along a specially-patrolled 38 mile section. This includes zero tolerance for the speed limit, the failure to turn on headlights in the special safety zone, or going over the yellow line. As a result, 1400 tickets were written from June 1999 through May 2000, 5-10 times the normal amount, with most written on the weekends."
"Deaths and injuries have dropped by a factor of two on this 38 mile section, from an average of five deaths and 66 injuries per year from 1995-1999 to two deaths and 32 injuries in the last year. It won't surprise anyone who has driven on the highway that motorcyclists were involved in 47% of the accidents in 1995-1998, despite being less than 3% of all registered vehicle."
Of course it isn't just motorcycles that like the run. Lookie there a lovely F430!
We didn't get a ticket and all survived. We then ended up taking Topanga Canyon over to the coast and Malibu about an hour before sunset. We pushed on and split up after dark in Buellton. I made it to Atascadero for the night after 14 hours of riding. Sunday morning I went out to the coast and rode up 1.
I stopped to see the elephant seals on the beach near Cambria. All these times I've been on California's Highway 1 it is still great. Maybe one of the greatest drives in the world. For sure it is the prettiest I have ever been on. But it was a little cold and socked in on this ride.
People would slow down because it was so foggy and they couldn't see, then slow down for the views when they could. Ha ha. I made some "hero or zero" moves on my motorcycle. :) I made it to 17, then headed home. Great ride, great friends.
The Results are in: Big Rick rides the 2009 Crosscut Enduro!
Read all about it
Here's photos from the 2008 Love Ride weekend. I spent some time in LA with 1 good friend and on that Sunday I hung out with 30,000 new friends. The first few shots are taken at the Rock Store in the hills above Malibu. It is a pretty famous hangout for gearheads on the weekends. The rest are from the Love Ride. After the ride on Sunday the concert in Pomona was the Foo Fighters and ZZ Top. It was epic!
Here's some photos from a boating trip I took from Oakland to the Delta to spend a night at the St. Francis Yacht Club's Tinsley Island near Stockton. It was a fun time, there was a Woodstock theme that weekend.