St Patrick's day dawned bright and sunny and the temperature soon rose into the low 60s - time to take a couple of hours away from work and get a motorcycle out.

Decisions, decisions. I knew from the start that I was going up on Velvet Ridge which is the nearest dirt riding to my house but that leaves plenty of opportunities.

I decided to take the rim route along to the Bentonite Playground, that involved a fairly steep bank and some small steps in places. I did go up them, the bike is just posing up there.

I found a new trail that I hadn't been on before that led out to one of the many red rock outcroppings that mark the approach to Torrey from the west. The views are always magnificent, today the Henry Mountains looked good in their winter coat. I live at the right edge of the picture down in the valley.

Find the red roof showing through a gap in the trees almost in the centre of the picture, just to the right of the trees is a yellowish house with a brown roof, that's mine.

The CRF is a great ride, it's a light powerful bike and the JD jet kit I had installed last year has made power delivery much nicer, comes in lower now so I don't have to rev so much. I don't remember which jet they put in but it's tuned for 7000 feet altitude which is what it is right here. In the background is Thousand Lake Mountain flat top, it will be a couple of months before I can get up there due to the snow, I'm looking forward to it.

Towards the western end of Velvet Ridge there are some giant deposits of bentonite across which the ATVs have made a trail - right along the top. As long as it is dry it's a lot of fun to ride the ridge, there are some quite steep parts and it would be very difficult to turn arond if you didn't want to tackle them!

To the north of the bentonite are more cliffs, there's an arch forming in this one, check back in a few million years. (I haven't changed the colour in this picture at all, the red really is that bright)

Way off to the east the Henry Mountains are almost always visible, the views from the top trail on the bentonite are great.

All the way at the western end of the Velvet Ridge there is a twisty, steep and sometimes rocky trail down to the valley, I decided not to take it today as it would mean riding on the road back to Torrey (my CRF is street legal). Instead I turned around and soon noticed a lightly used trail heading off to the northeast that I hadn't seen before. It was quite rough in places as you can see, I followed it for about a mile until it petered out at some more bentonite, I shall return with hiking boots and explore more thoroughly.

I really enjoyed the ride covering 23.5 miles total, I always notice these fragments of the cliff just laying there, it would be interesting to see one fall as long as it wasn't TOO close.

The Fremont River flows along the valley floor in a meandering twisted path quite appropriate for St Patrick's Day.

It's a bit hard to pick out but the grey and red hills in the middle of the picture are the bentonite, the trail ruins along the top of the ridge up and down each hill.

I don't like to clean my bikes - it's just wasted riding time, so when I find a natural bike wash I use it, perfect - done for another year.

I had a great ride, I was rusty after 3 months off the bike but got the hang of things pretty quickly, hopefully it will only be a few days before my next expedition.