Hollister Hills SVRA (State Vehicular Recreation Area) is a great place to ride. Most of the trails are one way, the park is well maintained and patrolled, the scenery is amazing, and it has a great variety of trails to keep riders of every skill level having fun. Two years ago my son and I made the change from gas bikes to electric. We have never looked back. The electric bikes make it easier to use small local trails because they are quiet, but California does not have.green sticker program for most electric dirt bikes and they are not legal to ride at State Parks.

I wanted my son to experience riding at Hollister Hills, but never made the journey because I assumed they would not let us in. That all changed when I spoke to a friend at Specialized Bicycle Company that is also a dirt bike enthusiast. He told me Hollister was allowing electric dirt bikes to use the park. I was overjoyed to hear this and immediately started making plans.

My son and I packed up the truck last Friday morning and set out on the 3 hour drive from Loomis to Hollister. On arrival we were immediately taken by the beautiful scenery and green rolling hills we get in California during winter rainy season. The park charges just $5 per vehicle regardless of how many bikes are aboard and paid no attention to our bikes. Their primary concern is noise and emissions and our bikes are quiet and have zero emissions.

We unload the bikes and had an epic late afternoon of riding. After two hours of tooling around the battery on my son’s Talaria was down to 29% and still at 70% on my YZ-EMX conversion. We pulled out the generator, hooked up the charger to Sean’s bike, and set off to eat a late afternoon snack. After an hour the battery on the Talaria was up to a bit over 50%, which gave us another hour or so of riding.

Around 5 pm we loaded the bikes and gear back on the truck and headed to our motel. After checking in, I noted that the Holiday Inn Express conveniently located 120v outlets on the exterior wall next to the parking stalls in back. Not sure why they did that, but we hooked up an extension cord to the back of the truck, connected both chargers and let the bikes charge overnight. In the morning, both were back at 100%.

We headed back over to the park and were on the trail by 10 am on Saturday morning. And what a beautiful day it was. We had clear skies, temperatures were in the low 60’s and the trails were in perfect condition. We rode again for nearly 3 hours, put Sean’s bike on the charger and had lunch. After lunch we put in another 2 hours of so of riding and had to stop because Sean’s bike was down to just 20%, but that was fine because we were tired, it was late afternoon and we had a three hour drive home to do.

On the drive home we were both still giddy with adrenaline and excitement of the two days of dirt bike riding. We are both looking forward to a return trip as soon as we can manage it. Note: we did speak to one of the park rangers about electric bikes without off road green or red sticker. They are aware of the frustration these riders are experiencing and for the time being are letting us use the park. That may change, but we will keep going there until the situation changes. I am trying to find out how to get a green sticker registration for the Talaria, but no success yet on that font.